Mickey's Not So Halloween Party and Disney Trip #3

The second week of September we made our 3rd trip to Disney with our season passes. I had some awesome co-workers that allowed me to get off work a few hours early so that we could start our journey sooner. So, Sunday night we started off toward the happiest place on Earth, Disney World. We arrived at the hotel at 5 am and we went to check in. They just so happened to have a room ready for us so we went ahead and unpacked all of our things before heading to the Animal Kingdom. We usually choose to go to the Animal Kingdom first because they have extra magic hours. That way we can go do some of the more popular attractions with little to no wait. That way we can use our fast pass selections later in the day at a different park.

Family picture and some of the many animals that you can see around the park and on the safari. The Animal Kingdom is literally like a combination of a zoo and amusement park.

Landon recently got a new pair of shoes and the large soles just happened to put him over the height requirement of 38 inches which allowed him to ride a few new rides including Kali River Rapids. Landon loved it and wanted to ride it again. Unfortunately, the second time around Landon and I got completely soaked! The little guy still loved it.

We also took a little time to play at the Bone Yard Playground. They had some huge slides and some rope bridges that all of us played on.

We then packed up the kids and headed over to Hollywood Studios where they happened to have an open spot for the Trials of the Temple Jedi Training. Brinley told them that she was brave enough to fight the dark side. She was so brave and learned the ways of the Jedi and then fought the Seventh Sister.

Tuesday we relaxed and just took it easy to start our day. We spent a few hours at the swimming pool and tried to make the kids tired in hopes that they would take a nap because we knew that we were going to have a pretty long night. We were set to go to Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party and it was scheduled from 7 pm to midnight. Unfortunately the kids didn't take a nap so we just put on our Halloween costumes and headed on over to the Magic Kingdom for the big party.

We wanted to wear themed costumes this year so after much deliberation we decided that we would all be characters from Landon's favorite movie, Wreck it Ralph. Jennifer had been working on our costumes for a couple months in her spare time. It would have made more sense for me to be Ralph because he is a large guy who is bigger that all the other characters. However, Landon really wanted to be Ralph so I had to be the other main male character, Fix-it Felix. Brinley was Vanellope Von Schweetz who is the main race car driver and Jennifer was another one of the racers, Taffyta Muttonfudge.

Here are the pictures of the characters that Jennifer modeled our outfits after. I think that Jennifer did a pretty awesome job and our outfits were a huge success! A lot of people recognized us and called us by our character names, including the real Ralph and Vanellope in the night time parade. 

I thought these pumpkin lights were pretty cool. They were on all the lamp posts throughout main street.

We rode a few rides before heading to the back of the park to get in line early to meet one of the specialty characters that were going to be out for the party. One of the most popular meet and greets at the park for the Halloween party are the Seven Dwarfs. This is one of the few times that you are able to meet all of them and get a picture with them so we wanted to be sure and meet them. We got a spot in line underneath a tent and then the weather took a turn for the worst. It started lightning and thundering and we were informed by the Disney employees that the dwarfs were not able to come out in the bad weather. So, we patiently waited for our chance to meet them. The problem was that the weather didn't cooperate and the dwarfs didn't come out to start meeting guests for another 2 and a half hours. This was a huge disappointment for us, but we decided to stick it out because we were informed that all the other characters would not be out meeting people either. We didn't want to get out of line and lose our spot.

After 2 and a half hours waiting we were so excited to meet and greet with all seven of the dwarfs.

We ran around like mad people and tried to see as many characters as possible, but unfortunately we ran out of time before we were able to see everyone that we wanted.

We were so excited about the Boo To You Parade! However, due to the weather the first one was cancelled and they had to have a slightly modified parade. The part of the parade that I was sad that we didn't get to see was the headless horseman that runs through the park at the beginning. 

The highlight of the parade was seeing Wreck It Ralph. He looked over at Landon and jumped up and down in excitement to see someone dressed up like Ralph.

Brinley even got to see the character that she was dressed up like. Vanelope gave her a big wave and even blew her a kiss!

They also had a special fireworks show that was themed more towards the villians. Landon happened to fall asleep prior to the fireworks starting so I woke him up and that ended up being a huge mistake! He cried through almost the entire fireworks show. I didn't want to ruin the experience for everyone else so I wondered around as much as I could so that no group of people had to listen to Landon's cries for an extended period of time.

The fireworks show was really neat, but I just wish that I could have heard the music better if Landon hadn't been crying in my ear.

After spending the whole night running around we got one last picture with Cinderella's Castle. This was taken well past midnight and Brinley was out, but Landon caught a second wind.

Heading back to the hotel with a wide awake Landon and a sleepy Brinley.

The kids with their candy that they collected at the Halloween Party. There were 13 trick or treat stations and this is the candy from just the 3 stations that we visited. I can't imagine how much candy we would have got if we went to all of them.

The next day we made a return trip back to Hollywood Studios and we went around and met all the Star Wars characters including Kylo Ren, Chewy, Jawa, and the Stormtroopers.

Landon sat and watched his sister participate in the Jedi Training and he loved every second of it. I knew that he would love to do it, but unfortunately you have to be 4 years old to participate. Not one of my best decisions as a father, but I told Landon if he told the people that he was 4 then he could fight the bad guys. He was so excited when they said he could do it! Afterwards we had to have a talk and I told him that we were just pretending and that he was really only 3 years old.

Brinley fighting Darth Vadar and Landon fighting the Seventh Sister. Both kids were so excited to be fighting the bad guys.

Landon standing in line and then riding his first BIG roller coaster, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. This little man has no fear at all!

There was a dance party out in front of Cinderella's Castle. The kids didn't really want to dance, but it was pretty cool to see Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps from the movie Zootopia.

I just love it when the kids wear their Mickey ears. They were a lot more excited about it this trip than they were in past trips. I really like the shadow picture of Landon with his ears on and up on my shoulders.

One of the last things we did before leaving to come home was to watch the new show that they perform at the front of the castle. It was good and it was neat to see more current characters involved in the show. The only bad part is that there is no shade in front of the castle and I began to sweat profusely during the show.

Landon just got to be tall enough to ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and he absolutely loved it! So now this is both of the kids favorite ride.

We usually only wait in lines that are really short for character meet and greets unless the kids really want to meet someone. We met Olaf twice and Anna and Elsa are always big hits.

We also had to met a few favorite Disney Junior characters. We also had a few friends photo shopped into the picture. The longest line we waited in was the line to meet Joy and Sadness at Epcot. Jennifer waited about 45 minutes while I took the kids around to ride a few rides.

Everybody with their favorite treats. The kids would eat just about anything that was Mickey shaped and my absolute favorite Disney World treat is the Dole Whip. It is so delicious and I would highly recommend it to anyone!

Brinley had her own little photography sessions on Main Street.

We decided to get a few pictures as we were on our way out of the park and Landon was not feeling it. He had such a little pout face and the photographer was trying so hard to make him smile. Nothing was working so he told us all to look sad and Brinley couldn't stop smiling. This is normal life for us! We have trouble sometimes getting both children on the same page.

It was a really great trip and in the past couple of weeks since we got home both kids have been asking when we were going back to Disney. I have a feeling that when our season passes expire the kids are going to be really upset. It has been so much fun going to Disney and seeing it different times of the year. Thanks for reading and God bless!