Laura's Disney Lines

Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party
I've Got Punky Power!
by Lisa K. Berton

I love Halloween almost as much as I love Disneyland Resort. When the two merge it makes me jump up and down with glee. The icing on the devil's food cake is Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party at Disney's California Adventure. For a period of four hours on select nights, the park transforms into a whirlwind of candy, characters, candy, Halloween-themed music, candy, spooky projections, and more candy.

Friday, October 16th was the night I ran around the park. The festivities were scheduled for 7:30pm-11:30pm and by 7 o'clock a massive crowd was waiting outside the gates ready to embark on a sugar high. Prior to renting a locker and turning myself into fashion icon Punky Brewster, I grabbed a pumpkin muffin and a bottle of water from Blue Ribbon Bakery. It's not the most nutritious dinner but it gave me enough energy to make it through most of the night.

I had purchased my ticket online and printed it out at home before flying to California. When I got to the turnstile, the Cast Member scanned my paper ticket and kept it. Special park maps listing what dining options were available as well as running attractions, character locations, candy spots, and "Mickey's Trick-or-Treat on the Street" Cavalcade times and route were readily available. Inside the park, Cast Members handed out plastic treat bags. They're big enough to hold all of the candy collected from every treat station. One side of the bag advertises the movie "Up" coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray while the other is "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

Most folks head towards Hollywood Pictures Backlot first because it's the closest land to the entrance. I went to Pirate Wharf which took over Pacific Wharf. Here you'll find pirate treasure and skeletal remains of those who tried to carry it off. There's a DJ spinning pop songs and pirate Cast Members dancing. Coloring is available at craft tables and characters like Peter Pan, Wendy, Captain Hook, and Jack Sparrow pose for photos. Three counter service eateries are open at Pirate Wharf: Pacific Wharf Cafe offers soups and salads, Cocina Cucamonga Mexican Grill serves tacos and burritos, and Lucky Fortune Cookery has rice bowls.

Backtracking towards a bug's land I came across two scarecrows hanging around. One was loafing about and snoozing until I approached him. Awake, both he and the other scarecrow made conversation with guests. The funniest thing I heard all night was a little girl who pointed behind a scarecrow and yelled "CROW!" She had him going for a minute there. The first of two Mickey's Trick-or-Treat on the Street cavalcades started out between Playhouse Disney - Live on Stage! and Candy Corn Acres at 8:30pm. I asked three Disney managers who were talking together for a prime location to take photos. They directed me to the area between a post and the waterfall. I would say for a great spot, stand so the entrance to a bug's land is across the street from you and a bit to the left. That's where the float with Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, and Donald stops.

In front of them will be Jessie and Woody dancing in the street, and bustin' a move behind the float are Gepetto, Alice, and Mad Hatter. Kids who dance and wiggle about in the street are given special event pins. Other characters in the cavalcade include White Rabbit, little green men, and Pinocchio. Dancing witches and warlocks take to the streets, walking alongside floats while giant Mickey pumpkins filled with huge candy corn roll along. Having the Cavalcade twice during the night means the crowds are very manageable. I found it very easy to switch spots with moms and dads who were also taking photos. The 8:30 pm performance brought out lots of little kids, 10 and younger, while the older kids and child-free adults attended the 10:30 pm showing.

My next stop was Paradise Pier. At the top of the pier I found the humanized Ariel and Belle each with their own backdrop. The line to see them was very long so I took photos from outside the roped off area and continued walking down the ramp. Across from the entrance to California Screamin' were little green men and Jessie. Three out of four Boardwalk Games were open and free to play. Every player walked away with two pieces of candy while the winner received a handful. The newly themed games are very cute. The former Sun Wheel ferris wheel has been redecorated with Mickey's face in the center and his buddies painted on the swinging and stationary cars. I went for a ride in a non-moving car and was joined by two dads and their little girls.

