Spooky season is upon us! The Hallween festival has kicked off at Disneyland Paris, and runs from 1st October to 2nd November. During the festival there are a lot of new decorations, snacks, character greetings, entertainment offerings and more to enjoy. And we’re going to share them all with you! If you’re heading to Halloween this year hopefully it can help you plan the perfect trip, and we also hope it helps you decide if a future visit for Halloween season is right for you.

The basics

Just to start off we’re sharing some basics of the Halloween season. The first thing to know is that the vast majority of the offerings are going to be focussed around the Disneyland Park.

It’s in Disneyland Park that you’ll find the main entertainment and characters, and the vast majority of the food offerings. The Walt Disney Studios Park only really gets in on the action with a couple of snacks. In Disney Village there is a photo op and some merchandise to buy. And the hotels all celebrate with a giant pumpkin outside and some suitable decor. (Hotel Santa Fe also has Halloween theming for its character meet and greet during the festival).

Access to the Halloween offerings are all included in your park ticket (although of course if you want to buy food and merchandise you will need to pay extra for them). Disneyland Paris used to offer a Halloween party for an extra cost but that hasn’t happened for some years now.

Costumes for adults are only allowed in the Park on Halloween itself, so don’t expect to rock up in your best Maleficient outfit on any other day! Adults can Disneybound of course, which is where you wear clothing that suggests or pays tribute to a particular character. Kids are welcome to dress up whenever, but note that they can’t have masks that completely cover the face, or clothing that drags on the ground. (Or anything that’s likely to frighten or upset other guests!)

Halloween Festival in Disneyland Paris only lasts a month, much shorter than in its USA Disney park cousins. This is mainly a cultural difference of Halloween just being a bigger thing in the USA. But the Halloween festival in Disneyland Paris is still popular, so expect higher crowds during the season in Disneyland Park, especially at weekends. To experience the festival with lower crowds try to go earlier on in October, as the parks tend to get steadily busier as the month goes on (and the last week of the festival typically coincides with the UK October Half term too). This also means the hotels and tickets are cheaper earlier in the month! Having said that, it’s a lot cheaper to be in Disneyland Paris for Halloween than it is for Christmas.

Clothing wise we recommend layers. We had lovely sunny days that got warm in the middle but were also very chilly in the early mornings and evenings, so the layers were key to being able to enjoy the parks! But of course Paris is like the UK so don’t bank on sun, so bring some rain protection too with ponchos or umbrellas, just in case.

And a final note, the Halloween Festivities are Disney spooky – so nothing too gruesome, gory or petrifying! There’s certainly nothing spookier out in the park than you’ll find in Phantom Manor!

So that’s the basics, now lets get into the detail!

Decorations

The most obvious visual impact from Halloween season is the decorations, which in Disneyland Park are concentrated around Main Street USA and Frontierland.

On Main Street USA they’ve gone for a classic harvest and Halloween vibe – garlands draped on buildings and across streets feature autumn leaves and sunflowers, with the addition in places of pumpkins and lanterns featuring Disney characters in Holiday garb. A cute addition is that the shades on many of the lights are replaced with orange ones, or green topped with a witches hat! Also along Main Street USA are several ghosts, themed to fit in with the land itself, and also their position there. (So outside the dentists office above the Ribbons and Bow shop is a ghost with toothache, and a lady ghost with some fancy jewellery is outside Harringtons, for example). The ghosts make for some great photo ops, and it’s good to walk round and try to spot them all!

Over in Frontierland, there’s a mix of two types of Halloween decorations. In the middle of the land (so around Big Thunder Mountain, Casa de Coco and Cowboy Cookout) there is a Dias de los Muertos vibe, with colourful skeletons and figures of Alebrijes (colourful creatures that are a mix of animals that form spirit guides). This of course is to tie in with the film of Coco, and you can meet Miguel during the festival. On the two far ends of the land (so close to the Frontierland station, and down towards Phantom Manor) the colourful skeletons are replaced with some fanciful country themed pumpkin people figures. As with the Main Street USA figures these all make fantastic photo ops and it’s good to try and find as many as you can! (Make sure you walk around near Frontierland Theatre as there’s a lot of pumpkin folk there!)

An extra bit of theming is Frontierland is the spooky overlay of the Lucky Nugget to the Unlucky Nugget, which is identified on the outside by the addition of tattered pieces of cloth and amendments to the normal signs! (See more below).

