Welcome To Spooky Season

Alicea 0:23

Hello everyone, I'm Alicea.

Nathan 0:25

And I'm Nathan.

Alicea 0:26

Welcome to episode 251 of Adventures and Mouse Capades. It is spooky season, and for many Disney fans, that may include a trip to Orlando for Mickey's not so scary Halloween party. That is a wonderful family-friendly event that draws folks in for a night of big events like the Boo-To- You Parade, the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular Castle Stage Show, and of course the not-so-spooky spectacular fireworks show, with a side of trick-or-treat stations around the Magic Kingdom.

Nathan 0:56

But what about Disneyland, the world's most famous regional theme park? How does the Oogie Boogie Bash at Disney's California Adventure compare? Well, we're glad you asked, because we went to that party last weekend and we're back to tell you all about it.

What Oogie Boogie Bash Feels Like

Alicea 1:14

So what is Oogie Boogie Bash?

Nathan 1:17

Indeed, great question. I'm glad you asked.

Alicea 1:19

Am I saying what it is?

Nathan 1:20

Sure, why not?

Alicea 1:21

Okay. The Oogie Boogie Bash, a Disney Halloween party, is the California resort's answer to not so scary, but with a twist, where the Florida party is centered around big events for tens of thousands of people, the Anaheim gathering feels a little bit more like a theme park turned into the most magical night of trick-or-treating your inner eight-year-old could only have dreamed of.

Nathan 1:42

While Disney doesn't publish official attendance numbers for these hard-ticketed after-hours events, those in the know estimate that a not-so scary Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom in Florida runs about 20 to 30,000 guests, or about 20 to 30% of normal daily capacity. However, the Oogie Boogie Bash in California Adventure runs perhaps 8 to 12,000 guests, or 15 to 20% of DCA's capacity. So it is a much more intimate affair.

Alicea 2:16

A sold-out Oogie Boogie Bash feels like an exclusive after hours event, while a sold-out Mickey's not so scary feels like a well-managed Halloween party. In Florida, you're getting an amazing parade, fireworks, and entertainment on top of shorter lines for rides and a chance to score some candy. In California, the park comes alive with a completely different atmosphere with elaborate treat trails, rare character interactions, and a haunted - trail - like Villains Grove Experience. In addition to a parade, although right now it's just a cavalcade due to construction that may go on for a couple more years like that.

Nathan 2:53

Yeah.

Alicea 2:53

It really does feel like your whole neighborhood came out to go trick-or-treating. And the reward is two or three times more candy than you get in Florida.

Nathan 3:01

That was insane.

Alicea 3:02

It's a lot.

Nathan 3:04

Of course, both of these events also feature the theme park attractions we all know and love with incredibly low wait times, given the limited event capacity and no lightning lane passes slowing down the queues. Even if you're not into all the special goings on, after hours events can be a great way to get onto your favorite rides without standing in line for a couple hours.

Alicea 4:08

Disney bills the Oogie Boogie Bash as “a night to experience some mischievous fun on select evenings in August, September, and October. This years parties are all sold out but there is still plenty of fun to be had during the day in both Disneyland and California Adventure for day guests with special decor, snacks, characters, and ride overlays like Haunted Mansion Holiday, Guardians of the Galaxy, Monsters After Dark, Luigi’s Honkin’ Haul-o-ween, and Mater’s Graveyard Jam-BOO-ree. events

Nathan 4:08

The party runs from 6pm to 11pm on select Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evenings, With early entry into DCA starting at three. Tickets run from $139 per person in the early season and top out at $199 per person this year on Halloween night.

Alicea 4:23

Yes.

Nathan 4:24

So that is the background.

Arrival Tips And Early Entry

Nathan 4:26

We went a week ago. So that was a Sunday night in what we'll say early October. It was the 11th. And yeah, all four of us were there, and we had a darn good time. I do want to, before we jump into this, just give a big shout out to Wes from version 5571. We met up with him and his lovely wife Kim, and we had lunch in uh the Naples restaurant there in downtown Disney and just kind of hung out for a little bit and chatted. And it was so great to make that in-person connection.

Alicea 5:06

So for the party, our experience, let's see, the party was sold out. Like Nathan said, all the parties are sold out this year. We showed up around 3 p.m. when the gates opened for those with oogie boogie tickets. There were long lines right at 3 p.m. Lots of people. If you're going in before the party start time, there are specific gates that you need to go through. They will say oogie boogie bash above the ticket area. Um, I think we got in probably around 3:30 or so.

Nathan 5:35

I don't think it took that long. I think it was about 20 minutes.

Alicea 5:38

Okay, okay.

Nathan 5:38

It was it was actually going pretty fast.

Alicea 5:40

It was going pretty fast. I will say on this day, it was a three on the crowd calendar.

Nathan 5:47

Was it?

Alicea 5:48

It didn't seem like a three. Yeah, I looked it up.

Nathan 5:51

Because we looked at the crowd calendar before we left, and it was talking about like an eight.

