Chapter 3
It’s a Pre-Party

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We walked up to City Hall to get a new DAS card and got a time for Alice in Wonderland. When we passed this pumpkin on Main Street, I thought it was pretty awesome.

Our time was practically immediate, so we made our way back to Fantasyland. We wouldn’t be doing many attractions today with the Halloween Party about to start, but Tracy really wanted to ride Alice in Wonderland while she was wearing her Cheshire Cat costume.

She was pretty darn excited.

After the ride, we also stopped into The Mad Hatter to take a picture in the Cheshire mirror.

Now it was really time to start getting into the Halloween spirit. Here was my wristband.

And here was one of the ghosts we passed along Big Thunder Trail.

Even though the Ranch was closed, I still got a picture of Tracy with one of the Autumnal wagons.

As we passed this weird doohickey along the Trail, we wondered for a split-second whether it was a cat trap. Then we decided that it probably had something to do with the mist and projections in this part of the park during the party instead.

We had gotten a time for the Haunted Mansion, but we weren’t planning to use it until later in the evening. Instead, we just photographed the facade in all glory as we walked by.

We were really headed to Bengal Barbeque, where we would be enjoying a little pre-party dinner. Of course, we got our old standby—two Banyan Beef Skewers and a Tiger Tail.

As if we hadn’t gotten enough food already, we also decided to split some Pumpkin Beignets from the Mint Julep Bar.

By the time we were done, the “pre-party” had officially started. It was being held in two different locations this year—Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree and Mickey’s Toontown. We headed to the Jamboree first.

Even though he had been booted from the parks at this point, we were thrilled to see Duffy was allowed to wander around during the pre-party.

I honestly didn’t know if we’d ever get to meet him again at Disneyland, period—let alone in his Halloween best.

It was our first time back here this Halloween season because this area of the park had been closed when we arrived earlier. So it was also our first time seeing some of this year’s pumpkin art.

We knew we’d have plenty of time to enjoy the Halloween Carnival during the rest of our trip, but the pre-party wouldn’t last forever. So we started to make our way out through the Ranch. I had to stop and take a picture in front of the goat pen since I hadn’t gotten to pose inside of it.

We walked to the back of Fantasyland and passed the closed “it’s a small world.”

Finally we ended up back in Toontown. Now we usually forget/ignore the fact that Toontown exists, so I don’t know how long it had been since we were last here.

It was something of a madhouse, and we knew that if we wanted to get any good character meet-and-greets done, we’d need to wait in long lines. While we queued up for Mickey and Minnie, Tracy and I took turns going to meet Pluto on our own (he had a much shorter line), and we got the character attendant to take our photos.

I was bummed that I missed out on Tracy’s meeting with him. He chased her around because she was dressed like a cat!

In the end, though, they reconciled.

We were told by the cast member in charge of Mickey and Minnie’s line that there was a good chance they would get swapped out before we got to the front, but we decided to wait anyway. Still, we snapped a few pictures of them alone between their meetings with other families, just in case we ended up missing out.