2018 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Report & Photos
Last week, we headed to Magic Kingdom to attend the second Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party of 2018. This post features our impressions of Walt Disney World’s “fall” hard ticket event, photos, and other thoughts on Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP).
The MNSSHP we attended was incredibly busy, which makes complete sense given that August is the heart of spooky season. I know nothing makes me want to don a thick costume, elaborate hat, and face paint like the prospect of August humidity in Florida. On the plus side, Halloween is probably the sole buttress preventing ‘Christmas in July’ from becoming an earnest thing at Walt Disney World, so I retract my tongue-in-cheek criticism.
The crowds at this MNSSHP were quite a change of pace as compared to the September parties we’ve done the last couple of years. As such, we’re going to take a renewed look at whether Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is worth the money when the event is that crowded.
Think of this as a trip report…but exclusively for the Halloween Party. We’re still in Florida and will have similar topical recaps and reports from Walt Disney World in the coming weeks. If you’re looking for step-by-step strategy for the event, consult our Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Tips post instead.
Also, if you’re looking for the more interesting portion of this post, consider skipping directly to page 2 where our analysis comes into play. This first page is mostly photos and a play-by-play of what Sarah and I did during the party. I’ll try to come up with some witty photo captions, but my version of “witty” plays fast and loose with the term, so no promises.
After checking into MNSSHP around 4 p.m. in Tomorrowland, we did a couple loops on the PeopleMover before focusing on the important stuff: food. Sarah and I were also joined around this time by blog-less Disney blogger Mark Willard, who has made past appearances on the blog and is best known for attending ~27 parties per year dressed as Captain America.
If you saw our 2018 Halloween Snacks Guide to Magic Kingdom post, you’ve already read about our top priority for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. No joke. As much as we bellyache about the ‘upcharge within upcharge’ dessert parties at these events, we dropped about a dessert party’s worth of money on special food during the event.
On the plus side, can you really put a price tag on the prestige that comes with being the first person of the night to order the Muenster Smash Burger at Cosmic Ray’s?!
Our next-highest priority for this Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party was meeting “Elvis Stitch.” I had looked at wait time reports on Twitter to get an indication of his popularity during the first MNSSHP, and it seemed pretty low.
Accordingly, I figured we could eat first, then line up for him just before 7 p.m. That turned out to be a terrible idea, as his line was already quoted as being 90 minutes long. Unfortunately, by the time we returned just after 11:30 p.m., his line had already been cut.
After that, we spent a lot of time wandering around, checking out wait times for meet & greets, seeing what was busy and what wasn’t, and creeping on dance parties.
Not exactly exciting stuff, but it’s important for us to keep apprised of this sort of stuff for posts about MNSSHP strategy.
At some point during this, I got distracted by the sunset, and instead focused my energies on that.
It was stunning, with epic Florida storm clouds lighting up perfectly. Of course, this also meant that rain was on the way, but a fair tradeoff for some beautiful light.
I have a ton more unedited sunrise, night, parade, and fireworks photos that I’ll sprinkle in other posts between now and Halloween. As mentioned above, we’re still traveling and I didn’t want to spend an inordinate amount of time on this post that’s better spent watching Country Bear Jamboree.
It rained for a bit after sunset, so we bailed on getting spots for the first Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular and instead wandered around more. We were going to do Pirates of the Caribbean, but the line was out the entrance, so we opted to check back later.
Instead, we spent time in Frontierland listening to the Cadaver Dans, watching Brer Bear roam around and mess with guests, and trying more food.
After that, we grabbed spots in Town Square for the first Boo to You parade. The crowd here was not bad, especially as compared to Main Street and the hub, which were both several rows deep at that point. While Sarah held down our spots, I wandered Town Square and took some photos of the pumpkin citizens.
