A Halloween Adventure in Autism (11/7) Prayer Request for Catie (p.129)

[KathyRN137]

Hi Kathy,

I am loving the report! You have such a great writing style!!!! I am planning for our trip over Easter 2010 (have to go then due to school schedules) and your report sooo gets me in the mood. I am just hoping the crowds will not be as crazy as everyone is saying .....

Cant wait to read more

Stacie

Hi Stacie... welcome to the party!

If you are going over Easter I highly recommend Tour Guide Mike and the Unofficial Guide so you can choose which parks are least crowded for each day of your visit. They have always helped us.


Kathy

 

[MomToAp1699]

Hello Valerie and welcome back!

You will have a blast at the MNSSHP! If they offer a party on November 1st, I would try for that one... Halloween Night was packed.

BTW, I post links to each chapter in the first post if you wish to avoid the in-between chatter.


Kathy

Thanks we actually already plan on Nov 1st. They have done that two years in a row so we are fingers crossed for third times a charm. I thought it would be the best choice of our three options for Alex. I actually read every post. Lol chatter and trip report. Insomnia last night lol. I can't wait to hear more.

 

[KathyRN137]

I can't wait to hear more.

Coming up soon!


Kathy

 

[mrsksomeday]

Coming up soon!


Kathy

 

[KathyRN137]

Chapter Fourteen: Mean Old Maleficent!


Saturday Night
October 31, 2009
The Magic Kingdom
Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party



I normally don’t make a habit of sitting my butt down on the sidewalk, but this is Disney so all bets are off. It was a little after 11 pm and it had been a long day… my pirate crew was getting tired (myself included). We positioned ourselves as close as we could to the Castle forecourt stage and the girls immediately plopped down and sat, cross-legged, waiting for the last show of the evening. I wish that I could say that I made it down as effortlessly, but I managed to take my seat on the ground with as much dignity as I could muster. At least I didn’t fall over! Forget about sitting Indian-style, though. There was just no way my hips could take that. I needed to keep my legs straight. Luckily, Billy positioned himself in front of me, leaned back and yawned. Now I had a good excuse for taking up more room with my long legs… mommies make good backrests!


The Castle lights turned slowly from deep blue to green to purple to orange and then back again to blue. The result was perfect… spooky but not sinister. The surrounding lighting was kept purposely dim, I suppose, to support the eerie Castle lighting effect. The overly warm temperatures of the day had gradually become more and more comfortable as the sun had set and the Halloween party progressed. Although it nowhere near rivaled the crisp coolness of a Northeastern autumn, the night air felt quite pleasant now.


The girls and I plotted our strategy for meeting Maleficent. I knew from my DIS research that immediately after the show, characters and their handlers would come down to the audience and guests would queue up to meet them one at a time. They were so popular, however, and the meet ‘n greet time so limited, that there would not be time to meet them all. It was recommended that guests queue up in the order of which characters they wanted to meet the most. The last show would probably be the least crowded as well, so that was why we had left it until the end of the night.


Our very first queue would definitely be Maleficent’s. When Catie was little she would watch Sleeping Beauty over and over and over… she knew all the words by heart. To her, Maleficent is “the ultimate” Disney villain! She was determined to get her picture taken with her anti-heroine. It was so refreshing to have someone who was really looking forward to meeting a character… I was determined to get that photo op for my niece!


The next character I wanted to meet was Snow White’s stepmother, the Wicked Queen. She’s a classic villain, Disney’s first movie villain, but one you don’t normally find in the parks. Finally, we hoped to meet another relatively “rare” character… Ms. Cruella DeVille. (How many times had I watched 101 Dalmatians with Eddie when he was small? Perhaps 101 times!!) As for Tricia, well, she never fixated on any one Disney film. She preferred to watch a constant variety of movies, just as she enjoys reading a wide variety of books today. She and Billy had no particular preference when it came to Villains, so they were willing to go along with Catie and me.

Like they had a choice!


Soon the stage lights came on and the start of the Villains’ Mix and Mingle show was announced. We settled in and Tricia insisted on taking the pictures… especially of Maleficent, the mistress of ceremonies. The premise of the show is that the evil Maleficent decides that the season of Halloween would be the perfect time for the Disney Villains to take the spotlight away from the goody-goody characters. She calls upon her evil minion dancers and a host of fellow villains to strut their stuff and revel in the spirit of Halloween….

