E41- Let’s Go To Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom
In this episode, join me as I take you on our exciting journey of attending Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom. I share our experience and insights, providing valuable tips and recommendations for making the most of this spooktacular event. We cover it all, from character meet and greets to exclusive food options, parades, fireworks, trick-or-treating, and shorter ride wait times. I even drop a pro tip about starting your night out at the Contemporary Resort and offer advice on prioritizing activities to avoid feeling overwhelmed. Whether you’re a Disney enthusiast or a Halloween lover, this episode is a must-listen. Grab your favorite Halloween costume, tune in, and get ready for a frightfully fun adventure at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!
In this episode, we will:
- Discover the exclusive and spooktacular food options available only at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!
- Meet your favorite Disney characters dressed in Halloween costumes and create magical memories.
- Immerse yourself in the enchanting experience of trick-or-treating and collect treats throughout the park.
- Get insider tips on attending and prioritizing activities at the party to make the most of your time.
- Explore the unique and limited-time entertainment offerings, shows, and parades that will leave you in awe.
Transcript
Here is a transcript of the podcast. Please remember this was done via AI, so there are typos and mistakes.
Beth 0:06
Welcome to the roaming Yeti podcast where we share travel stories full of nostalgia, interesting locations and the tales behind those locations. I am your host and head Yeti Beth Schillaci. This week we’re going to a party. We’re going to Mickey’s not so scary Halloween party.
Beth 0:25
This is a special ticketed event that they have at the Magic Kingdom. And we were supposed to go three years ago. And this is actually our first time in Magic Kingdom for Halloween season. And we had reservations, like I said, in 2020. But as you can guess both the parties got canceled. And of course, we decided not to go down at that point in time. California, California Adventure in Anaheim has a similar event that we went to 14 or 15 years ago, Julia was in kindergarten, and we went to so we really wanted to experience what it was like here in Disney World at Magic Kingdom. So just to give you a little background on it, the party starts at seven, and you can get into the park as early as four o’clock 4pm without needing a park admission or park reservation. And then it ends at midnight. So there’s, it sounds like a lot of time, but there’s so much to pack into this event. You really sort of have to pick and choose what you want to accomplish, like what’s your priority. I feel like I say that all the time about Disney but that just gives you so much to choose from. So you do you have to sort of either divide and conquer if you have different goals or pick what you want to do and go for that. I mean you have characters you have event exclusive food as well as the other halloween food they have in Magic Kingdom at this time. There’s entertainment, there’s trick or treating, there’s rides. So let me break it down a little bit. Each one of these before I get into what we did and our experience characters. One of the really cool thing about any of their after our events at Disney is you get an opportunity to meet and greet with characters that you wouldn’t normally meet in the park on your typical day. Or they have on a special costume lot of Halloween costumes going on. Of course, near the beginning of the night, I walked up to one cast member because I wanted to know how long the line was for a Donald Duck. And she told me it was already two hours long. And we had gotten in there around five or so. So I was like this is no this is gonna take up almost half of the event for me to get my picture so I it just wasn’t gonna work with what I wanted to do. And like I said, as you know in traveling and in anything with me, I am not going to yuck someone’s yum. I love a character Meet and Greet more than anyone I suggest doing them. But it it just the lines were really long there. It just wasn’t worth it for us to do that. We have stood in those lines. We stood in a Jack Skellington line that took hours and so we’ve done it and if you want to do it and that’s your priority, go for it. So