Halloween Time at Disneyland: 2018 Recap

Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA

Welcome back to the Disneyland Resort! Today, we swing to Walt Disney’s original Magic Kingdom to see Halloween Time over there. If you missed our Halloween trek to California Adventure on Wednesday, check it out here.

Truth be told, this is mostly eye candy, as the autumn holiday line-up at Disneyland has remained generally unchanged in all the years it’s been overlaid. Still, spooky scenes are pretty and atmospheric, so lets take a photo venture through this happy—and during the fall season, eerie—place!

Haunted Mansion Holiday Returns

Halloween Time means the return of the Haunted Mansion Holiday from now through the winter holiday season. And within the Haunted Mansion Holiday is one of the few new features for Halloween Time, the gingerbread house in the ballroom scene! This is new annually, actually—a different structure and theme constructed just for the season. This year, the theme involves our intern’s greatest fear: spiders. So I guess that means we can’t send him to Disneyland through the rest of the year at all. Ah well. He really wanted to go, too.

What’s this? What’s this? There’s spooky everywhere!

The Pumpkin King has returned to the Haunted Mansion!

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And he’s here to wreck the halls.

Nevermind the calendar. Skellingtons aren’t so good at telling time.

The hearse outside the queue has been decorated.

There are also jack-o-lanterns up the berm hillside, but at night, it’s pretty tough to get a photo of them (freehand).

Inside, we find out what happens when two holidays collide!

You get things like Frightsy the Snowman.

Oh, well, if they’re free…

The backdrop of the Omnimover loading platform is much more decorated than normal.

Keep an eye out for Vampire Teddy throughout the ride.

Hi, Zero!!

Zero’s been a good dog this year, so he gets plenty of treats.

Another Vampire Teddy sighting.

He’s a creation in the movie and not even a real character, but on this ride, he effectively takes the place of the raven from the normal Mansion.

Oh, what a lovely devouring holiday wreath!

Madame Leota has identified presents given to her on the 13 Days of Christmas.

The seance is quite enlightening.

We come upon the ballroom, home to the gingerbread house that changes every year.

This year, the house has been wrapped up with “arachanifrosting.”

The spider is literally tearing the house from its foundations!

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There’s a Christmas tree too—done in a Halloween style. And a little burnt…

Onto the attic, and this surprised jack-o-lantern.

Here are all the frightful presents for the good boils and ghouls.

Or maybe the bad ones.

This list reflects Imagineers and family members and actually apparently varies by the year.

The Hatbox Ghost is in his holiday spookiest.

Hatboxes for everybody!!

That’s a nice trick.

Jack Skellington admires his handiwork with his faithful Zero beside him.

Later on, Sally ponders restless thoughts in the graveyard.

So wistful…

Time to get serenaded.

Oogie Boogie’s got a holiday surprise!

Mini-Sally bids guests good night as they leave.

Frontierland in the Fall

Paradise Park in California Adventure has its Coco-themed ovelay over by the Boardwalk restaurants area, but in Frontierland, Zocalo Park has the original Día de los Muertos display. Granted, that display has returned pretty much unchanged every year, and it’s a static representation of the Mexican holiday. But it does look pretty at night!

So does the other Frontierland Halloween fixture, the Halloween tree, inspired by Ray Bradbury’s iconic short story of the same name. It’s pretty awesome—a tree lit up and decorated for Halloween? If Christmas can have one, why not October 31st?

The Día de los Muertos scene at Zocalo Park is very pretty at night.

Zocalo Park is the little space outside of Rancho del Zocalo, with a view of Big Thunder Mountain.

Sugarskulls adorn the display.

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Various goodies are shown at the ofrendas, or offerings for the dead.

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And the Halloween Tree is lit up at night too.

There seem to be less visible pumpkins hung low this year. Most of them seem higher up, and more difficult to glimpse.

A rare exception.

It’s still pretty, though!

Tomorrowland Gets Space Spooky

Besides the Haunted Mansion, the other notable Halloween ride overlay occurs over in Tomorrowland, when Space Mountain transforms into Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy. No, not Goat’s Galaxy. That would be awesome, but Disneyland has now become a strict no-goat park (R.I.P. Big Thunder Ranch). So we get ghosts… in spaaaaace!! And it’s actually kind of thrilling.

I just wish they’d update the projections to higher fidelity effects. They certainly have the technology to cast much crisper, more vivid displays nowadays without sacrificing ambient darkness.

Ghost Galaxy is back, which means expect longer lines at Space Mountain than usual.

At least most of the time. I was there this past Sunday, and the lines were actually below an hour and even shorter than the advertised wait.

Something spooky is happening in the loading area.

Is there a sinister space specter out there somewhere?

Only one way to find out.

Blast off into spooky space!

Main Street Halloween

Finally, as it does every year, Main Street is full of jack-o-lanterns and orange bunting and warm Halloween spirit. Each of the storefronts has been decorated to reflect that turn of the century Halloween charm and nostalgia. Anchoring Town Square is the ever-famous giant Mickey pumpkin photo op. At the other end of the land, jack-o-lanterns of Disney fare surround the Partners Statue.

These are the same decorations as have been used year after year, but they still are very pretty.

I gotta say, the Disneyland Halloween entrance is not as elaborate as the DCA entrance anymore.

On Main Street, we see familiar decorations.

Autumn banners and bunting…

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…and plenty of pumpkins!

They adorn plenty of storefronts, perched up high.

And they have a variety of quirky faces.

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The Pixar Play Parade is still happening during the day. Maybe it’s Pixar Pumpkin Fest?

Lets magically transform into nighttime…

…and check out the Main Street scene!

No projections or cool, atmospheric soundtrack. That’s only during Mickey’s Halloween Party.

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But the ambiance is still quaint and nostaglic.

They’re watching…

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More patriotic pumpkins.

Pay closer attention to the Main Street storefronts, and you may notice some more unsettling Victorian gothic scenes.

And also Halloween merchandise, of course.

You gotta show off the merch!

Partners on a Halloween Time night.

And just like in California Adventure, there is Halloween-inspired specialty food items at Disneyland Park. The Halloween Time Food Guide, available at many dining locations, lists what is where. This is the other side of the DCA Food Guide we showed off in our last update.

That is Halloween Time this year at Disneyland! There is also the separately ticketed Mickey’s Halloween Party for guests who want a less crowded experience and special features, such as trick-or-treating in the park, the Halloween Screams fireworks show, the Frightfully Fun Parade, the Cadaver Dans, and an enhanced nighttime Halloween atmosphere throughout the park.

Like the pretty pictures? Consider making a regular visit to my Disney photo blog site, Disney Photoblography. Yes, this is another cheap plug, but you can find daily photos of Disney parks from all six Disney resorts around the globe!

And with that, we’re done with Halloween things for this week. Next week will bring Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights and Six Flags Magic Mountain Fright Fest—both of which we’ll be visiting this weekend. They will be decidedly less family-friendly than today’s update, but there will be haunted attraction eye candy nonetheless! Stay tuned, and stay spoopy, my friends.