Trip Report *COMPLETED* 6 Parks, F&W Fest, MNSSHP & One HUGEEE Surprise!!!

Hi everyone! We got back from our Disney vacation two days ago and I am still exhausted and unfortunately sick, but I wanted to jump right into the report because if I don’t do it now, it will never get done!

You can find my pre-trip report here, http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/first-trip-in-6-years-with-a-wdw-first-timer.915675/ but here is a quick recap:

Who: My boyfriend, Mark, and yours truly

What: 5-Day Park Hopper Tickets, Food & Wine Festival, One night at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary-Halloween Party, One day at Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure and one HUUUUGE surprise, but I’m not giving anything away just yet!! You’ll have to follow along J

When: September 26th-October 3rd

Where: POP Century

Why: Mark’s first trip to Disney, and my first time back since being an AP 6 years ago!

Now that we have the particulars out of the way, let’s dive on in!

 

[Second Star to the Right]

I'm a Gryffindor I hope to be able to go to Universal soon since my husband and I are both big Potter fans. And I love your costumes for the Halloween party. We didn't dress up this year. Last year, we were a pirate and gypsy but I added the party too late this year to plan anything. I wanted to go as Vanellope but couldn't figure out how to make that work in Florida's humidity. Love your pictures of the parade - we totally missed it this time

Universal did an amazing job with the Wizarding World sections, especially Diagon Alley. You must add it to your bucket list! Butterbeer is probably one of my most favorite things in the world!
Sorry you weren't able to see the parade this time!!
And thank you! The costumes became much easier after Mark got me my jersey

 

[Second Star to the Right]

Gryffindor here and my oldest is a proud Slytherin.

It makes me so happy to see all of these Potter fans on this forum We met two Slytherins while waiting for Soarin on our last day, and they said they took the quiz over and over until they got Slytherin lol.

 

[Second Star to the Right]

Another Ravenclaw here!

Another smarty! I love all the potter fans on here! I'll be posting pictures from our Universal day as well, but I still have to get through another day and a half in this report until then haha

 

[amjt660]

Another smarty! I love all the potter fans on here! I'll be posting pictures from our Universal day as well, but I still have to get through another day and a half in this report until then haha

All four house represented in my family

I am Ravenclaw, my wife is Hufflepuff, oldest daughter is Slytherin and youngest daughter is Gryffindor.

 

[PacNWTigger]

Did you know that you can check out what patronus you are on Pottermore now?? I had done my sorting quite a while back, but went back to the site with all of the house talk. I am Gryffindor, and my Ilvermorny house is Pukwudgie.

 

[Second Star to the Right]

We both enjoyed the parade quite a bit. It was fun seeing the villains and the Haunted Mansion characters. We had such great seats, and there wasn't anyone pushing their way in, so that made it even better! If anyone is going to MNSSHP for the first time, I definitely recommend watching the parade at least once.

Once the parade was over, we started making our way toward the castle for the only thing I wanted to see all night, (and let's be real, since last year when I first saw it on YouTube) the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular!! For me, it isn't Halloween unless I've watched Hocus Pocus so I couldn't wait to see this show live! We didn't really have a problem finding a good spot. I'm sure I could have tried harder to get the perfect spot, but I really didn't want to be that person.

I took some videos/pictures, but for the most part I just wanted to enjoy it. It also didn't help that I had a giant in front of me who kept shifting his weight around and blocking my view. You'll see him in the first video below. This is one of those times that being short does not help!

This is a clip from the start of the show:


It's the Sanderson Sisters!


These ladies were awesome! They sounded just like the characters and portrayed them so well!

Again, you can see the guy in front of me shifting so it blocks the view, but you get the idea...it's Oogie Boogie!


Dancing with all the villains

Singing us goodbye

The show was everything I was hoping it would be! Oogie Boogie's song was excellent and of course the Sanderson sisters were amazing. Mark said it was his favorite show of the whole trip, even after The Festival of the Lion King, and I don't think I can disagree with him. It was a perfect length, great music and fun with all the villains you don't tend to see as much. If anyone going to MNSSHP can only see ONE thing while there, this is it! The parade was great, but not better than the Sanderson Sisters

 

[Second Star to the Right]

All four house represented in my family

I am Ravenclaw, my wife is Hufflepuff, oldest daughter is Slytherin and youngest daughter is Gryffindor.

