By Charly SHELTON

Universal Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s Scary Farm are good for teens and adults looking for a little scare around the Halloween season. What if you want to have a good time but don’t want to get too scared? Or if you have little children who are just a bit too young to find the fun in psychopathic clowns running at them from out of the darkness? There is one obvious solution – Disneyland’s Halloween Time celebration and Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party.

Halloween Time at the Disneyland Resort is a time for good-natured fun with classic Disney characters dressed in their Halloween costumes and pumpkins on every windowsill. Few things change from year to year with Disney finding it’s footing pretty early on near the debut of the annual celebration and, for the most part, trotting out the same attraction overlays and decorations every year. This isn’t necessarily a negative thing – why fix it if it isn’t broken? Haunted Mansion Holiday is the one thing that does have minor changes yearly with a new gigantic gingerbread house in the ballroom of the Mansion every year. This gingerbread house is made of real gingerbread every year. Starting in August or September, the enormous cookies are baked by Disney chefs based on a design from Imagineering and built as a house in place at the Mansion, then coated with preservative to keep it from falling apart. You sure wouldn’t want to eat it when it is taken down in January.

This year saw another addition to the Mansion – a digital projection screen on the ceiling of the portrait room. The portrait room is the room guests enter that has no windows or doors, where you are given this “chilling challenge – to find your way out.” The projection features Jack Skellington as he appears in the stop-motion film, allowing for a more true-to-film appearance and an overall more entertaining experience at that.

Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy is back again. No noticeable changes in ride or queue decoration. Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party is the best way to experience the park at Halloween. For around $60 (prices fluctuate depending on day of attendance), you can go into the park in costume to trick-or-treat at a number of
stations throughout the park, receiving all the candy you can carry or consume. When free candy loses its appeal, you can go on the rides at the park – all of which are open during the event – to experience a full day at Disneyland without the sun or such huge crowds. Granted, it is still crowded, but not so much as during the middle of the day. And if you eat too much candy and feel sick, the Teacups usually have a short line perhaps allowing you to make lots more room for candy again.

So whether its candy, rides, scares or the incredible fall food offerings throughout the park that draw you in, Halloween Time at the Disneyland Resort is fun for all ages. Halloween Time continues through Oct. 31.