Candy, Rides, and Good Times at Mickey's Halloween Party 2014!

In case you somehow weren't aware, I'm a pretty big Disney fan. My boyfriend and I have been Annual Passholders for several years. This is our second year attending Mickey's Halloween Party. Halloweentime is one of my favorite seasons at Disneyland, second only to Christmastime (obvs). There are Mickey-shaped pumpkins and ghosts everywhere, and all the characters are in costumes. There's also a lot more villain characters out and about than usual. Two rides even have Halloween overlays - Space Mountain with Ghost Galaxy, and Haunted Mansion with Nightmare Before Christmas. Frontierland has a Dia De Los Muertos theme, and Big Thunder Ranch has all kinds of Halloween activities for the kids.

The castle during Halloween night.

For Mickey's Halloween Party, the park closes down to the general public after 6pm, open only to those with wristbands for the party. It still seems like there's a lot of people there, but the lines are much shorter. We didn't wait longer than maybe 15 minutes for any of the rides we went on - and we went on a ton! Astro Blasters, Space Mountain, Star Tours, Jungle Cruise (which was really cool to do at night), Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones - and these were all within the span of a few hours. Normally this would take a whole day, at least! 

Another fun feature of the Halloween Party are, of course, the candy stations! There are multiple ones spread throughout the park. We like to wander around and find them as we go, but you can also find them marked on the map.They hand you a plastic bag at the front when you arrive to put your candy in. The bags are on the small side, though, so you may want to bring your own! I brought my Mickey Jack-O'Lantern that I bought last year. It didn't hold much more, but it lit up, so that made up for the size. The stations are marked with a Mickey's Halloween Party sign, and usually consist of several different stands that you just walk straight through, bag open. The candy they give out is your standard Halloween sizes of name-brand candy. Last year, several stations gave out carrots and apples, but I found there were far fewer of those this year. We ended up with a TON of candy - probably close to 8 pounds of it.

So much candy!

This year, we found a special Annual Passholder candy station at the Opera House on Main Street, where we got a special Big Hero Six backpack bag, and a big rice krispie treat! They were also screening Halloween themed cartoons in the theater where Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln normally is. It was a fun, unexpected bonus!

Mickey's Halloween Party is also the only time that adults are allowed to wear costumes in the park. A lot of people took advantage of that and we saw a ton of fun and creative costumes. My favorite was the group of people dressed as characters from The Little Mermaid. They even had a guy in a big fluffy Flounder costume! I didn't wear a costume, but maybe next year!

We also tried some new Disneyland foods I'd never eaten before. Pizza Port in Tomorrowland had mac and cheese pizza, which was unsurprisingly delicious! If I'd known that was an option there, I'd have eaten there every time we went!! We also got a bread bowl with clam chowder from Royal Street Veranda in New Orleans Square, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be added to the list of my favorite Disneyland foods. Now I want to try the one at Pacific Wharf in California Adventure.

The next day, we hit up California Adventure since we got on all the Disneyland rides the previous day. They don't really have much (or any?) Halloween decorations, which is kind of disappointing. It wasn't super crowded, so we were able to get several rides pretty quickly. It was a very nice day, so we sat and people-watched for a while before walking over to Downtown Disney.

California Adventure!

We had a late lunch at Uva Cafe. I got the Uva Burger, which was yummy but pretty overpriced, though I guess that's to be expected in Downtown Disney! We made one last stop before we left - World of Disney! They didn't have the tsum tsums I was looking for, but I did unexpectedly find a set of hard to find vintage attraction posters!

I'm looking forward to next year's Halloween Party! Hopefully I'll have finished all this candy by then... 

Ballooooons.

Candy apples, in the Minnie and Olaf varieties.