In addition to the Wicked Queen and Cruella DeVille, Maleficent invited a few other infamous guests: Captain Hook, Jafar, The Queen of Hearts, and Judge Claude Frollo (from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.)


“Halloween’s our favorite Fright Night!!”

The show ended and immediately after we were done clapping we stood up and stretched. In the previous post I mentioned that the Yankees has just scored a victory in that night’s game of the World Series. Well, Ed wanted to get on the phone and talk to his brother about it, so he begged off from the meet ‘n greets and found a nearby bench on the perimeter of the Hub. He told us to meet him there when we were through. In the roughly 30 seconds it took for us to have that brief conversation, several of the characters came down from the stage and handlers set up queues for each one in front of the Castle. Members of the audience scrambled to the different queues and there was a mad rush of people this way and that.



“Where’s Maleficent?” I asked the girls. “Do you see her?” It was difficult to see above the crowd but he girls finally spotted her to the far left. I grabbed Billy’s hand and we jostled our way to the end of the queue. Maleficent was very popular! Her line was perhaps the longest, so we had a fairly decent wait ahead of us. Cast Members walked up and down the line telling guests that the characters would be available for pictures only, no autographs. I suppose this was to keep the crowd moving along quickly. Surprisingly, there were no photopass photographers available, which I thought was a little strange. They had been all over the park most of the night.



As I said, we had a bit of time while we were waiting, so we surveyed the other character’s lines to get a sense of their popularity. It seemed to me that the Wicked Queen and Cruella were pulling in quite a few fans… somewhat shorter lines formed for Captain Hook and Jafar. For some reason, the Queen of Hearts was not doing another meet ‘n greet. And no one stood in line for Judge Claude Frollo! I mean no one… he just stood there with his handler and waved, lamely.


“Who is that, mom?” Tricia asked. Neither she nor Catie recognized him at all. I think we took Tricia to see Hunchback in the theater when she was little, but we didn’t really care for it and never purchased the DVD. What a waste of a perfectly good villain spot! We debated which villain we would get to replace him. Tricia voted for a meet with Ursula from Little Mermaid, but we all agreed that that costume would be very difficult for a CM to walk around in. I voted for Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. After all, they did have a costume already made up for him over at DHS! Another suggestion was Cinderella’s stepmother, the Lady Tremaine. She is very recognizable and would be a vast improvement over Judge Frollo!



We entertained ourselves in this manner until it was our turn to meet Malificent. I tried to take our pictures as quickly as possible….one with Tricia's camera (with all three kids) and another one of Catie, using her camera. The CMs were kind of rushing us along. Maleficent indicated, with a deadpan expression, that she was merely tolerating us and was granting us a privilege by allowing her picture to be taken. After we thanked her and wished her a Happy Halloween we scurried off to the next queue. Catie looked at her camera to see how her picture came out.


“Oh no!” she said. “It came out really dark!” I looked at the picture. Sure enough, the flash had not gone off and the picture was terrible. Catie looked so disappointed. So, what do you think we did? You guessed it. I took those kids and got back on the end of Maleficent’s queue so we could get a proper picture for Catie’s photo album!


Mistake Number….oh.... I’ve made so many I’ve lost count!


Fortunately, the line was not quite as long as it had been before, but the character handlers were already walking up and down the queues calling out, “Ten more minutes! The characters will be available for only ten more minutes!” I suppose they wanted to give everyone enough warning so there would not be a riot when the characters had to leave. We had about four more families in front of us, so we discussed our battle plan. From the way things looked we would never get to see two more characters so, which one did we want to see more: Cruella or the Wicked Queen? It was a tough choice, but we opted for the Wicked Queen because her line now appeared to be slightly shorter. We finally made it to the front of the line and Catie rushed to Maleficent’s side. I was more familiar with Tricia’s camera, so I used it this time around.

From our first visit:

Maleficent looked at us with recognition and distain. “You again?” she questioned haughtily. The girls told her about my flubbing the last shot. “It’s so hard to get good help these days,” she sniffed. The girls laughed (I think the character handler did too!) Mean old Maleficent! Then it was déjà vu all over again as I grabbed Billy’s hand and we rushed off to stand in line to meet the Wicked Queen.