Alicea 5:57

On Saturday, yes.

Nathan 5:59

Uh yes. Got it.

Alicea 6:01

Saturday, the day we were at the parks where we thoroughly exhausted ourselves, which is super smart when you're gonna spend a late evening at a party. Yeah.

Nathan 6:10

It was not it was not. Yeah, uh it was definitely super busy in both parks on that Saturday night. Yeah. And yeah, that would felt way more than a three did.

Alicea 6:21

It did, but that is also because you had the regular guests and then all of a sudden all the party guests showing up as well.

Nathan 6:28

That's fair. That's fair.

Alicea 6:29

So I think that probably messed up those numbers a little bit.

Nathan 6:34

Yeah. Yeah.

First Rides And Pacing The Night

Alicea 6:35

Yeah. So when we got in, we headed over to the Pixar Pier area right off the bat. We still had a lightning lane that we could use because we stayed at a Disneyland hotel. You get to use a single lightning lane for your entire party. One per stay. Not one per day, one per stay. Boo, I have to say.

Nathan 6:57

Yes. This was because Disney went away from offering any sort of early entry to Disneyland parks. They did that earlier this year.

Alicea 7:06

Again, I say boo.

Nathan 7:09

Agreed. Agreed.

Alicea 7:10

But we did use that lightning lane and we used it at Toy Story Midway Mania, which was always a fun, fun thing to do.

Nathan 7:18

Yes. Love those rides.

Alicea 7:20

I'm horrible at them, but I love them.

Nathan 7:23

I don't think any of us were on our A game.

Alicea 7:25

I think we all got Beavers, but you got cat. If anybody has ridden that, you know what that means. After that, I mean, I don't know. I was just, I was super tired. My legs were tired because I had walked all day on Friday evening at Universal Studios Hollywood, and then all day the next day at Disneyland and California Adventure. And yeah, that's I mean, that's kind of the feel for the whole evening was walk a bit, sit down, walk a bit, sit down. Yeah. So we walked a bit. And then we sat down over at um, what is it called? Paradise Gardens, Paradise Garden Grill area.

Nathan 8:07

Yeah. Found a drink and uh just kind of chillaxed. The kids wanted to go ride. The symphony swings. Yeah, the swings.

Alicea 8:16

And no thank you.

Nathan 8:18

They were in line and it went down. And then it was about, I want to say a half hour, maybe 45 minutes of them. Like they'd run a test run or two and they thought it was back up and then it wasn't wasn't. And but they eventually got on and and had a good old time on there. Yep.

Alicea 8:34

I remember doing those kind of rides when I was little. And I don't think I enjoyed it then. So not something I'd go on today.

Nathan 8:44

That's fair. That is fair.

Treat Trails Strategy And Candy Math

Nathan 8:46

Alicea 8:46

So Oogie Boogie Bash. One of the really cool things about Oogie Boogie Bash is the treat trails. And they had 11 different treat trails this year. Some of them are with characters, some of them are without. I think there's there's probably like eight or nine that had characters and just a couple without. On each one of the treat trails, there are probably four to five treat stations per trail.

Nathan 9:12

It's a lot. It is each treat station is this giant cart just full of candy. And they are literally like giving you a small handful of candy at each one of these.

Alicea 9:24

Unless it's a goldfish, a rice crispy treat, or a turkey jerky.

Nathan 9:29

True.

Alicea 9:30

Then you just get one.

Nathan 9:31

True. Still.

Alicea 9:33

Oh or craisins, too. Yeah. Oh yes.

Nathan 9:35

Don't forget the craisins.

Alicea 9:37

Yes. I like California because there is more variety with their treats. There were no craisins, goldfish, rice crispy treats, um, turkey jerky sticks in Florida at all, which I would think would be good to do because they won't melt. Right. But uh whatever.

Nathan 9:59

That's a good point. That's a good point. Yeah. And then we we kind of had a plan. So these treat trails are scattered all throughout the park. And we wanted to start off over in the Paradise Pier area or Pixar Pier area, whatever they want to call it this decade, uh, and then work our way back around the water, head over through Carsland, over through Avengers campus, and then kind of make that circle in that way. Yeah. So that was our game plan for the evening. So the first treat trail we came to actually was kind of in the main viewing area for world of color. And there was no characters there. It was just uh get going and get your bag o candy started. Yeah. Uh, and that was nice. And then we went back over kind of underneath the Incredicoaster, and that's where Syndrome was uh from the Incredibles. And he was absolutely roasting people, and that was a lot of fun.

Alicea 11:01

That was a lot of fun, yeah. When Sterling and I went, was it like three years ago, something like that, three, four years ago, they didn't have syndrome. They had Sid from Toy Story. Ah. So Syndrome was new to us. I think Syndrome started a year ago, maybe before that. So yeah, he was fun to see. Yeah.

Nathan 11:21

We also had our picture taken over there with uh Edna Mode and Mr. Incredible in his OG 1950s blue and black outfit, which was very cool.

