"Official" 2017 Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party - Boo to You!

[FoxC63]

The poison apple shots were located all over the park. We did this pose at several locations throughout the night.

Were the photographers using a tri-pod when they took the Poison Apple Shot?

 

[Cluelyss]

What characters dont have photopass photographers with them?

Someone said Terk doesnt.

I believe the Tarzan meet is the only one. He didn't have PP when I met him at AK, either, so not sure if there's some licensing issue?? Mary Poppins doesn't have a PP photog at her regular meets, either, and it's a licensing thing, IIRC.

 

[FoxC63]

We were at the 9/1 party. It was a pretty rough go of it.

WOW! I hope you went to Guest Services and if you haven't you should to get new tickets. I wonder too if Photopass would be willing to extend your pass, worth a try [URL="https://www.disboards.com/threads/magic-shots-current-listings.3619546/"]Magic Shots - Current Listings[/URL] has all the contact info. That blows your wings were stolen.

 

[heartpumper]

Again, I think it's important to distinguish between crowds in the common areas (hub, main street, etc.) and overall attendance in the parks. It will always 'feel' crowded during a party, because most people want to be in the middle of it all, where all the halloween action is. If anybody is looking for an uncrowded experience in these common areas, you need to taper your expectations, because that's not what these parties are like.

We actually spent very little time in the common areas. i'm talking about 70 minute wait for peter pan, the line for space mountain going way done past the interactive games. Sure its crowded when everyone is trying to see the fireworks but other areas were crowded as well.

 

[shm_helene]

I attended the 9/1 party and while it felt fairly crowded to me, waits were not bad and were less than posted times. We waited until 10:00-ish to ToT and most lines were practically walk-up. We ended up with almost 15 pounds of candy between the three of us without even trying that hard.

This was my first party. Here is my advice:

Don't ToT too early; the lines get MUCH shorter later and that candy gets incredibly heavy to carry around. Of course, the waits for everything get shorter later on so I guess you have to choose what you want to do most during this sweet time.

I would honestly pass on the special treats. i love sweets but I don't eat much of them usually, so I was looking forward to indulging myself at the party. I found the waits for the treats to be long and the treats to be mediocre at best. They LOOK beautiful, but they really don't taste that great. I waited over ten minutes in line at Pecos Bill's for the worms and dirt and it was tiny, room-temperature, and kind of bleah. The Jack Skellington pop was cute but only tasted ok. The Mickey pumpkin waffles were pretty tasty but still nothing that special. I only tried one of the Haunted Mansion desserts--the raspberry one--and it was probably the best of all, but still, just not that great. I feel like they could have done much better with these. It was somewhat of a waste of time and money, not to mention caloric intake I could have used on something yummier!

I got the pumpkin popcorn bucket right at 7:00. What was I thinking?! I had to lug that thing around all night. It's cute as anything but I was super tired of dealing with it by the end of the night. Unless you just HAVE to have it and are afraid of them selling out, or you plan on eating popcorn throughout the evening, wait until the end to buy it.

That's all the advice I have. I guess everyone already knows to be careful trusting what cast members say. I was given wrong/misleading information a couple times about when an event was going to start and where things were located.

Oh, one more thing. We arrived at MK at 3:07. There was one family in front of us and we began a line. After a while, the cast members allowed the line to disperse across the various entrance tapstyles, so at that point we were first in our individual line. By around 4:40, there really weren't very many people behind us, so we didn't save ourselves much time by getting there so early, and it was brutal in the heat. We were lucky to be first because we could JUST fit in the shade of the overhang over the tapstyles, but everyone behind us was directly in the sun. I would go a little later if I did it again.

