Beware: This is a review of a past Halloween event. Therefore, do not use it as a basis upon which to preview the same event this year, and please note that the event may not necessarily be taking place this year. Please use our guide for an overview of this years' Halloween attractions. 

Halloween Festival, Disneyland Paris (2004)

Trust Disney to turn a celebration of all things wicked and sinister into a sugar-sweet and veritably cuddly affair.

In times where Euro Disney (the company who operate Disneyland Paris) are beleaguered with debt it is good to see them make every effort to keep people returning to the park instead of severing investment in a spate of cut backs.

Ironically, as the financial situation worsens in France, the Halloween Festival just gets better and better. Last year hallowed the first appearance of the Pumpkin Men who daubed Main Street USA in a gaudy shade of pumpkin orange paint, meanwhile Frontierland became Halloweenland which was spectacularly decorated sympathetically in-keeping with the Thunder Mesa theme.

Such was its success, 2004’s event is the biggest yet. Whilst the Halloween Party now takes part on only October 31, the army of Halloween Men have grown in strength in their war on anything not orange and have spread into Halloweenland.

The story this year goes that the Pumpkin Men in their perpetual quest to paint everything orange now mine Big Thunder Mountain for their desired shade of gloss and use a system of cable cars to transport the buckets and troughs of paint back to Main Street.

As slick an operation it sounds, the Pumpkin Men are veritably haphazard. Main Street is a mess of orange paint with puddles everywhere on the ground, Pumpkin Men hanging from buildings’ gable ends and toppling off ladders.

Despite Main Street being in a complete state of disarray, the Pumpkin Men can be found throughout the resort, even in the on-site hotels. Follow the orange footsteps and you’re sure to find one trying his best to paint your hotel in a gaudy shade of orange.

Once inside the park, there is no mistaking that DLP take the celebration seriously. The Lights of Winter, the archways of lights for Christmas, go up early with special Halloween lighting in a shade of – yes – orange. This looks nice by night, although sadly ruins the famous view of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty’s Castle) with, instead, a huge grimacing orange pumpkin framed perfectly by the tunnel of lights.

All the way down the street, the Pumpkin Men afford many alternative photo opportunities for budding shutterbugs as they partake in their various misdemeanours as they paint Main Street.

The pumpkin in the hub in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle is a grand face-painting studio for the kids, and amazingly gets massive queues. Little sprites around the park sport the handywork of the face-painters, and as impressive as it is, it seems a waste to queue for probably an hour-or-so when you can go elsewhere in the park to have your phizog painted without having to queue for ages.

Halloween pretty much eludes the rest of the park apart from Frontierland which becomes Halloweenland. The entrance is decorated with a cobweb of pumpkins above and once you’re into Thunder Mesa you’re greeted by yet more Pumpkin Men who work on getting their gaudy gloss from Thunder Mountain to Main Street.

The scale of decoration here is quite remarkable. A cable-car system spans from the upper echelons of Thunder Mountain, across the Rivers of the Far West and to a huge tower construction with funnels, piping and valves down the centre which apparently pipe the paint to Main Street.

On the cable car construction, various Pumpkin Men cycle round hanging from the cable a 100ft up in the air with barrels and troughs overflowing with orange paint going from one side of the river to the over.

At the foot of this construction, there is a stage on which Pumpkin Men – and women – perform throughout the day. Their repertoire is hardly limited as the men demonstrate their enviable skills on steel drums and the women do clog dancing. This is really, really random entertainment and there is something really quite wrong about watching dancing, singing, tap-dancing pumpkins without shaking your head in disbelief.

Elsewhere in Halloweenland, the Mark Twain Riverboat becomes the Mummy Cruise Line and whilst the Molly Brown steamboat is conspicuous by her absence, Mark Twain is towed around the Rivers of the Far West by a huge, dark figure with bony hands clutching on a huge chain which pulls the massive paddle steamer. Certainly spectacular as attraction overlays go, but it adds little to the ride so has to be filed under the “Money that could have been spent better” folder.

Meanwhile, Phantom Manor is prepared for the Halloween Soirée on 31 October which sees the attraction used as a projection screen. Sadly, for those who aren’t visiting for the soirée, the most charismatically gloomy ride looks like a French Fancy as the entire building is hidden under a flowing white cloth and is surrounded by scaffold towers for speakers and lighting systems.

And as tenuous as it is, that links us to the biggest problem about the Halloween Festival... it is ugly. Really, really ugly.

The prevailing theme – the Pumpkin Men – has absolutely no respect for the fine themes at Disneyland Paris. The delicate, ornate and frilly Main Street is complete carnage as oil drums over flowing with orange paint litter the street, buildings are daubed in orange paint and the Pumpkin Men – whilst creating photo opportunities themselves – ruin others.

Worst of all, though, is Frontierland. Whilst the Mummy Cruise Line and some general decorations at least adhere to the ideal that Thunder Mesa is a turn-of-the-century mining village, the industrial cable car construction and comic book capers of the Pumpkin Men clash spectacularly with the Wild West theme.

The Pumpkin Men theme is bittersweet as far as I’m concerned. The biggest problem is really that the theme is so intrusive. It does not compliment either Main Street’s or Frontierland’s theme and is completely stand-alone in this respect.

Whatever you think of the Pumpkin Men, if you have come to Disneyland Paris to appreciate the subtle touches of Main Street USA or Frontierland, much of it is heavily disguised by the Halloween theming.

If you want to see Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at the end of Main Street USA as pictured in the front of so many photo albums, you can’t. If you want to take a photo of Thunder Mountain so that you can tell people how it really looks like a mountain in the far west of America, you can’t as there is some comical cable car contraption hanging off the side. And worst of all, if you want to see an unspoilt Phantom Manor, one of the greatest thematic triumphs in the park, you can’t as it is hidden under a gigantic dustsheet.

Last year’s Frontierland/Halloweenland decorations showed how Halloween decorations can be made to suit each area. All had a rustic theme to them and suited the application. They complimented the tale of Thunder Mesa. This year, Frontierland is a mess of traditional mining town theming, clashing with loud and garish Pumpkin Men. Likewise, Main Street USA is a stately boulevard that could so easily have been decorated sympathetically, but sadly has been vandalised by the Pumpkin Men.

Moving on from the criticisms, as subjective as they are, the programme of events for Halloween is certainly acceptable. The Halloween Soirée is a popular event with music, light shows and fireworks. For anyone not fearless enough to brave the horrors of such a busy day, throughout October there is the aforementioned face painting, Frontierland shows and the popular Villain’s Parade.

The Villain’s Parade is of the scale of any other Disneyland Paris parade, and is a colourful carnival of Disney’s most famous villains on massive floats that follows the parade route from Fantasyland to Main Street USA.

Sensibly, Disneyland Paris’ efforts have been focused on just Main Street and Frontierland instead of the entire park where the theme would be spread too thinly. The substance is there, but whilst the Pumpkin Men theme is fun, it really intrudes on the theming in perhaps the best-themed areas in the entire park, which is something that’s hard to appreciate if you haven’t seen them as Walt intended. The event is to be highly recommended, but not to the first time visitor who will miss out on Main Street and Frontierland. As good as the Halloween Festival is, it doesn’t come close to affording adequate insurance against missing out on the gracefully themed areas subject to the Halloween re-theme.

MS 31 October 2004

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