Tea & Automatons

Last year a group of friends and I went to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Walt Disney World as steampunk Disney villains.  It was a blast.  I thought it would be fun to do it again at Disneyland.  After a bit of research and dithering I picked October 9^th for the outing.  It was not too close to Halloween, but not too early.  Unfortunately the weather had nasty plans for us.  It was a record breaking 105 degrees that day, and very humid.  All the locals were telling this was not their usual weather.  Great.  I don’t handle heat well and being in costume just made things worse.   I don’t believe in doing costuming halfway.  In addition to the six of us sweltering, I had talked my husband into doing the party again on Monday in different costumes; steampunk Monterey Jack and Gadget from Rescue Rangers.  While it was not quite as hot and we had some very welcome cloud cover, it was still pretty miserable.  Sigh.  We had a good time anyway and did manage to get some great photos.

I have a few highlights and lowlights of the party to share.

Hi-lights

•  The Villains Meet & Greet was wonderful!  Cruella, the Evil Queen and Maleficent were very fun to interact with and we got some wonderful photos.  We did not meet with the group of male Villains, but they were all full heads and therefore unable to talk, so I doubt it would have been as fun.
• The Castmembers wrangling the lines were helpful in keeping us informed about characters.
• We had great success getting help from castmembers and Photopass photographers when we were in our Rescue Rangers outfits.  I really love some of those photos!

Low-lights

• The line for characters photos in Toontown was ridiculous and you could end up with any of three different sets of characters, while Goofy’s line was just for Goofy.  It was a bit frustrating.  And after waiting all that time, there was no Photopass photographer!
• I had heard of a character meet & greet called Pirate Palooza, but it was not on the map.  It was very difficult to find and terribly disorganized once we did.  We managed to get photos with pirate Chip & Dale, so it was worth it in the end.
• Castmembers should not wear buttons saying “Ask me about characters” if they know nothing about characters!  The answer “Look around.  I’m sure you’ll find some” is not acceptable.
• It is disappointing that there is no Halloween parade or show at Disneyland like there is at WDW.
• I’m not there for the candy.  I can’t eat or won’t eat most of it, even the so called “healthy” options, so for me there are far too many “treat trails”.  I know some people feel that their success at the party is based on the amount of candy they score.  I just feel that my time is better spent doing things that I can only do at Disneyland, not my local grocery store.  Happily, I had some amazing macarons back in my room as a reward for all our hard work.
• I was very unhappy to discover that most of the restaurants are closed prior to the party to make extra “treat trails”.   My research had not uncovered this fact and being on a GF diet I ended up eating the worst pizza ever.  GF?  Yes.  Tasty?  No.
• The fog is a lovely effect, but both my throat and my camera had a lot of problems with it.  It was used all over the park.  I could barely talk by the end of the night and had to flee early the second night to avoid the problem.
• Apparently they no longer just put out the Halloween Party pins during the party, so they sell out before we even get to see them.  Rather disappointing.

I am happy we did it.  Our outfits were a huge hit both nights!  We enjoyed ourselves despite the weather and various issues.  I like the party despite a few things that I’d like to see changed.  You can see the full albums here and here.

One quick note, while I call our costumes “steampunk” they don’t really qualify to my standards, but park restrictions, and limited luggage space complicates things.  Consider them base outfits.  We’ll expand on them someday.