To match the theming, in both Frontierland and Main Street USA there have been changes to the soundtrack. On Main Street this means the usual soundtrack of music with overlaid ‘spooky’ sound effects – singing, funny noises, chattering etc. Some of are fun, some are a little spooky, and some are just plain weird and a bit annoying! In Frontierland you have a mix of soundtracks – Coco-esque music to match the Dios de Los Muertos vibe, and then down towards Phantom Manor they were playing some of the soundtrack of the Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s mostly fun but note that the Nightmare soundtrack in places includes screaming sound effects which might affect folks who are sensitive to sound!

Character Meet and Greets

Several Disney characters have joined in on the Halloween fun – including some Disney Villains.

Set meet and greets have been set up for characters that are wearing fun Halloween costumes including Minnie Mouse and Goofy (or Dingo for our French friends) in Frontierland, Chip and Dale (or Tic and Tac) in Adventureland, and Stitch and Tigger on Main Street USA. These are all typically standby waits. Mickey Mouse also continues to meet in Frontierland in his Phantom Manor outfit, which is accessible by virtual queue only.

New characters out for Halloween include Miguel from Coco, and Jack and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, both in Frontierland. For Miguel, his line is a typical standby wait. For Jack and Sally, you’re looking at a virtual queue like for Mickey Mouse.

Villains wise a few have set meet and greet times – Captain Hook and Jafar in Frontierland, and the Queen of Hearts and the Cheshire Cat in Fantasyland. (Is Cheshire Cat really a villain?! I tend to think of him as more of a trickster figure but hey ho). These are all standby queues. Other villains though come out into the Fantasyland Courtyard and roam (this courtyard is generally the area just behind Sleeping Beauty Castle near the carousel and Snow White rides, although we did spot a couple wandering around this towards Dumbo and the tea cups). As roaming characters they are not stopping for posed photos and autographs, although if you’re lucky (and quick) you may be able to grab a quick snap and interaction! Sadly though as soon as they appear the characters tend to get utterly mobbed by people so it’s tough to get near them – if you want an explanation why Disneyland Paris doesn’t generally have roaming characters you can see it here! Characters include Maleficient, Cruella de Vil, Gaston, Lady Tremaine and the Ugly Stepsisters and the Evil Queen from Snow White. Who you get and when seems to be a matter of luck so you might just need to hang around for a while to see who appears!

Characters are always popular in Disneyland Paris, and the Halloween ones are no exception. If you want to meet one of the characters with a standby line, then get to the meeting spot well before the given meeting time in the app, and be prepared to wait! (Stitch getting a 3 hour line is not unusual). For the characters with virtual queues (so specifically Jack and Sally for Halloween) then the virtual queue slots will drop at 9.45am and 2pm on the Disneyland Paris app. And note that they will go in seconds! To get a virtual queue spot you need to be in one of the Disney parks, and we recommend being ready to go on the app for the character you want a minute or so before the time becomes available, ready to click through. As soon as the clock ticks over to the time click ‘Join Now’ – and cross your fingers! We’ve heard people having better luck doing this on their own data than the in park WiFi which can be a bit flaky – particularly as there’ll be a lot of people on the Wifi doing the same thing at the same time! It’s a bit of a matter of luck if you get a slot or not. You can wander past Jack and Sally’s meet and greet to get a glimpse of them (it’s down towards the Frontierland train station behind the Cowboy Cookout Restaurant).

If you don’t get a virtual queue spot, please don’t try bullying a cast member on the door of the meet and greet to let you in. It won’t work and it’s not fair to mistreat them when they’re just doing their job! If you try it then it’ll be you who’s the worse Disney Villain in the park! (And no one will be queuing up to meet you).

Mysterious Doors Scavenger Hunt

New for 2025 is the Mysterious Doors Scavenger Hunt, sponsored by M&Ms. For this you pick up a map from the Boardwalk Candy Palace on Main Street, and then you use this to find several themed doors scattered around Disneyland Park.

When you find each door you’ll need to add to your map the sticker of the appropriately coloured M&M. Once you’ve found them all, you return to Boardwalk Candy Palace to claim your prize!