“Five more minutes!” the handlers called out. “The characters will need to leave in five more minutes!” I assessed the number of people ahead of us and thought the chances of us making it looked pretty dicey. Billy was so good, considering how late it was and how much stimulation he had encountered. He was stomping and rocking quite a bit and was making quite a bit of Billy-noise. It was getting on his sister’s nerves. “Billy, be still!” she implored.


“Four more minutes!” cried the handlers. “The characters will need to leave in four more minutes!” Billy continued to laugh and stim loudly. “Billy, be quiet!” Tricia demanded.


You can no more hold back the tide than get an autistic child to stop stimming, especially when he is tired. I asked Tricia to try to be a bit more patient as we would be leaving soon.

“Three more minutes!”

Ugh. Would they just stop doing that! It was really getting me nervous and for no good reason. I knew how to tell time! The family who was currently visiting with the Wicked Queen was making a royal production out of it. First they took a picture of the Queen with this child, then with that one, then the other…then one with the whole family. Now take just one more with Grandma and Grandpa. Look here and smile, Dad’s shooting some video…


Double Ugh! Billy squirmed and I held his hand tighter. The girls’ faces looked grim.


“Two more minutes!” tolled the handlers as they walked up and down the queues. “The characters WILL LEAVE in two more minutes!”


Yes, thank you. We got the message already! I felt a little bad because my photography blunder had wasted precious time, but I reminded myself that we did get the most important character…Maleficent. Anything else was just gravy…


The handlers took up their chorus again. “ONE MORE MINUTE!”



Kathy

 

[mrsksomeday]

We did the same thing going to the last Villians show, you would think they would let the characters stay out a bit longer . Malificent sounded like fun, the pictures were too cute. We only got Cruella and Hook when we were there.

I hope you get to see the Wicked Queen .

 

[shannn]

That's exactly how it was when we were there. The poor old judge just stood there alone. I felt sorry for the guy!

Lily wants so badly to meet Malificent and Mirgan was having no part of the villans so we didn't get to meet anyone else. But that was quite enough for Lily, who was dressed as Minnie Mouse and was thrilled when the evilqueen told her that she had " proper sized mice in her dungeon that could gobble her puny self up in one bite. "

 

[joy13]

You and your cliffhangers! I hope you got the queen! The characters do such a good job of staying character. We didn't get pictures with them, Maddie only likes them from a distance at this point.

 

[KathyRN137]

We did the same thing going to the last Villians show, you would think they would let the characters stay out a bit longer . Malificent sounded like fun, the pictures were too cute. We only got Cruella and Hook when we were there.

I hope you get to see the Wicked Queen .

All the characters we met that night were really "in character!"

I know they have to put limits on the meet n' greets, but it's so hard when there are five characters there and you are only given enough time to see two of them!

So my advice is: pick your top two and then see what happens!

That's exactly how it was when we were there. The poor old judge just stood there alone. I felt sorry for the guy!

Lily wants so badly to meet Malificent and Mirgan was having no part of the villans so we didn't get to meet anyone else. But that was quite enough for Lily, who was dressed as Minnie Mouse and was thrilled when the evilqueen told her that she had " proper sized mice in her dungeon that could gobble her puny self up in one bite. "

That sounds like her!

I think it's time for Frollo to retire....

You and your cliffhangers! I hope you got the queen! The characters do such a good job of staying character. We didn't get pictures with them, Maddie only likes them from a distance at this point.

I don't blame her! They can be very intimidating (but not frightening) to young kids! She'll get braver in a couple of years.



Kathy

 

[MRYPPNS]

I missed seeing that show when I went to the party...now I'm wishing I had!

 

[DisMomAmy]

Oh no... you did it again... another cliffhanger!

I'm glad you got the magic shot with Maleficent - even if it took two tries!

 

[mickeysmyboy]

Great updates!!! Don't you love Halloween at WDW?! HalloWishes and Boo to You are fabulous! I LOVE it!

I'm glad you got the Maleficent pictures!! Twice we've been to MNSSHP and niether time have we made to the Villian Mix and Mingle! Boo!! I guess there's next time!

You and your cliffhanger! Can't wait to hear what happens!

 

[KathyRN137]

I missed seeing that show when I went to the party...now I'm wishing I had!

There's always next time....


