Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party returns to Magic Kingdom in August 2025. Here’s everything you need to know: this year’s entertainment lineup, ride roster & other details. Plus our commentary about the popularity of MNSSHP after every single night sold out for the last few years.
On select autumn nights, the sun sets over Cinderella Castle as Magic Kingdom park transforms into the center for all things spooky and fun. Twinkling songs give way to eerie music, shadows lengthen, and the Haunted Mansion hums with main character energy.
Mickey’s No-So-Scary Halloween Party is a separate ticketed event that happens each year at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Offerings include exclusive entertainment, Halloween-themed food and beverages, photo opportunities, exclusive merchandise and character greetings.
Guests can expect a party that offers the ultimate family Halloween celebration: Show off your most creative Disney-themed costume and see the Headless Horseman stalk the streets. Gather candy around every corner, see your favorite rides get a little spookier —and you maybe even run into a witch or three.
Tickets for Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party may be purchased online or by calling 407-939-4240. Event tickets go on sale for guests of select Walt Disney World Resort hotels, Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotels, and Shades of Green starting May 15, 2025. Tickets will be available to all guests starting May 22, 2025.
Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party 2025 Dates:
- August 15, 17, 19, 22, 24, 26, 29
- September 2, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30
- October 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30, 31
Planning Tip: To help conjure your fiendish pursuits, note that in August, party dates occur on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. This is also true for September with the addition of one Thursday date on Sept 25. In October, ghouls can descend upon Magic Kingdom every Thursday and Friday, most Sundays, most Tuesdays and Monday the 13th.
Another thing to note is that the 2025 Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is starting a full week later than last year. This is not normal and is incredibly surprising. It’s common for MNSSHP to start earlier and earlier, but I don’t recall a time when the start date was pushed back. Ever.
Our best guess is this is to give Disney Starlight Night Parade a longer runway of uninterrupted performance dates before Party Season starts. With Starlight already delayed until at least July, that new nighttime parade needs as many performance dates as possible as a release valve on demand and crowds before Party Season starts, and causes Magic Kingdom to close early multiple nights per week.
Speaking of which, remember how the Walt Disney World Calendar Changes Hint at Starlight Night Parade Opening Date? Well, what we’ve more recently heard suggests Starlight is going to be delayed even further, missing the window that the initial schedule teased. The best-case scenario is now the second half of July 2025. Honestly, we wouldn’t be surprised if Starlight doesn’t arrive until early August at this point. It’s already well over a full month behind, and none of the rumors we’re hearing are reassuring.
Point being, Magic Kingdom cannot be closing early several nights per week at the beginning of Starlight’s run. That will throw a massive monkey wrench into crowds and cause chaos on the nights when Starlight is running–even worse than what we already see with Happily Ever After. So that could explain why Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party isn’t starting until August 15, 2025 instead of the previous week, like normal. That’s just a guess, though.
For reference, dates last year were August 9, 13, 16, 20, 23, 27, 30; September 2, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 29; and October 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31.
Meaning that there were two parties last year before the first party in 2025 (both August 16, 2024 and August 15, 2025 are the third Friday in their respective months). There were 38 parties last year–and there are also 38 parties this year.
By our count, Walt Disney World has kept the same number of parties per month, and accomplished the week later start by adding two Sunday night parties in August 2025. How this impacts crowds remains to be seen, but thankfully, they’re adding more dates to the slowest month of the year as opposed to cramming even more into October, which is busier.
The 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party ticket prices vary by date, and are almost always more expensive on weekends and as the event gets deeper into Halloween season (on average, September is more expensive than August and October is more expensive than September).
Walt Disney World has confirmed that 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets will range from $119 to $229 per ticket, plus tax (prices vary by event date). Although unconfirmed, it’s likely that only dates deep into October–possibly just Halloween night–will break the $200 barrier.
Annual Passholders and Disney Vacation Club Members can save $10 per ticket to Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party—valid only for event nights in August and September. Cast Members can also save on select nights. More details can be found on Cast Life Web or My Disney Today.
Throughout the evening during the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, you can:
- Set your sights on the Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular! Watch 3 sinister sisters bewitch and bedazzle the residents of Magic Kingdom park.
- Witness Disney’s Not-So-Spooky Spectacular—a wickedly wild fireworks display featuring some of your favorite Disney Characters and hosted by Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
- Boogie down at the Disney Junior Jam at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café—featuring some favorite friends from Disney Junior shows. It’s perfect for young partygoers!
- See beloved Disney Characters during Mickey’s Boo-to-You Halloween Parade.
- Collect a bag full of candy as you roam the trick-or-treat trails in search of some of your favorite sweets.
- Revel in the extraordinarily enchanting atmosphere of Magic Kingdom park during this limited-capacity event.
In terms of what’s new for 2025, guests can meet Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse together at Town Square Theater. Rediscover Storybook Circus—transformed into a happy haunt for families with younger children.
Get ready to groove at a new dance party with the music and moves of “Zombies 4” and more “Zombies” fan favorites. And a little spider told us that the Cadaver Dans will be back again this year to sing in soulful harmony.
