REVIEW: Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland

Earlier this week, we took you on a photo tour of Halloween Time at Disneyland, a celebration that all park guests can take part in, day or night.  Continuing our coverage of fall at Disneyland, this article will give you a detailed look at Mickey’s Halloween Party, a separate ticketed, after-hours event held on select nights through the end of October.  The party offers trick-or-treating, a themed parade, the Halloween Screams fireworks spectacular, lots of character meet & greets, a dance party, and so much more!  Also, guests of ALL ages are encouraged to come dressed in costume (see their guidelines here).  Fun!!  Without further ado, let’s get Mickey’s Halloween Party started!

As mentioned, Mickey’s Halloween Party requires a ticket, separate from a general admission ticket or an annual pass, and is only held on select nights throughout the season.  Advanced tickets start at $59, but you can find more information about the dates and pricing directly from Disney’s website.  What do you get for this somewhat pricey, separate admission?  Well, for starters, you’ll get access to the park as early as 4:00 pm, even though the party doesn’t start until 6:00 or 7:00 pm, depending on the night you attend.  Those extra few hours will give you time to get settled so you’re ready to go when the party starts.  Also, if you’re planning to eat dinner in the park, I’d highly suggest trying to squeeze it into that pre-party time so you can use those 5 precious hours to do party things!  There are lots of great seasonal offerings at several restaurants around the resort, and the pre-party time will give you a chance to try it.  I do wish Disney would provide a list of what those seasonal items are, maybe even include it in the party map, so you could make your choices wisely.

Special Halloween themed popcorn buckets available throughout the park. I should note, that these are for Halloween Time, and not exclusive to Mickey’s Halloween Party.

When you go through the turnstiles with your party ticket you’ll be given a wristband, which is how Cast Members identify party guests from regular day guests, and they will check for them all night long.  You’ll also want to grab a party map – even if you know your way around the park it’ll come in handy.  And don’t forget to get at least one complimentary treat bag for all of the treat trails throughout the park.

There are 10 Trick-or-Treat Trails noted on the party map, and each one has at least 3-4 trick-or-treat stations.  The first stop offers a healthy snack (think apple slices, Craisins, protein bars), while the rest pass out generous handfuls of candy – the good stuff, too (Snickers, Twix, M&M’s, Butterfinger).  The lines were pretty long for each of the trails for most of the night, although they seemed to move pretty quickly.  We waited to do our trick-or-treating until about an hour before the party ended, and lines had diminished considerably at that point.  We only ended up going through 2 trails and we still walked away with our bags half full (literally, not just figuratively…).

Guests anxiously wait for the trick-or-treating to commence!

Passing through Main Street, we noticed spooky lighting on the castle along with some creepy projections.  The castle and all of the Main Street storefronts were “dancing” along to a fun Halloween soundtrack.  Songs like Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”, Silly Symphonies “The Skeleton Dance,” “Heffalumps & Woozles,” “Pink Elephants on Parade,” and “Grim, Grinning, Ghosts” just to name a few.  Such a small detail really, but it added so much to the atmosphere of the party.  We kept stopping to watch the castle throughout the night.

“The Skeleton Dance”

I spy a Heffalump! Or is that a Woozle?

Here’s a quick video of Sleeping Beauty Castle dancing to “Boo-to-You”, which is the parade music from the Magic Kingdom’s Mickey’s-Not-So-Scary Halloween Party in Walt Disney World.  I LOVE this song and was so excited to hear it playing in our “home” park.

Over in Town Square, the villains are staged in front of the Main Street Train Station at 3 meet & greet stations.  When it’s time for them to trade places, they do it with quite a bit of flair – VIDEO below.

I would highly recommend making your way over to Town Square to catch it, and you could probably time it around the parade so that you could see both.  Which is what we did and it worked out perfectly!

Maleficent sprinkles her wicked mojo around.

The line to meet the villains was reasonable – maybe 15 – 20 minutes at any given time, and each character made time with the guests.  This was  a MUCH better experience than the Friday the 13th Unleash the Villains event where we waited over 2 hours in what was more of a massive crowd than a line to meet the villains.  It was absolute craziness.  I’d gladly pay party admission to never have to deal with those types of crowds again.  On a side note, I was able to snap a pretty awesome shot of my favorite villains that night.

The always lovely Tremaine girls on Friday the 13th at Disneyland

Next up was Mickey’s Costume Party Cavalcade, which runs twice during party nights (and can only be seen during the event).  This parade has grown quite a bit over the past few years, and we really enjoyed this year’s version.  The song, however, can be pretty grating – it’s quite repetitive and there are very shrill screams throughout the song.  Overall, the parade pales in comparison to the previously mentioned “Boo-to-You” parade in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, both in music and floats.  [Click here for John Saccheri's VIDEO of the 2013 "Boo-to-You" parade.]  However, taking Disneyland’s Mickey’s Costume Party Cavalcade on its own, it’s a cute parade filled with costumed characters.  Some of the ones we saw were the Fab 5, Peter Pan & Captain Hook, a handful of princesses, Woody & Jesse, Baloo & King Louie, the Country Bears, Sully, and a few others.  They also pick a handful of lucky costumed guests to be featured in the parade.  See the VIDEO below to catch the finale float in action, and look for an extra special guest on the very back of the vehicle!

