Not so scary halloween party let downs?

[hillg1868]

Hello DISers,
Little quip i got with going to the halloween party this year (this was Oct 1st). GRANT it I'm older than the average trick or treater there (as a disclaimer). I thoroughly enjoy the fireworks, I'd go out of my way to say they are the best at the entire resort at that time (cannot comment on the XMAS or 4th of july) even better than the standard wishes (i know id probably strike a nerve with some on here ;-) . My issue comes with the trick or treating part....
My party (of 7) went around the entire magic kingdom after fireworks (almost at a constant walk). My first (be this is the pettiest) issue was the assortment of goodies they were giving out. After getting back to the room all we could find were awful peanut chews and tootsie rolls with the occasional crunch bar, butterfingers, or milky way. I dont mind what we were getting (candy is dandy after all) but in the past more of an assortment was given out. Could it be just the shipment of the night? Maybe...I digress
My second and probably MOST IMPORTANT was the overall ATTITUDE of the cast members. Most had a stern, cranky, disgraced, and uncheerful smug on their faces. One person in my party over heard a cast member mumble "thank you, now get out of here"...(no we were not on the haunted mansion where they usually have the raw attitude) this was in fantasy land near dumbo. Yes its late, yes its dark, and you're handing out (ill get to this next) candy to crying 4 year olds, but gee whiz cast members. This was probably THE PRIME example of the "legacy" of disney dying out. This definitely turned down the happiness level that night.
Finally, the amount of candy being handed out, I remember my first time going to the halloween party and having to LEAVE cause we had just too much candy. Handfuls were the minimum measurement to be doled out, whilst this year....not so much. I think at one point a cast member gave me three (3) pieces. All peanut chews (bleh). I saw other cast members walking around with boxes just to fill up the barrels and thought, well clearly you need to be giving out more if there are full boxes refiling your tubs.

These were my small issues with number two being the biggest of the three. I know the casts member issue is not just one night but it seems to be a constant issue amongst the majority. At least thats what i am hearing and seeing on the DIS unplugged and when i go to disney world. Correct me if i am wrong but it seems like its localized to the parks and not so much the resorts??? Discuss that one amongst ya selves!

Anyway DISers thanks for reading my complaints and starting a conversation about such!
Please stand clear of the doors! Por favor manténganse alejado de las puertas

 

[asheleycs]

We were there on October 1st, and had a completely different experience. We got more candy than I thought we could bring home. All the CM's were great--though we had the benefit of an adorable 7 yo dressed up like Jasmine in a cat costume! Also, there were a lot of tootsie rolls and peanut chews, but if you told them you wanted something specific (my mom wanted peanut m&ms's), they gave it to you. Also trick or treat was completely different later in the evening. No lines, huge handfuls of candy.

ETA: I also found big differences by location. Some places seemed to give you 3 pieces, while some were a complete handful.

 

[HopperFan]

Went October 6th and 9th (sold out party). Completely difference experience.

- We got LOTS of good candy, I laughed that we hardly had a peanut chew.
- Every year when I get home I bag up the yukky candy in Halloween treat bags to hand out and for the first time I didn't really have enough. Smarties, tootsie rolls and had to fill in the rest with a handful of fruit chews, a few lemonballs and peanut chews.
- Beats years ago when one year they actually tried to hand out ALL off brand candy! Can you spell backlash.
- We ran in to no grumpy CMs, lots of Trick or Treats and smiles. We had fun this year at the candy stops.
- Two parties; 2 of us at one, 3 of us at one, hit each spot once only and we have the equivalent of about 7 of those bags they handed out full. I have in kitchen in two HUGE mixing bowls.
- The only spot we got just two was the chocolate covered Craisins and had I noticed the word chocolate I would have gone back in that line many times.
- Agree with PP, biggest hint for the party is go for candy later in the night although sounds like it didn't work for OP ...?

 

[mkh531]

We went on October 6th and had an absolutely wonderful time, all the CMs were so great to us, especially the characters we met. My kids got huge handfuls of candy; i think they may have been stingier with me but when i said "ooh look almond joy! the CM got me three of them.

