We will be at the world next week, and have tickets for the Halloween Party. I’m not completely sure that I understand the party thing, though, this is the first party we’re doing (this will be our 6th trip).
I get that there’s a special parade and Hallowishes. DS6 can get candy. We have APs and will be at MK earlier that day. Will we have shorter waits for rides during the party? (Next Friday night).
We’ve never been big on meet and greets, and if we do any, it would probably be 7 dwarfs (DS loves them). We have FP for 7dmt earlier that day, but would the line be manageable enough to ride during the party?
Just trying to get a sense of whether the point of the party is to soak up the ambience and get candy, or if there’s a real advantage in terms of ride wait times.
DS also likes Sorcerors of MK, is that something worth doing during the party, or no? I get that there are different spell cards, but are the animations any different or anything?
The biggest advantage for the wait times for rides during the party is there is no FP+ folks cutting in front of you. So a queue like Buzz which is continuous loading actually moves continuously - you never stop (barring ride breakdown) as they never shutdown the standby queue to let on FP+ people. Given some estimates can be as high as 75-80% of riders come from the FP+ line, this can make a huge difference in queue wait times. The other factor is a lot of people doing the party will be doing the special party things (candy, parade, shows, etc.) and thus less likely to be doing the rides. So the lines will likely be shorter due to that as well. At the Xmas party last year, we found the waits noticeably shorter due to that - 7DMT was still a healthy wait though…
Yes TP will have estimated waits for the parties. You probably won’t really need a TP though because almost everything will be a walk on. 7DMT won’t, but times may be as low as 10-20 mins for it.
The parties are about more than quick rides though. Are you going in costumes? Is Halloween something your family enjoys? The ambiance is pretty cool, the parade and fireworks are generally rated the highest of any that they’ve done in the past. Special magic shots near the haunted mansion and a few other places are fun, lots of candy, the Sanderson Sisters doing the Hocus Pocus show, dance parties. It’s really as much fun as you make it. If you go just to ride rides I doubt you’ll feel like you got your monies worth considering you’re AP holders.
I would say it’s definitely an ambiance thing with a couple of extras thrown in. When I went, I really don’t know what happened, but I ended up only having time for 1 ride (Haunted Mansion). hahaha
I even forgot to go trick or treating and I was there the whole night. During the normal hours, the candy stations were insanely long lines, and after midnight…I just flat out forgot. There’s a lot to do though, @Outer1 listed a good bit of it and it doesn’t sound like much, but it really is. I thought the parade was going to be kinda meh, but it easily became my favorite parade of the whole trip (special nod to the HM portion).
I just did this Monday. We had a blast. My kids’ favorite things were the Boo to You parade, candy (lines frequently looked long but actually moved fast), and riding rides like space and splash without a long wait. They also really liked the monsters inc dance party in tomorrowland, and just seeing all of the costumes and everything. 7dwarfs wait was still approx 30 minutes or more all night. Character meet lines were insane, and there were longish lines for photopass photographers, especially the ones with special party effects like near HM and such. Otherwise the crowds weren’t bad.
We arrived around 4:30 or 5, took a picture, got our special SotMK card (but didn’t really play, though some people were playing and there wasn’t much of a wait at any of the portals), used a couple fpp, and ate dinner at CHH. We rode a couple more rides, trick or treated, stopped to buy shoes for DD4 (there was a wardrobe malfunction ;)), and then found a spot at the rope for the first parade about 10 minutes before it started and got to see the headless horseman. We went to space mountain and the dance party/trick or treating after that, then watched Hallowishes from the tomorrowland terrace area. Took a rest, then went back to ride WtP and some other rides. My DD11 wanted to meet the Pooh characters, so we stopped by there at 10:45, and they had cut the line, so we missed that. But otherwise, it was a great night. So in about 7 hours we rode about 10 rides (some a couple of times), took a couple photos, trick or treated at most of the stops at least once, watched the parade, fireworks, and parts of the hocus pocus show as we walked by, danced with Mike and Sully, shopped and ate one meal and one snack/break.
Hope that gives you an idea of how the night goes.
We’ll be there next Friday, too! Definitely looking forward to it, but mostly for the special stuff - parade, fireworks, seeing everyone in costume. I have a “plan” but it’s very few rides. It’s nice to hear, @awspoede, that you didn’t have to wait very long for the parade. I was thinking I’d give us about an hour+ to eat (At CHH) and find a parade spot. Maybe we don’t need that long, though.
I’m also really curious how long the Jack & Sally line will end up being… we’re planning to get in line early… but I’m still very nervous about it. I don’t want to spend all night in that one line.
I’ve been watching their schedule in lots of places… kenny the pirate, our Lines facebook group… sounds like they regularly come out at 5:00, but sometimes that’s delayed due to inclement weather. I’d LOVE to get them finished before our 5:30 - 6:30 fastpass window expires.
On the down side - it looks like there might be rain next Friday. I realize it’s still a ways away, but weather.com says 60% chance of evening storms. sigh.