Thursday August 14th 2025

While the temperature is still running at full summer strength, a few other things are starting to hurry the fall season into existence. First, the kids are back in school. The school bus are stopping traffic and traffic patterns have changed. The second indicator is the timing of sunset. Daylight at 9PM has slipped away it is dark around 8PM and shrinking fast. Last, but significant for the region, is the theme parks are getting ready for Halloween. The home supply stores are already selling blowup Halloween spooks and demons so the theme parks need to catch up.

Disney starts its first separate admission Halloween party tomorrow (Friday 8/15) night. Universal begins Halloween Horror Nights on the 28th and Sea World starts its scare the pants off of you “party” Howl-O-Scream on September 5th. Halloween is a big thing around here. I’ve decided to go to the Disney’s Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party on September 9th. It will be my first Disney Halloween party. I hope to enjoy the parades and shows plus lots of “free” candy.

I visited the Magic Kingdom on Tuesday in hopes of seeing some of the Halloween decorations. They hadn’t made as much progress toward Friday’s opening Halloween party. The only real decorations I saw were the bunting on the buildings along main street. None of the scarecrows or lamp post decorations they have had in past years were up yet. I’ll see them during the party I booked or sometime before they go away at the beginning of November.

The other big change was the draining of the Rivers of America in Frontier Land. The whole are including Tom Sawyer Island is being re-imagined into a Cars attraction set in a Pacific Northwest themed National Park. The current attractions closed in the beginning of July and the river is almost pumped dry now.