Alicea 11:33

And Nathan, you and Mr. Incredible were doing some poses and yeah, Gym Bros.

Nathan 11:38

Gym Bro's gonna flex. Yeah.

Alicea 11:41

Uh we didn't stop and see them, but I know Kaitlyn and I saw Ian and Barley Lightfoot from onward over there as well.

Nathan 11:49

I missed them. I didn't see them.

Alicea 11:51

They were they were kind of tucked off in a little corner area, and there was a pretty long line. For most of the characters, there is gonna be a fairly long line, especially for some of the ones that you just really don't see very often. And I have a list of all the different characters that are available and then some of the ones that we saw. Cool. We'll go over that later. Yeah.

Pixar Pier Characters And Photo Ops

Alicea 12:13

After the Pixar area, we kind of went up and around towards San Fransokyo. Kaitlyn hadn't seen San Fransokyo, so wanted to go up that way in the evening and see all the pretty lights.

Nathan 12:25

Yeah, I don't know if we've really been over there to see that at night. It is stunning.

Alicea 12:32

Yes, it is. It's very nice. It's very nice. I love how all the little, I don't know what you call them. They're um little lantern type things that are Baymax heads. Yes. They're all lit up, they're really pretty.

Nathan 12:43

Yes. Well, and the the sky was rather moody. We were uh there the weekend of uh the the hurricane or remnants of a hurricane that was kind of going up through San Diego and and Anaheim and everything. So we had some off and on sputtering of rain and stuff like that. It wasn't too bad, but the misty. Yeah, at times. But it was really cool because some of the pictures that we have with the sky in it, the sky is rather uh angry and not the typical just like bright and sunny. Well, at night, I guess it wouldn't be sunny, but you know, bright and starry. It's it's moody.

Alicea 13:15

It's moody. This weekend was great weather-wise for fair skin, not doing well in heat me.

Nathan 13:21

Right. Well, and it was like a hundred degrees the weekend prior. Yes. And it's back up into the low to mid 90s this weekend. So could have been a lot worse. It could have been a lot worse, yeah.

Alicea 13:33

So we stopped off in San Fransokyo. We got uh some drinks, chilled for a little bit, and then went over into the Radiator Springs area. Uh, did the little treat trail there. That one did not have a character. We did the treat trail and got some more munchies because we had heard that the cozy cone over there had some churros or something. I can't remember exactly what it was. It was something yummy, and we wanted to try it. However, they were sold out of the churros.

Nathan 14:06

Well, it was a churro. It was a special churro. It was a special churro, they didn't have it.

Alicea 14:11

Yeah.

Nathan 14:11

I I do want to say on our way over, we kind of took the back road around uh the behind Flow's V8 Cafe where you're walking past Radiator Springs Racers, and they had changed the lighting themes from the typical kind of like oranges uh to like purple and green, more Halloween y. It was really beautiful.

Alicea 14:37

Yeah. And I love the decorations that they do in Carsland for Halloween time. Over in the Cozy Cone Motels, they put uh they make them look scary. They make them have faces.

Nathan 14:48

Yes.

Alicea 14:48

It's really cute. And the car characters dress up. There's vampire mater or Dracula Mater, whatever you want to call it. Red is dressed up like a clown. We got our picture with Red.

Nathan 15:01

Yeah, it's a big huge fire truck.

Alicea 15:03

Yes. Um, Guido is Igor from like Frankenstein and Igor. And who else? Oh, Lightning McQueen is a superhero.

Nathan 15:14

Sure, why not?

Alicea 15:14

Yeah. Okay.

Nathan 15:16

We did happen to go on Radiator Springs racers since we were over there because the wait was like 20 minutes.

Alicea 15:22

Is yeah, it said 25. We waited, maybe 20. Yeah.

Nathan 15:25

Yeah. And no complaints. That was pretty awesome. And of course, we won. Very, very important.

Alicea 15:30

Very important. And I love Radiator Springs racers at night. It is so gorgeous. Yep. So because you know it's kind of right along the way, we took the back way from Carsland to Avengers Campus. That walkway is open now, finally. Yes. And it had been closed for a long time. It is now open, and there's an extra restroom over there now, too. So we went through there. We got to see Agatha Harkness from Agatha all along at one of the treat trails there. That interaction wasn't super great just because it didn't work out timing-wise. Like she talked to the group before us and then the group after us. That's okay.

Nathan 16:08

Yeah.

Alicea 16:08

She looked really cool though.

Nathan 16:10

She looked amazing.

Alicea 16:10

She has her purple outfit on and then like blackened fingers, and it looks really neat.

Nathan 16:15

And then we did uh I think the ride went down, so it took a little longer than anticipated. But we went ahead and did Web Slingers ride. And I still don't have a clue what the heck I'm doing on this thing.

Alicea 16:31

Oh, we got we got a great score, though.

Nathan 16:34

We got a fantastic score. We were like the top car of the hour. Yep. And I think we were number seven on the day or something like that.

Alicea 16:42

It was pretty cool.

