Wonder on the West Coast: Day 4 - Oogie Boogie Bash

[Stewboy]

Index

Thursday 24th October 2019

Exactly a week until Halloween and today was the day we were attending the Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween party at California Adventure. We were really looking forward to tonight; entry for those with party tickets began at 3pm - we’d bought our party tickets in addition to our 3-day hopper pass - and the park closed to those without tickets at 6pm, which is when the party officially started. The park would be busy between 3-6pm, so we decided to stay out of the park until about 5-5:30pm; thus saving the final day of our 3-day hopper pass until our return in 10 days time, after the cruise.

So with that in mind we were going to have a relaxing morning, maybe head out to the nearest outlet mall for a bit of shopping and lunch, before getting ready - oh yes, we were dressing up - and heading to California Adventure at about 5pm.

Despite not needing the early start I was still up at 6am and getting coffee. Isabella was sleeping in; Jo and I were hungry, so we had last night’s dinner for breakfast - the cheese and pepperoni pizza pretzel melts we’d bought from Target. They were pretty yummy and would keep us going until about 7am when Isabella woke up.




Breakfast

Once Isabella had her milk and was fully awake she joined Jo in doing some exercise. Jo had downloaded some Les Mills workouts to her phone and was going to do Body Attack - she was missing the gym! - whereas I was perfectly happy to catch up on my notes and watch from the comfort of the sofa!


Body Attack

At some point during the morning Jo remembered that she’d ordered a package to be delivered months ago (it was a 2020 Erin Condren planner) - considering this was our last night at this hotel it’s a good job she remembered! So while she and Isabella got ready after their workout I went down to collect it from reception who were quite amused by how long ago it had arrived and that someone was finally collecting it!

By about 10am we were ready to head out to the nearest mall. Jo ordered a Lyft and a very friendly driver took us to The Outlets at Orange - the drive was less than 10 minutes. The mall was nice, and empty! We had a wander round a few shops including Banana Republic, H&M, Bloomingdales, Bath & Body Works, Old Navy, Hollister, and Victoria’s Secret. We spent most time in Bath & Body Works where Jo and Isabella bought hand fulls of hand sanitiser and candles!




The Outlets at Orange


Isabella made a friend!


Smelling the hand sanitisers

Other purchases were some leggings for Jo from Old Navy (she loves them and is keen to get some more next time we’re in America) and a couple of polo shirts in the Hollister sale for me.

There was one more shop to visit before lunch, and that was Nike. Jo and Isabella both bought some new trainers, and I bought a small pink American football - a spur of the moment purchase on my way to the checkout.


Small pink American football

Now we were hungry and there could be only one option: Panda Express; Jo loves Panda Express and any time there is one that’s where she wants to go! Seems like she’s not alone as Panda Express seemed to be where everybody hangs out at this mall.

Luckily we were able to get a table, but not until we’d ordered our food obviously - we’re not THOSE people! Isabella had a kids meal of half rice/half noodles, string bean chicken, a bottle of water and a cookie.


Panda Express kids meal

Jo ordered half rice/half noodles, with Broccoli Beef and Mushroom Chicken; I ordered the same but with Honey Sesame Chicken instead of Mushroom Chicken. To drink we got a refillable iced tea to share.




Yum


Reading our fortunes

The food was nice, and Isabella enjoyed the fortune cookies.

Time was now about 1pm and the day had become really hot! We decided to head back to the hotel and maybe cool off in the pool.

We eventually found the pick up point for the Lyft and by 1:15pm we’d arrived back ‘home’. This Lyft driver wasn’t a patch on the earlier driver; he didn’t even get out to open the boot despite the fact that we had armfuls of bags.

Before heading back upstairs we grabbed a coffee and chilled out for about half an hour before getting our swimming gear on and heading down to the pool.




Chiling


Social media advice from Isabella

We got ourselves some seats, and then Isabella and I went in. Despite the heat outside, the water was really cold! The pool area was really nice, and we spent a nice relaxing hour out there.


Ready for the pool


Beautiful blue skies


In the pool






Poolside

At 3:15pm we headed back inside, grabbed another coffee to take with us, and did some more relaxing before springing into action at about 4pm.

It took us about half an hour to get ready for the Oogie Boogie Bash. Just like Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Walt Disney World guests can come dressed up, and this year we were going as the Three Caballeros; Isabella was Donald Duck, I was José Carioca, and Jo was Panchito Pistoles.


Trick or Treat hair clips


Donald Duck


José Carioca


Panchito Pistoles


The Three Caballeros

As mentioned already, it was really hot today - California isn’t supposed to be this hot at this time of the year - so waiting as long as possible before putting our costumes on was definitely a good idea.

Before the short walk to the Toy Story lot we helped ourselves to a quick dinner downstairs; it was Oktoberfest themed tonight so we had Frankfurters, bratwurst, and sauerkraut, as well as beer and wine.


Oktoberfest

We left the hotel at about 5:15pm and arrived at Disneyland at about 5:35pm. There was a queue to get into California Adventure, but fortunately it wasn’t very long. Once inside it was almost 6pm and time for the party to start so we immediately joined a queue for event check-in.

Now we had our wristbands and trick or treat bags, let’s get this party started! First up we headed into one of the interactive treat trails - this one was in Animation Place in Hollywood Land - where we could get our first lot of candy and see one of the characters, in this case it was the ‘man’ himself: Mr. Oogie Boogie.


Treats


Oogie Boogie

A good start to the party. Outside Animation Place we saw Loki hanging about. Jo and Isabella went over and had a chat, and then we checked out a few more treat trails including another interactive one featuring the Mad Hatter. We were really enjoying these interactive treat trails, the characters are really fun and we spent a few minutes in each just watching them interacting with guests.






Meeting Loki






Mad Hatter

By about 6:30pm the regular park guests had all departed and the park wasn’t too busy; there were lots of cool costumes on show - Fat Thor was a popular one - and as the sun began to go down it got really atmospheric. We were having a lot of fun and getting quite a few comments from CMs on our costumes.


We're three happy chappies

Over at Grizzly Peak we did the Evil Queen trail which had just opened, unfortunately the Queen hadn’t yet made it to her position and all we saw was a cauldron!

After filling our bags with more candy we decided we’d go and do a couple of rides over at Paradise Gardens Park and Pixar Pier. First up was The Little Mermaid - Ariel's Undersea Adventure. Isabella wanted to ride this, and it was a walk on. It turned out to be the same ride as the Ariel ride at Magic Kingdom, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as we like that attraction.




Grizzly Peak






Going under the sea

[Stewboy]

Getting emotional

Next we popped over to Pixar Pier and rode Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind ride. We boarded in the Anger themed basket. It was a cute ride and fun to do at night.

It was now almost time for the Frightfully Fun Parade and we wanted to watch it from Paradise Gardens Park/Pacific Wharf area close to where it starts. Everyone along the parade route in this area was sitting on the floor so we found a space just outside the Sonoma Terrace restaurant and joined them.

After a short wait the parade began with Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow. It’s a similar parade to Mickey’s Boo To You Halloween Parade with many of the same characters and floats but although it’s fun, it’s shorter and not quite as good in my opinion.

Once the parade started, to our surprise everyone remained seated on the floor, which meant everyone was able to see everything - definitely one thing that was much better than the parades at Disney World!




















Frightfully Fun Parade

As the end of the parade passed us we followed it back into Hollywood Land and made a detour over to Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout! Tonight however, as it was nighttime we’d be able to ride the ‘Monsters After Dark’ overlay which was running throughout September and October. The story of this overlay follows on from the main ride, and was just as fun; we were pleased to be able to ride it while we were here and we all loved both versions much more than Tower of Terror (sorry ToT fans!).




Monsters After Dark





On the way out of the ride Isabella bought herself an Avengers pin from the shop, and then we made our way to the Monsters Inc. ride (Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!) in order to tick off another ride on our list. Fortunately with the parade still being on there wasn’t a queue - there are no FastPasses available during the party - so we walked straight on.


Avengers pin










Monsters Inc.

After our fun visit to Monstropolis it was time for some more trick or treating at the Dr. Facilier interactive trail - these interactive trails were so much fun.

We’d now done all we wanted to do over at Hollywood Land so headed over to Cars Land where we got ourselves a couple of PhotoPass photos before deciding to grab an iced water from the Cozy Cone Motel - this is a good place to get iced water from while you’re in California Adventure, they always have it ready.


Dr. Facilier











After some more treat trails and yet more candy, we went on the Maleficent interactive trail and then did the Villains Grove walk through at Redwood Creek. There are no treats on this trail but it features lots of visual and sound effects and is really atmospheric - we really enjoyed it and it was good one to do at the end of the night.


Maleficent








Villains Grove

The time was now about 10:30pm and I think we’d all pretty much had enough. However there was a DescenDANCE dance party that Isabella wanted to watch so we headed for that.

Turns out she was too tired to join in, so after about five minutes we decided to call it a night and headed for the exit. On the way out we managed to purchase a couple of Halloween party pins from a shop, and then made our way to the buses.




DescenDANCE dance party


Oogie Boogie Bash pins

The queues were quite long, but the buses were frequent and after a short wait we were on our way back to the hotel. We arrived back at the Toy Story lot and made the short walk ‘home’ arriving back at about 11:35pm.

Isabella went straight to bed, and after Jo and I sorted the candy out for packing - we were leaving the hotel in the morning - we went to bed by about 12am.


Just some of our candy haul

It had been an exhausting but enjoyable evening and we’re glad that we bought the tickets for the party. The atmosphere had been great, and the interactive treat trails in particular were a big success.

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Anaheim and make the drive down to San Diego for the second part of our holiday. Until then, thanks for reading.

[Sparksy72]

I love your costumes, they looked great! You did well with the candy haul, what a fantastic party night!

[fletchie148]

Great candy haul!
You looked amazing in your costumes

[princess allie]

The party looked like great fun, love your costumes.

[SuziQz]

What a great evening, love the costumes and your treat haul. We’re hoping to do MNSSHP in August for the 1st time, I’m impatiently waiting for the tickets to be released.

Looking forward to day 5

[Tinkermom]

We spent many a happy afternoon in that pool, we were incredibly surprised by the hotel, would definitely go back there.

Amazing evening!

[mrsdjh]

Great evening and great costumes.

[Cutiepie]

The party looked fab and your outfits were great. A super day

[vics18]

Ah, good old Bath & Body Works

Nice to have a bit of a relax at the pool, looks lovely.

Your costumes are so, so good! I love Jo and Isabella's little hats. The party looks great fun, especially the character trails.