This thread was very helpful for me when planning for MNSSHP, so I figured I'd report back.
We attended the party on Friday, October 12. That was the day that New Fantasyland first opened for "dress rehearsal," but it was not open during the party.
We went as Buzz Lightyear and the Aliens from Toy Story:
DSC_2603 by
vshingl, on Flickr
We entered the park at 6:00 PM and spent the hour before the party taking photos and riding Buzz Lightyear.
Our costumes were very popular, and a lot of guests asked if they could take a picture with us (and some people just creeped pictures of us). I had read on DIS that as long as you weren't posing as the character, you could take pictures with guests if they asked. However, when we were in Tomorrowland in front of the Buzz Lightyear attraction and a guest requested a picture with us, a CM approached our Buzz Lightyear and told him he couldn't pose for photos with guests. This made us look like jerks as we had to turn down people who wanted a picture with us. We decided that it was probably the location of the photograph that caught the attention of the CM, so we did take some more quick photos with guests who asked once we left Tomorrowland.
We hit a lot of Candy stops during the party. We especially liked the Alice in Wonderland Candy Trail. We took our picture with Pooh and Friends during the first hour of the party with about a 10 minute wait. We ate dinner during the first Boo to You Parade, then caught Villains Tonight and found spots for HalloWishes. I couldn't believe that everyone in the castle hub actually stayed seated during the fireworks. We then just stayed put in the hub for the second Boo to You Parade. After the parade, we headed straight to meet Mickey and Minnie with no wait, then met the princesses with a short 10 minute wait.
Overall, we really enjoyed MNSSHP. I read a lot of advice before going to the party, but I ended up throwing most of this information out the window. We ditched the Touring Plan and just did what we wanted - the only things we really had set were the fireworks and parade.
Here's a list of all of the things we did "wrong" (according to others' advice):
- Attended a Friday party in October. This is apparently a big no-no because it's when all of the locals go. But we didn't notice it to be extremely crowded, even in typically high-traffic areas like Fantasyland. It didn't even seem to be crowded when we were staking out our fireworks/parade spot. After reading people's reports on DIS about the Thursday and Sunday parties that week, I think that maybe everyone is taking the advice to not go on a Friday... so Fridays are now less crowded? Kind of like everyone is now visiting WDW in October during the "low season" ... which is no longer so empty.
- Started Trick-or-Treating at the beginning of the party. These big kids wanted candy! We found the candy lines to be fast-moving, and we got lots of candy. We did notice that Addie, Rachel, and I got more candy than Mom, Dad, and Max. And during the parade, when Max and I both held out our treat bags, they put candy in mine, but none in Max's!
- We rode rides during the party. Well, only Space Mountain - but it was a 10 minute wait (we ended up walking right on). I don't think that it wasted a lot of party time.
- We didn't line up for a popular character before the party. I had initially planned for us to line up for the Dwarfs... but then decided that it would just be a huge waste of time. We got great character interaction and hardly had to wait.
It was a really good party. Honestly, I think it would've been worth the $65 for HalloWishes and the Boo to You parade alone. I'm really glad that we went, and I'm glad that we wore costumes. It was a great experience.
If you want to read more about our experience at MNSSHP and see a bunch of pictures, check out my TR -
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3009647!
I guess it's like any other soft opening, it's the luck of the draw! Personally I'm hoping they have LM running during the parties since we will be there during the CM previews and that would likely be our only chance to ride.