Kathy

 

[Mickey_Mom]

Gah! A cliffhanger! We missed the Villians show on our trip but happened to stumble across the meet and greet in front of the castle at the end of the night. We had the pleasure of meeting Cruella DeVille. The other characters had long gone and her CM was valiantly trying to steer her in the same direction but for whatever reason that night, she was determined to get through each and every person waiting in line for her. She was an absolute blast and we were belly laughing at all of the "character comments" she was throwing out!

Great update, Malificent is the best and kudos to Billy for being so patient.

 

[KathyRN137]

Oh no... you did it again... another cliffhanger!

I'm glad you got the magic shot with Maleficent - even if it took two tries!

1) I just can't seem to help myself!

2) Very funny!

Great updates!!! Don't you love Halloween at WDW?! HalloWishes and Boo to You are fabulous! I LOVE it!

I'm glad you got the Maleficent pictures!! Twice we've been to MNSSHP and niether time have we made to the Villian Mix and Mingle! Boo!! I guess there's next time!

You and your cliffhanger! Can't wait to hear what happens!

I'm so glad we were able to work Halloween into our Jersey Week this year!

When you attend these parties it's so very hard to pack everything in... especially when the rides have practically no waits early on! They are very tempting...

(See # 1 above!)

Gah! A cliffhanger! We missed the Villians show on our trip but happened to stumble across the meet and greet in front of the castle at the end of the night. We had the pleasure of meeting Cruella DeVille. The other characters had long gone and her CM was valiantly trying to steer her in the same direction but for whatever reason that night, she was determined to get through each and every person waiting in line for her. She was an absolute blast and we were belly laughing at all of the "character comments" she was throwing out!

Great update, Malificent is the best and kudos to Billy for being so patient.

(See #1 above!)

How nice that you got to chat with Cruella! The handlers at this party were bound and determined to not let the show's stars spend even one minute extra with their fans!

Thanks about Billy... I think the fact that we let the kids sleep in and have a relaxing afternoon at the pool really helped.


Kathy

 

[AmandaSparks730]

What does Catie think about the new Tim Burton Maleficent movie?

She's one of my favorite villians too, along with Ursula.

 

[moparop]

I love that Maleficent recognized you guys and played along with the photo blunder. Seeing those photos has me really wanting a Halloween trip to Disney!

 

[jcc0621]

All I am going to say is

 

[Tnkrbelle565]

Two MNSSHPs in a row and I've never seen anyone wait for Judge Frollo! I felt so bad for him. I seriously was going to go over myself but had to play photographer. I think the lack of PP photographers is another attempt to keep people going quickly. If they have to find the PP card and then set up their own camera....it always takes unnecessary time.

 

[KathyRN137]

What does Catie think about the new Tim Burton Maleficent movie?

She's one of my favorite villians too, along with Ursula.

I have no idea... I will have to ask her! (I just found out about that movie today, in fact!)

As Tim Burton Eyes 'Maleficent,' We Ponder Other Disney Villains Who Could Use A 'Wicked' Treatment

Posted 1/19/10 1:00 pm ET by Josh Wigler in Commentary, Humor, News


What could possibly be endearing or forgivable about the actions of Maleficent, the villain at the heart of Disney's "Sleeping Beauty"? I'm not seeing much, but it turns out that Tim Burton may be looking to find the answer.

According to Ain't It Cool News, Burton's next project could be "Maleficent," a retelling of the "Sleeping Beauty" tale from the evil sorceress's perspective. It's clearly a page taken straight out of "Wicked," the "Wizard of Oz" spin-off that allows the audience to sympathize with the Wicked Witch of the West. Given how well that premise worked on Broadway, it's no wonder that Burton and Disney are looking to put that same spin on some other characters.​

I love that Maleficent recognized you guys and played along with the photo blunder. Seeing those photos has me really wanting a Halloween trip to Disney!

Hi Mop!

Oh, the kiddos would love it!

All I am going to say is

Hello, fellow member of the "Too-Long Ticker Club!"

Two MNSSHPs in a row and I've never seen anyone wait for Judge Frollo! I felt so bad for him. I seriously was going to go over myself but had to play photographer. I think the lack of PP photographers is another attempt to keep people going quickly. If they have to find the PP card and then set up their own camera....it always takes unnecessary time.

I'm sure that's the case.

Wonder why they keep Frollo on when he's so unpopular?
Give me Gaston any day!


Kathy