let me help you out with who is there. So you can start figuring out who’s who’s the top one to check out. There is Sally and Jack Skellington and Mickey Mouse is on his typical there in the Main Street area. And Tomorrowland you can find stitch trust is Elvis, and fantasy land has the most let me go through these areas Ariel and Prince Eric Belen guest on. This one was so hard to resist but I did Tigger Pooh, Piglet and er all together in Halloween costumes. I’d seen pictures of them adorable. I just I had to resist it was hard. Drizella and Anastasia are roaming around. A really big one that doesn’t happen often is all seven dwarfs were out. We actually stumbled upon them at a Christmas party once and we have a picture of years ago of the three of us with the seven dwarves. But they’re not out a lot. So that was a really big one. Timon was out for your Disney Jr fans, Doc McStuffins fan Purina Fancy Nancy and like I said that there was oh it was which Mickey I mean I’m sorry which mini Princess Daisy and pumpkin Donald Are you kidding me but no, no two hours too long. There was pirate goofy in those were all in fantasy land and Adventure Land you abou and Aladdin which you don’t always see them Genie, which isn’t always out. Jafar and Jack Sparrow from pirates was out in Adventure Land as well. Frontier lamb for talent, there was fun they had the Country Bears but they were sort of roaming around so it wasn’t really a meet and greet. You could just sort of see him high five them get a quick selfie with them kind of thing. So they were they were a lot of fun but they’re used you see them a lot. Normally in Magic Kingdom but it was fun. Like I said, that’s the character thing. If that’s your priority, you know get there at four some people can line write it for or close to it when they were allowed to. Food foods. Another thing to that you can spend a lot of time with. There is food throughout the park that is exclusive to the party. It cannot be eaten at any other time. I won’t go into every single item that’s available. You can find it on Disney’s website. But we did try three desserts that I will talk about later. There’s a lot more sweet options and savory options but you know it they were fun and it was worth you know worth taking the brakes for those. Like I said check out Disney’s website, you’ll see the food list. We did that. So we sort of knew which ones we wanted to hit and and that worked out out well because we were on the lookout in those areas. There’s a lot of entertainment there’s a lot that keep you busy. There’s parades, fireworks stage shows. There is the you know, I don’t want to say main event. But there is a Mickey’s boo to you Halloween parade that takes place twice a night. And I would suggest if you plan if you want to see the parade if you want to see one of the parade and you plan to stay the duration of the party to midnight. Try catching the second parade. A lot of families have left a lot of other people have left you can usually get an easier it’s easier to get a good spot to to watch. Also, the ride lines tend to be shorter during the parade. So if you do the second parade, you can hit the rides then or vice versa. But if you’re going to do the parade, I would suggest holding on to the second one. This year there was a Hocus Pocus Villain spectacular stage show in front of the castle. Depending on the month of the party. This takes place either three or four times during the party. That wasn’t really something we were looking to participate in. And there’s also the not so spooky spectacular fireworks that take place once a night and can be seen over Cinderella’s castle. A lot of people like to see it as Cinderella’s castle and on Main Street because there’s projections and stuff on the castle if you’re just we heard the fireworks we were in Pecos Bill finishing up eating and we heard them and I was like it that sounds really close. And they were actually firing them off behind Big Thunder Mountain so we got to catch a few at the end. So you really can see the fireworks from a lot of vantage points within the park. Just as pens what you want your experience to be sort of, I don’t want to say sort of it’s more of unscheduled entertainment I’ll say in front Tirolean you can see they’re not the dapper Dan’s during the party. They’re the cadaver Dan’s barbershop barbershop quartet. Cool. That’s a mouthful. And in venture land, there was the rusty Cutlass pirate band.
