It’s almost the most FRIGHTFUL time of the year and we are SO ready.
Still, we can’t help but feel like we’re missing out on a big piece of our Halloween with the cancellation of this year’s Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party in Disney World. Well, since we can’t hug Jack Skellington or plunder with pirates on an extra-spooky ride on Pirates of the Caribbean, we’re throwing our OWN Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party right here and YOU’RE the guest of honor!
After attending the parties for YEARS, there are some parts of the parties we’ve LOVED and some that we’d LEAVE. But this is OUR virtual Not So Scary, so it can be exactly what we want it to be!
Let’s take a look back at some of our favorite parts of past parties including fireworks shows, FOOD, meet and greets, and MORE! We might even throw in some ways that you can do a Disney Halloween at home. Let’s get spooky!
What is Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party?
Let’s start with a quick rundown on what Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party actually is! Mickey’s Not-So-Scary is an after-hours and separately ticketed seasonal party that takes place from mid-August through Halloween.
There’s exclusive food, AWESOME only-see-it-here entertainment (like fireworks, parades, and meet and greets), attraction overlays, trick-or-treating, and more that you’ll only find at these parties. Plus, everyone is encouraged to wear a costume — even adults!Â
Unfortunately, this year’s party was canceled due to the global health crisis. With reduced capacities and Disney pausing fireworks, parades, and meet and greets for the time being, Disney determined that too many tentpoles of the party would be unavailable for the events to proceed.
So here we are doing Mickey’s Not-So-Scary our way! (Hey, it’s not as good as the real deal, but we’re makin’ lemonade from lemons here, people!)
Click here to learn more about the cancellation of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.
Our Favorite Not So Scary FOODS!
You know us so of course, we’re kicking our virtual party off with a celebration of Not So Scary FOODS! As we mentioned Not So Scary typically has a lot of specialty food offerings ONLY available to guests attending the parties.
It’s possible that we’ll see some special Halloween treats in Magic Kingdom and beyond this year, so we’ll be on the lookout going forward! But right now, we’re looking BACK.
We usually spend the first party of the year hunting down all the ghoulish and villainous treats. Sometimes, we find some weird ones and sometimes we find some serious winners! For our virtual Not So Scary, we’re picking the best of the best.
Constance’s For Better or Worse Wedding Cake
We’re DEFINITELY featuring the Constance’s For Better or Worse Wedding Cake at our party. This treat debuted at last year’s party and struck the delicate balance between cute AND delicious (trust us, most treats cannot walk this line).
The dessert was citrus-scented cake topped with raspberry Bavarian cream, glaçage, buttercream pearls, decorative flowers, and a chocolate axe. For a cake celebrating a murderous bride is was surprisingly…cute! Plus, the ratio of cake to cream was absolutely perfect. If you ask us, it’s ’til death do we part with this treat!
Want to read our REVIEW of Constance’s For Better or Worse Wedding Cake? Click here!
Not So Poison Apple Cupcake (and other Main Street Bakery delights!)
Main Street Bakery makes a statement every year with a Halloween cupcake to bring some frightful sweetness to the season. Last year introduced the super cute Amuck Cupcake featuring the Sanderson Sisters (it was quite good at staining our teeth black all night!), but we’re bringing back our FAVORITE from recent years — the Not So Poison Apple Cupcake!
The Not So Poison Apple Cupcake debuted in 2018 and brought with it some of the best flavors we’ve had in a Halloween treat. It was a Red Spiced Jumbo Apple Cupcake with pecan crunch and buttercream. Get this — the pecan crunch sat BETWEEN the icing and the cake for the perfect texture combo. Genius! Plus this gorgeous cupcake was just a dream to look at!
Click here to see more PICS of the Not So Poison Apple Cupcake!
Pumpkin Spice Soft-serve Sundae
If we had to take a guess at the official flavor of Halloween, it would probably be “Pumpkin Spice and everything nice.” That’s why our virtual party would not be complete without talking about one of the best Pumpkin Spice treats in Magic Kingdom! We’re strolling over to Auntie Gravity’s Galactic Goodies in 2019 to try out the Pumpkin Spice Soft-serve Sundae.
