Last Friday, we went to Mickey’s Halloween Party at the Disneyland Resort! It was my first time going to the event.
We got to the parks a little early, so we headed over to DCA. Walking around Buena Vista Street, we could peek behind the walls and see a bit of construction going on. The whole street is torn up and being worked on. I’m so excited!
Carthay Circle Theatre is coming closer to completion and it is looking great. It will be one of the best structures in the entire Resort! I also noticed that the cable car posts are now in place. All of this Buena Vista Street construction is getting me so excited. The amount of detail going into that part of the park is going to be wonderful. I can’t wait for it to be finished!
The first attraction we visited was the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. What a better way to start our Halloween visit? The ride was excellent. I did notice that someone wrote their name in the dust on the table in the lobby though. How dare that “Mike”!
We then made our way to Disneyland to prepare for Mickey’s Halloween Party! While it was still daylight, we decided to walk around the park and look at different Halloween decorations. We saw the many blow up Mickey Ghosts and Pumpkins and the changes of Big Thunder Trail. We wanted to go visit Big Thunder Ranch, but it was already closed. We did get to see the cast members round up the goats though! That was very fun to watch. They opened their cage and they all came racing out.
In Frontierland, they also had the Halloween Tree set up from Ray Bradbury’s book. That was really great. It is a big tree filled with pumpkins and orange lights. It is an excellent tribute to a great man: Ray Bradbury.
Once the Party started, we walked around the park to take a look at everything at night. The Haunted Mansion had great lighting for the event, the Rivers of America was filled with fog, and Piratepalooza was in full effect. The Rivers of America looked so good. It was so neat to see it filled with that eerie fog.
We decided at that point to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. There was no line, so we got the very last seat. It was such a fun ride! There weren’t any changes for the Halloween event, besides some bats on the outside of the mountain in a mine shaft. That was pretty neat.
After our runaway train ride, we walked up Big Thunder Trail and everything looked so good at night. The lighting and fog was really effective. In the old Nature’s Wonderland cave, they had an eerie light and fog along with sound effects. Every once in a while, lighting would flash and thunder would sound. It was great! It was really great listening to Big Thunder Mountain in the background. It felt like the ghost train of Nature’s Wonderland was making its way toward us.
At that point, we got some more candy in Big Thunder Ranch and looked around the area. They have a ton of expertly carved pumpkins in the area including a hitchhiking ghost pumpkin. That one was my favorite. Take a look below at some others:
We then walked into Fantasyland and visited Pinocchio’s Daring Journey. It was an excellent ride of my favorite Disney animated film.
After we got off of Pinocchio, we saw that there wasn’t a wait for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, my favorite Fantasyland Dark Ride. I drove the motorcar, but I crashed into a train and we were sent to Hell.
During Mickey’s Halloween Party, they have several stations set up to take pictures with your favorite Disney characters. We decided to walk over to the Villains section and we took pictures with Honest John from “Pinocchio”, the Queen of Hearts from “Alice in Wonderland”, and the Queen from “Snow White”. The villains really stayed in character and made it fun for the waiting crowd.
It was then time for the Halloween fireworks. While the fireworks themselves were some of the best I have ever seen, I’m not so crazy about the audio that goes with it. I’m not a huge fan of the updated versions of classic Disney songs, especially the pop version of “Grim Grinning Ghosts”. Also, the person doing the voice of Jack Skellington doesn’t do the best impression. Besides that, it was still fun to see those amazing fireworks and to see Zero flying over the castle. By the way, the back side of the Castle looked so neat. It kept changing colors and it had a huge spider web projected on it!
After the fireworks, we went on Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy. Since the fireworks had just ended, the line was pretty short. The ride was fun and the ghost that follows your car is back. That’s my favorite part of the ride and that ghost wasn’t there when I went on it a couple weeks ago. But now he’s back!
When we were traveling through Tomorrowland, we saw that they were doing a photo op with Stormtroopers. So we got in line and took pictures them. See the result below:
While walking through the hub of Disneyland, on our way to Frontierland, I heard someone talking very loudly. I looked over and there was a live scarecrow talking to guests. It was really great and a good way to keep people entertained while waiting for the parade or fireworks to begin.
We stopped at Piratepalooza, which was playing “Michael Jackson’s Thriller”, and looked around. It was a neat little dance party and they had some pretty elaborate pirate skeleton set ups. One skeleton was dressed like Captain Jack Sparrow. It was a nice amount of detail for a temporary set up.
We were in Frontierland to get in line to take pictures with Halloween versions of Mickey and Minnie. They were dressed up in their Halloween best and welcomed us to take pictures with them. See below:
After getting even more candy, it was then time for the Haunted Mansion Holiday! The ride was just as great as ever. Our doombuggy stopped in the ballroom scene, so I was able to get a good picture of the new Gingerbread house. As much as I love the Haunted Mansion Holiday, I miss the regular Mansion already. I think that the Haunted Mansion Holiday should just be there for November and December and not include the Halloween season. But, I believe I’m in the minority with that thinking.
Since we were already in New Orleans Square, we thought it would be a perfect time to get pictures with Jack and Sally from “Nightmare Before Christmas”. Take a look at the photos below:
With that, our Halloween trip ended. As we walked through Main Street on our way out, I noticed that City Hall had a huge spider web projected on it, much like the Castle’s web. It looked really neat. The entire event was fun, but I don’t think it’s something that I would do every year. It wasn’t different enough from a regular visit to Disneyland at night. The big selling point is that you go trick or treating and get as much candy as you want. If you love candy and want to do some early trick or treating, this event is for you!