Beth 9:06
So those you know are sort of roaming and they take place from time to time so it’s fun to catch while you’re waiting for a parade maybe or waiting for food. There are a lot of fun. And again for you Disney Jr. If you have little kids with you. There is a dance party over at cosmic rays. That was really cute. So you know as the characters food to keep you busy. Also, and shows Yep, Soviet characters food shows to keep you busy. There’s also trick or treating. When you go in, you’re given a treat bag. And there’s stations throughout the park that are marked. So you know where you sort of walk through ride queues that are open and you trick or treat. Mars Wrigley was sponsoring the treat so we got a lot of m&ms Snickers Skittles darbus Starburst and that Starbucks people would have been much more excited about that Starburst and caramel Milky Way’s which, as a carnal lover, I’m thoroughly enjoying. If you do have a food allergy, you can get a teal color treat bag and collect tokens and then you can redeem those tokens at the end of the night for a special treat. So, that’s the trick or treating. There’s also rides. Many of the rides are open and because the attendance is limited, the wait times are shorter. So these events are great for getting a lot of rides a Magic Kingdom you know, I say how hard it is to do magic kingdom. Because of the volume of rides. This makes it a little easier. Only three rides I was surprised have what they called Halloween twist. Space Mountain. Apparently it’s just darker. I don’t know. I don’t ride Space Mountain. Mad Tea Party, which is the teacups had cool Halloween music and lights. It was fun. And monsters left floor. That was sort of the ending of one of the trick or treat queue. So you ended up in their performance and it was just you know, stand up interaction. It was really cute. So it was fun. Tron was open and they did have a spurt special virtual cube during the event which made it easier to get on. So that was that was a lot of fun. You can definitely wear costumes. We did not. We knew we were going into beginning of September and it was going to be hot. And boy. Was it hot. John and I did have Halloween shirts I bought at Old Navy probably could have done better. I know we were a little bit of a disappointment to Julia but we we did our best let’s just say but to the people that were dressed in full costumes in long sleeves and pants. I salute you. I salute you for your commitment in that hot and humid weather. I saw a guy in a Tigger onesie. Yeah, sir. Well done. Also two. There were two young women dressed as Natasha Romanoff and Neil Lena biloba, and like their full Black Widow gear. Yeah, again, hats off to you. You win an award in my mind like it was it was hot. And they were they were rocking those costumes. So most of the costumes we saw were Disney Theme. But I did see some Barbies. I saw some Mario and Luigi. So you know, you don’t have to go Disney themed. If you if you go and decide to wear a costume, there are still some rules for people over 14. Wearing costume. So let me let me get over. Let me get my rule rule following voice here. Now, but while you’re dressed as your favorite character, you can never pose with guests or give autographs at any time. So don’t let the little kids think you’re actually one of the you’re one of the characters. Your costume should be family friendly and appropriate for the environment and not be anything objectionable. Remember, this is a family event. There’s a lot of adults only but there but you know, there’s still a lot of kids, no weapons or look alike accessories. Costume can’t have anything sharp, sharp or pointy. additional screening may be required if you have a lot of layers on your costume. And you can’t your costume can’t drag on the ground can’t be a hazard to you or other people keeps coming can be no longer than your waist. But you know, Edna Mode says NO CAPES. Maybe that’s a good idea. You can add costume headwear like wigs, hats, accessory accessories, as long as they don’t cover your face. And you can’t wear any mask if you’re an adult or a teen no mask at all. You’re allowed face paint, but no no mask. So how did our heart how did our party go? How did our night go? Let’s get into it. So we started that day in Epcot. And we did that because we were staying at Boardwalk. It’s an easy walk over to Epcot. And we knew we could take the monorail over to Magic Kingdom. If you heard my food and wine episode, you know he was really bad that day, that trip. And in hindsight, maybe we should have started our day off a little later. Because we were planning to go to midnight, which is way past my bedtime. I’m glad we did it but it can be really, really late for me. We were sort of trying to take a air conditioning break in Epcot and trying to figure out sort of what to do for a few hours before the event. It was heat they were calling for storms. So I sort of hatched an idea. So we decided to take the monorail to the Transportation Center. And then from the Transportation Center, you can either get a monorail that goes right to Magic Kingdom, or you can get on the resort’s monorail that takes you to the monorail