Made with pumpkin-flavored soft-serve, candy corn, and caramel sauce, this dessert is basically Fall in a bowl. This was seriously one of the BEST Pumpkin Spice treats in Disney World last year, and that’s saying something — Disney World has a LOT of Pumpkin Spice treats!
To see our REVIEW of the Pumpkin Spice Soft-Serve Sundae, click here!
Haunted Mansion Portrait Desserts
Ok, not kidding, this one might be the greatest snack that we’re bringing back for our virtual party. If you were around in 2017, you probably remember us RAVING about the Haunted Mansion Portrait Desserts and with GOOD. REASON. There were FOUR different Haunted Mansion desserts scattered around the park and all of them were soooo good.
You had the Chocolate and Peanut Butter Quick Sand Stretching Room Tart, the Oreo Chocolate Dynamite Stretching Room Portrait Tart, the Lemon and Strawberry Graveyard Stretching Room Chocolate Tart, and the Raspberry Chocolate Haunted Mansion Wallpaper Tart. Obviously, these collectible treats stick out in our minds as some of the greatest bites of parties past because LOOK AT THEM.
We’re suckers for the tie-ins to the Haunted Mansion but even better — all of these tarts TASTED incredible. Now if only they had made a Tightrope Girl Tart to complete the set!
Click here to see the four Haunted Mansion Portrait Desserts in ALL of their glory!
Maleficent Waffle Cone
And the LAST treat that we’re putting on our ideal Not So Scary menu is the Maleficent Waffle Cone. This dessert first debuted at the 2018 Mickey’s Not-So-Scary and it was so good that it stuck around to last year too! We’ve still got our fingers crossed that it might make a surprising 2020 appearance (this appeared all day at Storybook Treats during Halloween season!).
We’re talking ’bout lime soft-serve in a black waffle cone with chocolate Maleficent horns and purple sprinkles. Honestly, we <3 lime soft-serve so this treat didn’t need to do much to please us. On top of that, it’s SUPER Instagrammable and perfect for the spookiest time of year!
Click here for more pics of the Maleficent Cone!
BONUS! DIY Treats for Your Disney Halloween at Home
After you’re done spending some time at our virtual party, you might work up an appetite for some Halloween treats. We’ve got you covered! You can check out our FULL STASH of Disney Halloween Recipes RIGHT HERE! And watch this video to learn how to make the Mickey Apple of your dreams.
For ALL of the greatest Disney Halloween Recipes, click here!
Our Entertainment Picks!
Next, we’ve snagged all of our favorite entertainment picks from the past few years of parties to put together the PERFECT line-up of virtual Not So Scary fun.
Cadaver Dans
We’re starting where all great Magic Kingdom parties start, with the incredible “streetmosphere” on Main Street, U.S.A.. Say hi to the Cadaver Dans!
Did we misspeak? Aren’t they the DAPPER Dans? Usually, yes, you’re absolutely right. And these fellas are some of the Cast Members we still miss the MOST in reopened Disney World (they’re currently not harmonizing for guests!). But at Not So Scary, these fellows become the Cadaver Dans and sing us some spooky Halloween tunes! Look at their ooky-spooky costumes! Cadaver Dans, we are your biggest fans and you DEFINITELY have a place in our Not So Scary line-up.
Character Meet & Greets and Dance Parties
A big draw for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is that you typically get to meet all sorts of characters — including some pretty RARE ones! For our party, we definitely wouldn’t miss out on bringing Jack Skellington and Sally around for a meet and greet. After all, they’re basically the king and queen of Halloween.
Missing our favorite Halloween Town duo? Check out this video of them meeting guests! And keep in mind, if you want to meet Jack and Sally at future parties, they’re super high demand so get in line early!
Hugging our favorite characters is something we’re really missing right now, so we’ll just have to do it virtually!
Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular
Maybe the villains aren’t as out-and-about as they are at Villains After Hours in Magic Kingdom, but Not So Scary is still a night where the more evil-inclined Disney faces get a chance to shine. Three of the stars of the evening are seen on stage in the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular — and you can bet it’s one of our picks. Take a look at some clips from the show!
