I had an idea to go to the party dressed as Carl and Ellie Fredrickson from “UP”. We already had most of the components, but needed to find some of the accessories (enter thrift stores)…including the quad cane. We never found one (without having to buy one brand new) so he ended up using his regular cane.
We had gotten a much later start than we wanted to plus we took our time getting there, but we finally got to the hotel. We got dressed up in our costumes and headed to the park. Traffic was a nightmare (what else is new?) but we finally got to the parking garage and hopped on the tram. We made it to the party about 20 after 7. Right away, Cast Members recognized Cbog40 and were talking to him while he waited for me to come through the turnstiles. He told them here comes Ellie, and they both said “Ellie, you’re not dead!” We got our wristbands and our candy bags (Beauty and the Beast Diamond Edition on one side, Toy Story 3 on the other side) and set off to party.
We decided to try and take a lap to see what was where before doing anything. We went into Tomorrowland first and checked out the Buzz Lightyear dance club. Buzz was getting groovy along with some Green Army Men and the dance floor was packed!
All the lines (attraction, treats…etc) were long! We figured we wouldn’t get much candy since we didn’t want to wait in those lines, and we wondered just how much we’d get to do. We then continued into Fantasyland in hopes of seeing some villains. Well, because it was 8:00 and the parade was at 8:15, there were no villains out. Since we had decided to watch the second parade, we set out toward Frontierland. Along the way we saw that there was a pretty short candy line so we hopped in. We were both getting a little hungry at this point too since we hadn’t eaten since 1 or 2. So we figured we’d get our couple of pieces of candy and eat them as we wander around. Well, the treat stations were set up as “trails”. You started on one end and went through to the other end with stations every few feet or so in between. The lines moved fairly quickly too. So at our first treat “trail” we had at least 5 stations with small handfuls at each station. Not too shabby…on top of that, the stations were double-sided so essentially there were two lines going in opposite directions, but we only did one side at this point. The trail started by Casey Jr. and went around the back side of Dumbo and came out next to Storybookland (Casey Jr. and Storybookland were not open for the party).
We then headed to the Big Thunder trail to get to Frontierland. There was another treat trail and the line was not long so we went through that one too. We got several comments about our costumes and it was fun making sure the Cast Members knew who we were. Believe it or not some really had to think either because they have not seen UP or they have only seen it once and couldn’t remember, but most got it right away. After scoring more treats, we saw there was but a few people in line at the Big Thunder Ranch for pictures with Woody, so we went to get our picture taken. Woody had to leave, but Jessie took over so it was alright. When we got up there, she recognized us right away and even started wiping away tears. It was quite cute. We saw Mickey and Minnie on the other side, but the line was way too long so we decided to press on. There were a few more treat stations along the trail and not many people in line so we rejoined the treat lines. Coming up on the Rivers of America, we saw that the Columbia was in her “Halloween costume” as a pirate ship and docked to provide a backdrop for the pirate meet and greet. When we walked by, Peter Pan, Wendy and Captain Hook were all out taking pictures. (I heard that Captain Jack Sparrow would be in that area too, but we never saw him…it was always the same characters whenever we passed by) There was a ton of fog coming off the Rivers of America and with the lighting and the fog, it was quite eerie.
We went toward New Orleans Square to see what else we could find. We saw the BEST costumes of the evening! A family/group got together and dressed up as the Main Street Electrical Parade! There was the Blue Fairy, the Caterpillar, Elliott, the Dwarfs Mine, the spinning turtles, the pirate ship, to Honor America and even a parade chaser at the end! I couldn’t believe it!!! They had so much detail and were absolutely amazing! Again, the treat trail line was short so we followed it around and got more treats (about half a bag each now…). The trail started near the entrance to NOS and circled around the back side and ended near the French Market restaurant that had been transformed into Club Skellington (the Jack and Sally meeting area was next door). There weren’t many folks out there on the dance floor.
At this point, it’s after 9 and we need to get back over by the castle for the Halloween Screams fireworks that would be going off at 9:30. We made our way to the Tomorrowland side of the castle and didn’t have too bad of a spot.
After the fireworks, we decided to hang out for the parade. There was a live scarecrow interacting with the crowd and he was pretty funny. I snapped a quick picture and we went to find a spot for the parade.