Nathan 16:43

I guess we kind of know it. I have no idea what I'm doing on that ride. I just flail.

Alicea 16:48

You and Sterling did amazing that run. I don't I don't know what it was, but uh like I think I had the lowest score. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah.

Nathan 16:56

Which is ironic because after the first scene, uh, I was far behind all three of y'all. It was I was bad.

Alicea 17:03

Sterling found like he got like four or five golden spiders the first scene. Uh okay, whatever. I I don't even see them. I'm just like, like you said, flail.

Avengers Campus Area

Nathan 17:13

Flail, exactly.

Alicea 17:15

And my arms hurt so much after. We went through that area, and the Avengers characters are kind of on rotation there. And I think we walked by and Spider-Man was there. And you and Kaitlyn wanted to stop at Pym's Kitchen, right? Was that then or was that later?

Nathan 17:33

No, I think that was then. Okay.

Samantha 17:35

Sorry to interrupt, but it was Pym's Tasting Lab. Yeah.

Nathan 17:39

I got a beer, she got a cider, I think. You know, we gotta stay hydrated during these events. It's very important. Exactly. Yeah.

Alicea 17:47

And then right after the Guardians of the Galaxy ride, kind of in between there in Hyperion Theater, is a little nook area that's the waiting area for going into the theater that doesn't have a show right now. And that's where Ernesto de la Cruz from Coco is. And this is an amazing character. I love how they I don't know, how they did him, how they made him look. It looks so cool.

Nathan 18:15

It's very, very amazing. Now I was surprised. I thought he'd be singing.

Alicea 18:22

I yeah, maybe his voice was not working well this evening or something. I was very much expecting him to sing because that's what I heard he did.

Nathan 18:31

Right.

Alicea 18:32

Like, and a little more disappointed because last time Sterling and I was here, he was not on that night at all. So I I stuck around for a little bit, just like hoping, hoping he'd break out into song. And he did not.

Nathan 18:47

No. And he kind of was just doing a lot of posing. He wasn't interacting with the crowd as much as some of the other characters.

Alicea 18:55

A little bit here and there. He was talking to like individual people a little bit.

Nathan 19:00

Yeah.

Alicea 19:00

I think he was concentrating more on one person and a little bit too long rather than trying to work the crowd.

Nathan 19:08

Yeah. Yeah. But hey, looked fantastic. The pictures are amazing.

Alicea 19:12

Yes. Did look fantastic. Uh and then right over by him, they there was also a character meet and greet of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in their Kingdom Hearts gear.

Nathan 19:23

Yes.

Alicea 19:23

Which was really cool. I know probably not everybody is familiar with the Kingdom Hearts series. It is, it's a video game series, and it is a lot of fun. And it brings in like all the IP of Disney. It's really fun. And they're coming out with a new Kingdom Hearts game before too long, and I'm very excited for that. Uh this line was very long. It was like 40 minutes, I think, just to get a picture with characters. Yeah. And usually this meet and greet is over in the Paradise Gardens area. So I think maybe because it was a little sprinkly, they moved it to indoors over here.

Nathan 19:58

Yeah.

Alicea 19:58

Possibly.

Nathan 19:59

I don't know. Yeah. Rain, especially here later on in the evening, definitely became a little bit more of a factor.

Alicea 20:06

Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan 20:07

And then after seeing Ernesto, we hopped over to the other side of the Hyperion Theater. Again,

Judge Doom and Villains

Nathan 20:13

please put a show back in there, Disney. Please, please, please. And that's where Judge Doom was meeting folks. And so there was a treat trail, and Judge Doom was working the crowd and uh uh tried to recruit Sterling, who seemed way too willing to dip the sneaker. Um I'm not real sure. I uh maybe we have some parenting adjustments to do there, but uh yeah.

Alicea 20:40

This is yeah, Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I did not get to see him at all because I was ordering drinks and food. And when I was done, he was not there anymore.

Nathan 20:49

Yeah, it had started to rain a little bit more, and he he came in. Uh, there was some cupboard seating over by there that we took advantage of while we had some snacks and things like that. And uh Hades walked by with an umbrella because you know, you don't want to put out the flames there and kind of roasted Kaitlyn a little bit.

Alicea 21:08

Oh, we had a really good interaction with Hades. I don't I don't know that he roasted. He was actually quite gentlemanly. And he went over to Kaitlyn and basically gave her half of the umbrella and was just chatting with her about it. It was pretty cool. Um, and I had seen him a little bit earlier when I was waiting for the spicy oogie boogie burrito. He was walking the other way and I bowed to him and I said, Lord Hades, and he's like, Yes, bow some more. I love Hades. He's such a sarcastic, sassy villain.

Nathan 21:40

Yes, absolutely. Let's see. Then we went into kind of uh I've it's what the it's on Hollywood Boulevard. There's a couple spaces that they were uh indoor spots. I think they use them for just like character meet and greets.

Alicea 21:56

So the spots there, one of them is the The Disney Junior Theater in Hollywoodland. That is where Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb was. This was fun.