As always, the 2025 Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party will take place from 7:00 pm until midnight. Ticket holders will be admitted to Magic Kingdom as early as 4:00 pm on the valid date of their ticket–giving them even more time to enjoy park favorites before the event begins! These date-specific event tickets do not require an additional day theme park ticket or theme park reservation.
Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is one of the best trick-or-treat destinations, with over a dozen treat trail stops marked on your party map. For the 2025 MNSSHP, guests can expect even more fun than ever before with some familiar (and fiendish) faces surprising guests along the trails.
At each stop, cast members in their famously adorable Halloween costumes give out handfuls of Mars Wrigley favorites like M&Ms, Snickers and Starburst. And no worries if you forgot your pumpkin bucket at home: Each guest will receive complimentary treat bags for candy collection (that includes adults).
Guests with food allergies can also join in the fun at every stop. Grab a teal bag from a Cast Member and collect teal tokens along the trail to redeem your fill of allergy-free candy at Allergy-Friendly Centers. Trick-or-treaters do not have to be in costume to collect candy. Guests are encouraged to dress up in creative Halloween costumes.
In our view, there’s a ‘holy trinity’ of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party entertainment. The first is Mickey’s Boo to You Parade, which is presented twice during the party. In 2025, the Mickey’s Boo-to-You Parade will again step off for its first performance at 8:15 PM to allow plenty of time for little ones to enjoy the celebration.
Mickey’s Boo to You Parade is kicked off by a dance crew to hype up the crowd, followed by the Headless Horseman riding down the parade route. Following that, favorite Disney villains stride down Main Street alongside Disney heroes, the iconic Haunted Mansion graveyard diggers and other favorite characters.
Boo to You Parade has had a number of minor changes in the last couple of years, with the most notable last year being a logistical one, with the first performance stepping off an hour earlier. This was hugely positive for dispersing crowds, as Main Street and the Central Plaza around Cinderella Castle had become heavily congested in previous years due to back-to-back-t0-back entertainment offerings. Spacing those out alleviated some crowding. It also leveled-off crowds between the first and second parades.
Here’s hoping that the 2025 Boo to You Parade receives substantial enhancements. A new float or entire unit would be fantastic. Walt Disney World doesn’t need to fix what isn’t broken–Boo to You is excellent–but a refresh would be much appreciated.
The second entertainment highlight of MNSSHP is “Disney’s Not-So-Spooky Spectacular.”
This is the fireworks show hosted by the Pumpkin King, a.k.a. Jack Skellington. “Disney’s Not-So-Spooky Spectacular” features projections, special effects and lighting paired with fireworks, music and iconic Disney characters.
As always, we highly recommend watching from as close to Cinderella Castle (near Partners is great) as possible. Not only will you be immersed in the perimeter bursts of the fireworks, but you’ll have an up-close view of Jack Skellington, the unequivocal highlight of the show. Other Magic Kingdom fireworks shows are better enjoyed from a distance–not this one!
Finally, there’s the “Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular” stage show at Cinderella Castle that’s performed multiple times per night.
The Sanderson Sisters, stars of the iconic “Hocus Pocus” films, unite for an adventure and call on their comrades to summon the ultimate “Hocus Pocus” Party Potion during “Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular.”
Like the movie itself, Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular has a cult following among Walt Disney World diehards. Every performance of this show is packed, including the one that occurs when the clock strikes midnight (that’s our favorite one to watch, effectively extending the event). For good reason, as “Hocus Pocus Villain Spelltacular” is fantastic.
My hope is that Walt Disney World has more up its sleeve in terms of new-for-2025 additions. It has been a while since Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party had a major refresh, and it’d be nice to see that happen again. If you’ve been since 2019, you’ve more or less experienced the current event. About 95% of the offerings are unchanged, and you might not even notice what is different unless you have a keen eye.
There are a couple of impediments to major changes. First, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party has sold out every single event for the last 3 years. If you count Boo Bash, the last 4 years. After a slow start, the second half of the 2019 season also sold really well, too. So there’s not much of an incentive for Disney to make changes. Guests are responding well to what’s already there.
The second reason is somewhat of an outgrowth of the first: don’t fix what isn’t broken. Guests respond well to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party because it’s really good. A lot of Walt Disney World-centric fans rave about Oogie Boogie Bash, but that’s very much a “grass is greener” thing–and that event is also starting to feel stale. MNSSHP is still the superior event. Boo to You is an all-time great Disney parade and Hocus Pocus Spelltacular is a modern classic. Both could receive refreshes, but replacements would be foolish.
I’ve said this before, but my biggest ‘wish list’ item is a modernized HalloWishes with the Jack Skellington figure and projections. Longtime fans would go crazy for that, and few would mourn the loss of Disney’s Not-So-Spooky Spectacular. Although the fireworks show is newer and has its moments, it’s nothing special. I have a stronger memory of HalloWishes, a show I haven’t seen in ages, than its replacement that I watched less than a year ago.