Since the parade wasn’t until 10:30 (about half an hour’s wait), Cbog40 decided to walk around a bit and I saved us some curb space near a couple of benches. As I was sitting on the curb Woody came to visit…well at least a 2 year old Woody that is. He was adorable and kept going up and down the curb while holding on to me. I kept asking him if he was looking for Jessie or for Buzz. He kept laughing and smiling…he was too cute for words and I wish I took a picture of him too. Well, it turns out the benches had to be moved so a CM helped me up and I debated about what to do. Should I stay on the curb where I know he can’t sit and have to find somewhere else to sand or should I grab a seat on a bench? Well, a very nice lady who had been on the bench next to me told me she would save me a spot there while I save a seat for Cbog40. A couple of pirates joined me on the bench and we chatted a bit and were people-watching. I enjoyed seeing all the great costumes! There was an Edward Scissorhands, a lion (who couldn’t have been more than 2…so cute!) a bunch of Waldos (I don’t get it…they were everywhere!!!) and of course princesses of all ages. Cbog40 came back with goodies! He brought us each a muffin (he had a caramel apple muffin that had nuts in it and I had a pumpkin muffin filled with cream cheese frosting) and a mug of caramel apple cider. Yummy!!! Oh yeah, there was the obligatory Mickey rice krispie treat too. By the time Cbog40 came back, there were several people sitting behind the nice lady and her daughter and I didn’t want to be in the way of those kids. So I thanked her for saving me a spot but I decided to hang out on the bench (Cbog40 decided to stand). I did not eat my muffin at that point because I had so much other stuff to hold, but Cbog40 really needed to eat.
It was finally parade time so Cbog40 took my camera and stood in the space between the 2 benches and I used his camera as best as I could, but the batteries ran out. I couldn’t see much from where I was sitting and neither could the pirates and they sat up on the rail/back of the bench. Great idea! So I jumped on that bandwagon. The parade was cute and the music was great but it was a bit on the short side.
Next up, we went to Haunted Mansion Holiday. On the way over, we saw Genie in front of Aladdin’s Oasis and he didn’t have much of a line, but we wanted to carry on so we passed him up. The line for HMH was only about 10 minutes so we joined in. As always, it was AMAZING! We got stopped once and it was in the séance room! Go figure! I was almost nose to nose with my alter ego!!!
After we got off the ride, we saw Brer Bear who was dancing around because he was bored with no one to take pictures with. So we helped out with that situation and had our picture taken with him, but since my camera battery was about to die out, and my extra battery was dead on its own, we only did a photopass picture. We then headed over to Critter Country, and guess what? There was another candy trail and hardly anyone there so we went ahead and got more candy while on our way over to see what characters we could find in Critter Country. There were only a handful of people waiting for a picture with Winnie the Pooh, so we got in line. We were told that Pooh was about to be replaced with Tigger, and that was perfectly fine with us since Tigger is one of Cbog40’s favorites. Both Pooh and Tigger were dressed in their Super Sleuth outfits from “My Friends Tigger and Pooh”. Again, we had the CMs take the pictures via Photopass.
We then headed back toward Fantasyland to see the villains, and stopped to get some more candy since the cast members looked bored. When we got back to Fantasyland, the line for the villains was still pretty long and we still wanted to ride at least one more ride. Besides, it was Ratcliffe from Pocahontas and Hades from Hercules…I was really hoping for Maleficent.
So we headed back over to Tomorrowland and jumped in the line for Buzz Lightyear just in the nick of time. Cbog40 ended up with over 170,000 and I had over 79,000…I really wish we had gotten to go one more time since I was trying to look for certain spots and didn’t shoot as much as I had hoped. Oh well…it’s another reason to go back. At this point, the park was closed and we were exhausted. Though I really wanted to hang around to get additional pictures, the lack of camera battery and our tiredness spoke louder so we headed out. On the way, we realized we had not yet gotten a picture of us in front of the giant Mickey pumpkin on Main Street. There was a bit of a line, so we hopped in the line and were having a blast looking at everyone’s costumes and commented to the couple in front of us on their costumes. She was wearing an absolutely beautiful Cinderella gown much like the one from the Brandy version of the musical and her husband/boyfriend was dressed like Prince Charming. They were such an adorable couple! They were commenting on our costumes as well. They asked if we would take their picture and so we did likewise. They had the most amazing picture and I wish I had taken one with my camera. It was our turn and Cbog40’s camera totally crapped out so I had to hurry up and get mine ready. Fortunately there was just enough juice left to have our picture taken. We posed and suddenly we heard the crowd say “AWWWW”…we had a hard time not laughing. I actually almost got teary-eyed from that reaction. I may be critical about the picture, but apparently everyone else thought it was sweet.
We headed out of the park and I was able to snap a few other pictures before the battery completely died out and we headed back to the hotel. Though it was incredibly crowded, we still managed to have a really great time! Being able to dress up in the park was fantastic!
We're hoping to get to go again next year!
(but then again, perhaps it might buy you some more time for the shadow box 