Nathan 22:09

Dr. Doofenshmirtz

Alicea 22:09

He looks so silly.

Nathan 22:11

Yes.

Alicea 22:11

But he's a cartoon.

Nathan 22:12

Right.

Alicea 22:13

Come to life. And went through that. Kaitlyn asked him where Vanessa was. So he talked about Vanessa a little bit. Vanessa is his daughter.

Nathan 22:21

Right.

Alicea 22:21

Um, and yeah, that was a lot of fun.

Nathan 22:24

Yeah. Oogie Boogie was over there too.

Alicea 22:26

Oogie Boogie was over there too. He was in the animation building. Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas. And I mean, this was his whole event thing too. So yeah.

Nathan 22:36

It's his eponymous party. So it's very important for Oogie Boogie to be there.

Alicea 22:41

I do want to say about the food and drink that I ordered while we were over in that area. I got the spicy Oogie Boogie burrito, which was carne asada, fries, guacamole, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, and crunchy hot Cheetos. Well, sorry, crunchy hot cheese flavored snacks, and spicy crema in a green tortilla. This was an absolutely amazing burrito. Kaitlyn and I were just ooing and awing over it. It was so good. I would get this again. It wasn't super spicy either. And then I also got a horchata whiskey cocktail, which I would definitely get again.

Nathan 23:16

That was fantastic. Yeah.

Alicea 23:18

Horchata with rum chata and cinnamon whiskey.

Nathan 23:21

Delicious. All the good stuff. Yes. Kaitlyn also had a haunted highway cocktail when we were back over at the uh Cozy Cone. We couldn't get one of the churros

Best Party Food and Monsters After Dark

Nathan 23:33

because they were out, but uh we she was able to get the uh specialty drink. The Haunted Highway cocktail is tequila pineapple lemonade with blue curacao, apple liqueur, and sprite topped with grenadine and gummy worms. Uh the gummy worms, hard pass. This is probably the only Disney specialty drink I've ever seen that has blue curacao in it that didn't look like sickly blue.

Alicea 24:00

It was green.

Nathan 24:01

So kudos for having some constraint. This was very good.

Alicea 24:06

Did you try this one at all?

Nathan 24:07

I think I had a little sip.

Alicea 24:09

It was super light and refreshing.

Nathan 24:11

I'm not a huge fan of pineapple.

Alicea 24:13

Uh, okay. And I don't like lemonade. And the pineapple kind of canceled out the lemonade. So yeah, it was good. Since we were kind of over in that area, we took a look and saw that Guardians of the Galaxy Monsters After Dark had a what was like a 15-minute wait.

Nathan 24:29

Yeah.

Alicea 24:30

And we're like, we need to go on this. Sterling did not join us. Sterling does not like drop rides. So we had him watch our bags of candy because they were pretty darn full.

Nathan 24:40

Yeah, they were.

Alicea 24:41

And I don't know what would have happened if we took those on that ride because candy everywhere. Yeah.

Nathan 24:47

Yeah.

Alicea 24:48

So Sterling watched them for us. We went on this. It was a lot of fun. I haven't been on this before as Monsters After Dark, and neither had Kaitlyn and Nathan.

Nathan 24:57

So I liked a lot of cool overlay. Yes. There's definitely a monster in there. It's not the same pre-show. If anything, they have made the ride physics even more jaunty.

Alicea 25:10

Oh, really?

Nathan 25:10

Bouncy. To me, it was it. I I had a lot of fun.

Alicea 25:15

It seems more Tower of Terror to me on this go-round.

Nathan 25:19

I think with the music and everything, there were it was kind of more intense. Like it had much more tension going on that it was building up. But I don't know. I or maybe I'm just used to these rides now and I like them a lot better. But I had a ton of fun. I was giggling my head off.

Alicea 25:38

Guardians of the Galaxy mission breakout really changed our perspective of drop rides.

Nathan 25:44

Yes. Well, at least those two.

Alicea 25:47

Those two.

Nathan 25:47

Yeah. That's true. I don't know if I'm interested in doing drop rides elsewhere.

Alicea 25:52

If they're enclosed, I think I'm fine. Uh, but the wide open ones, no.

Nathan 25:59

At that point in the evening, it was pretty late. We missed the cavalcade. So there is no parade, at least right now. We talked about this earlier. There is a small cavalcade. I think there's a small float or two uh and then just a bunch of characters. We missed both runs of this on the evening.

Alicea 26:18

We had timed this so we would get the second one. However, they swapped the order on us.

Nathan 26:24

Yes. So it was supposed to start from over uh by the Hyperion Theater and it ended up it started on the opposite side of the park. Yep. And we weren't in the right spot. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a bummer.

Alicea 26:39

Yep.

Nathan 26:40

So unfortunately.

Alicea 26:42

We may just have to go again.

Nathan 26:44

Oh no.

Alicea 26:46

And I think if we go again, maybe do the dessert party.

Nathan 26:51

Ooh, what's the dessert party?

