Happy Halloween! My brothers and I attended Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party on Friday, September 1st. It was during Labor Day weekend. In this post, I write about what we did, what we saw, and what we ate. I will also share my thoughts about this year’s party and several of photos!

I’ve attended MNSSHP only once before this year’s party. My first time attending MNSSHP was back in 2015 when I was 7 months pregnant and my husband and I dressed up as Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.

Before we get into it, I’ll share about our costumes. I’m obsessed with Toy Story and I decided that since we were a group of three, it would make perfect sense to dress up as the three toy story aliens! Our costumes were completely DYI costumes done by me (with some help from my mom-thanks mom!). I was able to buy everything I needed for our costumes at Joann Fabric store except for our hats. I already had my alien hat (I bought it through the Disney store online) and I ordered my brother’s hats on Amazon and decorated them with supplies from Joann Fabric store. The costumes turned out exactly how I wanted them to be and were really inexpensive. Gotta save where you can with those tickets prices at Disney haha.

Before The Party

Before we headed to the party we walked from our resort (Disney’s All-Star Sports) to Disney’s All-Star Movies to take pictures in the Toy Story area of the resort. It was probably 100F + degrees, but I was so determined to take pictures at “Andy’s room.” I don’t recall how long the walk was, but it was probably 15-20 minute walk. With the heat, it felt a lot longer!

After, we immediately took a bus to Magic Kingdom without checking the time and once we went through security at Magic Kingdom we realized it was only 3:10pm! For party guests, you can’t enter the park until 4pm (the cast member said that the earliest he could let us in was 3:45pm). Although, I am an annual passholder, my brothers are not. Instead of waiting around, we walked to Disney’s Contemporary Resort for a quick service meal.  The walk was about 10 minutes, but again because of the hot weather, it felt much longer. We ate at Contempo Cafe on the 4th floor of Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The food is brought to your table and the eating area has a great view of the monorail.

Party Time!

We arrived at the party with just about two hours to spare before the party officially started. The start time for MNSHHP was at 7pm. We got our party bracelets at the entrance and immediately got in line for a photo pass opportunity by one of Disney’s photographers (they are in several of locations throughout the park). The photographer at the entrance of Magic Kingdom has the magic shot with the headless horse man (popular)! Keep in mind that in order to download or get prints, you must pay for it. Since I’m a passholder, I am able to download all my photos for free.

 

After walking through the gates, we grabbed a party map (information on what restaurants and attractions are open during the party, treat and character locations, information about events, parade, and fireworks, plus much more!) I had already worked out a plan for our time at the party, so I did not use the map. I love taking party event information (party map, party, bracelet, etc.) home as souvenirs.

At every party, Trick-or-treating doesn’t start until 7pm, but there was one treat location that was open and giving out candy. It was located to the right of main street when entering the park. Instead of walking through Main Street, we went through the back walk-way and there were some beautiful Disney statues (Minnie, Pluto, etc) along the way. There were lines of people in costumes lined up to take pictures with the mini statues. We just walked past them, grabed our trick-or-treating bags and some candy, of course.

The first attraction we went on was Transit Authority People Mover in Tomorrowland with no wait time. By that time, dark clouds started to come in and it started to rain. It was drizzling by the time we got off the ride and so we speed walked to Mad Tea Party (tea cups ride) with a 5 minutes wait. I had wanted to ride Buzz Lightyear’s  Space Ranger Spin (because of our costumes) right after People Mover but the wait was about 30 minutes! It really started to pour after riding the tea cups. We had to put on our ponchos. We took clear ponchos from home with us so that our costumes could still be visible. After that, we decided to go watch Mickey’s PhilharMagic. A cool, enclosed space sounded refreshing. Mickey’s PhilharMagic is definitely one of my favorite shows at Disney and it never has a long wait. Most of the time I am able to walk right in and the show starts almost immediately. It was actually my brothers’ first time watching it and they really enjoyed it.

6:30pm

Doing it all during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween is impossible! it takes a lot of planning to get to experience all that you want to accomplish during the 5 hour party. I informed my brothers that if there was a popular character that they wanted to see then we needed to stop everything and get in line at 6pm, but my youngest brother, Jesus, didn’t have much of an opinion on this. My brother, Miguel, on the other hand really wanted to meet his favorite character, Alice! Since Alice is not much of a popular/rare character, I told him that he would need to get in line at 6:30pm. Majority of the characters for the party come out at 7pm. My brother Jesus and I walked over to meet Pooh and Tiger while my brother Miguel waited for Alice. There was a long line of people waiting for Pooh and friends in their Halloween costumes for the party, but before the party started Pooh and Tiger were meeting people at the same spot (next to The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh). We waited probably 2 minutes to meet Pooh and Tigger. The Pooh ride was the last ride we rode before the Halloween Party started. We went back to meet our brother Miguel and then we all meet Alice and Mad Hatter together. We had a great conversation talking about Pizza Planet with them.