If you continue through the area as I did, heading towards Mulholland Madness, you'll come across three treat stations in a row. Go get your candy. I only stopped at one of them. Now, there was a Mickey's Hide and Go Treat Trail in Golden State over by Grizzly River Run but I never made it over there so I can't tell you what I missed. Rumor had it there was a Ghirardelli stand next to Soarin' Over California. Ghirardelli dark chocolate and milk chocolate with caramel squares were also being handed out on the other side of Golden State across from the wharf. That I'm sure of because I went there twice.

Candy Corn Acres was hosting a dance party complete with Goofy and Donald Duck dressed as farmers. Lots of colored lights and strobes filled the area as kids shook their tail feathers. I never knew Donald was such a fan of rock 'n roll until that night. He even played air guitar. Cast Members were dressed in pink and orange bubble dresses. The outfits made me think of Willy Wonka and other tripped out images that frighten me.

Baker's Field Bakery in Sunshine Plaza was open and selling their yummy baked goods. Both Greetings from California and Engine Ears Toys were open and selling their regular merchandise with Greetings also carrying event merchandise like sweatshirts, T-shirts, and cloth tote bags that could double as trick-or-trick bags.

My last area to conquer was Hollywood Pictures Backlot, the place where most folks began their partying. What a great place to load up on characters and candy. In front of Disney Animation stood a scaled down version of The Seven Dwarfs' house and out front you could find the Evil Queen or Snow White and Dopey. Over by the Hyperion Theater in the queue area, Mickey and Minnie hung out in front of a haunted house backdrop. In front of the Hyperion Theater were Handy Manny, JoJo & Goliath (JoJo's Circus), and Annie & June (Little Einsteins). Meanwhile at Hollywood "Bat-lot" Bash, the music was pumping and The Incredibles and Frozone were dancing the night away. Inside the Animation Building was the other Mickey's Hide and Go Treat Trail. Going through the various rooms with all the lights on was cool because you could actually see everything and just how detailed the rooms are. Dining options in Hollywood Pictures Backlot were Award Wieners and Fairfax Fruit Market.

There are 13 treat stations in addition to the trails. I only got to about half of them so there may be a few types of candy that I never got but here's the complete list of everything I collected: Twix, M&Ms, Skittles, Now & Laters, Sixlets, Tootsie Rolls, Tootsie Pops, Lemonheads, Jaw Busters, Ghirardelli squares, Craisins, carrots, apple slices, Nerds, Laffy Taffy, A&W root beer hard candy, Sassy Taffy, and Sassy Sours.

Costumes are welcome and encouraged for everyone. Most kids dress up and less than half of the adults don an outfit. I saw pirates, Davy Jones (not the Monkee), super heroes, Disney characters, Shrek, witches, and video game characters particularly from Mario. The coolest of all costumes was a group of adults that dressed up as the portraits in the Stretching Room in Haunted Mansion.

It's a fun night and if you've been thinking about going, go! Put on a costume, get in the Halloween mood and have a good time. If you want to trade your Twix mini-bars for my Sassy Sours let me know.

You can see more of Lisa Berton's photos of the Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party in our 2009 photo galleries:

General Party Photos

Parade and Character Photos

General information on the party, including ticket info and a schedule of events, is available HERE.

Read more of Lisa's blogs:

I said I would talk more about the new Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy, so here goes. First a bit of general background, and then some spoilers - I will put in a warning before the spoilers!

Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy was initially done for Hong Kong Disneyland two years ago, and fortunately for us they decided to bring it to California this year! I found that quite a surprise - since it's not like Space Mountain is an overlooked attraction that people are no longer interested in riding. :-)

The signs outside the attraction warn that it may be too intense for some children (and even some adults!). I'd recommend heeding those warnings - there are some aspects that could be quite scary, but I'll go into more specifics later. For the most part I don't think the visuals are any worse than what you see on the signs, but seeing them pop up unexpectedly can still be surprising. The music is also pretty eerie.