resorts which are the Polynesian grand, flirty and contemporary. So the plan was to go to the contemporary and check out a lounge there called the steakhouse 71 lounge. The monorail the monorail, was already filling up filling up with people that were heading the Magic Kingdom for the event. And I don’t know what if it was weather or what happened but we sort of got stuck at the Grand Floridian for a little bit but we still got to contemporary. And we timed it sort of perfectly, we got really lucky. It was raining and because the monorail stops inside the hotel we were we were spared the raindrops at least for then that amount of time. But we were also as proud as I was of this idea. We were not the only ones with the idea to pregame a little bit at the lounge. But it was fun to see like who was going to go what costumes people were wearing groups were coming in and they were dressed as you know, they sort of had group costumes. It was a lot of fun. And we hadn’t you know, we had a couple of drinks and some food and snack before we decided to head over to Magic Kingdom. Now the nice thing about contemporary is you can walk over to the entrance, it’s still probably about a 15 minute walk. But the security line is just for people like walking on that path. So it’s faster and it was you know, it was pretty seamless. Given all the crowds walking in. The park was still open when we were when we went in. So we were given our hand our you get a bracelet so they know you belong there. And then you’re we were routed behind Main Street to enter the park actually, which was sort of sort of coal. It used to be more back what they call backstage. But they’ve really done a nice job of of just making it another another route for guest. We were given our treat bags and our first trick or treat candy of the night. So John’s mission was to get on Tron use the virtual cue he went ahead because his number was called and he he enjoyed the ride. We had written it in Shanghai, and I’m because of that I will never go on it again. But John swears it’s smoother at this new one, but I’m just gonna have to take his word for it because I went on that in Shanghai. I was nauseous for a good 2030 minutes after the ride. So I’m I’m not in the mood. As I mentioned in the Food and Wine episode, or my parents were with us on the trip, and they you know, they wanted to see the early parade. So we made our way over to frontier land. Why frontier land, you want to do Main Street right now not for this one. The parade begins in frontier land, and then it weaves out to Main Street and most people like to watch it on Main Street. But the advantage of Frontier land is you see the parade first and then you can walk back out through Adventure Land and get your transportation back to the resort before people see the parade on on Main Street so you can sort of beat those crowds.
Beth 18:56
Plus frontier. Frontier land has some fun entertainment while waiting for the parade. They have the cadaver dance that I mentioned they’re singing Country Bears are walking around entertaining. So there’s some there’s some food back there and some shops so there’s a lot more things to do to sort of help you occupy your time and you’re not in the sort of the crush of the crowd for that first parade. Michael, I was on the hunt for a few party exclusive food items. Plus I had the ride the Haunted Mansion, you don’t go to a Halloween party and not write the Haunted Mansion, right. Plus, I wanted to trick or treat because it’s the only place that really it’s appropriate for someone person my age to still do that. And our goal was to stay up late enough to hit the late parade so I think we did everything. I think we were good. Like I said there were some characters that I would have loved to see but I know I just When I couldn’t do it this time, but I think everything else went went according to plan. So I met up with John after he was done with Tron. And then we went to the Haunted Mansion. They had. I didn’t know this was gonna happen, but this was so much fun. So they had ghost at the entrance and they were entertaining everyone in line. And they were so funny. They were very quick. They were interacting with the crowd. I mean, I could have really just hung out at the doorway all night, and watch them. It was a lot of fun. I think we talked about this in our destination d 23. Episode that they were supposed to add or they’re adding the Hatbox Ghost to the ride. He was not there yet. So I think the announcement we heard was end of November, so I’m not really sure what is taking so long, but we didn’t get to see him and I was sort of hoping for that. Like I said, we wanted to try some of the party exclusive foods. There were three that we decided upon. There was a skull shaped Mexican chocolate brownie filled with dill J Dilla. J. It was on a cart outside of the Haunted Mansion. The chocolate the brownie was really good. It had a nice that nice Mexican spice and even a little bit of heat. But I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say the one we had was filled with dodge, dodge J Dilla. J. It was good, but it could have been a little better. Another one we had was called candy