Also, right before they let people in, a line of cast members comes out and stands facing the crowd-- hands, pockets, and satchels full of wristbands, waiting to "band" guests as they enter. Once people are allowed into the party, the entry becomes VERY congested very quickly, as people stop to get their wrist bands. I don't know why they do it this way, it just got backed way up. We had trouble with my daughter's magic band not working (which cost us about 5 minutes or so, which completely negated the benefit of arriving early as party-goers swarmed past us as we waited for the issue to be resolved). As the manager-dude was on his iPad fixing the problem, I told the kids we weren't going to get our wrist bands until later, because we had a fastpass that was due to expire at 4:15.The manager-dude looked up from his iPad and said that we could get our wristbands from several locations within the park, as I'd read on these boards. But there was this other manager-lady that kept hollering at everybody entering the park to get their party wristbands. We tried to squeeze through the crowd without wristbands and she yelled "you need to get your wristbands!" and we just ignored her and kept going. If you can get through the crowd (it ain't easy) and get your band later, do it. There aren't nearly enough "banders" to keep up with the throngs of people piling in. As it turned out, when we finally emerged on the other side of the crowd, we encountered a timid-looking cast member standing on the fringes with a handful of wrist bands who looked grateful to finally find someone who didn't already have a wrist band on. Nobody else had made it that far back without getting one yet.

We had a good time, but our "plan" went straight down the drain when the rain started. It became impossible to know when anything was going to start, and we didn't want to stand around waiting for events that may or may not occur. I really wish they'd made announcements about delays and then given a warning a few minutes before things were about to begin, so people could be informed and get to where they needed to be. They did this for the fireworks but not for the parades or Hocus Pocus.

Overall, we had fun, but the rain did mess things up quite a bit. I didn't mind getting wet--that wasn't all that bad really--I just hated the disrupted schedule.

Thank you for some tips I haven't seen before!

 

[stickeymouse]

We actually spent very little time in the common areas. i'm talking about 70 minute wait for peter pan, the line for space mountain going way done past the interactive games. Sure its crowded when everyone is trying to see the fireworks but other areas were crowded as well.

Just curious, at what time were lines that long? And was it raining, by chance?

 

[alisonslp]

we decided to go ahead and ride haunted mansion. While we were in there, my Tinkerbell wings were stolen out of the stroller. We've had annual passes for 4 years now and I've left things in my stroller so many times and never had an issue. The Tinkerbell wings were in a bag on the back of my stroller, they were stuck in deep, but, you could see them. Really couldn't believe someone would do that.....On the bright side, spouse and kid just loved it. They didn't know what they missed, so they thought it was just the best thing ever other than spouse missing both parades and having a poor view of the fireworks..... We spent a lot of time getting into character lines and then watching them shut the line down due to the weather. Felt like a lot of time got wasted. On the other hand, we were lucky in that we got to actually meet Jack and Sally and we weren't stuck on the monorail like a lot of people were.

Sorry to hear of the stolen wings... that is just awful. It is bad enough if they were just lying on the stroller but to fish through a bag to get them... glad your kids had a good time. It is really tough when you are relying on the character times to go all smoothly. That is odd about the TOT lines too because others were saying that the CMs were giving it out by the handful especially late in the night.

We actually spent very little time in the common areas. i'm talking about 70 minute wait for peter pan, the line for space mountain going way done past the interactive games. Sure its crowded when everyone is trying to see the fireworks but other areas were crowded as well.

that's strange because others are saying that SM had only the time that it takes to actually walk the whole queue. I wonder if it was due to the rain, with everyone trying to go inside. Most were saying about 30-40 min for 7D but 60 doesn't surprise me on a busier night.

For those who went while it was raining - are the CMs who pass out the candy under large umbrellas? Would hate for them to have to stand outside in drenching rain with the candy

 

[JenniferinFL]

WOW! I hope you went to Guest Services and if you haven't you should to get new tickets. I wonder too if Photopass would be willing to extend your pass, worth a try Magic Shots - Current Listings has all the contact info. That blows your wings were stolen.

We're already back home. Granted, home is only an hour and a half away, but, we should have gone that day if we were going to. Next weekend's group may even have worse weather depending on where Irma ends up.

This is horrible! This makes me so incredibly sad. I don't know why, but it always seems to me that I want Disney people to be better than your average bear. I guess not. I'm sorry this happened to you.

That's how I've always felt too. I've left stuff so many times before and never had anything taken. I dug through my stroller over and over because I just couldn't believe someone would take them. I was utterly bewildered. I watched for them the rest of the night, but, didn't see anyone else wearing wings.

 

[sherlockmiles]

@1GoldenSun - while I say I won't buy the popcorn pumpkin, I really have a feeling once I'm there I wont be able to resist. Great idea to wait until the end of the night. That's not one of those items that they only sell "200" per party is it?

