I was there 10/11 as well and kept checking the calender to see if it had sold out. I never saw it listed as sold out but yeah, my to do list was small and we still didn’t finish all of it. Just getting around feels far more exhausting than a normal park day for some reason. The well documented crowds are real. Our night from 7-11 pm went as follows:
Jungle Cruise ToT 6:45 pm
Pirates of the Caribbean 7:00 pm
Splash Mountain
Big Thunder
Sleepy Hollow Zero sundae
Hocus Pocus show 8:35 pm
Barnstormer
Philharmagic trick or treating
Haunted Mansion (broke down while we were in line and ate up 35 minutes)
Small World
Casey’s mobile ordering
That’s it. No M&Gs. No parade. The two ToT lines were very short so not a lot of time spent there. We had FPs before the party which helped it not feel like a total loss. 7DMT was at 40 minutes and PP was 35 all night. Getting around just took forever. We had planned to stay until midnight but at some point fighting to get anything done gets old and my son was over it. Few notes:
They were putting wristbands on at entry, right after the turnstiles. Made for a bit of a log jam but they were working hard to keep it moving
Entered, bands, bags and through bypass by 4:00 pm. Loved the bypass; got the party started right away even if things did come to a grinding halt around 7 pm.
Saw people without bands buying Poison Apple bucket at 4:20 pm. Maybe this isn’t a party exclusive?
Cheshire Cafe was closed at 4:30 pm just a heads up.
Tiki room stops running well before party time; line for Moana looked insane. I’m sure everyone else knew this but for some reason I though tiki room ran until 6 pm. Duh.
Egg roll cart closes right at 6 pm but they now have Reuben egg rolls as well as cheeseburger egg rolls. Both are good!
We got in line for pirates at 6:51 pm and the CM was telling 2 non wrist band holders to go in the non-Halloween line. Do they honor FPs until 7 pm for non Halloween party guests? I was very confused by this.
Rides aren’t walk on by any stretch. More feels like having a FP for every ride in that they move past but still chew up 10-15 minutes of wait time.
Crowds in the hub for Hocus Pocus and parade were no joke. We caught the second showing at 8:35 pm. We were getting stepped on and run over to the point that we bailed and missed the parade. Such a bummer.
It’s very odd how out of sight they keep (most of) the meet & greets. I only noticed the Moana sign. I also saw Aladdin and Jasmine in Adventureland but I’ve seen them there without the party so not exactly rare.
Loved all the lighting and fog. Heard music throughout the park here and there but wish it would have been consistent.
The zero sundae is excellent! Great quality and taste. None of the other Halloween treats were of much interest to us. Lines for food were crazy everywhere all night; mobile ordering at Casey’s saved us but man that food is awful. Edit: oh we also had the jack skellington push pop which was fun to look at but tasted fake and overly sweet.
It was blazing hot. Not Disney’s fault of course but not what I expected in mid October.
We won’t plan any special trips around
MNSSHP in the future, not exactly worth it for us