Our itinerary for the later portion of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party went pretty much as normal: Boo to You, HalloWishes fireworks, Hocus Pocus, and Boo to You all back to back. Here are some photos in no particular order:
I like the spot directly in front of Cinderella Castle, but the lighting is poor and this area gets really crowded. It’s also a tough angle if you’re using anything except an ultra wide angle lens to photograph it.
Basically, I don’t recommend this spot.
Some minor tweaks to Boo to You this year, most of which I don’t think are too noticeable.
I do like Clarabelle’s new dress. A good fit for this unit of the parade.
Dramatic lighting for a larger than life rockstar.
I would say the entire Boo to You parade should be replaced with Country Bears floats, but I don’t want to have to camp out 4 hours just for a decent view of that epic parade.
Normally, getting clubbed upside the head with a mop by a man in a puffy shirt and pirate bandana is a Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party upcharge offering, but I lucked out and received this magical moment free of charge.
Since this is the internet and even blatant sarcasm often goes undetected–and that Cast Member’s face is clearly identifiable–I want to be clear: no heads were actually clubbed with a mop in the making of this photo.
Bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwwwwwwaaaaaak. Bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwak bwwwwwwaaaaaak.
Now you’ll have that stuck in your head for the rest of your day, too. You’re welcome.
Now I know what Delacroix meant when he said, “the artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing.” While my chef-d’Å“uvre is poorly composed and out of focus, let’s just call that artistic expression rather than technical imperfections.
Generations from now, I foresee art students spending an entire semester unpacking the deep metaphors and social commentary of Shaker shaking a wooden spoon in this photo. Is this critique of late capitalism? Does he symbolize the average millennial’s never-ending quest to spoon things to death? Or, perhaps, there is no spoon. You be the judge.
As always, photographing Boo to You is about the most humbling experience a photographer can have. I’ve been shooting this parade annually for a decade, upgrading my camera gear during that time, and my keeper rate is still around 5% at best.
This parade remains the most challenging Disney photography scenario, and is fun but frustrating.
It’s also one of the rare situations where gear really does make a difference in getting the shot. Improvements in autofocus accuracy and speed have made it easier to shoot, but that’s relative.
You’re still going to walk away with mostly out-of-focus garbage. And even when you do nail a shot, there’s a good chance that a performer will be blinking or have their back turned to you. (Meanwhile, all of your out of focus or poorly composed shots will feature performers hamming it up for the camera or with the perfect poses. Happens every time.)
After the second Boo to You, we rushed over to Tomorrowland hoping to catch Elvis Stitch. When that failed, we lined up for Lotso, whose wait was under 10 minutes at that point.
It was over an hour earlier in the night, so this worked out well. It had been ~5 years since our last encounter with him, and Sarah wanted a new photo.
The final Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular starts at midnight, which gives you a “bonus” 20 minutes at the end of the party. This is a nice way to extend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, but even this final showing is crowded.
Even with this extra time, there’s so much we didn’t have a chance to do: PhotoPass exclusive special shots, attraction overlays, dance parties, and the vast majority of character meet & greets.
We could’ve accomplished a few of these things had we skipped one of the parades or Hocus Pocus shows, but not all of it. That would’ve allowed us to meet 3-4 additional characters, but not headliners like Jack & Sally or Seven Dwarfs. Plus, given that those are among our favorite Walt Disney World entertainment offerings of the entire year, skipping one of the Boo to You parades or Hocus Pocus was a non-starter. Your mileage may vary.
After the final Hocus Pocus, we lingered around Liberty Square and Main Street for as long as possible. Magic Kingdom was still pretty busy until about 12:45 a.m. With a slow trickle of guests still exiting meet & greets long after the party ended, security is in no rush to push people towards the exit.
We were the last guests out and I managed to capture the above photo of Main Street with no one in it (well, almost no one). For me, this “bonus” hour-plus is as much a chance to capture photos with unique lighting as it is a chance to embrace the ominous party ambiance.
