:: Giddy Girlie ::: Halloween Celebration

On Wednesday night, I went with Kate and Ryan to the special Disney after-hours shindig at California Adventure called "Mickey's Trick or Treat Party." This event started years ago as "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween" as an alternative to Knott's Berry Farm's super scary Halloween Haunt. It's a family-friendly affair and I never really saw any reason to go until last year... this is the only time when everyone in the family is allowed to wear costumes to the park (kids are generally fine if it's a Disney costume, but adults aren't supposed to wear costumes, wigs, etc.) and people go CRAYZEE. Last October, we were just visiting Disneyland and happened to see the flock of people making their way toward California Adventure and man alive! Those were some fantastic costumes! We sat there and watched for an hour. It was amazing.

So this year, we decided to go! Tickets are kinda spendy considering it's a 4 hour event (6:30-10:30pm), but if you have an annual pass or go on mid-week nights, you can score tickets for around $25 for an adult. So it's not too bad. Plus, there are benefits to going...

You get to wear a costume - which is totally fun! And people go ALL OUT on their costumes for this event, so you'll see tons of professional costumes and gorgeous make-up, plus SO MANY fun home-made costumes that are my personal favorites.

You get a metric ton of candy. I'm not kidding. There are "trick or treat" stations all along the pathways and walkways through the park (I'd guess there's something like 20 different stations) and at each one you're given a handful of candy and/or healthy snacks (apple slices, raisins, carrots, crackers). The candy is a mixed variety of store-bought candy (Snickers, Lemonheads, Kit Kat, etc.) and there is even one station that is sponsored by Godiva! We skipped most of them because we're not big candy eaters, but in retrospect, I should have stocked up and given it to our trick or treaters!

The Disney characters are everywhere! There are little themed stations all over the park where characters have a little prop backdrop and you get a chance to meet them and get your picture taken. The nicest thing about this is that because there is less of a crowd, each person/family gets a few minutes with the characters. For example, we saw Peter Pan and Wendy debating over who would get to be a little girl's best friend, which left Captain Hook sulking away. The little girl was in heaven, it was really very sweet. That alone may be worth the price of admission.

Lines are short! Everyone is so thrilled at the characters and the candy that almost no one was taking advantage of the rides. So even if you don't want to meet n' greet with the princesses, you can hit all the rides in the park in 4 hours! Not all of the rides were open, for instance the whitewater rapids attraction was closed (it was also COLD so no one would want it anyway), but all of the big ones were: roller coaster, Tower of Terror, Soarin' Over California, etc.

Ryan had this idea to be a "nerdy vampire" and bought these fangs that attach to your real teeth which turned out to be WAY more of a hassle than he'd anticipated. So much of the night, he kept them safely in his pocket.

And, eventually, he turned to using candy for fangs.

Kate was dressed as Mary Poppins and was practically perfect in every way! She was spot-on and looked so charming and lovely that I just couldn't stop staring! And neither could anyone else! Everywhere we walked, people would shout "Mary Poppins!" and when she'd turn around, they would wave and smile and get super excited. I wish I would have/could have counted the number of people who yelled her name or rushed up to say "I love you!" and it's unknowable how many smiles she passed around that night. Not just to me and Ryan, but jeez louise - people love some Poppins!!