Alicea 26:53

Obviously, it takes a little bit more time out of the whole evening.

Nathan 26:57

Yeah.

Alicea 26:57

But it's have you you've been to one of the dessert parties for something or another before? Like World of Color. It's like that, except for they have it down the whole performance corridor area. You sit at a table and you basically have a front row seat for the parade. I don't know if I'd do this for the cavalcade. Yeah. But this was amazing when Sterling and I did this for the parade itself.

Nathan 27:20

I can see doing that for the parade. I don't know that I would want to do a dessert party for a cavalcade.

Alicea 27:25

Yeah.

Nathan 27:25

Again, if you're not familiar in Disney parlance, a cavalcade is a very small parade. Yes. Right.

Alicea 27:33

Just a couple of floats. Right.

Nathan 27:34

Or if that, like that. It's usually like the rainy day cavalcade is kind of like the most, well, at least it's the one that's coming to the top of my head in Magic Kingdom into Florida. And they'll just use like the double decker bus and stack all of the characters or a bunch of characters on there and just run the bus down the parade route. So at least you get to see something.

Alicea 27:53

Yeah. I don't even know what time it was at this point.

Nathan 27:57

It was, I want to say it was like 9:30, 9.15, 9:30 once we got done with uh the Guardians of the Galaxy's ride.

Alicea 28:05

Actually, that is incorrect because I just pulled up the picture. It was 10 15 when we were done with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Nathan 28:11

Oh, it's later than I thought it was. Yeah. I was done. Uh my knee was very upset with the world. And so I

Villains Grove

Nathan 28:21

bid the family a fond farewell and decided to take a very slow walk with all of our candy back to the hotel. We were staying over at Pixar Place or Pixar Pier, Pixar. Yeah, it's whatever that is. The Pixar Hotel.

Alicea 28:36

Yeah. Kaitlyn and I and Sterling for the beginning part, Sterling quickly veered off and went back to the hotel. Kaitlyn and I wanted to go through Villains Grove and do the last treat trail with a character over there. And the last treat trail was with Yzma from Emperor's New Groove and Maleficent. Yzma was not there. I know. That was a big, that was a big bummer. Yzma's new this year. We are very much looking forward to seeing her. But Maleficent was there, and she's my favorite villain, so that was fun. And then we did Villain's Grove, which is, I don't know how to really explain this. It's kind of like sparkly lights. It's it's

Nathan 29:20

I can explain it.

Alicea 29:21

Okay, go for it.

Nathan 29:22

Because this is what the Disney website says. Okay. It says the Redwood Challenge Trail turns into an enchanted forest full of mystical lights, sights, and sounds. As you explore, you'll come across some of your favorite Disney villains. And then it gives a whole bunch of different sections that you go through.

Alicea 29:44

Okay. So yeah, it's there's each section is themed towards a villain, and they basically light up the different areas with they're not Christmas lights, but that's all I can think of is Christmas lights, fairy lights, whatever you want to call them, and beautiful lighting packages of all the colors that are associated with the villains. And there's a different soundtrack in each area as well. So the first one you go through is Frollo's Sanctuary. So Frollo is from Hunchback of Notre Dame. You head into an otherworldly cathedral of trees infused with incense smells and chanting voices. The chanting voices were saying, guilty, which was really weird.

Nathan 30:29

What is this Mr. Toad's wild ride?

Alicea 30:32

Yes. Guilty!

Nathan 30:34

Thank you. That is all.

Alicea 30:37

Kaitlyn are like, we're not guilty. What are you talking about? Uh the next section is called Maleficence Will. Roam through a region replete with eerie ravens, thorn-spiked vines, and a seemingly spellbound waterfall of cascading color. So they also incorporate projections into these areas as well. And with this, you can see like thorns growing on, I think they project onto a rock side or something. Um, just kind of eerie sounds. I didn't see any ravens. I think maybe heard some ravens. That may have been it.

Nathan 31:15

Nevermore.

Alicea 31:16

Nevermore. The next one is Queen of Hearts Garden based off of Alice in Wonderland. You wander around a charming garden of roses that paint themselves red right before your eyes. And they do. You can see all these roses, these flowers, they go from red to white to red to white, and it smells like roses over there, too. It's really neat. And the lights switch from red to white, and there's some signage there that basically, because of the light changing, it changes what it says on the signs. It's your basic thing. I'm pretty sure I have a video of this from one of the earlier years. It's really cool. And of course, with all the projections and light shows, you see the Queen of Hearts there. Then you kind of go down into the kids area, and this is Scar's elephant graveyard. Very cool. Descend into a vast expanse that echoes with hyena laughter. And it does. It's got the be prepared song going on in the background. Just the instrumental. I don't think there's any yes, there's no um lyrics or anything with it. But because it's in the kid area, it has that like kind of bouncy ground. So that was that was fun. And then you do see hyenas, you see shadows of hyenas marching past.

Nathan 32:29

Kind of weird that's cool.

Alicea 32:31

Yeah. That sounds fun. Yeah, that was a new neat area.

