Quick Halloween Solo Trip 31/10-1/11

Karin1984

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 5, 2012
It had been a crazy week last week. I had 4 job interviews (most of them internal due to a reorganization within my company) and an exam on Tuesday evening, therefore Halloween at DLP on Wednesday couldn’t have come at a better time!

I got up at 5:30am, got in the train at 6:30 and transferred to the international train Thalys at 7:30. Nothing special to report, I had a comfortable seat in first class, got my RER tickets for this day and tomorrow in the restaurant car and was at Gare du Nord around 10:30. I knew there was construction work going on, on the route to DLP, but I must say it was very well organized. When I got out of the last station, there were people everywhere to help and direct, plenty of signs. Also a girl in wheelchair who exited with me didn’t seem to have any issues, the buses were equipped to serve her as well.

It took about 15 minutes longer than the RER usually would take her, and that’s mainly because we lost about 5-10 minutes when the bus was loading.

I had eaten on the train, so no need for lunch, I stopped in front of It’s A Small World to watch the Harvest Parade. Which is a re-run of last year, with the addition of a new float based on Phantom Manor with Mickey in two costumes and the bride and the phantom.

I did take more pictures, but I sometimes have days where I always take the picture a second too late or too early. So no pictures of Mickey in his new costumes…

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I decided not to see the show that followed the parade on the hub. I love the concept to have the parade combine with a show, but you have to make a decision to either get a good view for the parade OR the show. I went for the parade as with the show, there is too much going on around you, 360 degrees, making it hard to decide what is the right spot.

 
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After this, I had plenty of time left before the Halloween Show 'It's Good to be Bad' would start. That was the only downside of the entertainment schedule for Halloween, the shows are only in the afternoon. I picked up a bag of grilled chicken flavoured crisps :P at the candy store of the 3 Fairies (La Confiserie des Trois Fees), and make my way through Fantasyland to double check if Cheshire cat is still meeting, but I'm out of luck. Tonight or tomorrow is my last chance! I missed him during the Run Weekend, so time is running out.

I stroll over to Frontierland, where I see a huge queue for Mickey and Minnie in Coco-style dresses. All of Frontierland is decked again with skeletons from Coco and it's just so colorful and makes me so happy. I only saw Coco a week before I left, but it's by far one of the best movies I have ever seen.

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However, Mickey and Minnie were not on my priority list, but Panchito and Joe Carioca are. But where are they... As I look I see a very small crowd around a little Devil Duck. The cast member yells something about 'no lines', which I still think is not the best idea. Luckily I am surrounded by very civilized Dutch and Flemmish guests, so while the CM yells in English and French that we can't form a line, we speak Dutch amongst each other to decide who goes when ;-) (The Flemmish language is so incredibly close to Dutch, we understand each other with no problem)

I just snap a quick selfie aka duck-fie
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And when I am done, I don't know how, but I somehow just walked past the meeting place of Panchito, he is alone, but he is with a Photopass! One of the biggest benefits of the Infinity AP is the Photopass that comes with it.

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I love meeting rare characters, but the weird thing with Panchito is definitely the tongue, it looks okay when you make a frontal picture, but when you look at it from the side... it looks kinda scary.
 
Love your photos. I agree about the parade. I was happy watching the parade and we had a small view from Discoveryland over to the hub so did see some of what was going on, but not enough for me to ensure we had a space there. I loved the Haunted Mansion float.

We all loved Coco too and thought Frontierland looked spectacular. How lucky for you to meet the character you were after - look forward to seeing more :)
 
Love your photos. I agree about the parade. I was happy watching the parade and we had a small view from Discoveryland over to the hub so did see some of what was going on, but not enough for me to ensure we had a space there. I loved the Haunted Mansion float.

We all loved Coco too and thought Frontierland looked spectacular. How lucky for you to meet the character you were after - look forward to seeing more :)

I loved the look of the float, but I somehow had expected something different when they announced it, more magic, I think. I thought the addition of the bride is a little strange at this moment as Phantom Manor has been closed for a while, and every first time visitor in the park who saw this parade wouldn't understand the bride and the Phantom, I think.

I think Coco and Frontierland are a perfect match and I hope they will re-use these decorations for many years. :)
Halloween is my favorite time of the year, so I have pictures of most villains and seasonal outfits, but also this year there were a few new ones :)
 


While I met both characters there was a little bit of rain, but not enough to bother me. However, it would not improve. It was 2 pm and there was rain predicted so no surprise there.

I wandered around through Adventureland and Frontierland, and I saw two of the Cakes. It's for Mickey's 90th birthday, there are several big Cakes around the lands where there is street entertainment. It's just fun for the kids. It's a five minute show, where the chef tells the people that she made a cake, but it's not done yet, and she needs the help of the kids to add more ingredient, so she asks after their favourite fruits etc. and each kid gets a button.