One thing that we thought was very cool is the way the outside of Space Mountain "comes alive" at night, with sound and lighting effects. It's definitely worth spending some time standing around Tomorrowland (we found the view pretty good from the area just behind the water ball) just watching and listening. If there's a band playing at the Tomorrowland Terrace it's a little harder to hear the sound effects, though - and for some of the effects you really need the audio cues to get the full impact.

The new attraction has been VERY popular - on weekends Fastpasses for the entire day are long gone by noon and the standby line is over an hour.

Here's a video from disneylandnews that shows a little bit of the outside and the inside - not too many spoilers in this.

SPOILERS AHEAD

READY?

ARE YOU SURE?

Ok. On the first night while we were watching the show on Space Mountain's exterior there was a man behind us who was also watching and taking pictures. We started chatting and discovered that he was one of the Imagineers who had worked on the Ghost Galaxy overlay! So we asked him about something that had puzzled us, which was why there really wasn't any "story" in the attraction to explain what was going on. He told us there's a script for the background chatter that would offer some more information to those who listen to it, but it hasn't gotten into the attraction - maybe next year.

But here's the idea (to the best of our recollection): Space Station 77 has been pushing deeper and deeper into space, and has gotten into a new area which, unbeknownst to them, is inhabited by a "space ghost", who doesn't take kindly to these "space invaders." Strange things start happening, like mysterious energy fluctuations. If you watch the big screen in the launch bay you can see that that it reports a power surge or a loss of signal from time to time and goes to a blue screen - and we all know that seeing a blue screen is never a Good Thing. :-)

Apparently unmanned probes have also gone missing. So they are seeking volunteers to go on a manned mission to explore this area of space and find out what's out there, and that's where all those of us in line come in. At this point we are woefully uninformed volunteers! :-)

He also told us that the images came from the Hubble Space Telescope, though they have been edited, and elements of them combined to form the ghost - his face might be a nebula, while his eye is a completely different galaxy.

There are a couple of effects they were able to do here that they did not do in Hong Kong, like having the ghost appear just before the drop, and adding a couple of sections where the ghost appears to move alongside and chase your rocket.

There were 5 different exterior sequences when the attraction first opened, but he told us there were plans for several more - and sure enough, there were three more this past weekend. They go off about every three minutes.

Here's a new video that Lee put together of the exterior show, which includes a couple of the new effects as well as better quality footage of some of the ones we saw before. My favorite starts at 3:44 and ends about 20 seconds later as Space Mountain appears to collapse!

Our experience was that the best place to ride was in rows 4-6 rather than row 1 - the timing on some of the effects didn't work as well for row 1 - we were past most of them before we could really see them. And you also want to sit on the left side of the rocket - you don't really see some of the images very well from the right side.

We think it's a great ride - I wouldn't want it to be this way all the time, but it's a very different and interesting variation.

Today was the first AllEars meet at Disneyland! We had quite a few people who came by our little oasis at the Carnation Plaza Gardens. It was fun meeting those of you that I had the chance to meet, and I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to talk to everyone.

Deb posted a picture to twitter: http://twitpic.com/l69u1

The big surprise for me was re-connecting with Mike, who was my computer lab partner back in college - I hadn't seen him since I graduated back in 1982. So yes, you can all say: "it's a small world after all!" :-)

Lee and several others were having an interesting discussion about how other Disneyland attractions could be "Halloween-ized" - making the dark rides in Fantasyland even scarier was one suggestion, or putting holographic ghostly miners in Big Thunder Mountain. And I believe the idea of a zombie it's a small world was very popular...

After the meet a group of us went to lunch at Rancho del Zocalo, where we had a good lunch and a nice chat.

Thanks to everyone who came by!

One thing I forgot to put in my blog yesterday about the one bedroom villas at the Grand Caifornian...see this? Looks like a nice cabinet under the TV, right?

