Chapter 157
Fireworks! Parades! Duffy!

Mickey and Minnie were meeting along Big Thunder Trail, and we thought about waiting to meet them, but then we found out their line was over an hour. Instead, we just lurked nearby and tried to snap some pictures in between families.

One reason we certainly didn’t have time to wait for our favorite mice was because it was already time to begin camping out for the Halloween Screams fireworks show. We were about 30 minutes early and managed to grab prime spots in the hub, right in front of the castle.

Tracy and I were a little offended that one of the cast members had given us carrots on a treat trail, so we sneakily slipped them into someone else’s bag. Just candy for us, please!

The wait for fireworks felt like it took a while, mostly because it was getting a little chilly, but they started before too long. Right at the beginning of the show, the Jack Skellington balloon inflated and our pal Zero flew overhead!!

Honestly, they could have stopped the show right there and we still would have felt like we got our money’s worth. Luckily, however, it kept going into some pretty fantastic fireworks (which my camera, as usual, did a terrible job capturing).

At the end of the show, Zero made another appearance to cap off one of our favorite shows we’ve seen at Disneyland!

Right after the fireworks, we decided to walk through the Pixie Hollow Treat Trail. Our bags were literally overflowing with candy at this point, but we were mostly just interested to see what Pixie Hollow was like. We’ve never been through there before because the lines to meet Tinker Bell and her friends are always so absurdly long.

We’d been eating candy all night without having almost any water, so we were parched. Tomorrowland was the nearest logical spot to hit up, and we made a beeline for the Tomorrowland Terrace to get water cups. While we sat for a few minutes and refreshed ourselves, the Monsters University Dance Party started on the concert stage.

We actually hadn’t seen Monsters University yet at that point in time, but we still got the gist.

Mike and Sulley had quite the dance routine.

We weren’t really interested in staying here for too long, so we made our way back out of Tomorrowland after finishing our waters. We hadn’t even been down Main Street since the party got fully underway, so there were plenty of sights we hadn’t seen yet. I’m a big fan of the special lighting and projections.

Making it back to Town Square, it just looked so festive with the Mickey pumpkin and the giant ghosts.

We got a cast member to take our picture in front of the pumpkin, but I’d forgotten to turn the flash on, so it didn’t turn out great.

Here’s that ghost we’d admired from afar.

And here’s Tracy’s meet-and-greet with him.

With so much going on at the party, we’d forgotten about the villains meeting in front of Main Street Station, and by this time, they were getting ready to go away. In fact, their lines were already closed. We still sniped a few pictures of them as they got ready to leave, though.

It was almost time for the second showing of Mickey’s Costume Party Cavalcade (that’s the parade, in case the cryptic name didn’t make it obvious). We decided to grab spots on Main Street because there was still plenty of open curb space.

They were still doing kooky, spooky things with the lights on Main Street while we sat and waited.

Before long, the music changed and the first floats began to make their way out of Town Square.

This parade certainly isn’t anything to write home about—especially compared to everything I’ve heard about the Boo to You Parade in WDW—but it was still fun!

We had awesome views of the few floats and all the performers.

Just a pumpkin wheeling by.

Dancing pirates!

And another pumpkin.

I feel like the princesses must be really bitter about having to walk and dance instead of riding aboard their chic float in Soundsational.

And another pumpkin. You sensing a theme here?

The most thrilling moment for us was when Duffy came riding down the street on the back of a tricycle.

The parade was almost over when the car full of VIP guests came through.

But of course, EVERYONE knows that the proper penultimate section of any good parade is several bears dancing in tutus.

 The final float was quite elaborate and featured the Fab Five.

I couldn’t get a good, clear picture of Pluto and Goofy in their costumes.

And (obviously?) Miss Piggy was on the back of the float.

After the parade had passed, we decided to chase Duffy to try to get some better pictures as he came around the hub.

And I got some better photos of the final float.

The parade ending was also the indicator that the party was ending. We headed back down to Town Square to see the villains bidding us farewell.

I kept trying to get pictures of the fun Mickey’s Halloween Party logo that was projected on the sidewalk, but people kept walking through it.

On the whole, here are my thoughts about the party. We both left gabbing about how great a time it was, so our impression was mostly positive. Yes, it’s extremely crowded no matter when you go, but as long as you anticipate that fact, I think there are ways to work around the crowds. We figured out how to see almost everything we were interested in—including the fireworks, parade, and Cadaver Dans—and we successfully met several characters. I wish there could have been a way for certain character lines to be shorter so that we could have done more meet-and-greets without having to wait for hours on end, but I’m sure that’s just not really an option.

We were also very happy with the trick-or-treating, and we ended up with SO MUCH CANDY.

Comparing the cost of the party to everything we got to experience, I’d say it was worth it. In fact, we’re already planning to go again this year.

I’m sure that when we finally make it out to WDW for the Halloween Party someday, we’ll still be blown away by how much better it is than Disneyland’s, but for now, we’re happy with the party we’ve got.

Continued in Next Post