Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party Part I

On Sunday September 28 we took our trip to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. Jesse dressed as Giorgio A. Tsoukalos meme form from the Ancient Aliens series on History Channel. Amara dressed as Cheshire Cat. I didn't get a chance to pull a costume together so I just wore my murder show top and wire Maleficent horns. This was our arrival photo taken in front of the Magic Kingdom. I'm a little pissed that the gentleman taking photos for families did not get in the rest of the jack-o-lanterns and the main focal point of the train station. Due to excitement I did not check the photo for composition. 

We entered the park, got our wristbands and trick or treat bags, and headed to the Fire Station to pick up our special Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom party card. I then went and staked out our spot in line for the Jack and Sally meet and greet. We were the second family in line, which is really excellent! I sent Jesse and Amara off to have some fun while I sat and held our spot. 

They got back to me just a little bit past 6 p.m. The line for Jack and Sally had substantially grew to about 75 people. Jack and Sally were scheduled to start meeting promptly at 7 p.m. Well at 6:15 Photopass photographers, managers, and character attendants came out. One of the managers announced that they had a surprise for us. Just thirty seconds later Jack and Sally came out and quickly began meeting with party guests. 

This was great because it opened up quite a window for us to get a head start on our "priority to-dos". Since the majority of everything we wanted to do took place in Fantasyland area we headed over that way. 

On our way there we were handed four paper fastpasses from a family that was leaving. So I went and grabbed a spot in line for us to meet the Queen of Hearts and sent Jesse and Amara on their way once again. They came back to me at 6:50. Just in time for the party to officially begin.

After meeting the Queen of Hearts we hit a few trick or treat lanes through the circus area and down the trail back to Tomorrowland. 

I had Donald on my priority meet and greet list due to his adorable costume. He was meeting with Goofy. I grabbed our spot in line and sent them to go through the trick or treat lanes some more to get more candy.

After meeting Donald and Goofy I headed to grab a spot in the seemingly long line for Minnie Mouse. Jesse and Amara both went on to grab more candy and met back up with me after hitting a few candy spots. Daisy Duck was meeting directly across from Minnie Mouse and ha a significantly shorter wait than Minnie Mouse. I sent Jesse and Amara over there because Amara wanted a photo with Daisy Duck as well.

They finished meeting Daisy just as it was our turn to meet Minnie Mouse.

After this it was already 8 p.m. and we were sweating like crazy. it was time to cool down with a treat. Heading through New Fantasyland we found a very short wait for The Witch from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She was on Amaras list to meet so we took advantage of the short wait time.

Also I couldn't resist another photo of my husbands awesome costume.

We made it to Storybook Treats and got cups of Candy Corn Swirl Soft Serve Ice Cream. It tasted like regular vanilla soft serve, but it had a scoop of candy corn on the bottom of the cup. I was expecting candy corn flavored soft serve. I was really disappointed in this, however it did taste yummy of course! 

We took a look at our list and had already knocked out three quarters of our list. The last thing in this area of the park on our list was Winnie The Pooh group. I knew this would be a long wait. We got there at 8:40 p.m. and was told we may be able to make it in by 9:05, but may ultimately be waiting until their 9:50 set. Knowing if we were to leave and come back the queue would be once again filled I decided to wait it out and sent Jesse and Amara on the candy hunt once again. They got back to meet roughly around 9:20 p.m. Just before the Hallowishes firework show. Something we had planned to skip because we don't enjoy watching the fireworks from inside the park at Magic Kingdom.  After the fireworks were over, the Pooh gang made their way to the meeting spot...without Winnie The Pooh. He was "off with Christopher Robin". I was aggravated for a moment, but didn't let that spoil the moment.

After getting our photo with these adorable three we made our way over to Frontierland for the 10:30 p.m. parade. I got us a nice spot right in front of the Diamond Horseshoe [Club Villain] and sent Jesse and Amara inside to see what villains were out and to possibly knock out meeting Governor Ratcliffe. They ended up meeting Cruella DeVille while inside.

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party Part II

Villains Unleashed!

Yesterday was Disney's Villains Unleashed event. A separate ticketed event that guests were able to enter the park at 5 p.m. and begin their villainous night. My night started just shortly after 5 p.m. I entered the park and headed over to the Indiana Jones area to pick up my credentials. Which ended up just being an over sized laminate PhotoPass card. I thought it was a cute idea verses the normal wrist band procedure. 

After I was done in that line I took a stroll around the back side of the park to get an idea of what characters were going to be where and their greet times. I knew Dr. Hamsterveil and Gantu were going to probably be one of the longest waits and Constatine. There were people already lined up for both at around the 5:45 p.m. mark. I ended up choosing to meet The Witch first and I got in her line at 7:00 p.m. Her meet started promptly at 8:30 p.m. I was fifth in line to meet her. They also gave out a bag of sliced apples as you left her meet.