I love the background music, fog effects, lighting, and Magic Kingdom’s dramatically different of a vibe. As someone who likes the experience of “being there” as much as any of the substantive offerings of the theme parks, this is my favorite part of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. Again, your mileage may vary.
WE’LL COVER WHETHER MICKEY’S NOT SO SCARY HALLOWEEN PARTY IS STILL WORTH THE MONEY, AND MY OVERALL FEELINGS ABOUT THIS YEAR’S MNSSHP ON PAGE 2…
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We went for our first party last year in August. It rained 8 hrs that day, which has never happened to us on a Disney trip. As such we ate a sit down meal then waited in a too long Moana line. It finally stopped raining around 8 PM. We were disappointed we got no daylight pics. We felt the crowds were heavy….definitely felt oversold. The parade was great and so was the Villain show. My daughter was thrilled to jump in a 30 min Queen of Hearts line in the middle of a street as she was dressed as her (we were all villains). At the time we said we would never do it again but we are going again this year. Only Disney day as the rest is Universal. We are hoping experience helps us get more out of it this year and that the weather is better. Can you get the Headless Horseman magic shot after the midnight Villain show, like on your way out?
We (my family of 12) attended the event on Halloween night. We planned to arrive very early, but due to a resort issue (Dolphin), we did not accomplish this task.
We did arrive at the official opening and while lines outside the park were long, security was very efficient and thorough. We appreciate this security and their being fluid too.
With my first plan of attack now out the window, we decided to “wing it”, keeping our focus on characters and rides. We had an understanding that we would not focus on trick o treat or the special food offerings…
I’ll tell you, with those set expectations, we had a great time and we wound up staying until the event closed. We opted to do the rides as a focus as the remainder of our trip did not have a Magic Kingdom visit again, focus was at other parks. We got on all the Fantasy Land Rides we wanted with very minimal waits each time. Tomorrow Land was great and we did the dance party (little one loved it) and rode Space Mtn. We did NOT go into Adventure Land or attempt Haunted Mansion…
The Parade was awesome, we saw the second one. We caught glimpses of the stage show, but our little one was too young to appreciate it. We did see the fireworks from Cosmic Rays (at a special window seat recommended by a wonderful staff member) and we did have the Smash Burger, which did live up to the hype… I wanted two of them…
This event (as many special events are) are all about expectations. This site helped me realize that and by setting the bar a bit lower than normal, we exceeded it.
Note: The fact that my granddaughter got to see Mickey in person, in Halloween Dress, within about 5 min of entering the park, set a great tone for the rest of the night. The line for the princesses was hours… Set expectations and then make them come true.
I would most definitely do this party again next year, but having done the actual holiday date, I’d pick a weekday with less crowds. Was it worth the cost… Yes. If you plan accordingly.
We are happy to say we did the MNSSHP on Halloween and consider it a full success.
I could “what if” all day, but we got in, had fun and rode rides, got photos, saw the parade… Can’t do it all.
How did you see Mickey? I’m just curious as we went on the night of 10/30 but did not notice an area where that was possible. Was it in the theater directly on the right after you enter the park at the foot of main street? My daughter really wanted to see Sally and Jack who we were told would appear there later, but even arriving at 4pm the line was already 2.5 hrs long. That was our greatest disappointment, but we had the same pleasant experience as you with the rides. We did not get to see the parade as we could not last for the second one. Attempted to watch the first one but the crowd was 10 deep and we opted to continue going on the rides.
The reason MNSSHP is busy / crowded this year is because Disney is overselling the event. The benefit of a hard ticket event like this one used to be Disney’s limit on park capacity to a low number. A number low enough you did not have to grab a parade spot 40 minutes early, or wait in line for candy 30 minutes. Rides were walk-ons. Now Disney sells the party like any other day, and will cram people in to the parks capacity if the demand is there.
The low crowd benefit is gone. Disney effectively double-selling a single day. This party is no longer worth the price.