Monday 16th October - Day Two - Part Three – Mickey’s Halloween Party
So, we all had an hour or so nap and then DG put the finishing touches to our Halloween costumes, and we started getting Halloween-ready…
The DSs were so excited to be Trick or Treating at Disneyland and were both excited that one of their favourite movies (and mine), The Nightmare Before Christmas was going to be featured. DG had seen the film years before but couldn’t really remember it, so did brilliantly in making DS7's costume, with little to go on as a reference, as you’ll see when I reveal our costumes… At this point we didn’t realize quite how much Nightmare Before Christmas featured in the MHP festivities, and we didn’t expect for DS7 and DS5 to get so much attention in their costumes, but more on that later…
We were all ready to go just as the sun was nearly setting…
Now there is some debate as to whether it’s the Irish or the Scots who created Halloween. We, of course, believe it’s the Scots
We call it ‘guising’ in Scotland, as in ‘disguising’ and children go from door to door doing their turn – a little party piece like a poem or a joke or a song and are then rewarded with candy. So there’s definitely a historical Scottish tradition and we, as a family have always loved Halloween…
We were pleased to see loads of people in fancy dress heading towards the turnstiles, we hadn't known what to expect, how many people would be dressed up and would we feel foolish
As we neared the entrance we were enthralled by lit up character pumpkins above the gates! What a way to get our first glimpse of Disneyland…we were already in the party spirit!
Time to reveal who we dressed as…
DG and I had decided to make use of what we had at home as starting points for our costumes, rather than buying new costumes – DG and I purchased our wigs but then the rest of our costumes were things we had already. I already had a blue belly-dancer costume from a friend’s themed hen night so that really decided me on being Jasmine, similarly DG had everything except a Cruella wig and cigarette holder that could be fashioned into her costume. So even though we made quite a raggle-taggle ‘group’ (from three different Disney films!) we had all our costumes for maybe £10/ $ 15 in total!
DG had made DS7’s Zero costume from scratch (brilliantly I thought as she didn’t really know what Zero was other than the picture of him on the front of the DVD) and I bought a light up ‘nose’ and painted it orange, and we’d bought DS5 a ‘Jack’ jacket cheaply on eBay – both boys got so many comments and requests for photos from guests throughout the night! We hadn’t realized Zero had such a great part in the fireworks…and the ‘This is Halloween” song would be everywhere!
From first getting our wristbands at the entrance, everyone CMs and other guests alike were calling us by our character names – it was so fun! I got used to being called ‘your majesty’!
We didn’t have much of a plan for the party, which was perfect as it was just wonderful to wander around, go with the flow and soak up the AMAZING party atmosphere. We all loved the party and would have gone again, later on in the week on the Friday, had we been able to get tickets!
First up we headed through the trick or treat trail right at the town square where there was no queue and then we wandered up Main Street, just enjoying the sights – the Halloween décor and the other partygoers’ amazing costumes.
As we walked through Adventureland the Genie was out meeting guests outside Aladdin’s Oasis, had it been Aladdin I would have waited to get a photo with him, being my ‘other half’ and all, but the queue for the Genie was quite big and I wasn’t all that bothered meeting the big blue guy.
We headed to Critter County first as I had read that there was a good trick or treat trail there that was not too busy. As we made our way we met a pair of guests dressed as fabulous Jack and Sally, we were so excited to meet them as they were to meet Little Jack and Zero and we all had our pictures taken together.
The trick or treat trail through Critter County was really long with barely any queues, our bags were probably half full already!! There was no wait at all on Winnie the Pooh so we hopped on for a ride. We all loved it!
Then we headed back to the Rivers of America area which was spookily fantastic.