That is amazing! I would never go as anything else for Halloween and I would absolutely make everyone else dress up in their house colors!

 

[Second Star to the Right]

Did you know that you can check out what patronus you are on Pottermore now?? I had done my sorting quite a while back, but went back to the site with all of the house talk. I am Gryffindor, and my Ilvermorny house is Pukwudgie.

I had gotten that notification awhile ago and mine is a Dolphin which is kind of fun! I am also a Pukwudgie in Ilvermorny!

 

[LeighM]

Did you know that you can check out what patronus you are on Pottermore now?? I had done my sorting quite a while back, but went back to the site with all of the house talk. I am Gryffindor, and my Ilvermorny house is Pukwudgie.

We're in the same houses My patronus is a robin, which I found fitting. I love birds and robins were the most common when I was growing up. I now live in a different place and I haven't seen one robin in our yard Did you take the quiz to find out your wand?

 

[Princess Leia]

Did you know that you can check out what patronus you are on Pottermore now?? I had done my sorting quite a while back, but went back to the site with all of the house talk. I am Gryffindor, and my Ilvermorny house is Pukwudgie.

Hufflepuff (Badgerpride)
Pukwudgie (I'm interested to see how they'll be depicted in the movies)
Patronus- Dolphin

 

[Second Star to the Right]

My goals for MNSSHP was to see the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular and the parade...mission accomplished! As I mentioned earlier, we aren't much into waiting in line for character pictures so that was not a priority at all, especially when we saw the line for Jack and Sally I knew the line for them would be crazy, and I wasn't disappointed. We really just wanted to enjoy the park with a lighter crowd and all the fun music and lighting effects for the party.

After the show wrapped up, we headed over to Fantasyland because we had asked a CM earlier if there was any chance Captain Hook would be making an appearance for pictures and she said if he did decide to stop chasing the Lost Boys for a bit he might end up in Fantasyland. That's the only picture Mark wanted on this trip. When we got over to Fantasyland we asked another CM about Captain Hook making an appearance and she said he most likely wouldn't be out tonight I felt bad I couldn't help Mark get the only picture he wanted. He was still happy we got one with Smee though!

I had to see this area at night again since we were so close!

Mark wanted to see Gaston's Tavern again, so we headed that way to get him a Lafou's Brew. Caught a quick picture of Belle and Gaston on the way.

Countdown to butterbeer at that point. 1.5 days!

We did a bit more perusing through some of the shops and just walked around sightseeing and enjoying everyone's costumes after that. Some of them were really great. We saw a couple dressed as Jimmy Dugan and a Racine Peach from A League of their Own. This guy was a spitting image of Tom Hanks in that movie! He even had the slight limp in his gait. That's one of my favorite movies, and a new costume goal for next Halloween!!

 

[Second Star to the Right]

Hufflepuff (Badgerpride)
Pukwudgie (I'm interested to see how they'll be depicted in the movies)
Patronus- Dolphin

We're in the same houses and have the same patronus!! Go badgers!!! How fun!!!

 

[PacNWTigger]

Hufflepuff (Badgerpride)
Pukwudgie (I'm interested to see how they'll be depicted in the movies)
Patronus- Dolphin

Patronus - White Swan

 

[Second Star to the Right]

Since I had already done everything on my wish list, I let Mark decide what we should do for the rest of the night. He had a lot of fun doing the Pirates Adventure: Treasure of the Seven Seas the night before so we decided it would be fun to do the other maps. We headed to Frontierland and we grabbed the first map again because it turns out we didn't finish it the night before.

This was SO much fun! We were under a time crunch because the booth was going to be closing earlier than the actual park closing and that really added to the fun. It felt like a race. Mark said he really just wanted to complete one map, but then we were having so much fun we decided to keep going until the booth closed. The interactive features were so cool! It felt like the interactive wand areas in Diagon Alley at Universal Studios.