After meeting The Witch I scurried over to the Star Wars area because Emperor Palpatine was on my "Must See" list. My goal was to knock out as many greets with characters I've never met before as possible. As I followed along with Kenny The Pirate and other people tweeting and posting wait times I started hearing "2 hour wait for this" "3 hour wait for that" It almost discouraged me. I'm walking by Darth Maul, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader and you can see the ridiculously long lines of people waiting to meet their favorite villains. I get to Sci-Fi Diner and see about 30 to 40 people in line. Seeing as this was considered a short line I jumped in and the line was moving very quickly. His set ended before I got in, but there was only about 10 people in front of me now and it would be 30 minutes before he came back. I decided to wait it out since I was so close and I came to meet characters! After a 45 minute wait I met Emperor Palpatine and two Imperial Guards. I count the Imperial Guards as 1 character since they are dressed exactly the same and do not have individual names.

Emperor Palpatine and The Imperial Guards were the only Star Wars characters I was after that night since all the others that were out and available I had met on previous occasions at Star Wars Weekends. I headed to Echo Lake to check out the status of the Hyenas. I saw that Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox were out and I asked the cast member at the front about the hyenas. She pointed to row of guests to her right and said they are waiting on the Hyenas and they will be out in 5 minutes. The hyenas line only had about 30 to 40 people in it. So with the knowledge I have of knowing it doesn't take 30 minutes to meet 30 guests I knew I would get in on the upcoming set. I met Banzai, Shenzi, and Ed and they were my favorite meet of the night. Very playful and interactive. Ed was just adorable.

As soon as I finished with the hyenas I noticed the line for the Br'ers was very short with about 15 people in it. The hyenas only had 3 minutes left after I met with them so I knew time was no on my side. After a 20 or so minute wait I met Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox.

My character count was now 8 characters met, and 6 of them were new to me meets. I was doing good. I let that bit of information keep my spirits up all the while I'm reading angry tweets and facebook comments about how lines are too long and people are only getting to meet 1 or 2 characters. I headed over to Streets of America to check out the Gantu and Dr. Hamsterviel situation. These two were at the top of my list that I really wanted to meet. Gantus line was closed for his last set and he was still meeting in his second set. The cast member informed me that Hamsterviels line was still open. I decided to go ahead and jump in. If I couldn't get both I would at least have one. It was roughly a 40 minute wait until I got to meet Hamsterviel and it was so worth it. He was adorable. I asked him if he'd like to take over the world tonight and he clapped with joy.

As I exited the greet I noticed the Gantu line only had 30 people in it. I thought to myself how odd it was that his line was closed off already when during a 30 minute greet with no autographs a character could easily meet up to 50 to 60 guests. So I lingered near the entrance to see if they would open his line up. Low and behold they did and I got in. 

Seeing how it seemed I was having some dumb luck or maybe it was me being prepared or maybe staying in good spirits about the event, I thought I would try my luck with Constatine. I had been hearing all night about how great his meet was and how worth it it was. Afterall it was the actual puppet from the movie and it was said that the actual puppeteer for him from the movie was the one behind the frog for the occasion as well. Well as with all luck it does eventually run out. I did not get in to meet him and it was now 12:15 a.m. I headed off through Streets of America one last time to see what was going on. The streets was practically empty with most of the guests still standing in line for stationary characters. I happened to come across some roaming characters that were not annoyingly crowded and I found guests that were more than happy to take a moment to take a photo for me. So I ended my character hunting adventure at Villains Unleashed with Foulfellow, Prince John, and Sheriff of Nottingham.

Character Hunting totals for the night were:

13 Unique Characters

9 New Characters to my book

The night ended with Maleficent bestowing a gift upon us that lit up the skies. Villainy in the Sky was hands down the best fireworks show I've seen at Walt Disney World, with Symphony in the Stars as a close runner up. The actress they had for Maleficent NAILED it and her performance brought chills to my spine. Overall I had a great time and I hope they decide to do more events like this. I will gladly go back and pay the premium again. All it takes is a little bit of planning and a positive attitude to have a great time. I'm sorry for those who did not enjoy their time there and were only able to meet one or two villains. I do agree I believe they oversold this event quite a bit and crowd levels were extremely high for such a short event with so much stuff packed into one night. It was impossible to do even half of the things there, but I went in having that expectation and knowing that I would not be able to do everything or meet everyone. I went in with a plan, I executed it and deviated where I needed to so I could make sure I had an outstanding time. On the way out guests were handed a large autograph card from the event plus a goodie bag with different things in it including 2 other autograph cards.