I just wanted to add that the way in which we finally get an official party schedule can easily change from year to year. It can come from any one of various
official Disney sources (i.e., Disney Parks Blog,
Disneyland News, the Disneyland Resort site itself,
D23, or a random e-mail from Disney Destinations, just to name a few).
Last year, there was no splashy, giant-bold-letters announcement in May. What happened was that the party dates just suddenly and quietly appeared one day in the AP section of the Disneyland Resort website, in May. Another DIS'er (smile4stamps) just happened to see them. That 'announcement' - if you can even call it that - was mainly to gear up the AP holders and give them notice so they'd know that they could begin buying their tickets shortly.
But, the party was not officially announced in the Halloween Time section of the Disneyland Resort website until a bit after that, and the tickets went on sale to the general public in the summer.
Two years ago, in 2010, if I recall, the party was mentioned in May on the Disney Parks Blog - simply because it was a 'story.' The story was that the party was moving across the Esplanade to Disneyland and out of DCA.
In 2009, there was a whole press release on the D23 site (it came from the Disneyland News website, which is generally for media), which detailed the Halloween season and the brand new Halloween Screams fireworks.
When Liza/funatdisney (she handled the specific Mickey's Halloween Party check-in/meet thread last year) and I were at the Cars Land/Buena Vista Street preview last Saturday, we were talking about how the MHP dates had not been officially released yet - even though it is pretty easy to figure out
when they will be.
The only real mystery about the party
dates is if Disney will stick with 10 nights - and, if so, which night will they cut off from the schedule to make it 10 nights - or if they will add an 11th night? Will there be another Monday party instead of a Tuesday, as there was last year?
Liza and I were saying that, in our opinions,
IF the MHP were going to be business as usual - meaning no drastic date changes, no new highlights at the party, nothing out of the ordinary - then why not just post the dates quietly on the AP section of the DLR site again? Even with all the Cars Land hoopla going on, if nothing new is happening with the party this year it wouldn't take the spotlight away from Cars Land to sneak the dates into the AP section.
So...the
only thing we could figure is that maybe, perhaps, something new IS being added to the party, or that there is going to be some sort of change related to the party schedule, and the reason we have not seen anything about it yet is because Disney will have to do a separate 'story' on it.
If there is going to be a separate blog/press release/story about something different or new to the MHP (event-wise or schedule-wise), then they would most definitely want to wait to post it until after Cars Land is up and running so the spotlight stays in the right place. See what I mean?
Now this doesn't mean that I'm going to get excited and expect that a Headless Horseman is going to be galloping down Main Street, or that a whole new fireworks show is coming. There could be a few minor tweaks to the party that could warrant a whole story, or there could be a schedule change. Or, who knows? Maybe Disney was contemplating moving the party back to DCA for a nanosecond.
In any case, it just doesn't seem to make much sense to me to withhold the dates from even the AP holders if the MHP is expected to be business as usual. So I think that something different may be happening - even if it's not a huge change.
I agree about Critter Pals being Brer Fox and Brer Bear, and/or the Pooh characters.
Jessica, thanks for the investigating! That's awesome! And the one party date I was counting on for us is in there. I surely truly hope you got the jump on Disney on this one!