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And the show continued with rain. This was in Frontierland, where the girl was now dressed as a chef, but the day after I saw her again, but in a cowgirl outfit.
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It was getting closer to 3pm and I went back to the Castle Stage to see the show. And nothing makes me happier than this show. Just throw a bunch of Villains together with their songs, some dancing and fun, and character meets afterwards! And almost my main reason to go!

The show has two versions, one with Evil Queen, Jafar, Frollo. The other with Captain Hook, Queen of Hearts and Donald. In both shows are Lady Tremaine & Stepsisters, Cruella, Gaston and Dr. Facilier.



I made a whole bunch of pictures, first show I stand on the elevated look out, and decided I'll leave the meet & greets till the next show. Unfortunately after the first show, not everyone was meeting (Jafar, Step Family, and Evil Queen, the others went in) and after the second show, the rain got worse and no character meets. :(

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Why I love these shows, weird things happen, like Lady Tremaine getting bewitched during Frollo's Hell Fire ;-)

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Bad boys are bad
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Almost a family portrait
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Peekaboo!
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And he spotted me :) (makes me happy :) )
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She is definitely one of the best Cruella's I've ever seen, I think she is in the park for several years and always perfection.
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Donald dressed as Maleficent! :D
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They love him!
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I mean him!
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You see!
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Kodak moment
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Love the faces of the ladies walking
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Off with their heads!
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FOllowing the leader, the leader
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And the last one: Butt bump!
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As I said: Due to the rain no more meets after the show and I'm only sad for missing out on Donald as Maleficent, but I would have another try tomorrow... right? ;-)
The rain is not improving, and I still need to check in, so I pick up my luggage and go to Santa Fe to drop off my things, get some rest and get ready for Halloween!
 
There actually was a third one that came out during the show at the hub! Sunday, after the last parade on Sunday (so the last of the season) they parked the float just outside the gate and one after the other they appeared and posed for a while. It was a fun extra which we saw by luck while in line for It's a small world (this is where the luck comes in, we normally don't do it's a small world, but we brought a friend and it was his first visit)

That is so cool!
 


Two things I missed before I returned to the hotel

I took a spin on Pirates, where at the end we were stuck for just enough time to make a picture of Jack :)
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I got a front row seat without asking, behind me was a family going for the first time, they asked when the picture was taken. The CM told them after the drop. I clarified to them that it was the second drop. Right before the drop, I moved over all the way to the left, and told the family to move all the way to the right, so we all had a decent picture. It worked like a charm.
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And one other thing that made me smile after the first show was Frollo with his team of body guards :p
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It was about a 15-20 minute walk after I collected my luggage to Santa Fe, on my way I picked up a sandwich at Earl of Sandwich (Chipotle Chicken Avocado)
Only problem, when you come from the direction of the park, there are no signs to guide you to reception! It took me a wrong turn or two to finally find the right place to check in. Where I was greeted by a new CM who seemed nervous, and wasn't in the mood for jokes while he was trying to do everything right ;-)
Next to reception I picked up my bracelet for the party tonight.

I was given room 43 in Luigi. The party lasted till 2 a.m., and eventhough the room was too expensive, I wanted to stay onsite and be able walk back after the part.
The ground floor room was almost as close to the park you can get, so I was happy about that. I was less happy that my room was right next to the door where everyone in my building would exit, and the window overlooked the parking lot, meaning there might be traffic / people early in the morning. So I knew already that sleeping in the next day was going to be a challenge :P

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The room itself was clean, recently renovated and plenty of space for one person.

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I spend some time on the bed, watching QI episodes on youtube and then got dressed as Mother Gothel for the party. My mother is into photoshopping and made this out of the picture I put on Facebook ;-) I have a totebag with the Flynn Rider most wanted-poster. However... I completely forgot to bring it. So it was just the flowers (two of them got lost during the party :( )

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I left around 18:00, the party would start at 20:30, the park closed at 19:00. I was happy I went early, cause they made us walk 25 minutes(!) around the park. They had separate guests flows, guests going out via Adventure/Frontierland's size, guests coming in went backstage via Discoveryland and then into Fantasyland, around Adventureland, and then to the hub. It was tricky as you were almost swallowed by the guests going out again!

The pictures I took along the way:
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My favourite picture of the night
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When I arrived at the hub, I decided to stay for Illuminations. I had skipped it on my last few trips. I'm not a big fan of this show, the different scenes are too long. With Disney Dreams (the previous show) you had that once in a while they changed scenes, but here we are still looking at the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast. I can think of Pirates and Star Wars as classics, but I really hope they will replace B&B with something from the new Mary Poppins movie. I'm sure it'll have great songs. Or put Moana in there, Moana has awesome songs! In short :P I do not like the new songs of the 2017 B&B movie.

