Last night was the first Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party of the season!

Fall has started to arrive. Kids have returned to school, temperatures are dropping at night, football season has kicked off, and pumpkin spice lattes are showing up at coffee shops.  At Walt Disney World fall brings with it some great activities.  Starting it off is Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. On September 20th, I will be in the parks and at the party . Last night was the first party and I am anxiously awaiting reports of the new characters and changes to previous year’s schedules.

Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party brings with it a chance to dress up (yes even you grown ups!) and go trick-or-treating in the park. There is a special parade, “Mickey’s Boo to You Parade”, and fireworks, “Hallowishes”. The Villains are out in full force during the parties. You can find them in front of Cinderella’s Castle putting on the “Villains Mix and Mingle” shows several times each party night. My favorite part is all the special character appearances. If you are an admitted character hunter, special parties are the best times to find rare and elusive characters. Plus some of the regular gang get into the party spirit and dress up just for parties!

Here’s a quick review of what my husband, Matthew, and I were able to accomplish last year on the night of the first party of 2012. We bought our tickets online the night before and got our big Annual Passholder discount ($3-4). We picked them up at will call the day of the party. Since this was a last minute decision for us, we did not have costumes. Luckily Matthew had picked up a Darth Vader shirt (complete with cape) that day so that was his costume. He embellished his costume by playing “The Imperial March” from his phone’s speaker as we walked through the park (did I mention my husband is a big nerd).

If you want to get any of the “big line” characters (7 Dwarves, Captain Jack, Princess and Princes), you should arrive early for parties. Since we had done this in years past we didn’t set out to arrive very early for this party. Our goal was to cross off a few characters we had missed before, see Villains in Vogue, watch the parade and Hallowishes and stock up on some candy to give our trick-or-treaters back home.

First priority was Donald and Daisy. Donald is Matthew’s favorite character, plus  I wanted to meet them in their Halloween costumes. We were first in line to greet them and waited only a few minutes after the 7pm start of the party for them to arrive at their meet-and-greet location near the Fantasyland Expansion castle wall.

The next 2 characters we met were a real bonus, our friends BootstrapBob and KennythePirate. They are pirate’s by trade so they are ok by me. They are the famous character hunter, app creator, and Ultimate Tour go-ers. You can find Kenny’s blog at www.kennythepirate.com.  Also check for his awesome character locator app in the Google Play store or Apple App Store. It is money well spent if you want to find characters.

Then we headed over to find this hunky Disney character and his friend. We waited about 15 minutes for our turn.

Next we got a spot for “Villains Mix and Mingle” for the first show. I love Dr. Facilier. He makes a great Villain MC. Attending “Villains Mix and Mingle” for me is like going to a rock concert where your favorite band performs. I just love it, love the crowd energy and love screaming for my favorites. If you make it to this show, try to get close to the stage for the after-concert meet and greet with the villians.

We were pretty close to the stage, so we were able to meet a few of my favorite dark heroes from the Disney movies. Getting to a line quick is the key to meeting several characters. This pictures only (no autographs) meet and greet happens fast, so having your cameras and strategy planned in advance helps, too.

After all that evil fun we decided to head off to a happier place and visit The Man. You know, the one who started it all. Mickey Mouse, of course! He was in my favorite costume, his Pirate costume. Oh Minnie was there, too.

We stopped in to see Phineas and Ferb because they had no line at all.

We went back for a second Villains Mix and Mingle to get my Maleficent picture.

Then it was time for “Hallowishes”, one of the best fireworks shows of the year. From a crowd standpoint, this year was very different. We walked up 15 minutes prior to start time and stood in the roadway area of the center HUB. There were so few people there I could literally stick my arms out and turn in huge circles and not encounter anybody (although I looked a little silly trying this out). Since the year before was so crowded that we could barely move anywhere, this was awesome by comparision.

After the great fireworks, we hunted down my favorite new character, Duffy. I just love this guy. He is adorable.

Then we decided it was time to fill our sacks with treats. As we were walking thru Fantasyland for some more delicious candy from the Werther’s Candy spot inside Pinocchio’s Village Haus, we found these two mice scurrying about.

Haunted Mansion is particularly spooky on Halloween Party nights so we went for a spin to see if we would be indeed the 1000th guest. We (luckily) were not. Afterwards I got a chance to meet a ghost.

We also took the time to get some great Photopass shots. We had ordered Photopass Plus again for this trip and wanted to make sure we got all our favorite special party shots.

Then we settled in for the parade. We got excellent spots about 15 minutes before parade time in front of the port at Liberty Tree Tavern in Liberty Square. Due to the low crowds there was a lot of great spots. There were spaces available even up to the minute the parade started in Liberty Square.

After the parade and a quick spin on Pirates of the Caribbean, we hit the candy trails again to load up on treats. Our bags were both full when we left. We even got a special treat as we departed from Cast Members posted at the gates – yummy marshmallow ghost peeps!

We had a great time at this Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, we have been before, but this was the best. Lines were short, crowds were low, and the weather was great. We got a good mix of rides and character greeting done and had time to see all the main events. If all the parties were this wonderful I would go every year (of course I do pretty much anyway)!