The Dapper Cadavers were singing on a floating stage and there was a HUGE queue for a trick or treat trail which we weren’t going to bother with. We loved all the decorative projections throughout the park:
We saw a guest in a fabulous Mother Gothel costume and asked here where Rapunzel was, and there just behind her was her gorgeous daughter who was around 3 and was dressed up as Rapunzel, sitting in her stroller. Both mother and daughter looked fabulous in their costumes, as we were admiring their costumes, ‘Rapunzel’ started whispering to her mother who then came over to our Cruella to ask if they could have a photo as the little girl loved Cruella de Vil (and though DG was the real deal!). Of course DG said yes, it was such a sweet request, and ‘Rapunzel’ was kind of awestruck, so DG said she didn’t have the heart to ham it up in a cruel Cruella way!
We found the popcorn cart that sold the Jack Skellington coffins which I’d been so keen to get and bought two of them...
Right next to the popcorn stand was yet another trick or treat trail – in the New Orleans Square bit so we hopped into that too!
Then we spotted the REAL JACK SKELLINGTON meeting guests! Wow we were excited but on further investigation the queue was HUGE, the boys really wanted to meet him so we promised we’d return when it was a little quieter…
We wandered on and at the Dia de Los Muertos area there was a photopass photographer so we hopped in line to get a photo.
We asked the boys if they wanted to go to the Pirate dance party in the neighbouring Zocala restaurant but they were a bit ‘meh’ so instead we decided to head back towards Main Street at this point hoping to find somewhere to get a non-candy snack.
We wandered to the Jolly Holiday Bakery and the queue didn’t look too bad so we lined up but after 20 mins hadn’t moved an inch so we ditched that idea and headed to Coke corner The wait here was much quicker and provided hot dogs for DG, DS7 and DS5 and a cheese-filled pretzel for me – which was fabulous. Think the boys had sodas here and DG and I had guess what – a lovely cup of tea, with creamer milk! Really good and just as we sat down, as luck would have it the first parade went by. We couldn’t see everything but could see enough to get a good idea of it!
After our snacks (and great cups of tea !) we were all re-energised and headed to the Town Square again to see if there were any villains about. As luck would have it, Cruella was meeting and greeting, so of course we had to get the ‘twins’ together! She was fabulous, calling out ‘ Sister! Dahling!’ to DG, and taking an interest in our little ghost doggie!
We saw that the Tremaines were also out so headed over to meet them but unfortunately the line had closed. The CM who was accompanying them was really friendly and made a big fuss of our Zero, telling us we’d better head towards Main Street to see the start of the fireworks as we might see someone familiar! So we took her advice and stood in Main Street to watch Zero flying around the castle – absolutely AMAZING, although I’d heard this happened I had no idea just how magical Zero would be – and Jack Skellington narrating the fireworks. The CM had also told us that meeting the REAL Jack would be really easy during the fireworks, so we took her advice and took off after around 10 minutes of watching the fireworks. This might seem strange as we were really enjoying the show, but the draw for our Zero and Jack to meet the real Mr Skellington was just too strong!! The CM had been right and there was a very small queue, maybe only around three parties before us. And just behind us was a guest in an amazing Ursula costume, she was one of our favourite costumes of the night! Some other of our favourites were a group of young ladies who were princesses in their raggedy type clothes, they were Briar Rose, Snow White and I think Cinderella. They looked fabulous and even had hamper baskets to trick or treat with.
However, I digress, we were at this point just about ready to meet the Pumpkin King himself. As we neared him he got very excited and called out ‘Zero…my good friend…are you ready for Halloween…”
He was just wonderful! The DSs still talk about meeting him and remember what he said to them – he chatted with them for a good while, signed their autograph books and was utterly charming!
DS5 found it totally awesome, and still remembers it fondly how jack bid him farewell “Bye Bye Little Me…”
After meeting Jack we decided to see what the queue was like for Haunted Mansion Holiday, but it was 65 mins – too long, we knew we’d ride it at some point this holiday, but not just now. Instead we decided to head over to Tomorrowland as we hadn’t been to that side of the park at all – we went towards Frontierland, at the dock we noticed that another JACK, Captain Jack was meeting guests. DS7 loves Pirates of the Caribbean and was keen to meet him, even though the queue was about 10 parties deep, but we queued up and it moved fairly quickly, maybe around 20 minutes and we got to meet Captain Jack!
