Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen!!!

We slept in a little, had showers and got ready to go breakfast shopping, and drove over to the bakery to buy some fresh baguette and some pastries for breakfast. We both didn’t feel like a hot beverage, so we just had some coke and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at home. There were still lots of leftovers from the feast we had had the day before and after finishing off most of the baguette we still had our pastries to look forward to.

Tom had an Almond Pastry and I had a Coffee Religieus. Once we had cleaned up the kitchen and eating area we headed out to the parks. Since we had discovered the discount at the car park we went there without hesitation. Parked the car, grabbed the receipt and on to the booth to have it exchanged. But nope, no such thing on a Sunday. Well, at least we had tried. So we headed for the Walt Disney Studios part of the parks this time.

There were already lots of people at the turnstiles and once we were inside we were stunned at how crowded the place was. walked straight over to the Tower of Terror to get a fast pass, but they were for around mid afternoon so that was way too late for us. We then went into the Tower of Terror store to pick up a Stitch for our friend Dave and to our shock and horror we found out that they had stopped selling them.

Not sure what to do we walked towards the stunt show. We had just missed the first stunt show, and didn’t fancy a 25 minute wait for Rock’n’Rollercoaster, so we walked all the way back to the new Toystory Playland. It was packed with people. The lines were long and wait times of way over an hour were in order. So we decided to just have a good look at the different rides. First up was the Parachute drop. The line was 90 minutes and it was a VERY slow moving ride queue. We stood and watched while they pulled up the parachutes, then dropped them halfway and pulled them up again. The ride itself took about 2 minutes, but loading took about 5!

It looked fun, but not worth the long wait. Next up was the Slinky Dog Spin. It actually is your regular fairground ride, but looked real fun to sit in the dog’s “spring”. This is where Disney theming comes in, even the security marks were fun to look at! Again, the ride loaded very slowly and we did not fancy the 50 minute wait. So we watched and took lots of photos and took in being “shrunk” to toy size! Maybe one day, when the hype has died down a bit we will get in line and try these new rides.

So our next stop were the RC Racers. A huge U shaped track with an oversized toy racer running back and forth. It really looked fun, but not fun enough to wait for 90 minutes. We walked past the Cars Spin and Crush’s coaster and wondered what to do next when we saw that they had just opened the doors to Animagique. Animagique celebrates the animated movies and has live characters and some puppets interact. It is Donald’s adventure and real fun.

Once inside the theatre we were actually shocked at how full the theatre really was. But we found some good seats a little higher up and enjoyed the show. After the show we picked up a few gifts in the stores in Disney Studio 1 and decided to leave as the park started to fill up and we had a Halloween Party to go to in the evening. While we walked towards the Disney Village we decided to get our Disney shopping done in the Village before having a late lunch.

But then we saw that the balloon was up and since the weather was beautiful we decided to ride the balloon. On the way there we stopped at Starbucks, to try their newest offer the Caramel Macchiato. It looked really yummy on the advertisement, and it tasted very nice, but very sweet, but looked totally different. At least we had some time to relax and make a game plan for the rest of the day.

Once we had finished our drinks we walked over to the balloon and saw it go up, paid for our tickets and secured a good spot to look out over the whole resort. It was a little windy and the balloon wobbled a bit going up, but was quite steady while at the top. Tom and I got a lot of good photos and enjoyed the view, even though we were shocked at the progress of the new Earl of Sandwich restaurant – there was NONE! In no time the balloon was on the way down again.

Once we had landed we headed towards the Hotel New York for a biological break. Then it was off to the shops again. We picked up a few goodies and before we knew it we were in front of Planet Hollywood again and went up to try if we could get in for a late lunch. We were seated immediately and greeted by our server a little while later.

Some of the servers were dressed up for Halloween and one girl in particular was dressed as a tombstone and got lots of attention from the diners. We both ordered a Diet Coke and Tom got the Philly Steak and Cheese Sandwich - Shaved beef, sautčed onions & peppers and Swiss cheese served on a steak roll, while I wanted the Margarita Pizza, fresh tomatoes, basil and lots of cheese. When they brought out the food we noticed that they had made a mistake when taking our order, as they brought out a pepperoni pizza. I did not feel like it so I reminded the server that I had ordered the Margarita and she had to reorder. I think she apologized at least 10 times. My pizza came out about 10 minutes later and it was very nice.

