Halloween in Disney

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Already one of the most magical places on Earth, Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort gets a little more magical each year during two popular after-hours events featuring special entertainment and surprises for all ages -- Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.

On 29 evenings in 2005 -- the most ever -- the theme park will come alive with dazzling decorations, spectacular fireworks displays, Disney characters, live shows and treats for the whole family. The fun begins at 7 p.m. (after regular park operating hours) and continues until midnight. Tickets for all dates are on sale now.

Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party

By popular demand, this family-friendly celebration of gentle chills and thrills will expand in 2005 to 15 nights of spooky fun -- the most ever -- Sept. 30, Oct. 2, 6, 7, 11, 13, 16, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30 and 31. Separate admission to the event is required

Each date will feature opportunities for trick-or-treating throughout the theme park, and all guests are welcome to wear Halloween costumes. Plus, the Disney characters will be dressed in their favorite costumes, too!

The evening also will include "Mickey's Boo-to-You Halloween Parade," Mickey's Mouse-Ka-Rade costume parties, Halloween storytelling, live shows, unique merchandise and a special Halloween-themed fireworks display lighting up the sky above Cinderella Castle.

In addition, families can enjoy a complimentary photo at no additional charge and unlimited use of popular attractions such as "Mickey's PhilharMagic," Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan's Flight, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, Cinderella's Golden Carrousel, and many more.

Advance tickets for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party are $34.95 plus tax for guests ages 10 and above, $27.95 plus tax for guests ages 3-9. (Children under 3 are admitted at no charge.) The advance ticket prices are good for all dates except Oct. 31. Tickets on the day of each party are $39.95 plus tax for guests ages 10 and above, $32.95 plus tax for guests ages 3-9.

For more information, call 407/W-DISNEY or visit disneyworld.com.

Halloween’s a Haunting Good Time of “Frights and Sounds” At Walt Disney World Resort

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Walt Disney World Resort scares up the fun this Halloween season -- in a family-friendly way -- with events and attractions guaranteed to tingle the spine and turn up the goose bumps.

Tricks, treats and enough surprises to fill a witch’s caldron await guests who, in this spookiest of seasons, dare to enter the realm of fluttering bats, abandoned hotels and headless horsemen. Tricks, treats and enough surprises to fill a witch’s caldron await guests who, in this spookiest of seasons, dare to enter the realm of fluttering bats, abandoned hotels and headless horsemen.

So popular is Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party that this year’s has been extended two nights to a total of seven evenings in the Magic Kingdom. The special-ticket party lasts from 7 p.m. to midnight and features “Mickey’s Boo-To-You” Halloween parade down Main Street, U.S.A., special nighttime showings of “Cinderella’s Surprise Celebration,” a spooky appearance by the Headless Horseman, and Halloween “Fantasy in the Sky” fireworks. Kids of all ages can trick-or-treat throughout the park, get their faces painted and fortunes told and show off their costumes in special kid-friendly “Mous-Ka-Rade” parties.

Here are 13 other ways Disney guests can get into the Halloween “spirit”:

• 1. Go batty. Imagine being face to (upside-down) face with giant fruit bats with six-foot wingspans. Enter -- carefully -- the rustic, open-air lair of bats on the Maharajah Jungle Trek at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

• 2. Going (heh, heh) down? Drop-ins are welcome at the Hollywood Tower Hotel; leaving with your sanity is the hard part. Legend holds that lightning struck the hotel on Halloween night in 1939. Disney-MGM Studios guests enter this frozen-in-time world of cobwebbed lobby furnishings and a dank, dusty boiler room. What awaits in the rusted service elevator is, well, a pulse-racing trip to the Twilight Zone. Hold on -- and wonder what fate befell hotel guests who vanished that stormy Halloween in 1939.

• 3. In-your-face fright. Scurrying mice at your feet, a cat that morphs into a lion, a fang-bearing snake close enough to touch? It’s all part of the 3-D illusion at Epcot’s “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,” sending guests on an unforgettable film-and-special-effects adventure into a world of duplicators and shrinking machines at the Imagination Institute.

• 4. S-s-s-shark! Typhoon Lagoon water park guests don free snorkel gear and slip into Shark Reef where a sunken tanker is home to tropical fish and cruising nurse, leopard and bonnethead sharks. These are the passive variety. Landlubbing disbelievers can watch through portholes.

• 5. Creepy crawlers. Tarantulas, spiders and roaches are the stars of “It’s Tough to be a Bug!” an animated 3-D adventure with special effects inside The Tree of Life at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The hilarious -- and sometimes terrifying -- film gives guests a bug’s-eye view of the trials and tribulations of insects.

• 6. Witch way out? One of the most beloved fairy tales comes to life, in spooky detail, in Fantasyland’s Snow White’s Scary Adventures. Hearts pound as Magic Kingdom guests follow the chilling recreation from the haunting castle where the Evil Queen transforms herself into an old hag to the dense forest where she poisons Snow White to the gripping climax where the Dwarfs chase her off a mountainous cliff.

• 7. Dinosaur! Talk about chase scenes: picture 65 million years ago and YOU being stalked by a rampaging carnotaurus with dinner on his mind. That’s just one of the dizzying thrills of DINOSAUR at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Guests in lurching, out-of-control time-travel vehicles dodge meteors as they come face-to-face with fierce, gigantic dinosaurs.

• 8. House boo-tiful. “Grim grinning” guests of the Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion will find ghouls and ghosts of every shape and size. Rumor has it there are 999 Happy Haunts in the mansion, but there’s always room for one more. Any volunteers?

• 9. Eats, shrieks! What would Halloween be without candy and costumes? It’s all here, with a Disney villains theme, at the Beverly Sunset shop at Disney-MGM Studios. Choose from villains snow globes, mouse pads, computer games, Cruella De Vil collectibles, Sorcerer Mickey items from clocks to key chains, pencil sketchings of Hades, Gaston, Ursula, etc., and candy galore. Kids (and kids at heart) can outfit themselves as Captain Hook (complete with hook), Jack from Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” or Malificent from “Sleeping Beauty.”

• 10. Halloween hayride. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow inspires hayride thrills at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground. Rides depart every 30 minutes across from Pioneer Hall. Be regaled by a storyteller and hold on for surprises aboard these 20-minute nighttime rides along Swamp Trail. You never know if a certain headless horseman is in the vicinity. Dates: Oct. 18, 19, 25, 26, 28-31. Cost is $8 per person.

• 11. Nightmare, anyone? Disney villains turn Mickey’s dreams into nightmares in “Fantasmic!” an eye-filling nighttime spectacle at Disney-MGM Studios. A giant snake lights the night, a fire-breathing dragon lights the water and guests are fear-struck -- until good triumphs over evil and Mickey saves the day.

• 12. Villains on parade. Specially created for the ongoing 100 Years of Magic celebration, the Magic Kingdom’s “Share a Dream Come True” parade features one float full of nasties you’ll want to approach with caution. Disney’s biggest and baddest villains ride together with their villainous leader, the Evil Queen from “Snow White” riding inside Chernabog’s (“Fantasia”) snow globe.

• 13. Think all aliens are cute and cuddly? Think again. The ones who greet guests at Stitch's Great Escape are big, slimy and ultra-scary. What starts out as a simple demonstration of interstellar technology turns into a frightening display of science gone awry -- with Magic Kingdom guests going head-to-head with a runaway space creature of the menacing kind.

Now THAT’S scary!