MNSSHP 2015 - Be Prepared For Chaos

[ariane37]

Went to the first Hallowern party last night and was completely caught off guard. The crowds were completely insane, wall to wall in some cases. I completely did not expect the first party of the season to look like a U2 concert. I have followed the DISboards religiously to try and strategize and make plans to get the most out of the party. I can safely say, after last night's experience, that you can throw those plans out the window. If the first party of the season was an indication of what the crowd levels are going to be for the rest of the party season, then you are in for a surprise.

Every bit of advice I have seen before regarding the number of tickets sold, day of the week to go, go earlier in the season to avoid crowds, etc. will not matter if every party is sold out, like I believe last night's was.

Yes, some ride times were pretty good (5 min for Space Mtn at 930pm and 10 min for Big Thunder). However, I noticed that the mine train was not running around 9 PM. As I walked by the back entrance, a cast member was escorting people off of the ride. Character lines were HUGE, many spilling out of the ropes, and parade viewing was difficult as the crowd in many places were 6-7 people deep. Candy lines for the first two hours were at least 100 people long. Example: at 730 pm the candy station at COP wound around the ride's walkway and stretched all the way past where the Monsters Dance party was taking place. Quite the time commitment for a handful of Tootsie Rolls. I didn't bother waiting for the second parade because we got out of there just before the fireworks started.

I don't blame people for going. I totally blame Disney for selling way too many tickets for these events and turning what used to be a pleasurable experience into an utter mess. It doesn't help that the first party this year started two weeks later than the first party last year. I'm sure that has something to do with the sea of humanity at the Magic Kingdom last night.

I am not saying that you shouldn't go, but what I am saying is don't expect the Halloween parties this year to be as they have been in previous Septembers. I will not waste another penny on these "special events".

As someone who absolutely loves MNSSHP, I'm very sorry your party was so disappointing. Like other posters I'm curious what exactly made it so crowded-more tickets sold, party being a week later than last year, Jewish holiday preceding it???

We went to the first party last year on 9/1. We'd been to other parties but always in Oct. Last year's first party was awesome!! Not crowded whatsoever. We got on line for Jack & Sally at 6:10 and were done before 7:30. Walked on all rides all night including 7DMT. No waits for other characters including the Old Hag, with the exception of the 7 Dwarves b/c line was closed by the time we got there. Absolutely no waits at the candy lines at all, all night. Even for the 1st parade, which we hadn't planned on watching, we happened to be walking by the Shootin' Gallery just as it started, found a front row open spot, so we stopped to watch. Watched the 2nd parade front row, too. Of course it got crowded on Main St. and in front of the castle for the fireworks but I think that would happen regardless of how many people overall were there. Just such a difference from this years' first party!

 

[jhaig]

Best plan is the read up on reports and come up with a plan. This will be our third party on Halloween night. We knew it would be sold out before buying tickets. I am
watching all the reports to come up with a 'game plan.

Your best game plan would be to come with low expectations and see the parade on You Tube.

 

[JOE DELL]

Not crowded whatsoever. We got on line for Jack & Sally at 6:10 and were done before 7:30. Walked on all rides all night including 7DMT. No waits for other characters including the Old Hag, with the exception of the 7 Dwarves b/c line was closed by the time we got there. Absolutely no waits at the candy lines at all, all night. Even for the 1st parade, which we hadn't planned on watching, we happened to be walking by the Shootin' Gallery just as it started, found a front row open spot, so we stopped to watch. Watched the 2nd parade front row, too. Of course it got crowded on Main St. and in front of the castle for the fireworks but I think that would happen regardless of how many people overall were there. Just such a difference from this years' first party![/QUOTE]

^^^^ hot lapping like a boss

 

[JimmyBean42]

Reading everyone's comments and being impartial, it sounds like the issues everyone ran into were 1) parade viewing 2) new castle show viewing and 3) getting candy. It seems like everyone was trying to do these 3 things primarily which would lead me to believe that most of the ride lines were extremely low in wait times (one person noted 5 min for Space Mnt. Super low even for a party. And especially for a sold out party) and maybe some character m&G's that weren't special character ones. I definitely think the new Hocus Pocus show had some influence on the tickets sold, as well as the crowds at the Hub.

When we attended a party last year I asked a CM what the sold out number was and he said 20k-25k range. From the comments of everyone here, it sounds like they either upped that number or everyone was doing the same things at once.

 

[JOE DELL]

Reading everyone's comments and being impartial, it sounds like the issues everyone ran into were 1) parade viewing 2) new castle show viewing and 3) getting candy. It seems like everyone was trying to do these 3 things primarily which would lead me to believe that most of the ride lines were extremely low in wait times (one person noted 5 min for Space Mnt. Super low even for a party. And especially for a sold out party) and maybe some character m&G's that weren't special character ones. I definitely think the new Hocus Pocus show had some influence on the tickets sold, as well as the crowds at the Hub.

When we attended a party last year I asked a CM what the sold out number was and he said 20k-25k range. From the comments of everyone here, it sounds like they either upped that number or everyone was doing the same things at once.