The scavenger hunt is fun, it’s kind of a twist of trick or treating (you’re going up to doors like a trick or treater would). It’s free to participate, and you can do it in your own time, over a couple of days if you like. Prize wise [skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want any spoilers!] you receive a free small bag of mini M&Ms for each person in your group, and a voucher for 15% off purchases of 20 euros or more in Boardwalk Candy Palace. Note you need to make the purchase the same day you complete the scavenger hunt – the vouchers are dated! You also get to keep your completed map.

We have a few minor gripes about the scavenger hunt. One is that it hinges on being able to see the coloured M&M in each spot, so if you’re colourblind I can imagine it’d be a struggle! A second, which is outside of Disney’s control, is that we were in the park from 1st to 3rd October and in those few days some of the theming elements for the doors had already been damaged or stolen. Seriously, some folks need to do better – it should go without saying you don’t take anything or damage the park details and theming! But our biggest gripe is that the locations on the map you’re given often don’t relate in reality to where the doors are – in the case of both Adventureland and Fantasyland they’re just plain wrong! So below is a composite map showing the actual locations of all the doors.

(Note we’re not going to tell you which colours are where so not to ruin it!)

Mickey’s Halloween Celebration

During Halloween Mickey invites everyone to his Halloween celebration!

This takes place twice a day, and is a sort of combination calvacade / mini parade and a show. What happens is that four floats travel the typical parade route (between the Town Square at the bottom of Main Street USA and gates next to It’s a Small World in Fantasyland). Two of the floats are themed to harvest time, and the other two to spooky subjects – one is Winnie the Pooh and Pals on a slightly creepy woodland float, the other is Mickey’s Magic Phantom Manor float. The latter is really the star of the floats as on it are the Phantom and Melanie from Phantom Manor, and there are 4 doors that Mickey Mouse can pop out from – wearing a different outfit each time! In the middle of the route they stop around the castle hub, where characters and dancers leave the calvacade to the stages in front of the castle for a song and dance number, plus some added special effects including the castle fountains and small scale fireworks!

The Halloween Celebration is a lot of fun! The floats are gorgeous and super detailed, and the characters very engaged with it. The show stop is also great with a lot of dancing and fun along the way, and we’d certainly recommend seeing this at least once during your visit.

A couple of things to note – it is extremely popular! People started staking out spots around the Castle Hub in particular around an hour or more in advance, so if this is important to you it’s worth getting there early for a good spot. Around the Castle Hub the floats do park up during the show stop so it’s possible that if you’re around the edge of the Hub you might have your view of the castle stages blocked by a float! If you’re not fussed about being right at the front you can see the stages and tops of the floats from further back in the crowd – but you’ll miss the characters and dancers on the ground (and people might put kids on shoulders in front of you – it’s better if parents could hold their kids at their own head height so they’re not blocking views by hey ho). Also, the celebration calvacade does reverse routes – for the earlier performance it starts next to It’s a Small World, then makes its way down the side of the castle to the Hub for the show stop, and then continues afterwards down Main Street USA to Town Square. For the second showing it’ll do the opposite – begin in Main Street at Town Square, head up to the Hub for the show stop, and then continue / end in Fantasyland. If you’d just like to see the floats and not the show, and would like to take advantage of lower crowds while the rest of the parade is on, then position yourself nearer to the beginning of the calvacade route (If you’re at the latter show and watching from the bottom of Main Street USA, use the arcades behind Main Street USA itself to get yourself to elsewhere in the park quickly!).

Final note – if it’s raining while the parade / calvacade will run they won’t do the show stop as it’s not safe for the dancers. If the weather is truly atrocious they might cancel it completely but that’s pretty rare.

Main Street USA night-time projections

A new offering for 2025 is the projections on Main Street USA, making full use of the projectors installed for Disney Tales of Magic at the beginning of the year!

The projections start at dusk and circulate through a number of different scenes including candles and fire (and a black cat!), thorns, a storm complete with rain and lightning effects, ghosts and bats, and more. It adds a real extra dimension to Main Street USA in the evenings, and thankfully is relatively easy to see without fighting crowds!

We loved the nighttime projections on Main Street and think they are great addition to the Halloween festivities. Look out for them every evening, and remember they regularly change throughout the evening too!

The Unlucky Nugget

Also new for this year was the transformation of the Lucky Nugget restaurant in Frontierland to the Unlucky Nugget!

