Halloween at Disneyland Part 5

By Nick

Halloween at Disneyland Part 5
Monday, October 30th 
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

 
Since we went to bed relatively early the night before and were still not entirely acclimated to Pacific Standard Time, we were up at 5am. We tried to get back to sleep, but gave up by 5:30.

Disneyland didn't open until 9, so I suggested breakfast at Storytellers Cafe right in the Grand Californian.

We were showered and in the lobby by 6:30, and sat and enjoyed the lovely surroundings while we waited for 7am to roll around.

We've eaten at this restaurant on several occasions, three times for breakfast and once for dinner, and it hasn't disappointed. It's a great buffet, and there are characters!
It's Chip 'n' Dale's Critter Breakfast!

After breakfast we queued up for Disneyland at about 8:30, among the first in line. As expected, it wasn't as crowded as we'd seen it on the weekend, but there were still a surprising amount of people for a Monday morning.

Still, we managed to do everything we wanted to in Fantasyland before 10:30.

While Fantasyland at DL doesn't have the fantastic Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or Be Our Guest like Walt Disney World, it does have Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, several other rides WDW doesn't have, and a better (in our opinion) Peter Pan. Yet another win for Disneyland, again, in our opinion.

We headed to Big Thunder next, which said it only had a 10 minute wait that was really about 20, and this, yes, I'm saying it yet again, is a better version of the ride than at WDW. For one thing, the cars have padded seats and sides, so when you inevitably slide into the person sitting with you, or visa versa, it isn't nearly as uncomfortable. And, like DL's version of Space Mountain, it seems to be FASTER! It is likely not true, but it feels that way.

After finishing up on the wildest ride in the wilderness, it was off to Haunted Mansion, with it's absolutely fantastic Nightmare Before Christmas Holiday overlay.

Since the standby line wasn't very long yet, we got FastPasses and waited for about 30 minutes, rode, and immediately rode again because we were already in our FastPass window!
One of the things I was most excited to see was the Hatbox Ghost, which is featured in a lot of HM merchandise, even though the character doesn't even appear in the Walt Disney World version of the ride!

By the time we finished our second go around, it was approaching lunchtime, but we still weren't very hungry since we'd stuffed ourselves at breakfast, so we grabbed a couple of Halloween themed treats at the French Market.

We picked up a FastPass as we went by Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, and hopped in the 10 minute queue for Jungle Cruise.

Next we enjoyed The Enchanted Tiki Room, before using our FastPasses for Indy.

We took a walk over to Mickey's Toontown to perhaps get a picture with Mickey, but the line was over 90 minutes long! In fact the park was getting incredibly crowded, so we decided to hop the train back to the front of the park and take a rest at the resort. On the way out, Goofy was just walking out for photos so we hopped in the short line.

Barbie took a nap while I enjoyed a few adult beverages at the hot tub.

Dinner was a Spicy Macaroni and cheese dish at the Cozy Cone. We walked around DCA a little, and saw a short line to get pictures with Mickey, so we jumped in and got a photo before calling it an early night.

Please look for Part 6 soon!