Ahhh...but you see it transforms into a Magical Murphy bed! (But it's not a magical MAGICAL bed, since it only transforms one way and not six...all of you old-time RADP readers will understand that one.) So the one bedroom villas can sleep five people instead of four (though that 5th person had better be pretty short!).

So back to Disney's Halloween Time...I never got back to talking about some of the other aspects of Halloween Time after our visit two weeks ago.

Because of the Celebration Roundup and BBQ back at Big Thunder Ranch, there are some changes in the Halloween decorations there this year. The area is Big Thunder Ranch Halloween Roundup rather than Woody's Halloween Round-Up this year, though they still do some Halloween-themed show items on the stage at the BBQ. But that's not accessible to all park guests like it has been in the past - only those dining there.

The crafts area is still there, but it's much smaller, and there's no cookie decorating this year.

Scaredy-crow Shack is still decorated with all of the pumpkin-headed scarecrows - it's quite festive.

The animals in the petting corral even get some Halloween-themed attire - when we were there a couple weeks ago we watched one of the animal handlers putting bandanas around the necks of the animals - including the turkey! Who was not happy about that, and attempted to peck at her. I was surprised the goats didn't nibble at them, but apparently they are well-fed enough to not need additional fiber in their diets. :-)

But my favorite part of Big Thunder Ranch at Halloween is the pumpkin carvers. They do some really amazing things - I could do a whole photo gallery just on the different pumpkins. But I won't bore you with all of them, so here's a few of my favorites:

There's also some special Halloween treats and desserts. There was supposed to be a Zero's Ghostly Ghoulash served at The French Market, but that hasn't shown up yet for some reason. But there are desserts at several restaurants - Lee and I tried the red-velvet madeleines that are served up in a coffin. That is available at Rancho del Zocalo and The French Market. It was really good.

There's also this Jack Skellington cheesecake:

They also have various kinds of seasonal caramel apples, pumpkin fudge, crispie treats and cookies, and a decorated pumpkin spice muffin.

Another new thing this year is something called a "demitasse". This is a small dessert that's served in a ceramic Mickey pumpkin - it's pretty cute. Inside is a small apple-raisin muffin topped with a sweet caramel mousse. It's served at Rancho del Zocalo, Plaza Inn, Cafe Orleans, Blue Bayou, and Baker's Field Bakery, and perhaps other locations. The price is $6.99.

The Disneyland Band even has special Halloween uniforms! In addition to the orange plume on their hats, the braid on their uniforms is actually a spider web pattern! I haven't heard them play any spooky music, though.

By the way...the parks are VERY crowded this weekend - they added a third Fantasmic! show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, and by 10:30 a.m. or so they were already parking people in the overflow lots today (Sunday). Fastpasses for Ghost Galaxy were gone for the day by 11:00 this morning.

I'll have more on Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy next time. And I still have to say that Halloween Screams ROCKS!!!!

The new DVC Villas at the Grand Californian have been open less than three weeks, and this is our second stay here. :-)

On opening weekend we stayed one night in a studio. The room we were given was 1516, which is an accessible room on the first floor. I thought that all of the DVC Villas would have either a park or a pool view...but there are three rooms on each floor on the end of the building, and so the rooms on the first and second floors (and probably the third) have no view at all. And 1516 was one of those. Sigh. I was rather disappointed in that.

Because of the accessible features the room layout is a little different than the standard studios. The bed is right next to the window (and there's very little room between the bed and the wall), as compared to a standard studio.

The living area is in the center of the room, and the closet has no doors.

The kitchenette area is also a little different, since the area under the sink is cut back to allow wheelchair access.

The bathroom is all one room, instead of the toilet and bathtub being separate from the vanity.

The sink is built to curve out a bit to accommodate a wheelchair - I think it's a very attractive look.

The tub has a fold-down seat and a hand-held shower attachment in addition to the regular shower head.

