Sunday 22 September

After our busy day at Kennedy we were all shattered so had a restful morning in the house.  We were due back at Disney this evening for Mickey’s Not So Scary Hallowe'en Party so we decided to get some lunch on the way.

Today’s choice was Rock and Brews on the 192 at the new Margaritaville resort.  It’s a chain of restaurants owned by Gene Simmonds of KISS fame and, as the name suggests, is a rock and roll bar.  It’s got a really good atmosphere and the food & drink offerings were excellent.  We had starters and main courses which filled us right up!  Then it was a quick drive to Magic Kingdom for the party.

The party officially starts at 7pm but they allow access from 4pm.  We had a fast pass for Haunted Mansion booked for 5.40 but as we arrived at 4 we had a bit of time to kill before we did this.  We picked up our trick or treat bags and first handfuls of sweets.  First stop was the Peoplemover which had a momentary pause midway through & they turned all the lights on in the dark tunnel we were in near Space Mountain (our luck with rides breaking down or pausing mid-way through hasn’t been good on this holiday!) but then we moved off again.

Then it was time for Haunted Mansion to get the night off to a spooky start.  The park was starting to empty a bit when we came out but we decided to grab a drink in Pinocchio’s again while the rest of the non-partygoers left.  Refreshed we went over to Frontierland and rode Big Thunder Mountain again (always good fun!).  The trick or treat spots opened just before 7 so we visited the ones in Frontierland and Adventureland and then joined the queue for the spookified Pirates of the Caribbean.  I won’t spoil the surprise for those that haven’t been on a party night but well worth a visit!

While in Adventureland we also went on Aladdin’s Magic Carpets and got soaked by one of the naughty camels!  Then we realized that Jasmine & Genie were doing a meet & greet nearby.  Catherine was straight in that queue but then the cast members told us that it wasn’t guaranteed that we’d meet Jasmine as she & Aladdin rotated their slots and that Jasmine was going for a break in 10 minutes.

We cancelled that and went back over to Tomorrowland to get some more sweets at the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor.  They were also doing shows here so we sat for a bit & watched before going on Space Mountain which also has a Halloween twist!

It was now getting dark and we wanted to ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train again so we went over to Fantasyland to see if we could get on.  The wait time wasn’t too bad and it was great to experience it in the dark.  We then made our way back to the castle to get a spot for the fireworks.  The fireworks show is new for this year and much improved.  They use the castle projections a lot more and it seemed like it was a longer show.

We then stuck around to see the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular show which features the Sanderson Sisters (from Hocus Pocus) and other Disney villains.  Next was the later outing of the Boo To You parade which we also watched next to the castle.  This hasn’t changed much from last year’s version in all honesty but it’s a good parade to see a variety of characters as well as the Headless Horseman, grave diggers and the characters from the Haunted Mansion.

The party officially finished at 12 so once the parade had gone through we only had about half an hour left to get more things done.  We made a quick trip over to do the Alice in Wonderland teacups which was another ride that had been spooked up for Halloween.  The boys tried to spin themselves into a state of unconsciousness which was partially successful and Andrew needed a hand getting out of his teacup at the end.  With only 10 minutes of the party remaining we joined the queue to meet Alice by the teacups but the cast member told us that she wasn’t seeing anymore visitors tonight.  So what could we do with the time left?  Well, the answer was to leg it back over to Seven Dwarfs to close out the night.  We made the queue with 1 minute to spare but got through the queue and the ride within 30 minutes.

Sadly, all good things come to an end.  The party was over and we headed out of the park with the intention of getting the monorail back to the car park.  Not a chance!  The queue was mad again so we took a chance that the buses would be running back to the car park.  They were (hurrah!) and we were able to get on a bus without queuing at all.

With another action packed day in store tomorrow it was straight to bed!