 

[DisneyFive]

We were there the same night. We loved it. It was busy, but not insane in our opinion.

Sounds like almost all of your issues were around the "trick or treat" candy handouts. To be honest, that's about the last thing we value at a MNSSHP. We can do that in our own neighborhood at home on the actual Halloween night.

For us, MNSSHP is all about the things that you can't get anywhere else (including the MK on any normal day). ...The special shows in front of the castle, the Boo to You Parade, the special lighting, special Magic Shot photos, and Hallowishes. Not to mention the excellent availability of rides.

Dan

 

[kelleybean]

We had somewhat of the same experience in the beginning of the night of our party. It rained first thing so they had shut down a lot of the stations. Lines were crazy long and when we got to the front, we just got 3 pieces of candy (the cheaper kind - like the sour patch things). We did have a little better luck later in the evening, especially once the weather cleared and they were able to open up more places. Last year, we easily got so much candy I was able to give out the extra on Halloween night to the neighborhood kids and never even had to buy extra. Not nearly as much this year, even though we did more stations because my son really got into it. The trick or treating isn't a priority for us, the parade is a big reason why we go, but we did notice a difference between this year and last. I think I got spoiled by last year's party!

 

[wdwcoltsfan]

We have gone to MNSSHP for the past 10 years and are going again this year. Each year, there are always a couple of cm's who seem to only give a couple pieces of candy, but most of them seem to give a handful. It has never been a big enough deal to complain about or to quit going. I also noticed that the couple of years we went earlier in October, the weather was hotter and we received less chocolate. The parties later in the month, when it was a little cooler, were over half chocolate. Maybe they don't hand out as much chocolate if there is a chance of melting?

I guess we are one of the lucky families because we have never, in all of our many trips, encountered the grumpy cm's like is described in the OP. That is not to say we haven't come across ones that weren't as friendly or helpful, but never have we had "most" cm's who were rude or difficult to deal with. I hope that streak continues with our upcoming trip.

 

[scdak]

We went to 2 parties - Sept 25th (sold out) and Oct 4th, we had a great experience, the CM's were pleasant at all the locations and we had a huge amount of candy between the 2 nights, I am about to sort it out to save some to hand out for Halloween and the rest to save for some trips I have planned in the next 2 months to enjoy as treats since I rarely eat candy. The lines for candy were long on the first night but moved very fast, I think the longest time we waited was 5 minutes. We were able to enjoy rides with little to no wait, saw the parade once due to our reserved section since we were doing the Dessert party that night, that was a lot of fun and the view of the fireworks was great. THe first night we had some serious rain for about an hour but by 7pm it had stopped, they did delay trick or treating for a little while at some of the locations thus why the lines were a little longer when we were able to go thru them but even then it didn't take us long.

OP - sorry your experience was not as good, it must have been an off night for the CM's for sure. I hope you still had a good time for the event.

 

[MickeyHereWeCome!]

We have gone to MNSSHP for the past 10 years and are going again this year. Each year, there are always a couple of cm's who seem to only give a couple pieces of candy, but most of them seem to give a handful. It has never been a big enough deal to complain about or to quit going. I also noticed that the couple of years we went earlier in October, the weather was hotter and we received less chocolate. The parties later in the month, when it was a little cooler, were over half chocolate. Maybe they don't hand out as much chocolate if there is a chance of melting?

I guess we are one of the lucky families because we have never, in all of our many trips, encountered the grumpy cm's like is described in the OP. That is not to say we haven't come across ones that weren't as friendly or helpful, but never have we had "most" cm's who were rude or difficult to deal with. I hope that streak continues with our upcoming trip.

We were there on 10/15, and had a blast. We got a great assortment of candy, found crowds to be manageable, saw the parade, Hallowishes, Hocus Pocus, and got on quite a few rides. The cast members were very friendly.