The transformation ties into the story of the Phantom Manor ride just around the corner. The premise is that the Unlucky Nugget was going to be the location of a lavish wedding reception for Melanie, the Phantom Manor bride, and one of her fiances (which one isn’t specified). Of course the wedding never took place, and now the ghosts are said to be lurking in the Unlucky Nugget itself as well as the Manor round the corner. (For more on the backstory of the Phantom Manor ride check out our previous blog on the subject!)

The Unlucky Nugget brings spooky themed decorations and a new menu. It’s a bit of a weird place (which is also true when it’s the regular Lucky Nugget) in that it’s sort of a table service because you will be seated at a set location and a server will bring your food, but it’s also sort of a counter service because you choose and pay for your food on entering with a cast member at a till.

The decorations are really what makes this new location shine. On the main stage is a lavish set up of the wedding reception top table including wedding cake, presents, a portrait of the bridge and a piano. Periodically special effects will take place – a ghostly piano player will appear in shadow form and play the ‘Wedding Dirge’ on the piano, the Phantom will appear behind Melanie in her portrait, and lighting effects and sound effects transform the stage area. These special effects take place every few minutes and are often preceded by a ‘whooshing’ sound so you know something is about to happen!

Food wise there are really 3 adult meals – one with chicken strips, a pulled chicken burger in a purple bun (the Manor Burger), and a black bagel with and avocada crema (the Doom Bagel). All are served with a mix of sweet potato and normal fries or a side salad. You also get a choice of 3 desserts – an ice cream sundae with black popcorn and tombstone decoration, a mousse cake resembling Madame Leota, and a fruit salad with blood orange juice (to try and make fruit spooky we presume!) There are also speciality alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks to try. (Which are all very heavy on cherry flavouring!)

We tried the Manor Burger and Doom Bagel, and the ice cream sundae and Madame Leota Mousse. Honestly, they were all just fine. The Manor Burger includes corn chips that get made moist by the pulled chicken and salad so it ends up with a super weird consistency, and the flavours of the bagel weren’t brilliant. The Madame Leota mousse is both sweet and tart, and the ice cream sundae was nice – it’s an ice cream sundae! You pay 30 euros for each of the set meals (main and dessert, and one soft drink – not the speciality one though). You can order items a la carte if you prefer, and they offer a mid-afternoon tea with just the desserts and a drink. We’re not sure the food is worth the price you’re paying for it, and actually just coming in for a dessert and drink would probably the best way to experience the space without spending a lot.

Having said that we would recommend the Unlucky Nugget for the theming alone, especially if you’re a die hard Phantom Manor fan. If you can, try to get close to the main stage in the space to appreciate all the the theming – either by being sat near it, or by walking up to it from your table (which you can do providing you’re not annoying any guests sat there or getting in the way of any of the servers trying to do their job)! Queues to get in were long, but dip down in the mid-afternoon. We’re glad that they’ve tried something new here and hope that more themed dining will follow!

Halloween snacks

All around the Disneyland Park you can find Halloween themed snacks, and even the Walt Disney Studios Park has joined in on the action here with a couple of themed biscuits! (They’re just shortbread with icing but still). They’re fun to try!

Some of the snacks are at snack carts or windows around the park, and some are in the quick service locations. Most locations seemed to have something Halloween themed. Many of the snacks are in multiple locations – the Cheesecake is at many of the quick service restaurants for example, and the themed biscuits get around several locations too. The most popular snack seems to be the Meringue Pop – either that or there are supply problems because it was out of stock pretty much everywhere!

We tried the Minnie Dome Cake from Cable Car Bakeshop and Cursed Crunch biscuit – we bought it at the Old Mill but it’s in a few locations. We also got several Halloween treats from the Boardwalk Candy Palace. My favourite of the treats was one of the ones here – the Minnie Cake Pop is rich, fudgy chocolate cake covered in chocolate on a stick. Not fancy but really well done for chocolate fans! The Minnie Dome Cake was quite nice – very mild flavours of white chocolate and caramel, and it looks good in photos. The Cursed Crunch was essentially biscuits with Nutella between – it tasted alright but was a bit dry (get a drink with it!).

Our advice with the treats it to browse the menus in advance and then target what sounds best to you. And try to get things earlier on in the day if you can – treats can and do sell out!

What there isn’t are savoury snacks themed to Halloween, although Cowboy Cookout and Cafe Hyperion both offered a Halloween themed burger meal which came with the cheesecake dessert. We didn’t try it because it has beetroot pickles and we both hate beetroot, but if it appeals to you it might be worth a try!

