Although summer has barely passed, spooky season is well underway. For Disney fans, that means the return of Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. MNSSHP is a special ticketed Halloween event that takes place from mid-August to November 1st.
Prices of the tickets vary from $99/$109 to $189/$199 depending on the dates you choose. We decided to make a quick weekend trip for MNSSHP on August 25, which just happened to be the two year anniversary of our engagement! It also happened to be one of the cheaper party tickets, so we lucked out on paying less than the typical park ticket for the day. If you are a family of four, you could easily spend between $400 to $800 on tickets alone.
The good news is that this special ticketed event includes exclusive entertainment, merchandise, trick or treating around the park, and a Halloween- themed parade and fireworks show starring the pumpkin king, himself! You can even meet some of your favorite characters dressed in their Halloween costumes.
This party has a lot of potential to be a magical time, but we definitely recommend planning ahead. This was our first official Halloween party, but we did our research and we think it paid off! Here's everything we got to experience during Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party this year:
Its party day! We flew in early Friday morning, and made it to Animal kingdom lodge by 11am. We personally believe a resort day before the party is a great way to keep energy levels up for the actual event, especially in the August Florida heat. The heat was already sweltering by the time we made our way through the Animal Kingdom Lodge doors. With several hours to kill, we decided to go to Disney Springs for lunch. We ate at polite pig and tried to beat the heat with some ice water before making our way back to AKL. We wanted to save most of our appetite for the party specific treats and eats. By the time we returned to our room, we got dressed in our party outfits and made our way to the bus stop!
We decided to go with a Haunted mansion theme this year. Dan, dressed in a haunted mansion ghost host shirt, and myself wearing a burgundy haunted mansion dress from her universe.
We arrived at Magic Kingdom right at 4pm. The line to get in the park was already long, but we had anticipated this and decided showing up a bit "late" was better than waiting in the Florida sun for over an hour in the heat. It took about half an hour to get into the park and get our wristbands. From there, we made our way directly to the jack and sally meet and greet. We knew lines would be long and we used our DAS to get a return time of 5:45pm.
With a little over an hour to kill, we decided to hang back, relax, and wait for those crowds to die down before trying to get in line for some rides. Something to keep in mind is that while party goers are able to get into the park at 4pm, the park doesn't actually close to regular park guests until 6pm. Expect some crowds from 4-6pm until park closing.
We enjoyed seeing other guests costumes. CM getting ready for the party were also out in their party outfits. Fun tip: Every CM has a name for their bat and some of them are very clever! We highly recommend sparking a conversation about their bats name.
We stopped by Casey's Corner for a Frozen Mint Julep Lemonade (9/10, would recommend) and some waters before cooling off in Monsters Inc laugh floor. Its a cute show and kept us out of the heat for a short while. If our daughter had been with us, it would definitely be a show she would have enjoyed.
As we were walking to the theatre to wait for jack and sally, we caught the end of a parade (daytime parade, not BTY). We did arrive early for our return time at 5:30 and talked with a CM until going back at 5:45pm. Once we got in, we were in line for about 20 minutes before seeing J&S. This ended up working well because I had been worried we would miss the virtual queue for Tron. We ended up getting the virtual queue just minutes before being brought in for the meet and greet.
The Jack and Sally meet and greet is very well themed and they do a great job of interreacting with guests. Sally asked me about sewing a Halloween costume for Dan and offered to give me lessons. While Jack and Sally do not give autographs, the CM working the line will hand out a pre-autographed laminated card.
As we were standing in line, I was able to use DAS to get 7 dwarfs return time before the park closed from 6-7pm. By the time we finished our meet and greet, our return time was called.
We only had a ten minute wait at 7 dwarfs before riding. I was hoping to use the standby line at some point in the evening to see all the fun additions in line, but the line was busy the entire evening.
We hit the first trick or treat spot right at 7 and then left for sleepy hollow to try the Char sui wings. The wings were tasty, but we had only received two wings and felt that it was pretty expensive for the amount you receive. It wouldn't be something that we would order again, just based on quantity.
While walking around, we saw Powerline Max and Cadaver Dan appearances near frontier land and rode big thunder mountain. We also hit the Trick or treat spot by Pirates.
Pirates was walk on and we were happy to walk straight through the queue and onto the ride. This year, they do not have live actors in the actual ride; however, they do have a live pirate band playing music outside of the line queue. If they had used live actors for the ride, I am sure the line to ride would've been much longer.
We stopped by the Enchanted Tiki Room treat stop, which did have a bit of a longer line and is a really cool experience to be able to walk through. We also noticed the Treat station by Philharmagic was two spots in one and hit that spot several times throughout the night. Right across from there, the Pinnochio village haus treat stop is a quick walk through.
While walking past Be Our guest, we got into a conversation with the CM there. Originally, we had had a 4pm reservation as a special anniversary dinner, but we had cancelled it to make the most of the party. A little faith, trust, and some pixie dust and we were ushered in to take some anniversary pictures at Be our guest.
We even got to sit at the table where Dan proposed two years ago to the day! To our surprise, we lucked out by meeting the beast. The restaurant brings back so much nostalgia for us and I was so glad we were able to experience that.
We left BOG feeling famished and stopped at Friar nook's for the buffalo chicken hand pie and the pain and panic brat. Both items are Halloween specific treats. The goal was to order these with time to spare to scout out a good spot for the Boo to You parade. Unfortunately, we ended up waiting for our food for over 30 minutes after we had placed our order. The buffalo chicken hand pie was a bit disappointing as well.
We arrived at Main St. just minutes before the parade was scheduled to start. Our view of the parade was suboptimal, but Cruella was the highlight of the parade for me. Her laugh was spot on.
As soon as the parade was over, we rushed to the other side of the street to get our usual spot for the fireworks! The firework show was really cute, and the animatronic Jack Skellington was really cool to see up close.
We were called for the Tron virtual queue before the fireworks were over. I am not going to lie, the wave of people rushing to Tron after the fireworks gave me some anxiety. The line was exceptionally long because most people had waited until the fireworks show was over to rush over to the ride.
We waited in line for maybe ten minutes before I realized I could've just used my DAS to bypass the standby VQ. After scanning my magic band at the das entrance, we were both ushered through the lightning lane line. If we hadn't had DAS, it definitely would've been a 1-2 hour wait in the standby line. Plan accordingly if you are wanting to ride Tron during the party and expect delays after the fireworks if your VQ is called during that time.
We hit a few more treat spots and left at close. While we heard from a few people that the first few parties only needed 2-3 treat stops to fill the bag (and more) neither of us had filled our small treat bags until the very end and we had done over 10 stops. We had brought an extra backpack as recommended by guests from the first party, and we didnt even need it. Perhaps it was just that they were being extra generous at the first party, but it was definitely a different treat experience during our party.
Many have asked if the MNSSHP tickets are worth it, but that truly depends on what you consider worth it. If you are hoping to get some shorter attraction lines, trick or treat in the parks, and see some halloween themed shows and fireworks, MNSSHP is definitely worth the trip. For us, we were able to see the fireworks, meet Jack and Sally, ride most of the rides, and trick or treat throughout the park. We werent planning on adding additional magic kingdom time to our trip outside of the party and it was a great way to enjoy some nostalgia with some added spooky fun.
We hope that Disney world continues to add new experiences to there a parties. We would love to see more ride overlays, and the return of live actors within the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. We would also like to see more consistency for the Halloween foods and the treat stops. If the party had more villian meet and greets, it would also lower overall character meet and greet lines and make the party more enjoyable. Ultimately, Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party is a great event and one we would return to with our daughter in the future.
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