During one of our hunts we caught a glimpse of the fireworks show

We had treasure to find though so we didn't linger too long!

We quickly finished maps 1&2 and then figured we still had some time so we would continue on to the third map. Mark and I were a great team for this because I was able to easily tell on the map where the hidden spots were and he was very good at locating the interactive pieces. We were like two 12 year-olds running around the park. I had my wand out the whole time too It was also really nice because Frontierland was not that crowded, so it was really easy to hear the next clue and see the interactive parts. I don't think this would be nearly as fun in the daytime with a big crowd.

We got stumped only once because we couldn't find one of the clues that was inside the Pirates of the Caribbean store at first, but we ended up finishing all 5 maps with 10 minutes to spare!

Of course after that we HAD to ride Pirates again!

Success! We even had to find one extra clue at the end which was fun. I would absolutely recommend this for anyone who likes pirates, treasure hunts, or if you have extra time in MK at night. Mark really enjoyed it and we kept all the maps and hope to frame them for his man-cave

 

[Second Star to the Right]

At that point we realized we were at MNSSHP and we hadn't been on the Haunted Mansion yet

We made our way to HM right before park closing and we were actually the last people off the ride for the night, so that was fun!

On our way back toward the entrance, we caught the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular again. I figured Mark wouldn't want to stick around for it, but he is the one who suggested we stop and watch. The show didn't actually start until after midnight (the park closing) so that was neat because the crowds had died down even more. We didn't bother trying to get a better view, and just enjoyed the music and the show.

After the show, I snapped a few more pictures, and just enjoyed the park as it emptied out

We took advantage of the dwindling line for one of the PP photographers and had him take a couple pictures of us. I know this is tacky, but I haven't decided if I want to actually order the pictures or not yet...let me know if you think I should! I have another 2 or 3 weeks to decide.

For the second picture, we wanted to get our wands in the shot. If we decide to buy the picture or download, Mark is going to add some sparks coming out of the wands using Photoshop. It's hard to see the wands, but he thinks he can lighten that area up.

We ended up leaving the park closer to 1 and we were the last people on the POP bus Another long, but great night! I don't think we got into bed until at least 2:00 a.m. again.

Overall thoughts on MNSSHP:
I don't think we did MNSSHP like people normally would, but we still had a blast! The only thing I would have liked to have seen was the fireworks, but we were having too much fun with the treasure hunt to really care. If I had young kids, I'm not sure how much I would have loved the party which seems silly to say since it really is geared toward kids. Looking at the long lines for candy and character pictures didn't seem all that appealing to us though, and I can't imagine waiting in line with tired children. The shows and the parade were awesome, but were they worth the extra $$ we paid for these tickets? All in all, I think so. I'm not sure we would do this again, but it was one of those extras we wanted to experience at least once, so that made it worth it. The crowd levels weren't that bad, but we were also there on September 29th, not exactly a top night for this party. I imagine the closer it gets to Halloween, the busier it gets. As always, it's awesome to be in MK late at night with low crowds, so that was worth it for us!

The two late nights would come back to haunt me the next morning. Haunt, get it

 

[Second Star to the Right]

Patronus - White Swan

Oh man, I got so excited thinking we had all the same houses and patronus!

 

[Second Star to the Right]

We're in the same houses My patronus is a robin, which I found fitting. I love birds and robins were the most common when I was growing up. I now live in a different place and I haven't seen one robin in our yard Did you take the quiz to find out your wand?

Robins are in abundance in my area! Dolphins are not lol. I haven't taken the wand quiz yet, have you @PacNWTigger?

 

[DonnaOnTheRocks]

Patronus - White Swan

Ravenclaw
Thunderbird
Patronus: Hedgehog

 

[Second Star to the Right]

Ravenclaw
Thunderbird
Patronus: Hedgehog

That's the most amazing Patronus I have ever heard!

 

[DonnaOnTheRocks]

That's the most amazing Patronus I have ever heard!

I can't find out what it means either! I didn't look very hard, but I couldn't find it on the website... maybe I missed it. It's such a random animal!