Merchandise

Of course any celebration at Disneyland Paris will have merchandise associated with it, and Halloween is no exception!

Possible souvenirs include a bubble wand, toys, Loungefly bags, clothing, Minnie Ears, Home Goods, trick and treat pails, sweets and more. The merchandise is available at various spots throughout the resort – note that if you’re on Main Street USA it’s in New Century Notions and not the Emporium! You’ll also find it in the Frontierland shop, and various merchandise kiosks throughout. Outside Disneyland Park look in the Tower of Terror gift shop in the Walt Disney Studios Park, and World of Disney in Disney Village.

Honestly the merchandise they have is nice, but we were disappointed by how small the range is – especially when you consider how much the USA and Asian parks get. And no new Phantom Manor merchandise, what’s that about?! A lot of the merchandise is also available in the Disney Store online and might be cheaper to get from there. And honestly Amazon has quite a few merchandise options too – including the Pumpkin Mickey ears: https://amzn.to/3J3ZUac and Mickey light up Pumpkins: https://amzn.to/4mZ2fRI. Here’s what the Disney Halloween search brought up for us: https://amzn.to/47eLsFz. Just be slightly cautious of some of the third party seller items on there if they seem very cheap! Note these links are all affiliate links – if you make a purchase we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Notes for the differently-abled

I just wanted to add a few notes in here to help our differently-abled friends to be able to get the most out of the Halloween festivities!

The first thing to note is that there is a special viewing area for Mickey’s Halloween Celebration which hugs part of the hub and Main Street USA – I’ve marked it on the map in Yellow below.

To access it you need to enter from the end nearest Main Street USA (not the castle). There’s a couple of benches but not many, and you will have people standing in front of you if you grab them. This area is a lot less packed than elsewhere round the hub but it still gets busy, we’d recommend getting there at least 30 minutes in advance if not a bit more.

For the Unlucky Nugget, showing a Priority Pass can mean you’ll have a much shorter wait to get in. But worth noting for those with mobility differences that the bulk of the seating is accessible by stairs only, there are tables on the flat level but they’re set quite back, particularly those set aside for wheelchairs; so you might miss some of the cool theming sadly.

For the characters with standby lines, if you have Priority Pass get to the meeting spot as early as you can in the day and ask for a return time. You’ll then be able to return at that time and see the character without much of a wait. Note though that the return slots are limited and will go very quickly, so don’t delay getting there!

Treats wise not many of them are suitable for those who can’t eat dairy – I think I’ve read that the Meringue pop is okay but definitely check with a cast member if you’re not sure. I’m guessing not many of these are suitable for those with a gluten intolerance either but again please do check!

On a positive note though, all the doors in the scavenger hunt are fully accessible to see (in Frontierland to get right up close to them you need to go up one step, but in all honesty you don’t need to!).

Also note that in parts of the park with the Halloween sound effects it can be very loud at times and quite overwhelming, so those who are sensitive might want to wear ear defenders or plugs (the Halloween themed areas of the park can also be pretty crowded). If anyone in your group is scared of storms then watch out for the storm scene as part of the Main Street Projections – it is loud and does include flashing lights. If you see the rain effect start up and you know someone in your group isn’t going to enjoy the storm effects, our tip is to quickly slip into one of the gift shops on Main Street to wait it for it to pass – it only lasts a couple of minutes.

Outside Disneyland Park

If you’d like to take in some Halloween details outside of Disneyland Park, the Studios Park doesn’t have much except a couple of snacks.

In Disney Village there’s a cool photo op, as well as the merchandise available in World of Disney. However, each of the hotels also has Halloween decorations themed to that particular location, including giant pumpkins. So if you have a non-park day you could spend some time walking round the hotels and checking out their Halloween decor!

A quick note that our resort shop at Newport Bay didn’t have any Halloween merchandise, but that might vary in other resorts. Don’t bank on being able to pick it up at your hotel though!

So there it is – a full guide to Halloween at Disneyland Paris! What sounds the most fun for you? We will be releasing a YouTube video on the Halloween season very soon, so please subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss that! We’ll also pop a post up here on the blog when it goes live – to ensure you don’t miss that either and our other blogs please subscribe below! You’ll also receive a free copy of our overview to Disneyland Paris Attraction Accessibility, which you can also buy for £3. And if you’d like to support our work please consider leaving us a tip. Thank you!