Attraction Review: Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

There really is nowhere more magical than the Magic Kingdom itself, and the premise of combining that magic with a parkwide takeover of Halloween goodness is obviously a match made in heaven in my opinion. I've never been a huge fan of the cutesy Halloween theming Disney usually opt for with their Halloween decor, but with three exclusive shows, unique character meet and greet opportunities and all the candy you can eat suffice to say I was absolutely buzzing for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.


I love that this is a separately ticketed event. It means that every single person in the place is there solely for the spooky fun, meaning the atmosphere is just wonderful. We jumped on the tram from the car park accompanied by a family of Mickeys, multiple Jack & Sally couples and Miley and Billy Rae Cyrus and made our way over to the park. Part of me wishes we did dress up, but my worry was that the calibre of costume would be really good and we'd just look shit in comparison. That was partly true, there were some really amazing efforts going on, but generally I was just thankful to be comfortable as it was a HOT evening. Always weird and hard for me to get into the proper spooky spirit whilst I'm sweating my balls off but there we go.




Of course, the first thing that happens when you enter the park is you're ushered into the side entrance and given a candy bag to start off your sugar rush for the evening. Conor also ran away and grabbed one of the themed tote bags for $5 so that we could maximise our candy haul, yay! We arrived in the park slightly earlier than the event debut time, so we got a couple of rides in and met some princesses before stationing ourselves in Fantasyland ready for the party to begin!





Whenever I go to things like this I have a mental checklist of things I want to do, and top of my list for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party was to meet the seven dwarves. The boys ditched and went on an epic candy run (more on that later) and Conor and I headed to the circus tents for some dwarf action. After confusedly running around trying to find which bloody tent was the right one, the host at the entrance delightfully told us it would be a two hour wait to meet them. I...didn't really think anything of it and we joined the queue. 90 mins later and we got our photo - yay! I don't mind waiting 90 when the interaction was that good - absolutely worth it (even if the queue had halved by the time we were done, boo!)


After spending that long in a queue for one thing I was getting slightly anxious and was gagging to get back out into the park to enjoy the party. Tomorrowland was first, to check out the Monsters Inc dance party. So super cute! Honestly I would have preferred if more adults and less toddlers were getting involved with dancing with Boo and Mike, then I maybe would have felt less of a twat, but whatever, it was cute and we had fun.



We then wandered over to Adventureland for some event exclusive treats and a ride on Pirates of the Caribbean, with live actors! I don't know if you saw it, but the menu for Mickey's Not So Scary treats was absolutely ridiculous, and if we'd eaten them all in one night I'm not sure we would have been feeling too great. I opted for the Hitchhiking Ghost Dessert, which was available from the Aloha Isle (usually home to the infamous Dole Whip). The dessert looked amazing, and tasted like a big profiterole. It was great.

Oh god, Pirates with actors was something I never knew I needed, but now I don't know how the actorless version is ever going to live up. All the prison cells in the queueline were full of pirate prisoners, wise-cracking as you would imagine. A dude with a wanted poster hung out in the station and essentially ad libbed and quipped with the riders about a missing pirate who we should be on the lookout for on our travels. It meant that the whole ride we were paying extra close attention to detail to all the scenes to try and spot him, only for him to be hanging out on the bridge in the final scene. It was so, so much fun. Please can we have Haunted Mansion with live actors next please Disney?


Speaking of which, we sashayed through Frontierland next and bumped into a few rare characters as we made our way over to the Haunted Mansion herself. I had a childhood obsession with Brer Rabbit growing up, so imagine my glee when we bumped into him hanging out outside the Lucky Nugget! Absolutely elated, what a rare and unexpected treat. Some of the gloomy residents of the Haunted Mansion were also moping around in Liberty Square, look all glamorous and dead.





This was the place to be for the true spooky vibes. The cosplayers and Haunted Mansion fanboys were out in force. We saw tons of groups dressed as the characters from the stretching portraits - including more than one dressed as the croc from the umbrella girl painting. So fab. There were a ton of official Disney photographers in this area taking fun spooky photos, so we queue up and did a few of those. How could we not? We were also treated to an extremely spooky looking Mansion complete with fog, extra lighting and more of the happy haunts putting on a little show for us out on the front lawn. All brilliant, atmospheric and just wonderful.

And now it was show time, and first up we grabbed our spot for Hallowishes. I won't lie, I don't LOVE fireworks. I'm not really a sentimental kind of person so you won't ever catch me blubbing at Wishes or whatever, but obviously they're spooky fireworks so I needed to see what the craic was. Turns out, so much fun! Just a fun fireworks show in spooky colours to a villain themed soundtrack - what's not to love! Considering they already have the parade and the Hocus Pocus show, this is something Disney really didn't have to do considering their line-up for the party was already stacked, but they did it anyway. That's what makes them fab.





We pitched up in Liberty Square just opposite Sleepy Hollow and waited it out for Boo To You to begin - perfect time for another treat then! This time we grabbed a Jack Skellington Cake Push Pop. Obviously this thing exists purely for the aesthetics, and honestly that is absolutely fine by me! It was basically just a cupcake with icing layers inbetween with a chocolate Jack on top, yummy but nothing out of the world to write home about. It was also at this point that the boys rejoined us...accompanied with two of those massive Disney parks carrier bags filled to the brim. Turned out they'd visited every single candy station in the Magic Kingdom, some of them twice. An evening well spent according to them haha.







 I've wanted to see Boo To You since forever and it really didn't disappoint. The headless horseman on an actual bloody horse clip clopping through Liberty Square was honestly one of the best things I've ever seen. He stopped just before the bridge too, bath in the gloomy lighting with the castle in the background. Just looked incredible - I'd have been content if that had been the whole thing to be honest with you! The parade itself is just perfect too - especially if you're a villain fan. I loooove when the parades include ride specific stuff, so the Pirates and Haunted Mansion sections were my favourite - especially the shovel sparks yay.




And all too quickly it was time for us to get in position for the final show of the evening  - the Hocus Pocus Villain Spectacular! We didn't have too bad of a spot, but I do wish we were slightly closer as the performers were looking slightly microscopic from where we were standing. The performers playing the witches were absolutely incredible, so so on point! You'd be forgiven for believing they were the real deal, they really were that good, absolutely nailed that truly Hocus Pocus line between camp, kitsch and creepy. Perfection. Oh, and having the villains as face characters gives the show a nice modern touch. Fantastic show, absolutely adored it.






And sadly, that was the end of the party. We spent a few last moments taking some photos and having a look in the shops before making our way out. And what can I say? Hands down best Disney event I've ever been to, and that's a lot. It was just so incredibly perfect and captured Halloween in a purely fun Disney way. The only issue was that there was too much to do for just one night, especially if you want to meet characters and sample all of the treats. Elvis Stitch, Tarzan and Jane, Halloween Minnie, Donald and Daisy, we absolutely would have loved to have met all of these characters and more, but there simply wasn't time to cram it all in. Next time we go we'll definitely we buying more than one night at the event, it's just too good not to do twice.

Talk later xoxo,

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