Since it was opening weekend there were a few glitches...our room keys did not operate the gates to the pool or the gates to the parking lot. There is wireless internet throughout the resort, but my reception from our room was rather spotty - though that might have been location, since it's fine as I type this from a different room. Our room keys also did not identify us as DVC members.

So now it's two weeks later, and I'm happy to say that a lot of those problems have apparently been addressed. Our room keys say "DVC Member", and when I mentioned the access problems we had, the Cast Member who checked us in assured me that those opening weekend glitches have been fixed. Though I haven't tried the key in anything other than the door yet. :-)

This time we are in a one-bedroom villa on the 5th floor - but guess what, it's one of the rooms on the end of the building!!! There are only 18 of those in the entire resort - what are the odds? But at least we're up high enough that we have a view of Grizzly Peak and the Tower of Terror in the distance - though the main view is of Redwood Creek Challenge Trail.

Looking to the left we can also see the Redwood Pool area.

It seems pretty decadent to have this huge villa (it has two full bathrooms!) to ourselves...but we'll deal with it. :-) It's really beautiful - I could *so* live here!!!

White Water Snacks has been remodeled to put in a small (and I do mean small) grocery section. Unfortunately it's not a very large space to begin with, so there's even less of a selection than there was before for those who want to eat there.. The grocery supply is limited to things like eggs, cheese, lunch meat, and bread - there are a couple of frozen selections like pizza. But if you're staying at the Villas and planning to cook you'll really have to do your grocery shopping elsewhere.

Something new that they've added at the Mariposa Pool is four cabanas. These covered areas have a table, a couple of chairs, and a couple of chaise lounges that go with them. They also have a flat screen TV and an attendant who will assist with things like drink/food orders, providing towels, etc. They can either be rented for half a day (morning or afternoon) for $120, or all day for $180.

I find parking to be a bit of an issue here. In the hotel expansion they added a parking garage underneath, but that's for valet parking only. Which is NOT free to DVC members like it is at the other DVC resorts - it's $17/day. And when they added all these rooms they didn't expand the self-parking lot at all - it was really tight the first weekend we were here, and people were getting a bit creative in parking. There is an overflow lot available, but it's back behind the Paradise Pier near the Wonder Tower of the Disneyland Hotel. As far as I've been able to tell your best chance of getting parking in the regular lot is to arrive after the 11:00 check-out time but before 2:00.

It's really a very nice resort - and it's terrific to finally have a DVC resort that's close to us! Though I have a feeling that once they sell out it will be difficult to stay here unless you own points here. But we'll enjoy it in the meantime - I already have a reservation for the first weekend of next year's California Food and Wine Festival (dates for that are April 16-May 31, 2010).

Lee and I visited Disneyland Friday and Saturday for the start of Halloween Time. I still have several hundred photos to go through, and Lee is still working on video, but wanted to at least get a few things posted.

The fun starts at the Main Entrance, where a very large pumpkin patch containing some familiar-looking faces "grows" above the turnstiles.

The Main Street Pumpkin Festival is back, with all of the pumpkins and other decorations.

And the Dia de Los Muertos display has returned to Zocalo Plaza.

The Halloweentown gang has once again taken over the Haunted Mansion, transforming it into Haunted Mansion Holiday. This year's gingerbread creation in the ballroom is a carousel featuring Zero and several skeletal reindeer.

Over in Disney's California Adventure, Goofy has again been hard at work growing all kinds of delicious candy corn varieties, as Candy Corn Acres returns to Sunshine Plaza.

Candy corn even hangs on the Golden Gate Bridge!

There were a couple of new things this year, including a new holiday overlay to Space Mountain, called Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy.

