There is no question that they should lower the attendance cap by about 20%. The recent price increases easily cover it and guest satisfaction numbers are falling. It’s not a good look for a separately ticketed event.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party 2019
- Thread starter ToTBellHop
- Start date
ImperfectPixie
Well-Known Member
It really isn't. And the Christmas parties have been worse for far longer.
preludevtec01
Well-Known Member
I went at the end of last month on a Tuesday. The party was more busy than an average day at the MK. Not worth it unless you want to see the parade and fireworks IMO. It will be awhile until we do another party.
DryerLintFan
Premium Member
The parade is cute, but I feel bad for anyone who makes a special effort to see that fireworks show.
fngoofy
Well-Known Member
We just saw it and thought it was really good.
Crazydisneyfanluke
Well-Known Member
My educated guess is that party nights sell about 35k tickets (90% of tickets sold = "sold out") and about 5k people visit with the new pass. Which is about 40k people.
Another thing to consider, a party night and a regular day have different capacities. Certain rides and areas are closed, pushing those people onto the walkways, where there is also party-exclusive entertainment. They mess with the flow of the park. Putting in candy trails (Talking about the one by the Speedway), character meet and greets with queues (Think Alice, 7 Dwarfs by castle wall) while having the parade route up for 2-3hrs a night will do this. They just need to utilize the space given to the more efficiently and take party-specific entertainment off high-traffic flow areas.
Crazydisneyfanluke
Well-Known Member
The firework show is a mess. TDO has been putting out low quality firework shows lately. I hope it doesn't continue.
It’s not 40k. No where near that.
Y’all are over-estimating pass sales and the percentage of guests with those passes attending on any given night.
My uneducated, non-insider guess is there may be a 100-200 passes attending on a given party night. I just don't see how there could be thousands of these attending parties regularly, unless there are thousands of fervent MNSSHP fans (also AP holders, so they don't have to pay for parking) living 15-30 minutes from MK wanting to go to as many as possible.
Amazing even after the slew of negative stories including ::Shocked:: one from Allears basically trashing the parties this year.
Maybe guest feedback is awful, but if people are still buying the tickets and the things are selling out even with the raised admissions caps, it just means they will push the envelope of tolerability more next year.
fngoofy
Well-Known Member
We went to the 09/27 party.
We've been to them 8 yrs out of the last 15 or so. This one had great fireworks, the same old parade basically, and candy, candy, candy.
There were more people dressed up for such an early date, and the costumes were fantastic (I think this speaks to the unlimited pass for locals.)
This was probably the busiest one we've been to. It was sold out and I don't think we'd ever been to one that was sold out (even when we've gone later in the year.)
14 yrs ago, when it would be a ghost-town and you could walk on rides and walk right up to characters (my wife and I ran around in the hub with Chip and Dale because there was no one there) the cost was totally worth it, now not as much.
Bottom line is, they deliver on the party aspect of it, but if you are looking for a walk on ride session, this is not your dino.
DryerLintFan
Premium Member
Like I mentioned before, just because the park was crowded doesn't mean we didn't have a great time. And like the poster above mentioned, if you're doing the party for walk on rides, you're going to be disappointed.
- The parade is cute
- The fireworks are a bit meh but still cute enough
- The candy is plentiful - lots of guests report coming home with 50 pounds of candy
- The costumes and people watching are wonderful
- The decorations and general feel of the festivities is fantastic
- The special characters are fun to see, even if their lines are long
- The music around the park is REALLY great! It's like a really cool mix between real music you know and Disney music. We loved that part
- The characters you do see all the time have fun costumes, and some are wandering around the park taking pictures with people
zero creativity
Active Member
I think crowded is also a relative term. We can only go in the summers to WDW. So when we went to the party in 2015 it was a lot less crowded then what we were used to.
Thndrmtnrdr
Member
Well, I'm arriving tomorrow and have tickets for both nights. The family and I have been going this weekend annually for the past 5 years and have noticed a slight uptick in the crowds. Guess we will see what it is like tomorrow and Friday. I did look at wait times for the sold out party last night and they were not too bad at all. I'm wishful thinking that less tickets are being allocated for more parties thus the sell outs. In the years we have gone in the past the usual party sold out was October 31. Stay tuned!
Wait times at attractions are never really a problem, even on sold out nights. The biggest issue is crowding around parades, fireworks trick or treat stops and shows.
Just like last year, the September doldrums have been replaced by the October surge.
DryerLintFan
Premium Member
To add to this.... the crowded feeling comes from the walkways. Everywhere you move in the park, it's through a sea of people. Ride lines were fine, bathroom lines were fine, store lines were fine. But the park felt super crowded because of the people in all the walkways.
Wait times after 9:30 aren't the problems. However, prior to the end of the first parade, you usually see 45 minutes and up for the Halloween overlay attractions. Me personally, I get kinda ticked off when POTC is 45 minutes for the party when during the day it's 20. I won't even get into 7DMT or Space.
After the fireworks it's is great because everything becomes a virtual walk on. I remember when it used to be like that at 7PM not 10PM.