As always, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party was a highlight of our trip! We arrived around 3:30 PM and the atmosphere was already electric. There’s just something about a party night in Magic Kingdom.
You can always enter the park at 4PM with a party ticket – even though the party doesn’t officially start until 7PM. You can also make fast passes on that party ticket from 4-7 – I recommending doing so right at the 60 day mark (if staying on property) or 30 day mark (if not) for the best selection. We rode Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear and Haunted Mansion before the party even started!
Jack and Sally are two of the most popular characters to meet at the party. They started greeting guests at 5PM this year. We got in line around 4:45 and didn’t meet them until 6. Sounds crazy, I know. BUT, we were dressed as them! We took turns waiting – one adult and one kid – while the other two ran off and did a ride or grabbed food. It was SO worth it and ended up being the only thing we waited for all night.
Honey did a Starbucks run and I loved using my cozy from Mandag’s Knitting Shop. He totally surprised me with getting “coffee with character”. Little things like this are my love language.
We usually do a quick serve dinner on party nights to make the most of the rides and fun. We picked up our FAVE pot roast mac and cheese at the Friar’s Nook in Fantasyland, along with the specialty party slush (Goulish Frozen Lemonade, I think) and had our fave nutella waffle from Sleepy Hollow for dessert. YUM!
The park was clearing out by 6:30 and ALL rides were walk on. The park was the emptiest I’ve ever seen it. To give you an idea, we rode Mine Train TWICE in 20 minutes! It was crazy. The baby’s fave ride is Splash Mountain. I think we did it 4 times that night. Of course, I got soaked every single time. UGH! The views from the top are pretty spectacular though.
After a few more rides, we headed to the front of the park to get our pic with the Headless Horseman and pick up our Sorcerer Card. Again, totally crazy how empty it was. I’ve never seen the space in front of the train station with nobody up there!
Once the sun sets, the music turns spooky and main street is transformed. I love it! Some of these pics came on our Memory Maker and are NOT mine. You can tell which ones. LOL.
We watched the parade from Frontierland this time and had great seats on the curb. I generally prefer Main Street for parades BUT we were back there and there was plenty of space so we just sat down. The Headless Horseman rides through Magic Kingdom to start the parade. On top of that there are so many great villains and the grave diggers and ghostly ballroom dancers are not to be missed. It’s just SO good!!
After the parade, we hit more rides and then took a break in the hub grass. We did this last year and it was perfect. We just claimed our spot, laid down with the rest of the lazy bones and waited on Hallo-Wishes fireworks and castle show. They aren’t the BEST seats in the house, but they are very comfy and at this point my crew can always use a break.
We trick or treated through the night, filling up all four of our candy bags to the rim. The littles LOVE this part!
AND, we rode every.single.ride we wanted to. We didn’t do any other character meets because the ride lines were so short – or non existent! It was fun to walk through the queues that we normally never see like Peter Pan and Mine Train.
Our night ended with carousel rides and dancing in the middle of Fantasyland.
It was magical and memorable and some of the most fun we have each fall!
We stayed well past the stroke of midnight, just soaking it all in!
If you have any specific questions about the party, I’m happy to answer them!! I’ll be posting the details from the rest of our trip over the coming weeks!!!
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Everything Disney | Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party
DIXIE DELIGHTS DELIVERED
What a blast!
I’m so glad you did a post on this, we are going to Disney next October, the first week and I’m really hoping it’s not as busy as when you went! I’m so happy you said you actually can do fastpasses for the first few hours on a party day because I didn’t think that was possible! So awesome! Question, did you not watch the Hocus Pocus show?
Yes! If you are staying at a Disney resort, you can make the party day passes 60 days in advance. If not, it is 30 days. We skipped the Hocus Pocus show. I love things like that but my crew does not. :-) I’ve really never seen a party this empty before – of course, I usually go to the Tuesday or Sunday party and this one was on a Thursday. Don’t know if that made a difference. I hope y’all have a great trip next year!!
I love your post Amanda! I am curious, so you do the Memory Maker on your trips? If so, what do you think? Is it worth the money for the photos? Thanks!
We just bought annual passes the first day of this trip and they come with Memory Maker. If you are visiting for just a few days, I’d say NO. However, if you will be there for 5-7 days it could be worth it. They do take good pictures and my littles LOVE the ride pictures. Last fall break we split the memory maker with 3 other families. As long as you are all friends in My Disney Experience this will work. One of you purchases the MM and will have to be in charge of downloading and sending out the pics to the rest of the group. I hope that helps!
So so fun!! We were there last October with our now 7 and 9 year olds and had the time of our lives! The “Mickey’s Not so scary Halloween Party” was definitely one of our trip highlights for sure! Loved your costumes. Your post made me want to go back and do it all again!!
Wow. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to do the halloween party again, but if we do, i hope we can get it where it is super empty like that! WOW!
The scariest part of all is seeing how big John and Whit are getting!
I love your dress, and your “costumes” are adorable!
OMG!!!! I love how you didn’t break character once – not even on the rides! SO fun :)
We went to the party this past Tuesday. Everything was walk on and we didn’t get there til 7. As we were leaving the park at midnight, we passed Jack & Sally. The wait was 25 minutes. It was the longest we waited all night. We had the most fun. I’ve been dreaming of that pot roast Mac n cheese since I ate it 7 days ago. As always, I love your reviews.
Fun! We do the Halloween party at Disneyland. Out here, there is a special treat for pass holders. Last year, a cinch style backpack and rice crispy pop, this year a tote bag and snacks. I wonder if DisneyWorld does something similar. It isn’t really advertised, you just have to hear about it. Out here, it is usually in the Lincoln theatre.
We don’t! Sounds fabulous though!!
We stood in line at friar nooks this summer for the pot roast Mac n cheese but ended up getting out of the long-ish line after people walked by with a dish that looked less than satisfactory. Now I kinda wish we tried it out after reading your review. Is it really one of your favorite QS places? It kinda looked like Disney just opened a box of velveta n cheese and called it a day so we decided not to wait in line. We moved on to Pinocchio’s but that was just OK as well. Our favorite QS are Be Our Guest (lunch), Cosmo Ray’s chicken n ribs and Casey’s decked out dogs. Pacos Bill’s got a little better with their menu re-do but I would prefer the other three. Wish Sleepy Hallow had more savory options. LOVED Gaston’s tavern for snack credit breakfast/brunch time. But you think Friar Nooks is a top pick for y’all? Thanks! Looks like y’all had a blast!
Yep… it’s a fave! But we do like velveeta. I’d say it’s more stouffers than velveeta though :-) We thought it had actually gotten better since our last trip. Of course BOG is our fave and we all love Casey’s and Gaston’s. We like Pinocchio’s too. We don’t care for Cosmic Ray’s at all though. Agree that Pecos is okay. Sleepy Hollow has a limited time savory waffle right now but we missed it on our trip.
I am just so excited reading over this post again! We just recently booked to take our four littles to Disney for the first time ever and we will be going over Halloween. We’ve already bough our tickets to take them to the Not So Scary Party on the 31st. I’m not sure what we are getting ourselves into because I feel like Disney can be so overwhelming to plan, but it sounds like this party is a can’t miss. Our kids are 7, 5, 3, and 1 so should be interesting!!
It is SO much fun! I am a Disney travel planner now so if you booked in the last 30 days and want to transfer your reservation to me I can handle all of your dining and fast passes!!