We'll have more to say about this later, but here's a teaser. We first rode it during the day, but when we went back at night we got an extra surprise - a light and sound and special effects show on the roof of the building. I'm not sure I want to know what's in there trying to get out! :-)

Saving the best for last - for the first time Disneyland gets its own Halloween-themed fireworks show: Halloween Screams - A Villainous Surprise in the Skies. This was amazing. Lee produced this video (two minutes cut out to keep it under youtube's 10-minute limit) that will give you an idea of what it looked like. (Yes, he still needs to get a wide-angle lens for the video camera. :-) ) I loved the music, loved the flying Zero, loved the effects, loved the fireworks. It blew me away, and I can't wait to see it again!

I have to say that Halloween Time is back - and better than ever!

One of the best sessions I attended at the Expo was The Making of Toy Story Midway Mania. It covered the creation of the attraction from idea through design, construction, and the final result. Really fascinating. There were four panelists who spoke: Kevin Rafferty, Robert Coltrin, and Lori Coltrin (who were quick to point out they are brother and sister), who are all Disney Imagineers, and Roger Gould, from Pixar's Theme Park Group.

I wish I had been able to video tape all of this presentation so that you could see the entire thing - it was just awesome. Deb Wills saw it with me, and she said that one presentation was worth the entire trip to California for her.

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Pitch

It started back in May 2005 when they were working on the new Radiator Springs Racer attraction for Cars Land, and wondering if they could bring some interactive components to that. They decided that wouldn't really work, so started coming up with a new attraction idea based on the idea of classic midway games instead, which involved some in-depth research at the L.A. County Fair. :-) The pull-string shooter was inspired by the Pirate Adventure at Disney Quest. They put together this Pitch to management, and got the green light really fast - within about 5 months after they had the original idea.

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Design

Once they got the go-ahead, the problem was that they had to figure out how to build it. :-) And someone also decided that while they were at it they should build one in Florida, too. They had to develop a new ride system along the way, and in the case of DCA, had to figure out how to fit it around and under the California Screamin' roller coaster without shutting the coaster down very often. In this image you can see the track layout, and how it fits around the coaster track.

In Florida they built the new Pixar Place area, and at John Lasseter's suggestion they made the entrance look like the entrance to the real Pixar Studios - even using the same type of brick.

Something I had never realized was the backstory to the attraction. Andy receives a Midway Games play set for his birthday - and you see the box for this set up on the floor as you exit the attraction in California:

When Andy is called away the toys decide to set up and play with the set themselves. The Mr. Potato Head Broadway Barker is actually an additional figure, and "sold separately" - you can see his rather boxy stand and backdrop.

Buzz, Woody, Jessie, Bo-Peep, Ham, Rex, Wheezy and the Green Army Men play host to the various midway games. We, the guests, are the other toys who are invited in to actually play the games - shrunk down to toy-size, of course. In California, as you leave the loading area and enter the attraction, you go through an entrance that looks just like the box.

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Animation

The look of the attraction is inspired by a game that one of the designers had as a kid, called Snoopy and the Red Baron, with what appear to be cardboard backdrops, stickers, and pieces made of single color molded plastic.

One issue they ran into with having two hosts for each game, but also two game screens, was the "Doppelganger Problem". As the car pulls into the game, players can briefly see both screens...and if both hosts are on both screens - then there's the Evil Doppelganger. :-) They solved this by having only one host per screen until the vehicles get pulled in, and then the other host magically jumps in to the scene.

The practice game was the most complicated from the animation point of view, because that's the only time that the players are actually firing at the hosts (who are holding targets in front of them), and they want to avoid a host getting a pie in the face! But people (including Roger's son) have figured out that if both players gang up on one of the hosts, one shooting at the head and one at the feet, they can overcome that. That doesn't seem very nice! :-)

In their test group, they noticed that young children were initially reluctant to break the plates. That's when they added the line where Sarge yells: "I am not your mother -break those plates!". Problem solved. :-)

Something I had never noticed in that same scene...if you watch the green army guys, they are actually working hard to clean up the plate shards as plates are shattered all around them!

Scoring has two components - point score and accuracy. Accuracy was a late addition to the scoring, because they found that some of their testers (cough...executives...cough) didn't shoot very fast so didn't get many points, but when they did shoot, they were very accurate.