Mickey’s Boo to You! Halloween Parade
We think Mickey’s Boo to You Halloween Parade is absolutely a CAN’T-MISS at every Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. It’s kicked off by The Legend of Sleepy Hollow‘s own Headless Horseman galloping down the parade route and has a TON of familiar spooky favorite faces on really unique floats. Take a peek at some clips right here!
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Fireworks
And, of course, we’re finishing our party entertainment off with a firework frenzy of a nighttime spectacular! Last year Disney introduced the all-new Disney’s Not So Spooky Spectacular, and…it’s a good show — BUT our hearts still lie with the old show. Let’s cap off the entertainment with HalloWishes! Thanks to our friends over at AllEars.net, we can watch the whole show!
If you’re missing the old show like we are, scroll through our tour of the HalloWishes Dessert Party! The Not So Spooky Spectacular is good, but we aren’t sure it can hold a spooky candle to HalloWishes. What do you think? Which show wins?
Click here to learn MORE about Disney’s Not So Spooky Spectacular!
Attraction Overlays
One of our favorite recent additions to the Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Parties is the attraction overlays! Disney started adding Halloween-y theming to some attractions in 2018 and it’s just an extra fun addition to these already spooky nights.
Last year, the overlays included live pirates on Pirates of the Caribbean, spooky projections and tunes on Mad Tea Party, and an INTENSE version of Space Mountain with the lights out and ROCK music. Not to mention, one of our favorites — the ethereal Madame Carlotta or Madame Renata greeting guests from the lawn of the Haunted Mansion!
Now, there ARE similar ride overlays at other parties like Villains After Hours so it’s possible we might not have to wait a whole year to see a fun ride overlay again if these were to resume sooner!
Trick-or-Treating and Costumes!Â
Is it really Halloween without trick-or-treating and costumes? To answer that question — no. No, it’s not. Trick-or-treating at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary is a super fun activity and you can really LOAD UP on the candy. Yep, even you adults.
Of course, we love any spot that means we get free candy, but there are a few trick-or-treat trails that are getting a special mention at our party. Some spots are pretty much just Cast Members with a barrel, but others will have you walking through a cool part of the park! Last year, we got to trick or treat in Ariel’s Grotto and Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor. SO NEAT.
And you know what? This is OUR Not So Scary party and we can do what we want, so we’re throwing in some of our favorite parts of Disneyland’s Oogie Boogie Bash in Disney California Adventure. We make the rules. 😉
But seriously, the Oogie Boogie Bash had some NEXT LEVEL Trick-or-Treat Trails featuring the most popular villains in each of their lairs. Villains perform and interact with guests while they were all lined up to get their candy.
They even converted the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail into the over-the-top Villains Grove walkthrough attraction bursting with lights and incredible effects. Add ’em to the line-up! Magic Kingdom is plenty big…we’re sure they could find a way to incorporate similar elements in Disney World’s parties!
And you can’t go trick-or-treating without a great costume! Well, you can, but why would you skip out on an opportunity to get dressed up? Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is the ONLY time of the year that adults are allowed to dress up in true costumes in Walt Disney World and it makes the party that much more fun.
To see more of the Oogie Boogie Treat Trails, click here!
Specialty Merch!
Finally, a special part of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary is the specialty merchandise that’s on sale at the party. Luckily, we don’t have to miss Halloween merchandise TOO much because we can already snag some! A TON of Halloween merchandise is available on shopDisney RIGHT NOW to help us throw our own Not So Scary Party at home!
We’ll be keeping a close eye out for new merchandise and keeping our fingers crossed that we’ll see the return of some party favorites — like the spooky specialty souvenir popcorn buckets and sippers!
Click here to check out some of the AWESOME Halloween merch available now!
We hope you had a BLAST exploring the official 2020 DFB Virtual Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party! If you want to continue on with the Halloween fun, be sure to watch our latest DFB video where you can REALLY relive Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!!!
Click here for our FULL COVERAGE of last year’s Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party!
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What’s your favorite part of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party? Tell us in the comments!Â
Hannah says
You guys should totally make a zoom event!