+1 this is what it sounds like to me and if that's the case then its what I said earlier, poor planning and execution on Disney's part

 

[kelleybean]

Ugh so upset to read this! We are planning Sept 27th. We were thinking Sept would be less crowded than October, and Sunday would be better than a weekday (and my son happens to have the next day off from school, although there must be multiple schools on this schedule so might inflate the crowds which might make all our scheming for nothing). I think we are just going to have to figure out a way to keep DS7 up as late as possible. I'm assuming (hoping) it gets less crowded as the night goes on.

Is there a crowd calendar predictor somewhere that projects party crowds? I haven't been able to find one.

 

[BigMommaMouse]

Your best game plan would be to come with low expectations and see the parade on You Tube.

 

[Dentam]

After our trip last week, I wouldn't put much faith at all in any crowd calendars. Our week was supposed to have two days with crowd levels of 1 and that was definitely not the case.

It sounds like booking the dessert party might be the way to go to enjoy the MNSSHP a bit more...

 

[jtowntoflorida]

Ugh so upset to read this! We are planning Sept 27th. We were thinking Sept would be less crowded than October, and Sunday would be better than a weekday (and my son happens to have the next day off from school, although there must be multiple schools on this schedule so might inflate the crowds which might make all our scheming for nothing). I think we are just going to have to figure out a way to keep DS7 up as late as possible. I'm assuming (hoping) it gets less crowded as the night goes on.

Is there a crowd calendar predictor somewhere that projects party crowds? I haven't been able to find one.

Touring Plans and Kenny the Pirate both give their predictions for the least-attended party. Both of which were blown away last night, so I'd take them with a grain of salt. Prepare for the worst and you won't be disappointed, and may be surprised.

OH, one tip I can give based on past experience...pick a night with no discounts (CM, AP, DVC). Those nights have the highest ticket prices, and even though it's only $5 or so for the AP discount, it seems to make a difference. The least busy party I can remember being at was on a Friday night with no discounts that came the night after a discounted party on Thursday (which ended up selling out unexpectedly). I thought for sure being a Friday it would be more busy, but it was noticeably less busy than the prior Sunday party that we'd attended, which also had discounts associated with it.

 

[amber.miller]

Technically, there could have been people at that party last night who would have found it to be not chaotic as well. Depends on where they are and what they were doing. There are many times where it's crowded and crazy in part of the park but not in another.

I'll echo this. I'm definitely not trying to discount anyone's experience but we went for the first time to last nights MNSSHP and had a fabulous time. We got there at 4, ate a quick bite then rode Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder, and 7 Dwarves. Then got in line for Jack & Sally at 6. We were done with them at 8:20, had spots ready for the 1st parade, scooted over to the FP viewing area to watch the castle show & fireworks (which were fantastic!). Our group of 8 was easily able to sit in the grassy area and see it all without issue. Then we went trick or treating through Adventureland and Frontierland and rode Solash and Big Thunder as walk ins a few times before we headed back to the hub to catch the last castle show and eat a snack before heading out around 12:45. Some smaller areas of the park were more congested but overall I never felt like it was crazy busy.

 

[davidwalden05]

I am extremely disappointed to read this. We are bringing our kids there on halloween night (which is already sold out).

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Not that it was bad overall. We met Jack and Sally and they were awesome! But we got in line at 450pm (yes there was already a line), which I was prepared for. If I had shown up there 30-45 min later, I would have had to wait upwards of 2 hours minimum.

Hopefully others will have better luck at the other parties, but this one was madness compared to what I was expecting from an early September party. Just go into it with your eyes wide open.

You did good. One person posted a 3.5 hour wait for them.

We attended a sold out MVMCP last December. It was not at all chaotic as OP described.

Im guessing Disney got greedy and sold more tickets.

Too bad that Disney is putting money over creating a good experience.

It's the new model. Cut extras, increase prices, decrease experience and turn on a recording of "Let It Go"

Any chance they'll change the number of tickets being sold for future parties after learning from this experience??? We're going on 10/29 and I fear it will sell out too.

You do realize that would mean giving up $$$. Tragic Bands MUST make a return if you won't spend more because you have one then Disney will get the money someplace else

How was it a long weekend, labor day weekend was the week before so nothing special about this weekend.



I think that could be a big part of it. The blog/review/media group has been getting huge and they are everywhere for first night/day whatever now.

Wait a minute, how many blogger tickets do you think they gave away? Are we talking an extra 5000 people because of this? Personally I wouldn't expect the number to be more than 500 and a park that routinely operates at 50K in attendance per day should be able to handle that.

Ding! Ding! We have a winner. The "bloggers" and "media" are not enough extra people to "overflow" the party. Not to mention that part of the time they are actually doing special things and not part of the mess! It's closer to the 500 then the 5,000 LOL! Plus the "bloggers" tend to focus on the unique items. So while they may have been responsible for HUGE lines at Jack and Sally they weren't standing in line to ride Space Mt LOL!

