Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party 2013 Tips

The schedule and ticket prices for the 2013 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Parties at Walt Disney World is now available, with the party occurring September 10, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27, & 29, and October 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 14, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 27, 29, & 31, plus November 1. On these nights, the Magic Kingdom closes at 7 p.m. to guests who haven’t not purchased tickets for the Halloween Party.

So you can prepare for the Halloween Party, we thought it would be a good time to look back at our experiences at past parties to help you determine whether this expensive hard ticket event is worth it to you, and if so, what your “Plan of Attack” should be to efficiently conquer the various offerings.

Should I Attend?

So at over $50 a pop for tickets to the 2013 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, you might be trying to determine, “is it worth it?” If you’re asking this, you’ve probably never been, otherwise you’d know the answer to this question. Our opinion, as Disney-biased tourists, is that it most definitely is worth the price: at least once. Once you’ve experienced the party once (it doesn’t change much year-to-year), you might determine that it’s simply too expensive to experience again. For a one time event, though, it’s definitely worth it for everyone except those on traveling on thin budgets. Personally, we prefer Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, but I think it’s fair to say that the two are about equally popular with guests (the guest costumes at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party are pretty awesome to see).

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Haunted Main Street Train Station

The last ghouls slowly perish from the Magic Kingdom after a long night during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party in September 2012. Halloween in the Magic Kingdom is always fun, even if it would be a little more fun if there were a couple of attraction overlays for the season, like there are in Disneyland. I know Haunted Mansion Holiday will probably never come to the Magic Kingdom, but Ghost Galaxy doesn’t seem like that much “work” to do for an overlay, and Disneyland fans seems to love it. If Disney didn’t want to do that overlay on Magic Kingdom’s Space Mountain, maybe they could do a spooky version of the Jungle Cruise? Add some foreboding lighting and a corny Halloween-themed script in the vein of a Halloween B-movie and you’d have a low cost attraction unique for Halloween. If it were only utilized for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, there wouldn’t be the issue of tourists not getting to experience the “original,” either.

I know this is unlikely to happen, but I can dream. Oh well…at least the Magic Kingdom does a good job with the right mood for the party. Except in Adventureland, where the DJ style music just does not work at all.

We don’t do a whole lot for Halloween, despite it being one of Sarah’s favorite holidays (supposedly–we’ve never really done anything for it, so I’m not sure I buy this). Trick or treaters don’t where we live, we don’t create elaborate costumes or go to parties, we have never been to haunted houses, and we don’t carve pumpkins. This year, we thought we’d watch a couple of Halloween movies to ‘celebrate’ the holiday. However, horror movies aren’t really our thing (although I’m a huge Hitchcock fan, his movies are not horror), so we didn’t know what to watch. (more…)

Boo To You Parade Disney Photos

The Boo To You Parade is right up there with Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade as the best parades shown at Walt Disney World Resort.

This parade is shown only during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, and features several “units.” The first unit is called Mickey’s Trick-or-Treat Bash, which has a lot of characters and is heavily themed to Fantasyland. This is the cheeriest unit of the parade. Next comes the Yo-Ho Pirate-Palooza, which contains the pirate floats, including Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Hook. Following that is the Haunted Mansion Cemetery Soiree, which has some of the best performers of the parade, and is by far our favorite unit. Next is the Halloween Hooten-Nanny Hoedown, which is the Frontierland portion of the parade. The villains come next, in the Villains Groove-A-Go-Go. Goofy’s Trick-or-Treat Candy Hop concludes the parade with another lighter unit focused on candy.

These units are all great, and the music soundtrack for the Boo To You Parade is VERY catchy. It’s available on the Disney Magic Kingdom Event Party Music CD. We play ours almost daily during the Halloween season! (more…)

Halloween Party’s Headless Horseman

The Headless Horseman rides at the beginning of the Boo to You Parade during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. Since the parade starts in Frontierland and Main Street USA (the best place to view the parade) is at the end of the route, and because the horseman moves considerably faster than the rest of the parade, if you’re on Main Street, you’re going to be waiting about 20 minutes for the rest of the parade after the Headless Horseman passes.

The Headless Horseman’s horse was “new” last year, and because of that, he moved a tad slower last year than he did in previous years. This was great for photographers, but it by no means made photographing him easy. This is still the most difficult part of the parade to photograph. Because of this difficulty and because we were standing in the perfect spot to capture a wide view of the whole scene, I decided to do exactly that. I wish I had a frame of the horse much closer to us, but of course none of those photos turned out. There’s the vague possibility that there was some user error involved in taking the photos, but I think the real cause is gremlins. (more…)

Cinderella Castle Halloween HDR

One of my biggest personal reasons for attending Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party each year is the unique lighting utilized in the Magic Kingdom during these parties, and how that lighting makes for interesting and different photos. For this same reason, I’ve shared that I’m also personally looking forward to the “Limited Time Magic” 2013 promotion. Of course, I realize these probably aren’t compelling reasons for most guests considering whether they should attend the parties, but the lighting and atmosphere help make the parties worth the cost for me, nonetheless.

This particular photo showcases the unique lighting used on Cinderella Castle during Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, and much like the lighting on Main Street about which I’ve complained extensively, this lighting is harsh, uneven, and a bear to process. But, also much like the lighting on Main Street, this lighting is pretty awesome! Since I can’t get enough Cinderella Castle photos, I always make a point of stopping and getting a few each year during the Parties. Can you imagine if they had these parties at Epcot and had unique lighting on Spaceship Earth?! The “serious” Disney fan in me would cringe that the parties would be occurring in Future World, but the photographer in me would overlook that and go crazy at the chance to photograph Spaceship Earth with a new lighting package! (more…)