The happiest of halloweens at disneyland

Everyone knows that Disneyland is the happiest place on earth. So what better place to spend a happy halloween? I am always excited when I go to Disney, the magic of it all never gets old for me and I am always running like a little kid as soon as I get off the RER at the Marne-la-vallée station. My little sister hasn't been to Disney since we went to Florida and that must have been over 10 years ago so she was also beyond excited although not to the point of running like me. Can you believe i'm going to be 22 in 2 weeks? I can't. 

Disney on halloween was amazing. The decorations were amazing, there were giant pumpkins everywhere, and Disney charm was just basically put into autumn. I'm going to start this post by sharing with you what was super magical and fabulous and what makes me fall in love with Disney all over again everytime I go back. Then I feel I have to open up about what I am noticing to be less magical as I get older and wiser. 

Disney is just kind of other worldly. They manage to create these environments where you suddenly don't feel like you're where you are anymore. They just bring their stories to life and I am ashamed to say that seeing Mickey Mouse in the parade bought actual tears to my eyes (or maybe it was because the sun was bright and I forgot my sunglasses?). I love that at Disneyland you just see so many different kinds of people there, from different backgrounds, styles, age groups, families, couples, friends etc. I saw an old man in a Mickey Mouse 1988 sweater with his ears on basically running to a ride with his wife in tow and I thought that is the kind of man I want my husband to be. They didn't even have kids with them. They were just enjoying the magic of Disneyland. It's also amazing that all of this was started from one little cartoon mouse and one man with a big imagination. I know people often criticise Disney for epitomising Americanisation but I think if it teaches you to dream, and to work hard to achieve those dreams then what's wrong with that? 

Also my sister is often too cool to smile in photos but at Disney even she is beaming from ear to ear, so that can't be a bad thing. 

Disney on Halloween was magical and amazing BUT... and there is a but, because as much as I love Disney there are some things I feel I need to bring to light to be honest about the experience. 

It was super busy. Unsurprisingly, because halloween fell on a Saturday in half term, it was completely packed which meant that the queues for rides were ridiculously long. You can also now only get one fast-track an hour, meaning you have to do more long queues and get to do less rides (boo)

Also, on the Disneyland website they had been advertising a Halloween Soirée on the 31st October from 5pm 'til 1am. A ticket for this cost 40€. We paid 69€ for tickets to go to the park all day, thinking this meant we could stay until 1am. We were rather shocked when at 7pm, not possessing the special evenings tickets and hence the stupid orange wristbands we could not go anywhere in the Disney park but the exit. We couldn't even go into the gift shops on the way out, they had staff guarding all the doors! Whilst I understand this means they can have twice as many paying customers on the day this was SO frustrating for us who had to cut short out time at Disney having paid almost twice as much as those people who arrived for just the evening. Staff were so unsympathetic when I tried to explain that it had not been at all clear on their website that a separate ticket was needed for the evening and I do plan to write a proper complaint email to Disney about the whole shambles of a system. 

It didn't ruin the magic of the day though although I am not sure I would rush to go on a special day again because Disney is magical whatever day of the year!