I’d also love to see the Immersive Treat Trails a la Oogie Boogie Bash. Those are truly next level, and are the highlight of the Halloween party at Disneyland. Magic Kingdom seemingly dipped its toes in this water last year, with villains inside the Princess Fairytale Hall treat trail.
This wasn’t advertised, but it was cool. It still didn’t hold a candle to the trails at Oogie Boogie Bash, but it was a good start. Expanding that would be a big win, even if it came at the expense of traditional meet & greets. Based on the verbiage of the trick or treating details for 2025, it sounds like Disney is expanding upon that, but execution is the big wildcard.
Failing that, I’d just like to see more new character meet & greets every year. This is another thing Oogie Boogie Bash does well, and I think it would work at Walt Disney World. We’ve been doing MNSSHP for over 15 years, and many of the meet & greets are the same today as when we started.
The character component has not only gotten stale, but too consistent and predictable. It would be fun to have some surprises and a ‘you never know what you’re gonna get’ quality. This is another thing Oogie Boogie Bash does well, cycling through rare characters in Carthay Circle.
Speaking of things Walt Disney World hasn’t officially announced, here’s the expected list of attractions that should be open during the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party based on historical precedent:
Adventureland
- Jungle Cruise
- The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Swiss Family Treehouse
Frontierland
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
Liberty Square
Fantasyland
- Prince Charming Regal Carrousel
- “It’s a small world”
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
- Mad Tea Party
- Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
Storybook Circus
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- The Barnstormer
Tomorrowland
- Astro Orbiter
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin- Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
- Space Mountain
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover
- TRON Lightcycle / Run
The strikethroughs are known refurbishments that will run the duration of Party Season. We wouldn’t be surprised to see another entry or two added to this list.
On a positive note, crowds for the last few years have been more manageable. Along with significantly higher prices, Walt Disney World has very obviously lowered the attendance cap. This is part of the reason more dates sell out.
Point being, crowds are not nearly as bad as they were in 2018-2019. If you last experienced MNSSHP in October 2019 when this problem peak, you should notice the difference. Or at least, you would have noticed in the last few years.
This is no guarantee that Walt Disney World will stick with the lower attendance cap for the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. They could determine that, on balance, guest satisfaction is higher if the events don’t sell out as easily. (Obviously, guest satisfaction is higher among attendees with a lower cap, but that doesn’t account for guests who get shut out.)
We hope that’s not the case, though. Walt Disney World has hit the goldilocks zone for crowds–not too light or too heavy–at both MNSSHP and MVMCP. This doesn’t mean there’s zero congestion or lines–you’ll still encounter both, especially for rare characters and in front of Cinderella Castle between the parade and fireworks, but there’s no solving for that.
Which brings us to the next common question or concern among readers: when will tickets to the 2025 MNSSHP sell out?
The bottom line is that you do not need to worry about 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party tickets selling out…yet. If you’re reading this when the announcement is first being made during Halfway to Halloween, you have nothing to worry about, and that’s true whether you purchase tickets during the on-site window or when they’re available for the general public.
Even with the last few years setting the record for sold out dates, it’s very uncommon for dates to sell out before June. Last year, October 31 sold out on May 21–the earliest ever sell out!–but the next date didn’t sell out until July 19. The vast majority of dates didn’t sell out until August or September.
For reference, Halloween night almost always sells out first. From there, usually cheaper dates and the first night sell out sometime in July, with more dates selling out in early August. Once content from the first night of the event floods social media, there’s usually a “run” on tickets for subsequent events–and several more parties sell out around then.
In other words, the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is almost certainly not going to sell out within days of tickets going on sale. That applies to both the presale window and the general public window. So you don’t need to make an on-site reservation just to have access to the presale or stress out.
It’s possible the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party will sell slower than the last few years. This has been the trend with other Walt Disney World offerings due to a mixture of economic uncertainty, declining consumer confidence, plummeting international travel, and the opening of Epic Universe. That’s why Walt Disney World has gotten so aggressive with discounting this summer.
However, we’ve been down this road before with the exhaustion of pent-up demand. At this point, there’s no reason to believe MNSSHP tickets will sell slower in 2025. You might find that difficult to believe, but part of the Halloween Party’s popularity is because of the slowdown. Meaning that Floridians, fans, and other guests are “trading down” from expensive Annual Passes and regular tickets to MNSSHP. Epic Universe will hurt (and benefit!) Walt Disney World in a variety of ways, but it’s probably a non-factor when it comes to MNSSHP.
If you’re on the fence about attending this year’s event but are wondering whether it’s worth the money, what each piece of entertainment is like, or anything else, check out our 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party Guide.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Excited for the 2025 Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party? Will your family be buying or sitting this Halloween event out? Think MNSSHP is getting stale? What are your thoughts on ticket prices, demand, crowd levels, or the likelihood of the 2025 MNSSHP selling out to the same extent as last year? Do you agree or disagree with our perspective on this? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
