OVFMNSSHP or Our Very First Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party Trip Report

I’ve never written on of these before and I’m working off mostly memory.

Arrival: 1215AM 10.16.19
Departure: 930AM 10.23.19

Who’s in the crew? DH (47), Me (52), DS (33), and DGD (14)

So, we left Tulsa on time headed to DFW where there was weather and a chance we would be landing about 10 minutes late. Normally not a big deal, but this inexperienced flyer had chosen a connecting flight with only a 45 minute layover. Yikes.

We made it to DFW on time, found the Skylink which was VERY efficient, and boarded on time for our flight to MCO. Landed in MCO in a timely fashion but their little shuttle thing was rather confusing to us and we wasted some time trying to figure out how to get to the Budget Rental Car desk. Finally got there to what was a shockingly long line for that time of night or at least I was shocked. Other more seasoned travelers most likely wouldn’t have been.

We were there for an HOUR. There were two agents and every person this one female agent had come to her desk was someone who had no clue about how to rent a car or what the rules were for renting a car. Such as: no credit card, no return flight, no reservation, wanted to use a debit card. And all these people threw fits and wanted to speak to the manager. It was crazy.

By the time we got there, we were able to get a car but all the vehicles in our size on that side of the airport were gone so we had to schlepp to the other side of the airport. Put all our stuff away and then was surprised by the gate to leave where we had to show all of our paperwork. Got out of the gate.

Got a little lost getting to our hotel but finally arrived. Had tried hitting up all of the supposed 24 hour open fast food joints but not one was open. Ended up at Denny’s and finally got in bed at 4am.

Official Day 1: Got up, took DS and DGD over to Universal. Used their valet parking to go get their tickets from Will Call. If I’d known all they needed was my credit card, I’d have just sent the credit card with them. Headed back to our hotel to pick up DH and we went to Animal Kingdom.

Got lunch at Flame Tree and ended up eating in the rain and had to go for cover. There was a 10% chance that day and ALL of it showed up at AK. The kids were over at Uni and IIRC, they never got any rain. All of our FP were for the evening so we spent the afternoon meeting Launchpad, Scrooge, riding Triceratop Spin, riding EE in the Single Rider line 2x, seeing Finding Nemo and wandering around.

Wanted to have dinner at Harambe Market but they were doing that fancy dinner thing so they had closed. I was quite disappointed and we ended up over at Satu’li Canteen. Then we rode Kilimanjaro Safari, saw It’s Tough to Be a Bug, rode EE again this time together, and rode Dinosaur.

We had FP for Navi (I can’t ride FoP) but by this time, I was exhausted and we went back to the hotel to rest up for day 2.

Day 2 to come next…

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Glad it worked out! Also really glad you’re doing a report! Looking forward to the rest

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Thank you! I’m more than a bit behind but wanted to give it a go.

Day 2: DS and DGD Ubered to USO/IOA for a day at the parks and an evening at HHN. They had fun, but even with the Express Pass (which cost a small fortune), they only got to 5 houses before they were exhausted. Apparently, the evening before was a private event so the night they went was extremely crowded. Overall, they had fun while there. They much preferred the QS there to WDW.

DH and I did valet parking at the Contemporary, got him some coffee, and walked over to MK around 12PM and had lunch at Crystal Palace. The meal was OK but nothing spectacular. I did enjoy meeting the characters, though. After this, we hit People Mover, Enchanted Tales with Belle, Pete’s Silly Sideshow Characters, Under the Sea, The Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, and Tiki Room. Had dinner at Pecos Bill’s where DH lost his hat.

We have a theme in our Disney trips: Every trip, it becomes necessary for me to either replace a hat, a beard trimmer, or refill prescriptions that he forgot or misplaced.

We got our wristbands for the party over between Frontierland/Adventureland and continued touring. We went over to Tommorowland to catch Carousel of Progress before it closed and came out to an unbelievable zoo. All day, crowds had been great. But at 4PM the crowds became really thick and the party crowd ended up overall being greater than the crowd during the day, IMO. We rode Buzz Lightyear and headed over to Adventureland to go to our clockwise plan for MNSSHP.

Seriously, I almost left because of the crowds. The line to get into Laugh Floor went from Laugh Floor all the way across the Tomorrowland/Hub bridge and I thought it was a bit much.

Adventureland was also nuts especially around the Dole Whip area where people thought it was a bright idea to stop in the middle of the crowds to take pictures of their Dole Whip. We made it to Pirates and by the time we got off that attraction, crowds were thinning a bit from folks who probably had left for the day.

We trick or treated and rode rides and I lasted until the fireworks and we headed out during them. We didn’t do any shows…we focused on rides and trick or treating.

Walked over to Contemporary where very nice people brought me my vehicle. Thankful for Valet.

The kids left HHN about the same time we left MNSSHP and we all crashed ready for a late start at Epcot and our first trip to Food and Wine.

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RE: HHN and Uber

Someone here had given us the tip to walk over to Hard Rock and Uber from there. This worked out very well but instead of walking, the kids utilized Bike Taxis.

Day 3: Late start day to Epcot. All the construction is really bothersome in FW and I could happily just head over to WS until it’s completed especially on the TT side. We rode TT, the fam did Mission Space, and then we hit Food & Wine.

Food and Wine. It’s a one and done for me. Although things pretty much tasted good (I could eat that bread pudding from Mexico for the rest of my life), I didn’t enjoy hopping around and getting little bites all over the place.

I also noticed a difference in atmosphere. It didn’t feel like Disney to me. Epcot felt like a giant frat party and I’m just not nor ever was someone who enjoyed that.

That’s not a judgement on anyone else or their enjoyment of the event. It’s just not for me or our family.

We worked our way from Italy back to the front and left around 6 or 7pm to meet friends who had come to join us for the weekend.

Headed over to All Star Music to have dinner with friends at the food court. The resort looks like fun and the CMs there were all so cheerful and happy and helpful. It was very noticeable in a very nice way.

Off to our hotel to sleep well and prepare for Tropical Storm Nestor and HS the next day.

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