 

[JenniferinFL]

Sorry to hear of the stolen wings... that is just awful. It is bad enough if they were just lying on the stroller but to fish through a bag to get them... glad your kids had a good time. It is really tough when you are relying on the character times to go all smoothly. That is odd about the TOT lines too because others were saying that the CMs were giving it out by the handful especially late in the night.


that's strange because others are saying that SM had only the time that it takes to actually walk the whole queue. I wonder if it was due to the rain, with everyone trying to go inside. Most were saying about 30-40 min for 7D but 60 doesn't surprise me on a busier night.

For those who went while it was raining - are the CMs who pass out the candy under large umbrellas? Would hate for them to have to stand outside in drenching rain with the candy

The last time we tried to TOT was around 8:45 pm and we were just at Tiki and Jungle Cruise. I'm sure the experience varied widely. After that we waited for parades and fireworks and didn't TOT. The CM's we saw were all under cover.

The hard part was, when it was raining and characters weren't meeting, everyone was in the ride lines instead. When Lotso went in, we were going to ride Buzz Lightyear, but, the line went all the way outside and wrapped around a couple times. 30 minute wait posted. Unfortunately, you could easily just get really unlucky the whole night when it's rainy. You can wait an hour or two for a character just to have them get rained out and then go to the ride for another half hour wait and then wait 1.5 hours for a parade and then give up and wait for another character just to hop out of line to try to see some of the fireworks. We got lucky when we got to meet Jack and Sally and lucky for the Cruella meet.

We had a similar day at Epcot the next day, waited at FEA for around 45 minutes, ride broke down, waited at Soarin all the way up to the boarding, it broke down right before we boarded; but they gave us a fast pass for that, then waited at Test Track and got rained out. We spent around 2 hours and 45 minutes in lines for rides we didn't even get to ride, with the exception of Soarin and we used that fastpass for Test Track right before closing. I'm sure there's someone else out there who were the last to ride each of those rides before the shutdowns. If the luck isn't in your favor, you can easily have a bad day.

 

[Cluelyss]

@1GoldenSun - while I say I won't buy the popcorn pumpkin, I really have a feeling once I'm there I wont be able to resist. Great idea to wait until the end of the night. That's not one of those items that they only sell "200" per party is it?

They have run out on at least 1 night already.

 

[sherlockmiles]

They have run out on at least 1 night already.

that's what I thought I read.....

 

[JenniferinFL]

Were the photographers using a tri-pod when they took the Poison Apple Shot?

No, there was no tripod for Poison Apple shot. Additionally, no tripod for the haunted mansion dancers shot, or for the headless horseman shot and I don't remember seeing one for the butler shot (oops, gravediggers!) either. HOWEVER, that may have been due to the rain. Photopass people were in and out so much that night that they may have skipped tripods when they usually would have used them. Poison apple shot was available by sleepy hollow, on the walkthrough to tomorrow land and in front of the castle in front of Starbucks or so. Again, all of those may have been different from usual because of the rain.

 

[FoxC63]

I don't remember seeing one for the butler shot either.

Umm, what now? A Butler shot, where at?

 

[FoxC63]

We're already back home.

Jennifer, do yourself a favor and call Disney. It does not matter that you're back at home. They could give you ANY day to return. They are so generous. Call them my friend!

 

[JenniferinFL]

Umm, what now? A Butler shot, where at?

It's the animated magic shot at the pumpkin patch, right at the entrance. Sorry, they are probably called something else. They are two guys in haunted mansion costumes that show up alongside you at the pumpkin patch.

Oops, yup, gravediggers.. lol

 

[FoxC63]

It's the animated magic shot at the pumpkin patch, right at the entrance. Sorry, they are probably called something else. They are two guys in haunted mansion costumes that show up alongside you at the pumpkin patch.

Grave Diggers - love this shot!

 

[garthbarth1]

Grave Diggers - love this shot!

For the animated shots, do you have to have the memory maker in order to get them? Or do the show up with just regular photo pass?

 

[Vala]

Can anybody tell me if Lotso and the Tarzan Group are signing? I am assuming no, but I want to be prepared.

 

[JenniferinFL]

Can anybody tell me if Lotso and the Tarzan Group are signing? I am assuming no, but I want to be prepared.

We were told Lotso was not signing. Spouse is pretty sure he saw Jane signing.