What’s the one ride that you should probably ride during a Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom? Well, of course, The Haunted Mansion! It was pouring rain by the time we walked over to Liberty Square. The line for The Haunted Mansion was like no other that I’ve seen before! It was so long and there was just no way that we were going to wait in the pouring rain. We visited three treat locations that were near Liberty Square and ended up meeting Rapunzel and Tiana (I mean, it was just a 10 minute wait so why not!?). I was secretly hoping Princess Elena would have a short wait time because although I’ve never watched her TV show, I wanted to take a picture with her. Princess Elena is always a great character to interact with and is just so warm and friendly. I love taking my daughter (who’s name is Elena!) to meet her each time we are at Disney. Princess Elena, unfortunately,  had a 30 minute wait. Rapunzel and Tiana did not disappoint and both were amazing!

It had stopped raining by now. We went back to Tomorrowland to meet my favorite villian, Lotso! We probably ended up waiting 20-30 minutes to meet him because he’s pretty popular since he’s only out during the Halloween Party and not during regular park hours. He also took a break while were waiting. It sure was nice to do “nothing” and take a break for a while. Lotso, of course, loved our alien costumes!

While in Tomorrowland, we went to another treat location and also to dance at Monstrous Scream-O-Ween Ball. Boo was the only character out at that time. These kinds of dance parties are my favorite! Disney sure know how to throw parties (big and small!).

8:50 PM

By that time, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin was down to a 5 minute wait, so we decided to go for it and skip the first parade.

It had started pouring again by the time we got out of the Buzz ride. We ran with our umbrella and ponchos on to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe for dinner. I love having dinner at this restaurant because of the view of Cinderella’s castle! It was absolutely hectic this at this time during the party! We found one tablet for us three at the very back of the restaurant (not much of a great view of the castle, but at least we had a place to sit and eat without being in the rain!). Within minutes of getting our food, A LOT  of people were leaving. Fireworks were scheduled for 10:15pm, so I’m guessing people were leaving to find a spot to view the fireworks. There was a treat location inside the restaurant too!

For some reason, I forgot to take a picture of our food.  I think it was because I was hungry and started eating right away. Or maybe it was the fact that fireworks were going to start soon and we needed to get on our way to find a spot. I ended up getting a KIDS MEAL mac and cheese with fries, apple sauce and apple juice because that was the only vegetarian meal that they had! Of course, they had a smuckers PB and J, but I didn’t want that for dinner. Both of my brothers ate cheese burgers with fries.  While eating, I overheard someone saying that the fireworks had been delayed because of the rain. I was no longer feeling rushed and we all took our time eating and enjoying a break.

10:45pm

To be completely honest, I don’t remember the exact time the fireworks started. It was probably somewhere around 10:45pm. The fireworks got delayed due to the weather. I remember that when they announced that the fireworks were going to start “in just a few minutes,” it was still raining. There was no thunder. My brother, Jesus was so tired by this time. I had him sit on his poncho over my feet while I held the umbrella over us. I was wearing a poncho too. It wasn’t pouring rain but it wasn’t just drizzling either. When a few minutes passed, everyone put down their umbrellas and we all enjoyed the show. It was my first time viewing Magic Kingdom fireworks so close to the castle! There were not many people in the park and everyone had their own space while viewing the fireworks. If only it was like this everyday at the Magic Kingdom, right?

The Happy HalloWishes Fireworks were amazing- A must see for sure! I loved the Halloween music and all the different kinds of fireworks in the sky. Seeing the castle decorated with spooky lighting along with the the fireworks made my heart feel warm. Disney gives me all the feels each time. It’s moments like these where I feel so happy to be at “my happy place” with my loved ones.  A tear or two (rain!? 😉 ) may have gone down my cheek because it’s pure magic.

Immediately after the the fireworks show ended, an announcement informed us that the 11:15pm Mickey’s “Boo-To-You” parade was delayed and they didn’t know when it was going to start. My brothers were excited for the parade and we weren’t about to leave without watching it. Mickey’s “Boo-To-You” Halloween Parade is my all time favorite parade at Walt Disney World! We took a seat on Main Street. Even more people were leaving the park now. There were several of spots for parade seating along Main Street and even around the Hub. Photo Pass photographers hanged around Main Street taking pictures of families while we waited for the parade. Unfortunately, they were not taking pictures of families with the castle in the background (I even asked nicely, but no luck!).

Midnight

I love informing my brothers about everything that I know about Disney World and I love hearing their thoughts and answering their questions. We took this time to talk about our day and just simply enjoy our time together. My brother, Jesus, eventually took a short nap before the parade. Mickey’s “Boo-To-You” Halloween parade started a little after midnight. I remember this to be a fact because when the parade started, Jesus, checked the time and he said “What!? It’s already tomorrow!”

This concludes our Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party recap. We had a blast and definitely slept in the next morning! We made some great memories during the party and ended up with A LOT  of candy! Magic Kingdom is the ideal place to be for treat-or-treating because each treat station gives out a handful of candies! I would highly recommend this party to anyone visiting Walt Disney World during the Fall. It’s great for all ages and it’s not scary at all. Although, some characters during the parade may seem scary to small children. Most people do dress up (including adults) which I love! Overall, I think it’s worth the money and  I will continue attending Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party in the years to come. Have you attended MNSSHP? Or are you planning or wishing to attend one? I would love to hear from you in the comment section below!