DS7 asked him just how he survived the Kraken to which Captain Jack gave a very long-winded story of an answer which was really hilarious, and quite nonsensical! – he was superb and once again we were impressed by how much time the characters spent with guests, really interacting and not rushing through the guests. Captain Jack loved that the boys had picture cards with his picture on them for him to sign – he spent a time admiring himself in the picture, he was truly very funny! We were all so happy we’d met him!
We then made our way towards Tomorrowland. and found ourselves at another trick of treat trail which had no queue – we realized as we entered that it was Pixie Hollow! It was so cute to find ourselves pixie sized, we loved happening by chance upon this treat trail! We had got so much candy by this time (we’d had to put some in our rucksacks) that our Cruella was getting fussy and asking if there were any Butterfingers – she was getting quite into the Cruella persona by this time
We had to have a bathroom stop and just as we were coming out, the (second) parade was just going past us, where there was pretty much no people waiting, at the bit up towards Small World. Brilliant timing and chance– we stood and enjoyed the parade very much! Loved Miss Piggy at the end!
So we finally made it to Tomorrowland which looked great at night. Here we saw some dalmation-dressed guests who our Cruella spooked with a cry of “Doggies!” (Hilarious). We saw a wonderful party in fancy dress as Mary Poppins, Bert an lots of little penguins – another of our favourites!
We found another treat trail which started just outside Space Mountain. It was a very long trail with lots of stops and as a huge surprise to us there was Perry the Platypus at the end!! We hadn’t been expecting him at all, in fact the whole night we didn’t really refer to our maps, just wandered around and went with the flow which was a perfect way for us to do it, we enjoyed all the ‘surprises’ we came upon – like Perry!
After this we hopped on the train at TomorrowLand station and encountered one of DS7’s favourite ‘rides’ and one that we would come to know well in the next few days – the dinosaur diorama just after TomorrowLand.
We got off at Main Street as I’d remembered we had to go and redeem our Photopass+ voucher in the Kodak shop.
On the way we went through the Town Square treat trail and the trail in the Main Street cinema. We weren’t quite sure where the Kodak shop was, turns out its right up at the hub, so we were going against the flow of people exiting, as it was around 11pm at this time.
There was a small queue in the Kodak shop and right in front of us were the raggedy princesses we’d seen earlier. There was a great scene when a guest dressed as Maleficent walked through the shop and squealed: ‘I’ve been looking for a Briar Rose all night! Please can I have a photo!’. The two parties swapped photos. We loved how people were so approachable all night, there was such a great convivial party atmosphere. We couldn’t count all the times we were greeted by other party guests ‘Hi Zero, hi Jack, hi Jasmine, hi Cruella!’ .
With our photopass sorted out, we left the park, tired and happy to have been to A PLACE THAT PERHAPS WE HAD SEEN IN OUR DREAMS! and weighed down with pounds and pounds of candy!!
Coming up next: Disney's California Adventure, Here We Come!
Breakfast with Minnie and Pals at The Plaza Inn
Lunch at Ariel's Grotto
Lunch at Blue Bayou
Dinner at Big Thunder BBQ
Dinner at Carthay Circle
So, with a little careful milk pouring, DG finally got her long-awaited cup of tea. I learnt not to even ask for my favoured Earl Grey!!
and the Pizza Hut had a queue out the door so we opted for hot dogs from the nearby stand which we ate whilst having a look in the museum near the Transformers ride. I wasn’t sure if the boys would be interested in this but they really liked it in there, thanks largely to the Jurassic Park models and making of movie scenes showing on a tv and the Jaws, King Kong and ParaNorman displays. DG and I loved looking at the costumes they had. It was also beautifully cool in there on a very hot day.
(I'm just kidding...we were all kind of amused in an eyes-rolling way by the repetitive commentary you get on the escalators).
) asked if it was our first visit and gave us two 1st Visit badges for the DSs. 
