While the temperatures remain high in Southern California, Halloween decorations and festivities have been in place at Disneyland Resort for almost a full month. The pumpkins are on Main Street, the Halloween Tree is aglow and the best attraction layover known to foolish mortals is here. In this post, we’ll take a trip around Disneyland and talk about some of my favorite aspects of the park at Halloween, share some photos and give a few other updates.

While there’s nothing quite like Christmas at Disneyland Resort, Halloween season holds a soft spot for many, including myself. That starts on Main Street with the giant, winking Mickey pumpkin. Lines to take photos in front of the icon are long throughout the day and it is a fun show stopper. I took this photo at 12:55 one night (morning?) and I still had to wait a while for guests to finish up their photos. Who could blame them? Everyone wants their photo with Pumpkin Mickey!

Speaking of taking photos with things, a number of characters in costumes are meeting in this area. Most of them are the Fab Five characters but several others appear throughout the day. It’s well worth checking out if meet & greets are your thing. Even the flowers in front of the train station got into the costume act!

Main Street is really enjoyable during the season if for no other reason than to look at all of the different pumpkins in the windows. There’s some very funny jack-o-lanterns and no shortage of them to look at. Orange bunting hangs from the Main Street facades and adds to the glow of the nighttime lights. Some locals might even dawn long sleeves if the temperatures drop below 85!

I’ve tried a couple of the specialty food items for the Halloween season. There’s a Toffee Pretzel filled with cream cheese at a snack cart in Tomorrowland. I’ve seen others rave about this but I didn’t think it was anything special. Not bad by any means but not something I’ll be going back for. The bang for your buck option of the holiday season are the Spicy Firefly Chips at Refreshment Corner. These appeared to be Spicy Fritos covered with chili, cheese and jalapenos. Does it look appetizing? Nah. Is it going to fill you up and taste pretty good for only being six dollars? Oh yeah!

Moving over to Frontierland, home to two of my favorite Halloween decorations – Zocalo Park and the Halloween Tree. The former has some beautiful flower arrangements framing a band of skeletons. There are other decorations in this small area that are fun to explore, as they acknowledge Día de los Muertos.

As for the Halloween Tree, it shines brightly in orange and yellow lights and is filled with pumpkins. The tree debuted in 2007 and is in honor of Ray Bradbury’s novel of the same name. The Halloween Tree adds some wonderful character to this walkway outside of the Golden Horseshoe. It’s especially lively at night with all of the lights and the reflection bouncing off the ground. Here’s a few photos!

Last but certainly not least, Haunted Mansion Holiday has returned and will be around through early January. The iconic layover is as good as ever. While I love the Small World layover at Christmas time, nothing can beat the Nightmare Before Christmas characters taking over the Haunted Mansion. From the stretching room all the way through to Oogie Boogie sending you on your way, the attraction is perfect.

We actually got stuck on the attraction for about 15 minutes on our first ride through of the year and they turned the lights on. Naturally, I had to get some photos! I’m not sure the lighting is any better though because Haunted Mansion Holiday is much brighter than just Haunted Mansion itself. Anyway, here are a few pics of the Graveyard Scene from where we were stuck.

A new shop has opened up at Disneyland! Princess and the Frog is being slowly integrated into the land ahead of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure setting sail in 2024. The shop is small and tucked away inside of New Orleans Square but it’s cute inside. My one complaint, long time readers have maybe already guessed it, is the name. Actually the name, Eudora’s Chic Boutique, is just fine. But there are so many words on this sign!

I think Disneyland will be able to persevere past the number of words on the sign. It’s a nice sign, even with that qualm. Stay tuned next week when I rank the best signs in Disney Parks! Kidding. I think Tiana’s Gourmet Secrets are all inside of the cookbooks that are sold in the shop. It would have been cool to see a few gimmicky secrets tucked away inside the shop but all in all it’s a solid little addition!

As for the rest of the park, it’s business as usual. There are several attractions under refurbishment and several others that look like they need to go under refurbishment. With the holiday season fast approaching I don’t think we’ll see much go down until January if it isn’t scheduled already.

We did get caught in the rain one night. I realized I hadn’t seen Galaxy’s Edge in the rain so we made it back to that corner of Disneyland and enjoyed the reflections in the puddles. That area has some of my favorite lighting in the whole resort and it did not disappoint in the storm.

Between the few days of rain and unseasonably high temperatures, crowds have been lower during the day and higher at night. That should change in the coming weeks as the weather starts to even out. It is easy to tell that Disneyland Resort remains a locals park when it comes to extreme weather though.

It’s good to see Halloween season at Disneyland and we’re less than 2 months away from the Christmas season coming in! I love both times of the year and would encourage anybody to visit September through December.

What do you think of Disneyland in autumn? Let us know in the comments below! Planning a trip to Disneyland? Check out our Planning Guide here. If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!