Our only regrets were waiting Space Mountain. It was a 20 min wait and then broke down, so that wasted tons of time. Then we tried to find the pumpkin waffle sundae, which was non-existant. So, we lost lots of time there!

Overall, though, we had a great time!

 

[bc7ate9]

We agree with your 2nd point. We were there 9/25 and encountered a LOT of grumpy CMs. I think they were still responding to the issues they had early on with people at the party with no wristbands. We got screamed at to "show your wristband!!!" WAY more often than we got wished a happy Halloween or anything like that. We were completely ignored by others. I felt like a nuisance several times throughout the night. It was overall a very different atmosphere than what we've experienced the past few years.

I'm not exactly complaining - while I was very disappointed with the whole evening, I don't feel the need to waste energy continuing to have negative feelings about it all. I also realize that I'm talking about how things FELT - a very, very subjective thing to comment on. But, yes, we agree that the CMs' attitudes at the party we attended definitely did nothing to enhance the party atmosphere.

 

[AtlantaDisneyDreamer]

Biggest disappointment for us were the lines for characters. We have met so many Disney characters over the years that it was not that big of a deal- but it would have been nice to meet some of the characters in their Halloween costumes. Lines wrapped around and around for the characters. In the last couple of years, we saw lots of characters at the party and only had to wait a few minutes. Our party (September 22nd) was so crowded and the character lines were so long that we did not even bother with any of the characters.

We arrived at 3 pm (AP holders) and had 4 fastpasses (one was a bonus since our first SDMT was cancelled by the system) for SDMT, BTMRR, Splash, and Peter Pan, so we got on the big rides without any wait )(glad we had the FPs, though, since lines were long for everything). We had great seats for the parade both times and had a nice spot for the fireworks (room to lie down in the typical FP+ area) and we experienced a magical moment where a CM gave my daughter some complimentary candy at Goofy's candy store, so overall, it was a very fun experience. Just wish we could have met some characters without waiting in an absurdly long line.

 

[HopperFan]

Biggest disappointment for us were the lines for characters. We have met so many Disney characters over the years that it was not that big of a deal- but it would have been nice to meet some of the characters in their Halloween costumes. Lines wrapped around and around for the characters. In the last couple of years, we saw lots of characters at the party and only had to wait a few minutes. Our party (September 22nd) was so crowded and the character lines were so long that we did not even bother with any of the characters.

One thing I told my DS at our Friday party (sold out) was that previous years it was much easier to meet some of the characters like Alice/Rabbit/Tweedles, classics in Storybook Circus and Pooh characters in costume. I didn't feel the lines were really that long but the problem I noticed this year was they were only out for a very short time and there were huge breaks of time before they came back. Poor CMs had to keep saying, they'll be back in 30 minutes or a set time that no one was going to stand there for. Party time needs multiple friends so that the breaks need only be the time for one group to leave and another to come back.

For us, we've met them many times and managed to keep other DS busy with other things but it was an obvious miss that could easily been fixed.

 

[DebbieB]

We were there the same night. We loved it. It was busy, but not insane in our opinion.

Sounds like almost all of your issues were around the "trick or treat" candy handouts. To be honest, that's about the last thing we value at a MNSSHP. We can do that in our own neighborhood at home on the actual Halloween night.

For us, MNSSHP is all about the things that you can't get anywhere else (including the MK on any normal day). ...The special shows in front of the castle, the Boo to You Parade, the special lighting, special Magic Shot photos, and Hallowishes. Not to mention the excellent availability of rides.

Dan

That reminded me of when my then 68 year old mom and I went to MNSSHP about 12 years ago. She got a big kick out of trick or treating, it had been a lot of years for her. When we got back to the hotel, we emptied our bags out to see what we got, just like kids!

 

[DisneyFive]

That reminded me of when my then 68 year old mom and I went to MNSSHP about 12 years ago. She got a big kick out of trick or treating, it had been a lot of years for her. When we got back to the hotel, we emptied our bags out to see what we got, just like kids!

Sounds like a great night!

Dan