Nathan 32:34

Dr. Felicier is next, isn't he?

Alicea 32:37

Dr.

Nathan 32:38

Facilier. Whatever.

Alicea 32:40

Yes, Dr. Facilier's friends on the other side. This was actually a pretty small section, if I remember correctly. There's one little projection, and that was about it. Yeah, it's all right.

Nathan 32:52

But were you summoned by the great beyond shadowy hands and colorful spells luring guests deeper into the grove's darkest corners?

Alicea 33:02

Um, I guess we did get lured into the grove's darkest corners because there's only one way to go.

Nathan 33:08

All right, as advertised. Yes.

Alicea 33:11

Next was the Wicked Queen's Lightning Forest. See the forest come alive as an electrifying storm flashes from branch to branch.

PSA

Alicea 33:19

This was really cool. They made it look like an actual lightning storm was happening in this grove of trees.

Nathan 33:25

Wow.

Alicea 33:26

Um, just with the lighting effects coming down. Yeah. It was really neat.

Nathan 33:30

That's awesome.

Alicea 33:31

Yeah. And the next one was my absolute favorite. It is called Home of the Wisps. Watch these winged caretakers guide guests to safety amid a magical bastion of endless light. This is so gorgeous. This area is blues and greens, and there's just little dots of light everywhere in those gorgeous colors. And the music is very ethereal, very welcoming, I guess.

Nathan 33:59

Um is this kind of like the wisps from uh the movie Brave with Merida?

Alicea 34:04

Okay, got it. And you hear like, because they make that weird noise. It's like, uh I don't know how to say. It's just like very ethereal. And yes, there are wisps there and they welcome you in. Then after that, as you're going through the exit, you go through dawn, which is very bright light, walking through a tunnel.

Nathan 34:25

Oh great.

Alicea 34:27

Yes. Escape

Nathan 34:29

walk towards the light, ladies and gentlemen.

Alicea 34:31

Yep. And they have fog coming through too. So it's it's it's, I don't know, otherworldly. And oh, the copy for this says Escape in the nick of time as flickering lanterns lead the way toward a brilliant sunrise and the conclusion of this mythical trip.

Nathan 34:48

There you have it. Yes. Sunrise at 11 p.m. at night.

Alicea 34:52

Uh-huh. Yep, that's exactly how it was. I I really like Villains Grove. It's very pretty. Just a nice little walkthrough. It was very busy when Kaitlyn and I went through. Usually at the end of the night, it's pretty empty.

Nathan 35:06

Yeah.

Alicea 35:07

But it was we had to wait in line for probably, I'd say 20 minutes to get in. And oh, how do I say this? Don't do this, people.

Samantha 35:18

And now a Disney public service announcement from Alicea.

Alicea 35:21

There was a family probably 30 feet in front of us that had their lightsabers out and were taking pictures at every spot with their lightsabers out. I'm like, you guys are ruining this. I didn't say anything.

Nathan 35:38

Yeah.

Alicea 35:39

Uh, but they were taking a long time, so I got to go past them, and a lot of people got to go past them. But for an area that the whole premise of it is to enjoy the lighting effects and everything, it was really taking away from that.

Nathan 35:55

You have giant flashlights that you're ruining the effect.

Alicea 35:58

Yep, yep. They were having fun,

Oogie Boogie or Not-So-Scary

Alicea 36:01

I guess. Good for them, but think of other people too.

Nathan 36:05

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. So, Alicea, you've done Oogie Boogie several years. You've done Mickey's Not So Scary in Florida a month or so ago. We talked a little bit at the at the beginning of the episode about the difference between not so scary and oogie boogie. If somebody, I don't know, lives in the middle of the country, right? And and wants to go to a Disney Halloween party, but isn't sure which one to go to, how would you steer people towards one or the other?

Alicea 36:40

Oh my goodness. Um they are both very fun to go to. I think they have different vibes. Florida, you have a much higher chance of getting rained out. It's also going to be very hot and humid. Take that as you will. Personally, I like Oogie Boogie better. I think the character interactions are much better. Though I will say Disney World is doing much better at incorporating characters into their treat trails too. They haven't done that before. This is the first year I went where I've seen characters. Like they had the Hitchhiking ghosts in one of the treat trails. Um, they haven't done that before. But I like the characters at Oogie Boogie better.

Nathan 37:29

Yeah. To me, you know, I didn't do Not So Scary this year. I've done it in the past several times, I think. And to me, the Halloween party in Florida is about big event spectacle. Yes. With the parade, the fireworks, the castle show. Exactly. It is about those big events and and and is geared towards those large crowd audience events. Yes, there is candy. Yes, there are treat trails, there are some photo opportunity things. You have, you know, they're starting to add some characters out, but we all know it's hard to do character meet and greets and things in Florida because of just the volume. It's hard to get so many more people through in a decent amount of time and still having some sort of interaction through. The California Oogie Boogie Bash is it really does feel like your whole small town came out and is just going trick-or-treating on an evening in this really wonderful over-the-top kind of place that it's just more local. Like it just it just felt like a place where you'd bring the kids and dress up more in whatever Halloween costume you want to wear. And it's not that people don't dress up in Florida, but it just felt more intimate and personal to us to in a weird degree in in California to me.

