We were at the party last Sunday, 10/2. We were already in the park, but we had our costumes in a locker while we did a few things in the late morning/afternoon. We picked them up and changed in the bathrooms by City Hall, and were able to get front row spots to watch festival of fantasy as it came down main street. Which was awesome -- all the characters commented on the girls tutus, and Goofy grabbed them in a big group hug. After the parade, we went to drop the stuff we wouldn't want to carry in the locker, and just hung out there until they started letting in party goers, which was around 3:45. We got our wristbands, walked through the bypass and got our trick or treat bags and candy, over to main street and got in line for photos, but bailed in favor of getting in line for Jack and Sally, which I think was the right call. My girls went to go ride Jungle Cruise, but it was closed due to lightning, so they came over to hang in line with me. We were the 5th group there; they were just setting up the meet and greet area when I got there. We were under the trees so had some cover from the downpour that came through, along with umbrellas and ponchos. As others have noted, J&S were delayed until 5:20 due to lightning (I was following along on the weather channel app, and they came out just about 30 minutes after a pretty close lightning strike), but we were through by 5:45. We headed over to CHH because the girls were starving, where we all ate and game-planned the rest of the night. We went down to Big Top Circus so I could get pins and a t-shirt, then grabbed a caramel apple and cake pop to share. We brought them to the line for the Pooh M&G, where we were 2nd in line for the party M&G and able to sit on the stone wall while eating our snacks. We were able to watch Tigger and Pooh finish up their last 2 regular sets, which was a lot of fun. At about 5 minutes to 7, they moved us into the queue, and the gang all came out right at 7. We were through the line by 7:05, with a great interaction, so we decided to grab our own group shot at the entrance to the Pooh ride and then ride through the Hundred Acre Woods.
We decided to do some trick or treating, so we hit the stops at PinnochioHouse, Peter Pan, Liberty Belle, and Tom Sawyer, walking slow to take in the atmosphere and look at people's costumes. From there, we found a spot for the parade in Frontierland, right next to the Westward Ho cart, where I picked up a poisoned apple stein. We were also looking for the Zero popcorn buckets, but I didn't see any. My youngest was starting to complain about itching; I think the leggings were trapping the sweat on her body. She was pretty miserable while waiting for the parade, but cheered up once it started. They were all surprised when the grave diggers made sparks on the ground right in front of them.
After the parade, we went over to Adventureland and rode Pirates with no wait. We hit the TOT spot there at the ride, at Jungle Cruise, and in the Tiki Room. We peeked at Genie, Jafar, and the Tarzan crew as we made our way to the old FP+ wishes area in front of Casey's. We had great spots leaning up against a railing, where we watched the Hocus Pocus show, Celebrate the Magic and Hallowishes. My youngest was still miserable, although she seemed to at least tolerate the discomfort as long as she had my phone to play Minecraft on.
After the fireworks, we joined the massive crowd heading to HM, stopping for the HH Ghost magic shot -- no line at all! HM took about 20 minutes, and Madame Leota wasn't out while we waited, though we did see her as we exited. We thought the castmembers at the HM looked great. We crossed over to Tomorrowland to do Space Mountain as our last ride - no wait at all, they were letting you choose which side to went on. This apparently woke up the youngest -- when we exited, we saw Sully and Mike heading over to the dance party so we said hi, then hit our last TOT spot at COP -- I think they were trying to empty their bin into our bags! Walking away, Lotso was coming out for his last set, and he came over for quick high fives, and the girls confirmed that he smells like strawberries. We then grabbed our things from our locker and headed out, catching parts of the second parade as we walked down main street and completely forgetting our SOTMK cards.
I thought we did great. I had wanted to do more magic shots, and maybe try for more meet and greets, but the misery of the youngest nixed those ideas pretty quickly (she didn't even join in on the HH ghost one). I'm bummed we forgot to get our SOTMK cards, though. On the plus side, we beat the massive exit to the bus, so we were able to get seats when the first bus back to our resort pulled up.
Just my perspective!
