Don’t miss a trick—or a treat!— with these 5 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party! I’ve got 10 Disneyland tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party. The first five are vacation planning tips that will help you stack the deck in your favor to have a fabulous time at Mickey’s Halloween Party!
10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party series (view all):
Go to Tip #1: Is Mickey’s Halloween Party Worth It?
Go to Tip #2: DIY Sally Costume Nightmare Before Christmas
Go to Tip #3: Make the Most of Your Disneyland Day: Stay Close and Nap!
Go to Tip #4: Comfy Shoes for Disneyland!
Go to Tip #5: Things to Do Before Mickey’s Halloween Party Starts!
Tips #6–#10 (You are here): Don’t Miss a Trick—or a Treat!—at Mickey’s Halloween Party!
Read my book Disneyland on a Budget: How Our Family Spends 30 Days a Year at Disneyland without Breaking the Bank! (affiliate link)
Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party #6: Take Photos Early!
Unless you have a fancy camera that captures lightning fast, sugar-crazed kids in near darkness.
I take all of our Disneyland photos with my cell phone. Not a fancy one, either. That means sunlight is my friend.
When you enter Mickey’s Halloween Party, you may be overwhelmed: What should you do first? The first thing you should do is take a bunch of photos right away against the cutest backdrop you can find within 5 minutes of entering the Park. Your kids are fully costumed at this point, and the sun is shining. Nobody is covered in churro dust or melted ice cream. Yet.
This is also the time to have a friendly passerby or a Cast Member or a PhotoPass photographer take some shots of your whole family. Yes, you will end up with family photos featuring a Disneyland trashcan.
There was so much to see and do during Mickey’s Halloween Party that I took fewer pics than I ever do on regular Disneyland days! Most of that night will have to live on in my memory, instead of in the cloud, and that’s OK. Actually, that’s probably the way it should be!
Here’s an example of what your Mickey’s Halloween Party pics will look like if you wait til dark:
Once you get that first run of photos, you can relax a little and take time to smell the candy corn!
Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party #7: Don’t Trick or Treat!
Understandably, when the Cast Members hand your kiddos empty treat bags, your natural impulse is to go fill them up immediately! But if you wait to hit the treat trails until you’re almost ready to leave Mickey’s Halloween Party, you’ll reap several benefits:
1. You won’t have to carry that candy around Disneyland for five hours!
2. You can put off your kids’ inevitable sugar crash. (Assuming you also avoid the ice cream shops and treat stands!)
3. You can practically walk onto rides while the rest of the suckers stand in line to get plain old Halloween candy. I’m generally not one to criticize Disneyland, but I expected Disney candy—at the very least, some Mickey and friends chocolate coins tossed in with the regular candy. Nope. Your kiddos will get more exciting candy when you trick or treat in your own neighborhood at home.
Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party #8: Take It All In!
You want to have the most fun possible because those Party tickets are expensive! But do make sure to look UP from the Disneyland app to enjoy all of the amazing Halloween decorations and appreciate other families’ cool costumes!
Disneyland knows the devil’s in the details! Keep a weather eye out for all the special tricks at Mickey’s Halloween Party!
We’re hoping the new MaxPass system will indeed get us on more rides even on the busiest days (review coming soon!) but a huge part of the fun of Disneyland is to unplug from that phone and simply enjoy your family at The Happiest Place on Earth!*
*Except when taking millions of photos.
Read all about MaxPass here: Is Disneyland’s MaxPass Worth It? 9 People Who Should Not Buy MaxPass!
Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party #9: Eat!
The restaurants at Disneyland don’t stay open until the end of Mickey’s Halloween Party! Make sure you don’t put off dinner too long—you’ll either scramble back and forth across Disneyland looking for a food stand that is both open and doesn’t have a crazy-long line, or you’ll tell your kids to eat their trick or treat candy for dinner and be the Best Mom Ever.
The new Frightfully Fun Halloween Parade is exclusive to Mickey’s Halloween Party. If you’re super interested in watching the parade and have some dough to spend on dinner, you can kill two birds with one stone: Reserve Mickey’s Halloween Dinner Party Package at the Blue Bayou. It costs $69 for adults, $29 for kids 3–9. Since entrees cost about $40 on the regular menu and include a salad or gumbo starter, the parade package essentially tacks on a $30 premium (and $20 for kids) for a dessert and the reserved parade viewing area. You’ll spend nearly $300 after you add drinks, tax, and tip. If that sounds worth it to get dinner and not have to stake out a parade spot early, go for it!
Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party #10. Don’t Miss the Fireworks!
Since we’ve seen fireworks at Disneyland dozens of times over the years, my kids would rather ride rides than stand uncomfortably close to pushy people for an hour. But one of the huge selling points of Mickey’s Halloween Party is the Halloween Screams fireworks show, and it was the main Party attraction on my list! Unfortunately, I decided to squeeze in One More Ride: We walked on to Pirates of the Caribbean 20 minutes before the fireworks show (so far so good)…and then we got stuck on the ride for a few minutes (not good). We scrambled off the ride just in time to see the fireworks grand finale. Boo hoo!
While I never recommend staking out a spot for a parade or fireworks more than 10 minutes early (because I’m not picky about getting a perfect view), I do recommend making every effort to be off your last ride 20 minutes before the fireworks start. That leaves a little padding in case the ride line is longer than expected, or the ride breaks down, plus you’ll have time to walk over to the fireworks viewing area.
OK, those are my 10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party! Hands down, my favorite Party attraction is the Cadaver Dans singing eerily over Rivers of America!
10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party series (view all):
Go to Tip #1: Is Mickey’s Halloween Party Worth It?
Go to Tip #2: DIY Sally Costume Nightmare Before Christmas
Go to Tip #3: Make the Most of Your Disneyland Day: Stay Close and Nap!
Go to Tip #4: Comfy Shoes for Disneyland!
Go to Tip #5: Things to Do Before Mickey’s Halloween Party Starts!
Tips #6–#10 (You are here): Don’t Miss a Trick—or a Treat!—at Mickey’s Halloween Party!
Read my book Disneyland on a Budget: How Our Family Spends 30 Days a Year at Disneyland without Breaking the Bank! (affiliate link)
