As you can see, I took a break from social media and the blog just to enjoy Halloween and the kids since I was on vacation and boy is it hard getting back into the swing now that I am back in.
I know the Fort Wilderness cabins are insanely expensive, but even if you park the car or take the boat from Magic Kingdom to the cabins (or bus), I highly suggest that you take an evening and just walk around to enjoy the festivities (Halloween or Christmastime…pick your poison…maybe both). I loved that one of our last evenings there had food trucks (and amazing ones at that) and smores gatherings which the kids loved and yes, Sean really did bring our inflatable screen to watch Dune on and it was a big hit (our neighbors were uber jealous). We also rented a golf cart during our stay, which was 100% a necessity.
We spent one day just enjoying the resort which I am glad since the last full day there it rained (hullo Contemporary Outer Rim bar and mobile ordering…thanks for existing) The pool area was packed (because Florida sits on the sun and is oppressively hot), so we opted for other things to do, such as pony rides (the Tri-Circle D Ranch is amazing), Disney Pumpkin Scavenger Hunt, took a bus to the Lodge and ate at Geyser Point (it faces the water and I had the best bison burger and margarita flight of my life). We ended the day with grilling outdoors and watching the movie Dune outside and honestly it was my favorite day of the bunch.
Let’s just take a moment to bask in the beautifulness of this perfectly cooked medium rare bison burger.
Obviously Danny was REALLY enamored by my margarita flight. He is going to be A LOT of fun on his 21st birthday!
Honestly every margarita on the flight was REALLY good, but the Pumpkin Spice one was my favorite (it had a real ginger taste) and check out the watermelon ice cube from the one on the end (chef’s kiss).
Now onto the Boo Bash because we all know I love a good digression…
First things first, if you do ANY of the special events at Disney, make sure that your emailed ticket has the barcode in it. If it does not, call Disney Guest Services and tell them. I would also consider screenshotting the barcode and saving it to a ‘confirmation’ picture album so that you can easily retrieve it. Why you ask?! Because we lost thirty minutes (granted we got there at 7pm) waiting for a representative to come over and help our magicband person find our tickets since the confirmation we received DID NOT have a barcode in it and even though the reservation was saved on MyDisneyExperience, only the who I am assuming is a Guest Services manager (or something of the like) can approve the transaction and licenses that went with the name on our tickets.
Secondly, lets address the elephant in the room. I know people were upset over the price, but if you have ever done one of the After Hours Party, the price aligns and is run very similarly, so yes if you have not experienced this before and have only done Mickey’s Not So Scary, I can see how the priceta would be a shock. Yes, there were no fireworks (unless you got there for Enchantment) or full on Halloween parades, but there were plenty of calvacades that still had all the fun halloween centered characters.
The ever popular Maleficient dragon
Although the character meet and greets had a different look, they were still VERY interactive and you were still able get close enough where you felt the magic of the traditional one. Plus, I loved that Fantasyland was full of the Villains.
However, my absolute favorite ‘interactions’ were the shows that were taking place over at the Haunted Mansion. They were so much and people did not linger too long in front so you really did get an opportunity to enjoy them (there were several different ones).
We were able to walk on all the rides we wanted too and multiple times over, but I will say that for 5000 people or something of the like, I felt that certain areas were bottlenecked and were quite busy and it did feel like it was considerably over that number. Even with more people, there is something about the vibe of Mickey’s Not So Scary that feels more Disney magical then what this did. Not that this wasn’t good, it just didn’t feel the same. Even the trick or treating felt different. Also keep in mind that the Halloween merchandise that is being sold during the day, is the same that is being sold at night. There was nothing special to purchase which was kind of a bummer, so I took extra Boo Bash maps to be able to save.
Lets be honest, EV only really cares about the Carousel and her horse Penelope anyway.
I missed the Hocus Pocus spectacular a great deal and although they did a musical act in front of the castle which was cute, it was similar to the DJ dance party that they normally do in Tomorrowland during MNSSHP.
As far as treats, I thought this was a really good deal if you are a fan of popcorn and ice cream (mickey sandwiches and ice cream bars) and getting them free until the end of evening can really add up when you think about the price they normally sell for during the day. Now do I think it is $200 worth it?! Maybe not, but we did end up stocking up on quite a few bottled Cokes and Dasani water in our stroller to bring back to our resort and by quite a few I mean we (okay okay me…it was me) filled the stroller basket. Sean was a little more mortified that I did this until later in the evening and in the coming days when he was ‘parched’ and then the mortification slipped away. I think this was both EV and Commodore’s favorite part of the evening…the treats…not their mother glomming bottled beverages.
So here is the thing, if you have young kiddos or kiddos who are used some semblance of a structured day, you may want to pass on this event or at least consider it in a couple years. EV is used to staying up later and is a seasoned traveler, so being out of the norm for her doesn’t really affect her and she loved being in the park during nighttime. The Commodore as you can see by this picture…
not so much…
The Photopass Photographer could not have been nicer and even waited for the dragon to come by to get this shot…
And right here is why wistful not looking at the camera pictures will ALWAYS be a Robb fan favorite lol. He was screaming just as hard in this picture, but you would NEVER know. ::cue face palm emoji::
The Commodore hadn’t napped, he was fighting sleep because his sister was up and he was not used to being in Magic Kingdom so late so everything felt off to him. We normally do Epcot or Hollywood Studios where everything is well lit in the evenings so a Halloween darker colored Magic Kingdom after a certain point of the night just was too much. Did I mention that he refused to sleep because his sister was up?!
I do feel that if your kiddos do well in the later evenings, are older, or you are just going on a date night or a solo night that it is worth the money. I said it, you can side eye me all that you want, but I love these events and find them really special to experience. Especially since we are only doing something like this once a year. I am kind of regretting not getting the Christmas tickets since I am seeing that they brought back a lot more things (I am sure Halloween was kind of a practice run considering) including the shows and fireworks for this event. If you are able to score tickets, I would think based on what they are offering that this would be the one that would be a better value….plus….Halloween is sadly over.
