Disney's Halloween Misadventure

A few weeks ago we received a mailer from Disney promoting the Halloween holiday celebration they were planning for the resorts in Anaheim. They played it up pretty big in the mailer, and there have been stories in the press this week referring to Disney's plans. Well, the whole thing kicked off yesterday and we decided to go check it out. Given the way Disney usually goes big-time on these type of special events, we were really looking forward to seeing what they had done.

What a dud. Here's what happened. We didn't enter California Adventure until 7:30 pm and upon entry, looked around and saw absolutely nothing referring to Halloween at all. The only thing they seem to have done at C.A. is change the California Dreams theater to California Screams. Supposedly they have a new show in there for the season, but it was closed by the time we got there.

Actually, anything they put in there will be an improvement on the usual show. We call it the "we hate white people movie" because it's basically a politically correct piece of agit-prop nonsense that suggests, and not too subtly, that the only reason California exists at all is because the Indians, Mexicans, Chinese and who knows who else saved the state from the white devils.

After walking around C.A. for a few minutes and seeing nothing of Halloween value, we headed over to Disneyland. There were some decorations at the entry area, a Mickey face made of miniature pumpkins by the train station, and Halloween bunting and jack-o-lanterns up and down Main Street. There was also a large pumpkin Mickey in Town Square. However, once you left Main Street the illusion of Halloween was over. The did have an area back at Big Thunder Ranch dedicated to Halloween stuff, and they have switched the Haunted Mansion to the Nightmare Before Christmas theme as they've done for the last several years. Other than that....nothing.

I'm used to seeing Disneyland go all out for special events. There's nothing like walking through the part at Christmastime - hearing the music and seeing all the lights. For Halloween they definitely went on the cheap. We entered one park at 7:30 and walked out of Disneyland having seen everything there was to see...at 8:20. Two parks in 50 minutes. If you considered making a special trip to see the Halloween holiday stuff, don't bother.

UPDATE: Here's another view from Laura, including some photos of the decorations.