Before pressing play, you might want to turn the volume down a bit or those shrieks in the song may cause a fright.

The Halloween Screams fireworks spectacular is a fantastic holiday themed display, hosted by Jack Skellington.  He’s joined by several villains, including Ursula, Cruella De Vil,  Oogie Boogie, and more.  Like the parade, this fireworks show is exclusive to the party, and for some, worth the price of admission alone.

The villains have set the castle on FIRE!!

VIDEO of the intro to Halloween Screams, including Zero flying over the castle!  Note: One of the main features is a globe that’s usually off to the side of the castle, which shows projections of our villainy hosts.  Unfortunately, they were having technical difficulties and it wasn’t a part of the show this night, but it really wasn’t lacking without it.

Along the Rivers of America, you can meet up with a pirate crew (either Captain Jack Sparrow, or classic Disney characters in pirate gear), go trick-or-treating, or even watch the ominous Cadaver Dans drift along the water, singing hauntingly fun tunes.

It be a foggy night along the river.

VIDEO of the Cadaver Dans performing “Cruella De Vil”

You may want to pass on Haunted Mansion Holiday if you’re visiting the park during regular hours, since it’s available to all guests during Halloween Time.  It’s worth noting, however, that the Mansion looks spectacular lit at night.

When we wanted to head back to Fantasyland, we took the path that goes along the side of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  There was eerie lighting and thunderous rumblings coming from some usually quiet nooks back in the area.  It was actually pretty creepy, that is until we came across this happy sight!

This is where Mickey & Minnie host their meet & greet during the party!  As we continued back along the path, the rumblings continued until we came across a dragon hidden in Fantasyland!  Yes, a DRAGON!!  It was another one of those incredible, yet subtle, Disney details.  I’d be willing to bet that most of the party guests never even encountered it, but I was so happy that we did.  We stood back there for a good 10 minutes just watching it peek out of its cave.  The Dragon’s not listed as an attraction on the map, just like the castle “dancing,” it’s just something you stumble upon.  I did take video of the experience, but the video doesn’t do the Dragon justice, so I’ll let you experience this one for yourselves. We then moseyed over to it’s a small world, to find the attraction decorated for the party, too!  Pumpkins happily bounced along, although it would’ve been really cool to see them sync up with the music, like the projections on Main St.

In Tomorrowland, Mike & Sully host a Monsters U Dance Party, and every time we passed, the DJ was spinning great music!  Lots of pop hits from the 80's & 90's – totally up my alley.

Like Haunted Mansion Holiday, Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy is another holiday themed attraction available during both regular park hours, and during the party.  We noticed this time, though, that there were sound effects playing outside of the attraction, along with some cool projections.  The sound effects were incredibly loud, almost disturbing, and not in a fun scary kind of way.  Just obnoxiously loud.  Every time it would go off, you’d see the crowd cringe.  I’m not sure why they have it set so high.  Looked cool, though.

Fun lighting effects for Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy (not edited!)

Something I learned AFTER we attended the party that I wish we would’ve known about beforehand, is that Toontown hosts a pre-party.  While the area is closed during the hours of Mickey’s Halloween Party, I found out later that on party nights, Toontown closes 2 hours before the park’s normal operating hours to regular day guests, and is open exclusively to party guests during that time.  There are special character meet & greets, including Mickey & Minnie in Halloween costumes I have never seen before – from photos I saw, it looked like Minnie in a candy corn themed dress and Mickey dressed as Zorro!  I also heard rumblings of a possible Roger Rabbit sighting!  If you’re planning to attend any of the parties this month, don’t expect to see this info in your party maps, just check it out for yourselves.

We had an absolutely wonderful time at Mickey’s Halloween Party, and I’m seriously considering buying tickets for us to go back again this year.  While it’s still a fairly new event for the park, Disneyland has grown it into a wonderful experience for the whole family.  There’s quite a bit to see & do, so just know that you may not get to experience everything.  I’d highly recommend trying to plan out your night beforehand to ensure that everyone in the family gets to fit in their “must-do.”  My biggest tip would be to try to take time to take in those small details, like the castle “dancing,” the Fantasyland dragon, and even the pumpkin projections on it’s a small world.  For us, those details made the night so much more memorable and fun.  Dare I say, magical?  I’ll leave you with some shots we took as we grudgingly made our way out of the park, just after midnight.  There’s also a photo gallery below with even more pictures for you to peruse, if you’d like.

Goodnight, Disneyland. Happy Halloween!

Disclosure: Adventures by Daddy was hosted by Disneyland and provided with admission to Mickey’s Halloween Party for the purposes of writing this review.  However, all opinions expressed are those of the author.  For more family travel news, reviews, and trip reports, be sure to follow Adventures by Daddy on twitter and “like” our facebook page too.