Mickey's NSS Halloween Party - to go or not??

[barkley1]

This is our first trip to WDW - kids are ages (newly) 3 and 5. MNSSSHP will be on our second full day of visiting the parks, which will be our first day @ MK. I have NO idea how they are going to hold up. This summer they've gone to bed late quite a bit, which is 9-9:30. Normal bedtime is 8-8:30. What's everyone's experience with the halloween party? is it worth the extra $300? if we get them to nap late afternoon, they should make it just fine, but we're probably asking for a meltdown back in the room from the 3 year old after it's over, or sooner. Also, we have a breakfast reservation @ 8:05 for Hollywood/Vine the next day. They are not late sleepers at ALL, but surely after staying up until ??? the night before, they will not be up and at 'em in time for breakfast (meaning we will wake them).

Worth it? or no....

[Radswd]

Hi! This will be first trip to WDW for our kids who will be newly 5 and 2.5. I have to say that I have the same thoughts you do about MNSSHP-will it be worth it, meltdown, etc. However, everything I have read or anyone I have spoken to about this event has said that it is very fun. Some online have commented that they enjoy the fireworks greater than any other display. I have not yet pulled the trigger on getting tickets, but I'm 98% sure that I will. We are going in September, and I've seen that crowd levels for the party are expected to be lower this month than Oct.

[waitingforgrace]

Curious if anyone will respond with insight. We're going at the end of September for the first time with DDs and I was trying to figure out if we should fork over the extra or not. I was tempted not to do it because it irks me it's extra and I don't really understand why.

[egoldber]

Personally, at that age, I would skip it. We did it once and I honestly thought it was pretty lame. The special fireworks were nice, but not great. There were huge lines for candy that we don't really need anyway. Unless your kid is able to stay up very late and enjoy all the extra night stuff, I would save the money.

[Tinkerbell313]

We have done it once...when my daughter was 9 and her BFF was 10. It was OK...but nothing special. We were also staying at BLT that same year. We had a lakeview room but we were in the northside so our lakeview room actually had a view of the castle. So we could watch Hallowishes from the room.

We truly enjoyed the nighttime parade. We enjoyed seeing the headless horseman.

Lots of people go for the special characters that are only out during the parties (i.e. the Seven Dwarfs). They will wait in line for hours just to see those characters. We are not big character people.

If its your first time, I would skip it especially with the ages of your kids There is so much to do and no way that you will be able to get through all the regular WDW stuff on your first trip. The kids will not miss it and neither will you. If find the decorations the most beautiful part about Disney and you will see that at any time and any day.

With that said, we find that MK is much less busy on a party day. We showed up at noon (near the end of October) and the kids were able to ride the headliners (Splash Mountain, BTMMR, Space Mountain) over and over without any wait. If we showed up at noon with no wait I am sure it was much less busy showing up at park opening. I realize your kids will not be riding those rides but some of the other rides should be lower waits as well.

[anonomom]

We did it when DD1 was 3 and DD2 was an infant. I really liked it, but would not do it again with small kids. We rode a few rides, did a little trick-or-treating, saw the parade and left right after the fireworks. DD1 did fine, but she could not have made it through the whole party. DD2 just fell asleep once she was tired, so I spent a good hour just sitting down holding her (she actually slept through the fireworks, and I was sitting in the middle of fantasy land!)

My overall impression of the event was that it was much more crowded than the park had been earlier in the day, so we couldn't get nearly as much done as we'd hoped. And it wasn't really worth the extra money. DD1 had fun, but I don't think she had any sense that it was special (or any different from any other WDW day).

That all said, I would love to do the party again some day. I just want to wait until all of them are old enough to stay the whole time and have fun.

[jillmk]

We did it when DDs were 7 and 4 in 2010. And we had a different experience--we absolutely loved it! We love Halloween, and our whole family dressed up in costumes. (Just simple ones for the adults.) I don't think we did any rides, but we loved the parade, fireworks, DDs loved the dance parties, collecting some candy....it was great. I remember prioritizing a few Halloween characters, so with planning we got great pictures with a few characters and stumbled upon a few more. However, we did not go in to the park during the day--instead just a few hours before the party started. And we went in early to mid October, so perhaps the lines for the party aren't as bad as they are later in the month.

[barkley1]

Thanks for the opinions....I think since it is $300, we will wait until the kids are older.

[AnimalBabe]

We just got back, and we did do the Halloween event. Our son is 4.5 and we all loved it. We, of course, did not stay for the entire event but we did get to go on some more rides, collect candy at two stations (they give you a lot)--and my son dressed up which he loved, saw the light parade (which is SO cool, and totally different from the usual light parade), saw the light show on the castle, and then the fireworks right after. We left after that. We walked past a dance party and though I would have liked to go in, we were rushing to get candy to make it to a good spot for the other shows. We were out of the park by 10pm, which is late for my son, but he seemed to do OK and passed out in the stroller on the way out. I would definitely say do it!

[123LuckyMom]

I saw you're leaning towards not going. I've never been, so I can't comment on whether it's worth the extra money, but I did want to say that my kids did fantastically well at Disney, though they are normally complete wrecks when their sleep schedules are thrown off. Mine went at 4 and 11 months. We left the park each day after lunch for a stretch of about three hours. The baby napped, but DS wouldn't. Then he would get in his seat of the double stroller and promptly fall asleep as we were going back to the park. DH and I rode the big coasters during DS's naps. We stayed through the fireworks/nighttime shows every night. Usually the kids would fall asleep on the way back to the hotel, but they transferred to bed easily, and we got to the parks by rope drop in the mornings. We had a seven night/six day stay.

I wouldn't try to keep to bedtimes. I'd break for a nice nap each day and stay up late.