Another fun thing during the scoring stop - watch what happens to Woody and Buzz after the "prizes" are awarded. There's so much more depth and detail to this attraction than I had ever noticed before!

Toy Story Midway Mania - Construction and Production

This is the first blacklight show viewed with 3D glasses, which made mixing the paint colors more of a challenge - everyone involved was carrying 3D glasses around with them when they were inside.

Below: Big smile from the boss - must be doing something right!

Toy Story Midway Mania - The Music

Listen to the music - while the music throughout the attraction is "You've Got a Friend in Me", there are different versions depending on what game it is - a more western-sounding version for Woody's Shooting Gallery, and a spacey-theme for Buzz Lightyear's game.

Kevin Rafferty and Roger Gould spent more than 30 hours with Don Rickles as he recorded all of the dialog for the Mr. Potato Head figure. Rickles had some choice comments about the whole experience. :-)

It was really a wonderful session - as far as I'm concerned, this is the kind of thing that D23 should be all about.

On Wednesday morning, September 23, the new wing of the Grand Californian Resort and Spa opened, just a little over two years after Disney announced the expansion of the resort.

Speaking at the Grand Opening ceremony were Disneyland Resort President Ed Grier, Disney Vacation Club President Jim Lewis and Anaheim City Manager Tom Wood. The ceremony was held at the new Mariposa Pool area.

The ceremony ended with the ribbon-cutting. Mickey Mouse brought out the over-sized scissors and Ed Grier and company cut the ribbon.

"Mariposa" means "butterfly" in Spanish, and as the ceremony concluded, Cast Members on the balconies of the new wing started waving colorful flags, many of them shaped like butterflies.

After the ceremony, there were tours of the expansion.

Contained within the new wing are the Villas at the Grand Californian, the first Disney Vacation Club (DVC) offering in California. There are 50 Vacation Club Villas - 48 two-bedroom units and two three-bedroom Grand Villas. It is Disney's smallest Vacation Club resort to date.

Our tour began in one of the Grand Villas - the one that overlooks Disney's California Adventure (the other has a view of the Mariposa Pool). We'll have lots more photos of the Grand Villa on the web site soon, but here are a few for now.

Dining room and part of entry way

Kitchen

Master Bedroom

TV in the mirror of the Master Bath

The Grand Villas are two-story - upstairs is a pool table and sitting area

View from the two-story picture window

As you can see, this Grand Villa will have a stunning view of the new World of Color show - the music will be piped in to the Grand Villa.

Next we went upstairs to the Paradise View Terrace. I had been up here during my hard hat tour of the Villas last March - it looks a little more impressive now. :-) According to the sign the capacity of this area is 48 people. There are restrooms at the back of the terrace.

We also toured a studio villa and a one-bedroom villa, but those really aren't any different from the models, and you can see pictures of them on our Villas at the Grand Californian Room Photos page.

In addition to the DVC units, there are also 203 additional hotel rooms. Though most of the emphasis has been on DVC, in fact most of the new wing contains standard hotel rooms. Here's one of the hotel rooms, which has two queen-size beds.

Behind the building there is a new patio area, with two gas barbecues for guests who wish to cook and dine al fresco during their stay.

On the bottom floor of the new wing is a new arcade room: Grizzly Game Arcade. Next door to that is Pinocchio's Workshop, the evening childcare facility. This will be its new and expanded location. Once it opens, it will accommodate about twice as many children as the current facility. There's also a laundry room on the bottom floor.

White Water Snacks has been slightly remodeled to add a few grocery items. VERY few - the selection is really quite limited, and in fact overall it appears to me that there are fewer items for sale than there used to be. I saw frozen pizzas, individual boxes of cereal, bread, peanut butter, some basic condiments, eggs, lunchmeat, cheese and butter, and not much else.

