Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Part 1

It is party day!!! Because AnnaMay gets overwhelmed easily, this is the only day we are doing a Disney park this trip. We love Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.  Last year when we went, AnnaMay had a very hard time and was very stressed, so this year I was on the lookout for any issues and willing to call it quits as soon as we needed to. We hung out at the house in the morning and swam.  We all ate lunch and than took an early nap around noon. We got up and started getting dressed. This year AnnaMay has decided to be Lilo and I have a shirt like one of Nani’s and Jay is going to wear a Hawaiian shirt. (Nanny is not going.  She says it is too hard to get her scooter around in the dark with the crowds so she is going to stay at the house and enjoy a good book.) AnnaMay came out with her dress on. The dress we have tried on 3 times to make sure she is really comfortable in since she has a hard time with clothes.  She has “the look” ,I have learned it well.  It is a pained look with added motions of pulling on said dress.  This was not good. She says, “Mom this is bothering me.  I am not sure I can wear it very long.” My first reaction is WHAT I ordered that and you tried it on you are going to wear it.  Thankfully, that did not come out of my mouth. I said calmly, “if it is going to bother you then why don’t you just go change.” She said “okay mommy, I’m sorry”. All of my anger then drains away and I think it must stink she is having to give up going a Halloween party in a costume because she just can’t do it.  Then I have a wonderful thought! I  remembered I packed her Wonder Woman T-shirt that has a cape attached to it.  And for some strange reason when I packed, I had thrown in my Wonder Woman shirt and Jay’s Iron Man one too!! Perfect! Instant costume change…And now I have a happy comfortable girl. We finished getting ready and headed off to the Contemporary where we valet park the car.  AnnaMay is afraid to ride the monorail and the boats.  We parked here and then we use the walkway to get to Magic Kingdom. Some of you know I had surgery recently and was not as well prepared for this trip as I normally am.  Well, we were halfway to the Contemporary, and I realized that I left the plan for the night at the house. I started to panic a little and then thought, “oh well we can do what I remember and just wing it.” Then, my plan-loving girl pipes up, “I think I took a picture of the plan, Mommy”. Sure enough she finds it!!! It is an older version, but it was way better than nothing. Gotta love a kid that loves plans!

 

We got to Magic Kingdom via the Walkway and got in line at guest services.  This year we got AnnaMay a small wheelchair to use at the park. In the past, they have allowed us to use a stroller as a wheelchair. We found it really helps her to have space that belongs to her that she knows others can’t invade. We were at guest services to get a DAS. It allows us to get a return time at rides and come back instead of waiting in a line where the crowds and noise can overwhelm AnnaMay. We are so thankful that Disney does this for us. It makes our time at Disney much less stressful. I had also heard that they were selling a one day photopass memory maker for $39.  I asked if this was available and it was. Yay.  It was nice to have them get some pictures of us with the characters. It even came with one magic band. This excited AnnaMay and we let her choose the color. She chose pink. She was so excited to wear it and since I had our 3 Fastpasses set up, she was able to use it for them. They came out and took AnnaMay’s picture for her DAS and we finished up. It was about 3:30 at this point and they were supposed to be able to let us get into the park at 4:00. We went over to get in line for one of the turnstiles. Quite a crowd built behind us, but because I had picked the furthest turnstile, it did not seem too crowded. There was a guy in front of us in line that was so funny. He was probably about 22 and was there by himself. He was so excited to be at the party. It was his first one and he chatted with us about everything he was going to see and do. The only bad thing about standing in line was it felt so hot and the sun was just beating down. I was afraid that it was going to be somewhat uncomfortable during the party. AnnaMay does not deal with heat well at all. They opened the lines and let us in to get wrist bands at about 3:50.  We had a 3:30-4:30 FP to Tinkerbell. We decided we should have time to do it before we went to see the castle show.  AnnaMay was very excited this year about shrinking to Tinkerbells size this year. She got really into it.

Tinkerbell was great. She did tell AnnaMay that she heard Super Heroes should not wear capes. (She must have seen the Incredibles.)

On our way up Main Street we stopped and got some pictures of us with the castle, and a magic shot.

 

After that it was just about time for what AnnaMay calls “The Peter Pan Show” because….hello Peter Pan is in it.  I mean he is more is more important than those other characters like Mickey, isn’t he.

While Jay and AnnaMay watched the show, I ran up to get us a return time for Enchanted Tales with Belle. We then headed up to use our Fastpass to meet Rapunzel and Cinderella. AnnaMay asked Rapunzel where Pascal was and she said he was playing hide and seek with Jacque and Gus. She then checked AnnaMay’s hair to be sure he was not in there.

When she saw Cinderella, she asked her what it was like to ride in a pumpkin. They talked about it for a few minutes and at the end she told AnnaMay that some people even say she smells like pumpkin from riding in them.  She offered her arm to smell and asked AnnaMay if she thought they were right.

 

We then went over to ride Peter Pan but were given a return time about 45 minutes out. No problem. It was time we could head to Belle. We got there and only had to wait about 5 minutes to enter.  AnnaMay was fascinated with the mirror that became a doorway. And also the Wardrobe and Lumiere.  She liked the show okay but did not really get into it too much.

When we left Belle, we headed to ride the Little Mermaid ride. The wait was less than 10 minutes so they let us right on it. She enjoyed the ride but lost her little card she had on her lanyard. A Cast Member noticed she was upset and promised they would look for it and told us to come back in a few hours to check and see if they found it. She got herself back together and we headed out. It was not quite time to go over to Peter Pan yet. AnnaMay decided she wanted to meet Ariel.  We only had to wait 5 minutes before we could go in.  Not too bad.  We met Ariel.  I am not sure what they talked about, but AnnaMay loved it.

We headed back to ride Peter Pan. When we finished up with Peter Pan we realized we could use our last Fast Pass for Buzz and headed over to get in line. It took about 5 minutes to get through that line.  AnnaMay loves this ride.  She really killed me with the score.

 

While we had been waiting for Buzz , AnnaMay decided she wanted to meet Mickey. Well it was about 6:15. The information I had looked at before the trip listed him as only being there until 6:30, then back at 7:00 for the party.  But I told her we could try and see but we had to head back that way to Tony’s for dinner at 7:05 anyway. So, when we hopped off at Buzz, Jay told us to just hurry down and he would catch up. We had 5 minutes and I figured there is no way we wouldl make it, especially with everyone pouring into the party. We got down to Mickey at about 6:35 and he was still seeing people, but the wait was 40 minutes. We used the DAS to get a return time we can use after we ate dinner.  We talked about going over and doing some window shopping while we were waiting for it to be time to check in. More in the next post….