Aaaaaanyway, right after Illuminations I walked over to Big Thunder Mountain, where the sign said 60 minutes, but I couldn't see any queue, which should be the case with 60 minutes.I asked the CM, and she says: It's more like 30 minutes. For BTM that's a really decent wait time, so I walk in. And I almost walk on!!! :D I think my waiting time was less than 10 minutes.
I was also very surprised my wig and hood stayed on during the ride :P

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While I love meeting rare characters (and there was one rare character out!) I decided to prioritize the parade and show. The parade was at 20:30, and the first show was at 21:05, so I chose my spot in front of the castle stage to have a good spot for both. Unfortunately more people had the same idea, so I wasn't exactly center stage.
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Below a mix of the two parades of that evening.

I really enjoyed the parade. It was the floats of the Harvest Parade, plus the villain float of La Parade Des Reves from a couple of years ago, and the Maleficent Dragon float from the current parade. I was surprised with the dancers inbetween, they were a lot scarier than I imagined. I had seen the Halloween Parade in WDW a few years ago, and last year in Disney Tokyo and this was really a different level. In WDW and Tokyo it's more the 'hero' characters, dressed up for Halloween. In Paris it was really villain dedicated. To which I have no objection :)

But it might be fitting. When I looked around at the people in custom, I noticed something: Very little people dressed as Disney characters. Most people stuck to facepaint, and skulls and things like spiders were popular. The weather was of course not perfect, it was rainy and about 10 degrees (40s Fahrenheit). But still, I was surprised. Apparently the French/European want their Halloween scary :)

Of course taking pictures in the dark of moving objects isn't easy. A selection of the best pictures I took!
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I loved these puppets! I'm not sure, but I picture them as the little demons from Moana
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Wow this looks amazing! Great work with your costume. This is making me really want to go to the Halloween party night one day. And your photos of the show are brilliant.
I thought you might appreciate the ensemble cast from my Disney villain themed fancy dress at my 30th - we were doing the Glasgow subcrawl which involves getting off at every subway stop to go to a pub at each one....
I'm Cruella!
 

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Wow this looks amazing! Great work with your costume. This is making me really want to go to the Halloween party night one day. And your photos of the show are brilliant.
I thought you might appreciate the ensemble cast from my Disney villain themed fancy dress at my 30th - we were doing the Glasgow subcrawl which involves getting off at every subway stop to go to a pub at each one....
I'm Cruella!

Thanks!

That must have been one amazing birthday! I love everyone was a different villain :) You have good bunch of friends in your life!
 
From there it was time to watch the show! I loved it, the choice of villains (yes, the same as during the day plus a bunch of specials) and an amazing dance group. I saw the show three times that night, so the pictures are a mix of these three shows.


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I had no idea what was going on between Gaston and Hades but they were quite funny together :)
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I think these cards are already 8 years old... The other day I was looking for some old pics and saw these cards in 2010!
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But in the end, Mickey arrived all was well again!

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One of my best pictures of the night :)
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After the first show it was time to wander around and find some characters. As I thought the queue for Mickey and Minnie would be longer during the day, I decided to join the queue. And it was seriously one of the slowest moving queues I have ever been in! The CMs didn't do much to keep everything going, next to the Cowboy Cook Out was DJ Goofy & DJ Max stage, so I spend the time looking/listening to that show. I was in line for an hour.

But I got my picture :) Minnie had flowers in her hair, I had flowers on my belt, but Mickey thought I needed to put the flowers in my hair as well ;-)
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Before I went to watch the 2nd parade, I went into the Market Place to warm up a bit and get a snack, this very cute marshmallow chocolate covered little ghost for example :)

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After the snack and the parade I wanted to see some more characters, but almost all sets had already ended or the queue was closed. That was the downside, it wasn't that busy, but you really had to pick characters or shows (or rides) . Maybe I could have met Edgar from the Aristocats if I had skipped the 2nd parade, but the parade was definitely better ;-)

As there were no more characters, I decided to see the show two more times and went back to the hotel. But not before I stopped by Guest Services to leave a compliment. There was one amazing CM in charge of crowd control at the show. While we all waited, he kept us entertained, he danced, laughed, sang, made jokes with guests, commented on costumes, led the children in a dance in front of the crowds. He was just the perfect embodiment of everything you want in a CM, full of energy and magic. I gave him the compliment in person as well ( I think people should always hear a compliment themselves first), but this deserved to be put in writing.

I found a video of him online and you can see why I love this CM :)
 

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