 

[Kelly014]

I'll echo this. I'm definitely not trying to discount anyone's experience but we went for the first time to last nights MNSSHP and had a fabulous time. We got there at 4, ate a quick bite then rode Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder, and 7 Dwarves. Then got in line for Jack & Sally at 6. We were done with them at 8:20, had spots ready for the 1st parade, scooted over to the FP viewing area to watch the castle show & fireworks (which were fantastic!). Our group of 8 was easily able to sit in the grassy area and see it all without issue. Then we went trick or treating through Adventureland and Frontierland and rode Solash and Big Thunder as walk ins a few times before we headed back to the hub to catch the last castle show and eat a snack before heading out around 12:45. Some smaller areas of the park were more congested but overall I never felt like it was crazy busy.

Glad to hear some good reports trickling in. We are going to our first party on the 29th of October which I believe will sell out. Maybe the fact that we've never been before will help since we don't have anything to compare it to! Either way I'm staying positive that we will still have a good time.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

DI dno't knwo if ayone else knows this, but even if a party is "sold out" to the public, military can still get tickets to most of the sold out nights - they have about 50-75 military tickets reserved for each party night on top of regular admission - so you could have had a ton of last minute military tickets sold as well

50 to 75 ticket is a "ton of last minute tickets" LOL!

How do they even get away with this? What if there was a fire or some other emergency that caused a stampede? I'm surprised I haven't heard of more injuries at WDW just from people being run over in crowds like this. Insane.

They open the doors and you go out the side roads that go behind the shops. If it actually does get dangerous you will get shuttled over there.

I just went to the Disney website to look at the advertising for it and no where do I see them say this is a limited ticket event. They used to promote that quite heavily in the past, but now they don't. Even the video ad says nothing about limiting ticket sales.

I'll echo this. I'm definitely not trying to discount anyone's experience but we went for the first time to last nights MNSSHP and had a fabulous time. We got there at 4, ate a quick bite then rode Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder, and 7 Dwarves. Then got in line for Jack & Sally at 6. We were done with them at 8:20, had spots ready for the 1st parade, scooted over to the FP viewing area to watch the castle show & fireworks (which were fantastic!). Our group of 8 was easily able to sit in the grassy area and see it all without issue. Then we went trick or treating through Adventureland and Frontierland and rode Solash and Big Thunder as walk ins a few times before we headed back to the hub to catch the last castle show and eat a snack before heading out around 12:45. Some smaller areas of the park were more congested but overall I never felt like it was crazy busy.

You spent almost 2.5 hours in line for one thing? I think that may have influenced your results, you weren't actually moving around the park for half the party LOL! Personally 2.5 hours for those characters would be the last thing I would do, but think about it... For families with young kids who need to do the party early you missed the entire party.

 

[Karin1984]

Maybe I overlooked it in the thread, but did someone already suggested they sold more tickets in comparison to other years, because they've started 2 weeks later with the parties? If Disney wants to get the same revenues as last year with less parties, they need to let in more people per night.

 

[Emagine]

We are planning to stay on sugar rushes for the second parade. Do not judge ... If we see we need to do the first parade and do it in Frontierland how insane is it to wiggle towards the Castle for the Fireworks?

 

[5Hfan]

After our trip last week, I wouldn't put much faith at all in any crowd calendars. Our week was supposed to have two days with crowd levels of 1 and that was definitely not the case.

It sounds like booking the dessert party might be the way to go to enjoy the MNSSHP a bit more...

The dessert parties are sold out for all the parties already. And yes it's probably a great strategy to see the parade and enjoy fireworks...but then again you're already paying for the party ticket. And last year we sat curb side in town square and enjoyed the parade, and sat in the tomorrow land terrace and watched hallo wishes. Without having to pay "extra" on top of the party ticket...

 

[Mamapapa]

MK park capacity is generally believed to be well above 75K, even before the Fantasyland Expansion. Most estimates of max number of party tickets sold in recent years land between 25K and 35K.

And this is what I call bull on (not you mesaboy2!! But the people estimating those numbers!!) When we did MVMCP it was way more crowded that night than any other day in the park that week, even during peak afternoon hours. In my opinion, there is no way they are capping tickets at 35k.

I clearly don't think they are selling 75K, but they do have reduced attractions operating and a lot of the focus of the events is on Main Street and in front of the Castle which is where people tend to congregate. While it might feel incredibly crowded in those two areas, back by the Tea Cups it might feel empty.

I agree that I doubt they are selling 75k, but with the removal of the information that this is a limited entry event, there is no way they are selling under 50k per party. And it's not always just certain areas that are busy. When we did MVMCP, all I could think about was how glad I was that I didn't have a stroller as it was wall to wall people everywhere in the park, not just main street and the hub.

 

[moremouse]

**I cracked up out loud at work**
LMAO
I don't know what it means either.

Maybe you have to be fifteen or a rapper to understand it?

 

[bellazachmom]

The past few years it seems to have gotten worse IMO.
Lines were really long for rides and candy stations last year. We did get a good spot for parade but we sat early for it.

I opted to not buy tickets this year and I know I'll get back lash from my kids but they don't even know we are going yet. Going to tell them when they get home from school that day.

We still bought them surprise costumes and treat bags. I plan to give them each $30 and they can fill their bags at the Confectionary on Main Street. Hopefully they will be ok with that

I think that sounds like a much better plan!