How to plan an October trip with fireworks/parade/Fantasmic and Halloween Party?

[jenhelgren]

This will be our first trip to Disneyland and I need some trip planning advice! I had planned on staying Sunday through Friday the last week in October because I read the weekends will be very busy so I wanted to take advantage of the lower crowds during the week. I just read that fireworks and Fantasmic are usually only on the weekends in October. The week I was planning there is a Halloween party on Sunday-does that mean that the only night of the week for fireworks and Fantasmic is Saturday or will Disney add a day because of the Halloween party? I was also wondering about the Paint the Night parade-will it be on weekends only by October? How will the Halloween party affect California Adventure late October? Being a newbie and not being to look at a schedule is really confusing!
It still far enough out at this point that I could change the dates to make things work out better-my kids are Disney fanatics and really want to experience all we can while visiting!!
Thank you for all advice in advance-we need it!!

 

[mom2rtk]

The schedule won't be out for a while for late October. It is possible you might miss Fantasmic entirely. Generally it only runs Friday, Sat, and Sunday that time of year. So with your schedule, Sunday would be the one night available to you. Turns out there is a Halloween party that night, so no Fantasmic. I'll be curious to see if they do anything with the schedule (maybe run it Monday or something?) but I wouldn't count on it.

Fireworks will run every non-party night (including non-party nights) and Paint the night will run every night (but only during party hours on party nights).

 

[deetman]

We are doing a similar trip, except we included a weekend. As it is, there are halloween parties fri and sun, but we have a few non-party nights, and that way at least Saturday we can catch Fantasmic!

 

[figment_jii]

There are MHP almost every other night the last week in October (10/23, 10/25, 10/27, 10/29, and 10/31), so the only chance to see F! will be on Saturday (10/24) or Friday (10/30). If seeing F! is important, you'll need to adjust your dates to include Saturday (10/24) or Friday (10/30). It unlikely (but not impossible) that they'd add a F! showing later in the week, but at this point, I would assume that Sat is the only chance because of the MHPs.

From reports in previous years, the daytime in DCA is not really that much different between MHP and non-MHP nights, but once DL closes for MHP, there is a noticeable increase in crowds in DCA as non-party goers hop over to DCA.

 

[jenhelgren]

Are the daily fireworks during Fall for the Anniversary Celebration this year? I was looking over an old October schedule and they only had fireworks on the weekends-I could have also had a bad source though!!
In past years-is the week of Halloween usually more crowded than the middle two weeks of October? I am considering moving our whole trip up a week or two if it makes sense but have read that the whole crowd average is off this year because of the Anniversary additions. If the dates would enable us to see Fantasmic and most likely have lower crowds I think it would be worth it for our first trip when we want to "do and see it all!"

 

[Sherry E]

Are the daily fireworks during Fall for the Anniversary Celebration this year? I was looking over an old October schedule and they only had fireworks on the weekends-I could have also had a bad source though!!
In past years-is the week of Halloween usually more crowded than the middle two weeks of October? I am considering moving our whole trip up a week or two if it makes sense but have read that the whole crowd average is off this year because of the Anniversary additions. If the dates would enable us to see Fantasmic and most likely have lower crowds I think it would be worth it for our first trip when we want to "do and see it all!"

About the fireworks -- I just typed this out in the Halloween Time Superthread a little while ago, so I will quote it here:

This is the first time in 6 years that the fireworks are going to be nightly in the off season (Halloween Time is technically considered the off season, although it is very popular). As RichP1269 said, Paint the Night will be nightly (and also part of Mickey's Halloween Party) and Disneyland Forever will run on any night that is not a party night -- even weeknights! The last time this happened was when Halloween Screams debuted to the public in 2009. This is a special year, so I think that Disney got special approval for more nights of fireworks. More than likely, those fireworks will continue to run all through the holidays too.

By most accounts Halloween week picks up steam, crowd-wise, especially in the second half of the week, as compared to the previous week. The first half of the week will probably be okay.