corn milkshake. Stick with me here. It was a sweet corn salts, soft serve. topped with whipped cream and a sweet potato cornbread nugget. It was really good. And I would totally have that one. Again. Again, it sort of sounds weird, but it it really tasted good. And the last food item we had was Zombi finger cookies, which were an almond cookie shaped like a finger and they were in a cup of key lime pie. White chocolate ganache. Had salted caramel pearls and sugar eyes. And believe it or not, that was our favorite of the three. I would have that again. Like tomorrow. It was really cute. I’ll have pictures up on Instagram. It was cute. It tasted good. It was just it was fun. It was fun to share. So definitely worth worth that. And that’s at Starlight, it’s cosmic rays restaurant. And then we did a trick or treating. We filled up both of our bags with the treats and it was just fun to walk around and collect the scoops of ice scoops of candy from cast members. I don’t know that I’ll have to buy candy for a while it was a it was a good haul and and a lot of fun again like it’s not appropriate for adults to trick or treat in many places. But it was fun. It was fun to interact with the cast members that’s you know, I always love that. The parade we made the late parade but real talk my legs were so sore at this part point and I felt a bit like all off in summer just dealing with heat and rain on and off in the evening. But I made it I made it through the parade and I’m glad I did you know I sound whiny and I apologize for that but we decided to breathe Main Street instead of Frontier land for the parade. We thought maybe being closer to the exit because the crowds were a lot less and we did we got a really good spot we if the Headless Horseman came out we would have had a really good spot for him but because of the rain he he didn’t did not make an appearance. Which was disappointing but I mean we get it totally everyone has to be safe so the parade was was fun. I love seeing my favorite characters in our Halloween costumes. Just the level of talent and entertainment and the heart and soul everyone puts into those it’s it’s really fun. What I do the party again. I think so. I mean I definitely would do late later in September October. I think if you’ve listened to this in the food and wine you know I’m probably not going back down to Disney for Labor Day. Unless there’s a really big reason to do it. I’m just I’m not made for that heat. I’m just not. I would definitely stop at a monorail resort again before heading into the park. I think but they did. announced the lounge at the destination d 23. And I mentioned that in an episode so that that may be a game changer for these parties too. That’ll be interesting how that’s that’s handled with a lounge. But you know, stopping and just making sure you had a pretty good meal, before we ate all the treats and stuff. Like we had way good food at the lounge, so I would definitely recommend doing that. Having a good meal, good, you know, maybe a drink or two or just whatever. Before heading in what I recommend to everyone to do this party No. I mean, I’m gonna be honest, you know, you guys know I’m I try to be honest with you good and bad, good, bad and ugly. If you’re not a huge Disney fan, or even a Halloween fan, I’m I’m not really sure how much you would enjoy it. The lines are shorter, yes, but there are other after our events that would maybe work better for you. On the flip side, if you are a huge hocus pocus or Disney fan, I think it’s worth checking out. There’s a lot of fun, fun stuff, characters, things that you won’t normally see. And that, as I’ve said before, and I’ll probably say a million times in future episodes, I think the best thing to do when attending any of these kinds of things is, is to really pick your priorities for the evening or whatever time period because you won’t get as overwhelmed. And then you’ll make sure you do you know what you want to do. Alternatively, if you don’t have any must dues, you know, just wait, enjoy walking around and taking it all in. You know, you really can just enjoy, enjoy the moment the park, the people there, the atmosphere at the Halloween party is really fun, it’s a lot more relaxed, loud music playing, it’s much more of a party than a typical day at Magic Kingdom. So, you know, it might be a good way to experience magic kingdom for your first time too. So, like I said, you do what you’re comfortable with. But you know, if you want to have a full Disney Experience, then then definitely you know, check it out. But check the list of rides to make sure the rides you want to want to check out are available as well. But you know, have a good time. Get out there. If you go and you wear a costume, please tag me let me know I want to see what it is. But I hope these episodes inspire you to get out and roam even in your own neighborhood. So please subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. And if you like what we’re doing here, and please leave a review and a rating it’s so important. Also, to help support us please head to Yeti to shop.com to pick up some roaming Yeti merch, talk to you soon. Remember to keep roaming