We'll be trying out the new Villas at the Grand Californian on Friday night, so I'll have more of a review after we really experience it for ourselves.

Disney's Halloween Time returns to the Disneyland Resort from September 25 - November 1. It's festive and frightfully good fun! My friend Kristin really loved this last year - she thought it was better than the Christmas holidays!

There are a couple of new things this year:

Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy - the Space Mountain attraction gets its own Halloween makeover this year - with a new soundtrack, sinister sound effects, and spooky new visual effects. "Escape the clutches of creepy cosmic creatures lurking around every corner. Sounds like great fun to me!

Halloween Screams Fireworks - Yes! Disneyland gets its own new Halloween-themed fireworks show, which will be shown every night during Halloween Time. The fireworks are hosted by Jack Skellington, Master of "Scare-omonies". Villains such as Ursula, Maleficent, and Oogie Boogie are scheduled to appear, and Jack's dog Zero will make his flying debut over Sleeping Beauty Castle.

And of course it wouldn't be Halloween at Disneyland without the return of Haunted Mansion Holiday and the Main Street Pumpkin Festival, with over 300 uniquely carved pumpkins decorating the shops on Main Street.

Big Thunder Ranch Halloween Roundup replaces Woody's Halloween Roundup, but Jessie and Woody will still be making appearances and there will be crafts for the kids. The Celebration Roundup and Barbecue will still be in operation, and Miss Chris and the gang will add some Halloween-themed songs to their repertoire.

Goofy's Candy Corn Acres returns to Disney's California Adventure, where Goofy has planted all kinds of candy corn in Sunshine Plaza - everything from candy corn grapes to candy corn tomatoes and pumpkins and carrots! This display is whimsical and fun and always makes me smile.

Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party returns to DCA for 12 nights in October. Guests can dress in costume and go trick-or-treating at over 20 locations within the park. More information on the party is available on our Mickey's Trick-or-Treat Party page.

Disney villains will be out and about in both parks, as will the Disney characters, dressed in their Halloween costumes.

There will be special Halloween treats available at both parks:

Chocolate Mickey Halloween cookie
Pumpkin muffin with cream cheese frosting
Pumpkin spiced latte
Caramel apple cider
Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin cheesecake

And special menu items at restaurants and vending areas in New Orleans Square:

French Market:
Jack Skellington desserts
Zero's Ghostly Ghoulash
Haunted Mansion Holiday travel mug
Haunted Mansion Holiday spoon dessert
Haunted Mansion Holiday gift with dessert purchase

Cafe Orleans:
Halloween Time Demitasse: duo of beignet with espresso

Blue Bayou:
Halloween Time Demitasse: pumpkin-spiced cake with cinnamon cream cheese

Outdoor vendors:
Haunted Mansion Holiday travel mug
Haunted Mansion Holiday popcorn bucket
Halloween popcorn scoop

And of course there's lot of special Halloween merchandise available, too - limited edition pins, pumpkin Mickey ears. costumes, etc.

Also returning is the Happiest Haunts Tour. This takes places at 4:30 and 4:45 p.m. daily. Guests will hear about Halloween more from the villains' point of view, and also have the opportunity to experience four attractions: Tower of Terror, Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Haunted Mansion Holiday. New this year, tour participants also receive access to an exclusive viewing area for the Halloween Screams fireworks show. A 20% discount is available to Disneyland Annual Passholders as well as Disney Visa cardholders and AAA members.

Disney has put up a really cool interactive Halloween website this year - in addition to information on all of the special activities in the parks there are also on-line Halloween games, crafts such as masks and pumpkin patterns, and even a treasure map for a treasure hunt to do on your park visit. In the Videos section, I find the commercial, which features the villains enjoying Halloween Time, quite entertaining. http://www.disneyland.com/halloween

This is one of my favorite times of year at the Disneyland parks - don't miss it!

Tags:

• Disney's Halloween Time
• Halloween Screams
• Haunted Mansion Holiday
• Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy