Halloween Time at Disneyland and California Adventure has returned! The spook season event is back with frightfully fun experiences and entertainment from now through October 31, 2025. This post shares our experiences with the characters and what to expect with crowds, cheaper tickets and more.
We’ve had a chance to spend some time enjoying Halloween at Disneyland and DCA, and want to share our experience thus far. One thing to note is that this post is not comprehensive–we still have more seasonal treats to try and more to do, but even so, it’s not like a ton has changed for Halloween 2025 at Disneyland. The event has been more or less the same since 2019.
Disneyland has taken a “don’t fix what isn’t broken” mentality with Halloween Time, which is understandable given its popularity. But as locals, we have to admit that the whole thing is feeling stale. Still far better than what’s included with admission at Walt Disney World, but that’s a low bar. Look at any other Disney Parks, and the domestic ones are falling behind on seasonal events. In any case, check out our full 2025 Guide to Halloween at Disneyland Resort if you need comprehensive planning advice and recommendations for spook season.
As noted above, Halloween Time at Disneyland runs through October 31, with Plaza de la Familia and “A Musical Celebration of Coco” continuing until November 2, 2025 for Día de los Muertos. There’s also Oogie Boogie Bash – A Disney Halloween Party, which started a full week before the rest of Halloween.
This is all earlier than historical norms, beating last year by one day when Halloween Time at Disneyland began in August–the first time ever it had ever kicked off that early. For decades, Halloween used to start the first Friday in September, sometimes with a soft opening on the Thursday before that.
It’ll be interesting to see whether this is the new normal going forward. On the one hand, there seems to be enough demand to sustain more Oogie Boogie Bash dates. On the other hand, daytime crowds are low–and have been low–despite Halloween starting early. It seems like Disney’s response to this same dynamic around the holiday season was scaling back the Christmas festivities and not starting until the Friday after Veterans Day.
In theory, it’s a good idea to dilute demand across more dates during the fall, into the post-summer off-season. Halloween Time crowds have been getting worse and worse later in the season, to the point that mid-September until late October has been one of the busiest stretches of the entire year prior to 2025. There’s an element of seasonality to this with fall breaks at West Coast school districts. A big part of it, though, is simply that Halloween continues to grow in popularity.
Cheapest Disneyland Tickets
Disneyland’s lowest priced 1-Day, 1-Park ticket (for guests 10 years of age and older) is $104, which is known as the Tier 0 ticket. Multiple dates across August and September 2025 are available for this value. There’s also a two week stretch in November 2025 when there are 8 days of $104 tickets–all before the kickoff to Christmas, naturally.
Here’s the list of upcoming dates with Tier 0 tickets:
August 2025 Dates with $104 Tickets
- Tuesday, Aug. 26
- Wednesday, Aug. 27
- Thursday, Aug. 28
September 2025 Dates with $104 Tickets
- Tuesday, Sept. 2
- Wednesday, Sept. 3
- Thursday, Sept. 4
- Tuesday, Sept. 9
- Thursday, Sept. 11
- Tuesday, Sept. 16
- Wednesday, Sept. 17
- Thursday, Sept. 18
November 2025 Dates with $104 Tickets
- Monday, Nov. 3
- Tuesday, Nov. 4
- Wednesday, Nov. 5
- Thursday, Nov. 6
- Monday, Nov. 10
- Tuesday, Nov. 11
- Wednesday, Nov. 12
- Thursday, Nov. 13
Disneyland Halloween Crowds…So Far
We pop into Disneyland on a regular basis, usually at least once per week. These aren’t all-day visits since we’re driving in and also trying to avoid traffic, meaning going late and often leaving by around 6:30 pm. Because of this, we also aim to do a weekend in the parks with a hotel stay about once per month (that also helps refresh hotel reviews).
Between Independence Day and the kickoff of Halloween, we’ve done more of these than normal. We’ve had family come visit who bought multi-day tickets, there was the actual 70th Anniversary, Oogie Boogie Bash, and now the kick-off to Halloween. Suffice to say, we’ve spent a lot of time at Disneyland over the last few months, but especially July and August 2025.
The biggest thing we’ve noticed over the last couple of months is lower crowds at Disneyland. During a few of those days, crowds felt noticeably lower than any other time in the last two years.
One of these was Independence Day weekend, which is now so obviously the “new-normal” dynamic that make that holiday weekend bizarrely unbusy that we’ve actually added it to our list of the 10 Best & Worst Weeks to Visit Disneyland in 2025, 2026 & 2027. And not on the ‘worst’ side like it might’ve been a decade ago.
There was a bit of a spike from late July through mid-August, which we view as attributable to the “last hurrah” of summer travel as well as the end of special offers tsunami. Those are both two established trends that make our list of the worst weeks; the only real wrinkle this year is that Disneyland inexplicably ended the summer ticket deal over a month earlier than normal.
Aside from that two-plus week stretch, most of our other visits to Disneyland since the kickoff of Disneyland’s 70th Anniversary struck us as markedly less busy on a year-over-year basis. The wait times data bears this out, but honestly, not nearly to the degree that I would’ve thought if simply trying to guess crowd levels.
Part of this is probably a bit of self-selection bias on our part–we’re spending a disproportionate amount of time doing family-friendly dark rides, Redwood Creek Challenge Trail, and Disney Jr. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Live! None of those things are known for long lines. That’s not a comprehensive explanation, though.
Even more recently, crowd levels have really dropped at Disneyland as of the second half of August 2025. Here’s a look at daily wait times, courtesy of thrill-data.com. Note the green at the far right:
Once the ticket deal expired and schools went back into session, crowd levels have been 1/10 or 2/10 most dates, and that trend shows no signs of reversing anytime soon. The only exception to that was the first two days of Tier 0 tickets, which spiked a bit. But even by the third Tier 0 day, crowd levels had fallen back to 1/10 levels.
It would seem that whatever localized pent-up demand existed for those Tier 0 tickets, it’s already been exhausted. Not even the earlier start of Halloween reversed that, and Sarah’s on-the-ground experience corroborates the wait times data. Feels like crowds were slightly busier, she says, but it still wasn’t bad bad.
This explains why Disneyland is pushing the $104 tickets, and really makes me wonder whether they’ll scramble to throw together another ticket deal for September and beyond. That’s somewhat unprecedented, but Disneyland is clearly dependent upon ticket deals to boost attendance. The Crazy-Good Costco Disneyland Ticket Deal isn’t cutting it, and it’s unlikely that Magic Key sales will move the needle enough.
I don’t want to get carried away here, looking at the last couple of months and trying to over-extrapolate about crowds going forward. We’ve been hoping for a bit of a normalization in crowds at Disneyland for what feels like 2 years at this point. And even when there have been glimmers of that happening, the tides quickly turn and the parks feel packed again.
It seems like ‘perpetually crowded’ is the new normal for Disneyland. That there are only brief reprieves from the higher crowds, and then Disney finds the right mix of seasonal events, ticket deals, or resumption of Magic Key sales. This isn’t like Walt Disney World at all, which has seen several sustained slower periods.
Let’s check back in October–the most expensive month of the year on average–and see what attendance looks like. Or November and December, for that matter. Then there’s also winter, which has been much busier than normal the last couple of years, boosted by a combo of discounts. My guess is that there won’t be any issues whatsoever once late September rolls around. It’s safe to say this isn’t pent-up demand anymore; it’s the new normal for attendance dynamics.
Another observation from our visits is that weekends continue to be less busy than weekdays. There is a noticeable difference between Sunday and Monday, with the latter being far worse (Sunday nights are pure bliss). It’s actually so obvious that there probably would be consensus on this.
There are a few reasons for this. Magic Key Annual Pass blockouts on the weekends and tiered ticket pricing are the big ones, which push people towards the weekdays. When it comes to August, specifically, there was also the lifting of the summer blockout in mid-August, which caused a localized version of pent-up demand that just played out.
Los Angeles and Orange County schools are already back in session–as is most of California and the West Coast–so this could start to change. In past years, we started to see the weekday vs. weekend gap close. Aside from AP blockouts, the best predictor of this is usually ticket tiers. If there’s a slew of Tier 0 dates midweek and weekends are Tier 6 (as is the case this Thursday vs. Saturday), visitors with flexibility are going to opt for the cheaper dates to save big. In October, that gap is a lot less pronounced.
One thing to note is that security becomes even more of a wildcard this time of year. Last Friday was ‘a tale of two days’ at Disneyland, with a sharp contrast between crowds before and after 5 pm. Again, this isn’t a huge surprise. It’s the normal dynamic at Disneyland given locals arriving after work, but especially during the Halloween season.
Nevertheless, it was shocking just how bad lines were–especially to enter–during the late afternoon and evening. Expect this to be a common occurrence for the next several months. We’ve started parking exclusively at the Toy Story Lot because it’s usually the most predictable, and gives us the most options.
