Welcome, foolish mortals, to the most magical Halloween of your lives! It’s that time of year where sunny Florida is artificially strewn with orange and brown, and the Headless Horseman rides through the Magic Kingdom with his pumpkin head in hand. If you are so lucky to be welcomed this Halloween by the giant pumpkin Mickey head and to experience “Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party”, you are in for many tricks and treats. Here is a list of this year’s new Halloween additions, attractions, and treats that will make your Halloween to-die-for.
Trick-Or-Treat: This year’s Halloween party is much different from previous years, but the first difference you will notice is the special spooky entrance for Halloween Party guests. Usually, the Halloween party guest would enter through the normal park entrance. This year the guests are motioned in a different direction. Behind a spooky M&M themed blowup entrance, guests are welcomed with their trick-or-treat bags and another treat bag filled with dove chocolates, an assortment of M&M’s, and many other wonderful treats you don’t normally see at the Halloween parties. Disney’s trick-or-treating has changed a bit overall with there not being a sole time set for the event, but constant candy distributors all around the park. There are even trick-or-treat spots as you get off some of the rides! While this seems to be an easier flow of candy distribution, there are drawbacks to this new design. When in previous years there had been a set trick-or-treat time and a less convenient way of getting candy, ride accessibility was made easier with the crowds all out trick-or-treating. You could have ridden space mountain seven times, but now that is not as easy. The drawbacks of this new system lead to the next topic: ride closure.
Ride Closure: I’d like to get the bad stuff out of the way to make room for the magical. The only major downside to this new year’s Halloween party is the cancellation of some of our most favorite Disney World attractions. I had been used to “The Carousel of Progress” (one of my favorite Magic Kingdom experiences) being closed as the party started, a bummer that I expected. What I had not been expecting was the closing of a few other attractions that aren’t normally closed during the Halloween parties. This unfortunate list includes the “Jungle Cruise”, “Mike’s Laugh Floor”, the “Country Bears Jamboree”, and (most unfortunately) the “PhilharMagic” 4-D show. So, if you were looking forward to animatronic elephants, laughing it up with funny monsters, talking bison heads, and soaring through the sky with Donald Duck, I’m sorry to break it to you and I feel your pain.
Ride Additions: On a much more magical note, this year’s party has added some spooky new features to a few of the rides. The classic “Mad Tea Party” gets a monster-mash revamp with Halloween lights and music bouncing madly around the dizzy little cups. For a more intense, but less sickening experience, “Space Mountain” has a spooky Halloween Party trick as well. While it’s normally dark as you are plunged into the depths of space, the starry lights give some sense of surrounding. Now it’s pitch black, pure darkness on a speedy, plunging rollercoaster! Finally, for a more immersive story experience, “The Pirates of the Caribbean” have switched some of their animatronic residents for live, swaggering pirates! Sail through the line with actual pirates. As you enter the stony cave you will find a begging pirate behind bars to give you an unexpected spook. Further down is a free pirate searching for a “Notorious Pyrate” by the name of Gunpowder Pete. Be on the lookout for this Gunpowder Pete, he will look you dead in the eyes as you set sail on your pirate ship and speak to you as you pass on by.
Desserts: The desserts have been the hot topic of this year’s Halloween Party with their magical touch of creativity in every bite. There’s the “Candy Corn Milkshake”, topped with a Mickey-shaped marshmallow and some fluffy orange cotton candy. “Zero’s Waffle Sunday”, two amazing Disney pumpkin waffles stamped with everyone’s favorite ghost dog, Zero, and topped off with a mountain of vanilla ice cream. Along with Zero is his ghoulish master, Jack Skellington, as a Pumpkin King “Cake Push Pop”. Oogie Boogie also gets a spooky treat in the “Oogie Boogie Meringue”. The Haunted Mansion gets its fair share of desserts with the Madame Leota pastry and the “Hitchhiking Ghost dessert” where the ghosts sit in a doom buggy crème puff. Finally, the most popular dessert of this year’s Halloween Party is the Maleficent dole whip. Lime green dole whip topped with purple sprinkles, sits in a black cone, and is crowned with two chocolate horns. It is quite the (sleeping) beauty!
Shows: It is time, ladies and gentlemen, for the moment you have been waiting for. The shows! Disney is known quite well for their theatrics, and Halloween is where they shine. New to the party is the “Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular”. Someone must have lit the black flame candle again because the Sanderson sisters are back at it. The three bewitching sisters summon all of their villain friends to the show of a lifetime. So, let all of your favorite evil villains put a spell on you; it’s actually worth it! A night never ends in Disney without some loud, colorful, fire in the sky, and Halloween is where its best. The “Happy HalloWishes” fireworks show is truly one to behold. Not only is it one of the best firework displays, but it is accompanied by a brilliant musical score and your favorite Disney villains. Cast upon the castle are the haunting brutes of the dark Disney underground, recapping their evil deeds as they are projected onto the castle. If fireworks tend to bore you, this will change all of that. It truly is magical! Finally, the real moment you’ve been waiting for: “Mickey’s “Boo-to-You” Halloween Parade!” The clomping hooves of the Headless Horseman’s steed ushers the parade off to a spooky start. Holding his pumpkin head and riding a real, galloping horse, he unveils the rest of the happy haunts to dazzle you in this parade. You will see ALL of your favorites and then some on grand floats singing and dancing to the jolly “Boo-to-You” song (because it’s really not so scary).
There are so many magical feats of the “Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party” that all of its wonderment cannot be listed. So, grab your ghoulfriends and booyfriends, your mummies and your deadies, and get yourselves a ticket to this party! You will never forget the countless magical memories you will have here, they are delightfully haunting!