We did not feel like dessert, so we paid our bill and left and went back to the parking structure and picked up our car.We went back to our little villa and relaxed for a while as we had a long night ahead of us, as there was still the Halloween Party to attend. So by 7pm we drove back to the parking structure and hit a long line of cars trying to park at the Disney Village lot. We were lucky to get in and parked on the top floor as the structure seemed to fill very quickly.

Once we had parked the car we took a few photos of the Studios and Tower of Terror, the Disneyland Hotel and the Disney Village. We then followed the crowds towards the entrance to the park. Right behind the turnstiles we were handed our wristbands and programmes and off we went. The park was packed, the party was sold out.

To be honest this party is nothing like the party in Walt Disney World, it is more like the park being open longer, with a few fun Halloween spots. Tom and I walked up Main Street and since the lines were miles long for the rides we hopped onto the Mark Twain Riverboat, as this was a walk on. After a leisurely ride the Riverboat we took some photos of the Frontierland area.

By then I felt that my wristband was on too tight and began to hurt. So we tried to find a place where we could have it replaced. Finally at the hub they had a wristband station set up and had the wristband cut off and a new one put on – very loosely this time, so I was afraid I would loose it! As there was lots of time before the parade we walked over to Discoveryland. Lines were quite long for any of the rides, so we walked over to the train station and they had just closed it for the the non party guests. We were allowed in and the train even waited for us. We got on and rode the rest of the loop to Main Street and another full loop. It was fun seeing the park with all the lights on and the many people who wore costumes. At Main Street we got off and walked through the side passage towards the hub again and through the castle to Fantasyland. The Fast Pass machines at Peter Pan were open, so got a Fast Pass. We walked over to It’s A Small World and the line was rather short, so we got on.

Once we had finished our ride we walked through the stores back to the Pinocchio ride, which had a fairly short wait and so did the SnowWhite ride. Next we walked to Pirates and got in line, but we turned around as soon as we saw that people started lining up outside the ride. We strolled through Adventureland and back to the hub to find a spot to watch the parade. We found a good one right in front of the Pizzeria Bella Notte.

Unfortunately they don’t run a special parade, but the regular Fantillusion which gets prepped up with a few more villains.

The parade was fun, but started at the park entrance and took a while until it came our way, so we were past our Fast Pass slot when it had gone past. We were about 15 minutes late and went over to Peter Pan and the cast member did not want to let us through, since we were late. I reminded him that we “had been stuck” in the parade crowd and he finally let us get in line. By then the lines had picked up quite a bit, even in Fantasyland.

We walked around a bit again after the ride and strolled through some of the shops before we went to find a spot to watch the Castle Forecourt show. It was a special Minnie Halloween Party show and was quite nice, but people were constantly squeezing in in front of us which made it really hard to enjoy the show all the time. Once the show was over we decided to call it a day.

It was nearly 12pm and the party was going on until 1am, but there was no way to get on a ride without a long wait, so we thought we could beat the crowds and get to our car without much hassle. We left the park and walked over to the parking structure and were shocked when we saw people lining up outside the entrance. Everyone needed to pay the parking fee and there were only 3 machines on the ground floor!

Now, when we had left the building we thought that we had seen more machines up the stairs so there we went. I guess a gazillion other people had had the same idea, as people were lining up along the stairwells. We walked up as far as we could and got in line for the machine that was closest to our parking deck. Well, the line moved slowly and from time to time came to a standstill. We only realized WHY, when we moved closer to the machine. You could only pay with a card there and it did not look like it would take a credit card. So we had been in line for 25 minutes to pay the parking fee at a machine we could not use. So we went out of the line again and walked back down to the next machine. Well, the only ones that took cash were the ones on the ground floor. By then there were no more lines and everyone was just trying to make his way up to the machines. The whole lobby was shock full with people trying to push their way to the machines.

It took us another 20 minutes to make it to one of them and to finally pay our parking fee. When we finally left the machine we saw that we even had been lucky as now the people were WAY out the door and everyone was just trying to get in. We walked up to our car, took a deep breath and started our way down. Not far though! About one floor down we hit a standstill. It took us more than 25 minutes to drive down 4 floors and finally leave the building. We got back to our villa shortly before 2am and were lucky we had left the Halloween Party early as I guess there were still people trying to pay their parking fees when we finally drifted off to sleep.