Alicea 39:05

I think I don't know what the footprint is, but I'm pretty sure California Adventure is smaller than Magic Kingdom. Yeah.

Samantha 39:11

The guest-facing area of Magic Kingdom is roughly 50% larger than California Adventure.

Alicea 39:17

That makes a difference too. One thing we didn't talk too much about was how many character interactions that are available in California Adventure. We missed a lot of the characters.

Nathan 39:29

Yeah.

Alicea 39:29

They had over by Hades, there was Meg was there, Pain and Panic were there. They, like I said, they rotate through a bunch of the Marvel characters. Over in the Pixar Pier area, you can also see Bo Peep and Woody. In front of Carthay Circle, there's a rotating cast of characters there, too. You get Cruella, Gaston, Anastasia and Drusella, Dr. Facilier, the Evil Queen. Let's see, there's another area. I don't know exactly where it is, but you can also see Minnie, Daisy, and Clarabel as the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus. That line is always crazy, crazy long. And I'm pretty sure Remy and Emile make an appearance somewhere, too. That's cool.

Nathan 40:12

Yeah, it's just they're both they're just different. They're very different things. So uh do both.

Alicea 40:20

Florida does have my very favorite parade, though. I love the boo-to-you parade.

Nathan 40:24

The boo-to-you parade is incredible. And I kind of I know it's only a cavalcade this year. I really wish

Cavalcade

Nathan 40:33

, we would have caught it. I'm interested in seeing the the California parade when it comes back, hopefully in a in a couple years after the construction's done. The if you're wondering, they're building a new coco ride down uh kind of on the the edge of the park behind the Incredicoaster. And that is the staging area where the parades uh organized for to either start or end. And that's closed. They don't have nearly as much space backstage right now, and so that's limiting uh the size of the parade. So that's why it is a smaller little cavalcade that goes through. So when all of that gets cleaned up and adjusted and finalized here in a you know a couple years, hopefully, I'm interested to see what this parade can be. I'm with you though. The the Boo-to- U parade is probably my favorite Disney parade. There's so many show elements in that parade, and it is just a banger of an earworm that will be stuck in your brain forever.

Alicea 41:40

They played. We were walking across the esplanade and they were playing that. And I'm pretty sure every one of us separately said, wait a minute, this is a Florida song.

Nathan 41:49

This is the wrong part. So yeah, this was fun. I I would, I don't know, do both. If you're looking for a lot of candy, go to California. Yeah. Um, literally the candy bag that you get is bigger, and there's way more candy.

Alicea 42:08

It is bigger. It's it's that weird plasticky material. The one in Florida, it's probably about like knock a quarter of the size off of it. That's how how big it is. And it's kind of a weird plastic fabric. I don't know. Uh, but there were people walking around with like pillowcases and big huge tote bags that were full. Because you can go through these treat trails as many times as you want to do.

Nathan 42:34

Yeah. It's uh I don't know, but it'll get heavy. Yes, it'll get heavy. Yeah. Well, just just be careful. Just be careful. So well, yeah, this was fun. I'm glad I went down and to do it uh again. I don't know if it's something I would need to do every year.

Alicea 42:52

No, probably not, because when they do introduce new characters, they they stick around for a couple of years.

Nathan 42:58

Right.

Alicea 42:58

I'd say like I'd want to do the universal horror nights every year, just because that changes every year. But I don't know if I'd need to do Oogie Boogie every year.

Nathan 43:09

Well, I'm I'm happy for you and your need to do horror nights. Speaking of, we're gonna talk about that next week.

Alicea 43:17

Oh, awesome.

Nathan 43:18

So be prepared as the song goes, y'all.

Alicea 43:22

My teeth and ambitions are bared.

Nathan 43:26

Well, on that note, just a reminder that we are not affiliated with Disney dentists or any of Disney's subsidiaries. Everything you hear on this show is based on personal experiences, opinions, and questionable snack choices. We are, however, proudly affiliated with fun.

Alicea 43:44

And bags of candy.

Nathan 43:47

Indeed.

Alicea 43:48

If you are planning a Disney vacation, we always recommend working with a travel advisor or reaching out to Disney directly to help make the magic happen. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a second to rate and review the show. It really does help us out.

Nathan 44:03

If you have a question, a topic suggestion, or a Disney story you'd love to share, please shoot us an email at podcast

Where to find us

Nathan 44:10

at our mousecapades.com.

Alicea 44:12

You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads at Our MouseCapades, and on YouTube at OurMousCapades Pod. And do not forget to share us with your friends, your family, and Disney fans of all ages.

Nathan 44:23

Thanks for listening. We'll be back in your ears next week.

Samantha 44:28

Thank you for flying Star Tours. Bye bye.