We stand by that decision, as it’s a breeze most of the time. But last weekend the line for the buses was so bad that we opted to walk, only to encounter a massive line on the Harbor security checkpoint. We were meeting friends who said that the situation was even worse at Mickey & Friends, with a line of traffic backed up all the way to the highway.
The last time we encountered anything close to that, it took us almost an hour to park. The unpredictability of M&F is precisely why we stopped parking there. Toddlers don’t do so well with that. Really would love to see them break ground on the Eastern Gateway ahead of schedule and build that sucker fast.
Looking forward, expect a similar story for the upcoming week with a very slight spike for the Labor Day holiday weekend and then the Disneyland Halloween Half Marathon. That should be followed by a retreat for the next two weeks in September, which will be a great time to visit.
Day of week trends will be the biggest consideration, followed closely by Oogie Boogie Bash Halloween Party dates. That’ll cause some mild disruptions to attendance dynamics, while also creating crowd discrepancies between Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.
Speaking of which, we attended the first Oogie Boogie Bash and will probably report on our experience at that sometime soon. Honestly, it was pretty uneventful, so I’m not sure what there is to even say. The highlight was probably getting a new Grizzly River Run shirt, which had nothing to do with OBB. But if you’re in the market, there’s some great new bear-centric Grizzly River Run merchandise!
Suffice to say, I’m very pleased that tickets sold slower to this year’s Oogie Boogie Bash, with August dates not selling out until the last minute. I really hope this incentivizes Disney to actually improve the event, because Oogie Boogie Bash has gotten stale for repeat visitors. For full planning details, dates, and pricing about this hard ticket event, see our Guide to the Oogie Boogie Bash – A Disney Halloween Party.
New Character Costumes
Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and their friends are dressed to impress this Halloween in bright new looks featuring swirling colors of purple, green and orange — a twist on their Disneyland 70th Anniversary Celebration outfits! I absolutely love these–Mickey Mouse looks like a wizard of the underworld!
These costumes change every year and are a huge hit with fans, and make for fun merchandising tie-ins. Meeting the characters for Halloween can be a tad tricky. All of these meet & greets are in Town Square, but the locations aren’t clearly marked, the characters rotate, and most do not have PhotoPass. If you want to meet them, your best bet is being in Town Square between 9:45 am and 2 pm, which is when most of them appear.
Failing that, some of them are back out in the evenings. Those appearances are more sporadic, and characters are not out during the fireworks or Paint the Night (they do roam the parade route shortly before the first Paint the Night, which is pretty fun to see). Another option is seeing them at the very beginning of the day, shortly after Disneyland opens and they appear at the Train Station; they also do the same thing at the end of the night. This is not a meet & greet, but you can get selfies and see them much more easily.
I’m currently in Florida for a couple of different events, but our current California correspondents, Megatron and Sarah, attended a media preview of Halloween Time at Disneyland and were able to meet the characters in their new costumes during that:
Megatron is now a professional character meet-and-greeter. She might be a little too comfortable around these characters, bringing and showing off her toy-of-the-day. That’s mostly been a Woody figure for the last few months, but he was replaced by the Skeleton Pluto popcorn bucket on this day, apparently.
Neither of us know how Woody became one of her favorites, as she has zero frame of reference for him and just happened to see him in our basement. One of her favorite songs is now “Woody’s Roundup,” which is in the regular rotation as a result. She’s going to go wild once she finally sees Toy Story, and realizes Woody has his own film franchise. None of this has anything to do with Halloween Time at Disneyland, obviously. Just thought you should be kept abreast of current affairs.
Planning a Southern California vacation? For park admission deals, read Tips for Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets. Learn about on-site and off-site hotels in our Anaheim Hotel Reviews & Rankings. For where to eat, check out our Disneyland Restaurant Reviews. For unique ideas of things that’ll improve your trip, check out What to Pack for Disney. For comprehensive advice, consult our Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide. Finally, for guides beyond Disney, check out our Southern California Itineraries for day trips to Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, and tons of other places!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Halloween at Disneyland? What about the new character costumes for Mickey & Friends? Will you be visiting the parks during spook season? Doing Oogie Boogie Bash? Thoughts on the post-summer slowdown in crowds at Disneyland? Predictions on crowds for September 2025? Think next month will be more or less busy than August? If you’ve visited in the last couple months, what did you think of crowds and wait times? Do you agree or disagree with anything in our report? 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!