7 Specific Changes & Impacts You NEED to Know If Visiting Disneyland in August, September, or October 2025

Halloween at Disneyland is one of the best times of year to visit, with so many fun seasonal offerings available! During this time of year, the resort is filled with spooky decor, seasonal ride overlays, themed treats, and more. In recent years, Disneyland has extended the celebration to run from late August through October, so there is plenty of time to visit and enjoy everything the parks have to offer.

There are a few key things that are different this year during Halloween at Disneyland and other things that you'll want to know ahead of your visit. Here is what you should keep in mind if you're visiting Disneyland this Halloween during August, September, or October!

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There Are 3 Different Seasonal Character Dining Meals Offered This Year

During each seasonal celebration over the past couple of years, Disneyland has added more and more themed character dining options for guests! Now, you can choose between a Halloween meal at Goofy's Kitchen (for breakfast, brunch, or dinner), an autumn-themed breakfast or brunch at Storytellers Cafe, or an all-new Halloween dinner at Storytellers Cafe. These character dining meals are a great extension of the fun Halloween atmosphere and festivities you'll find in the parks during this time of year.

Goofy's Kitchen Celebrates Halloween! elevates its usual buffet offerings with enhanced menu items, themed decor and music, and characters “in their best bewitching costumes.” This is more of a classic Halloween vibe, while the Mickey’s Autumn Adventures Breakfast/Brunch Buffet at Storytellers Cafe is a cozy, autumn-inspired experience.

The new Clarabelle’s Enchanted Halloween Dinner features Clarabelle and friends wearing Halloween attire. These new character looks are super cute and charmingly spooky! This character dining meal will take different seasonal form during Christmas with the new Mickey's Christmas Carol feast.

We recommend enjoying a seasonal brunch or dinner offering so that you can take advantage of the mornings to get on popular rides at rope drop. See our Disneyland morning strategy and Disney California Adventure morning strategy.

Some 70th Anniversary Offerings and Seasonal Entertainment Will Be Offered Simultaneously

This Halloween season is taking place during the 70th anniversary celebration at Disneyland! While some 70th anniversary entertainment experiences will be temporarily pausing, like the Wondrous Journeys fireworks, The Celebrate Happy Cavalcade, and the Better Together: A Pixar Pals Celebration! parade, others will continue alongside the seasonal entertainment. While we always recommend a 3-day trip to Disneyland, this is all the more reason to visit for multiple days during Halloween this year!

At Disneyland Park, you can enjoy the Paint the Night parade, the seasonal Halloween Screams nighttime spectacular, and Tapestry of Happiness projections on “it's a small world” in the evenings. Additionally, select decorative touches and 70th anniversary offerings will still be available, like the MagicBand+ interaction points and Key to Disneyland scavenger hunt experience. Keep in mind that the Halloween Screams show will be extra popular on the weekends (Friday-Sunday) when it has fireworks, as the show is projections-only during the rest of the week. At Disney California Adventure, the new World of Color Happiness! show and 70th additions to Toy Story Midway Mania! will still be available during the Halloween celebration. During the day, be sure to catch the cute Mickey's Trick and Treat show at the Disney Theater if you are visiting with little ones.

The Happiest Haunts Tour With Reserved Fireworks Viewing Has a Change This Year

If you're interested in reserved viewing for the Halloween Screams show, then you may want to consider the “Disney's Happiest Haunts” guided tour that is offered during the Halloween celebration. The experience is a 2-hour walking tour across Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure, where your guide will tell you about the history of Halloween and Halloween tales specific to Disney experiences.

Because of the popularity of the Halloween seasonal nighttime spectacular and the fact that fireworks are only shown on weekends, you may find yourself waiting two hours or more to secure coveted castle viewing. If you would rather have guaranteed viewing for the show, this tour is the way to go. Keep in mind that it will be more popular on weekends when fireworks are offered.

The tour includes a few other perks, including one that is a notable change from the past couple of years. Instead of the photo op with the Hitchhiking Ghosts, the photo op will be with the animatronic Witch from Snow White this year. You'll also get Lightning Lane entry to the popular Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay as well as a collectible keepsake. You can see our review of the Happiest Haunts tour from a past year here!

Visit Early in the Halloween Season for Lower Crowds

The Halloween celebration coincides with some of the best times of year to visit Disneyland for lower crowds. The celebration runs from August 22 through October 31 this year, giving visitors a 10-week window to plan their visit. October is one of the busiest months of the year at Disneyland, so if you want to avoid the bigger crowds, plan to visit during September or the end of August after the initial rush of the celebration. You can see crowd level projections for each date during Halloween and beyond in our Mickey Visit Disneyland crowd calendar. We anticipate a lot of dates with lower crowds during these parts of the celebration.

If your only option is to visit during the month of October with higher crowds, don't worry! You can still enjoy a great trip if you come in with a strategy for beating the crowds. Make sure you use a solid rope drop strategy in conjunction with Lightning Lane Multi Pass so you can avoid long lines during the day. If rope drop is not your speed or you feel up to doing both, you can stay until park closing, utilizing our Disneyland evening strategy to get on popular rides with shorter waits.

There Are 100+ Special Disneyland Halloween Foods

Every year, Disneyland goes all out with a huge selection of seasonal treats. This year, we have returning favorites (including the Bulgogi Beef Toasted Sandwich and pumpkin spice Mickey beignets) and some pretty interesting new items. There's a cute new Seasonal Baymax Macaron, dark chocolate Ursula Enchanted Waffles, Pumpkin Spiced Breadsticks, and much more.

Disneyland does an excellent job with its Halloween food—seriously, that Bulgogi Beef Toasted Sandwich is out of this world—so you should absolutely spend some time trying these seasonal treats. The best way to do this is to download our Disneyland Halloween foods printable, which you can find in our Disneyland 2025 Halloween food guide, and mark the items that look interesting so that you have a plan of attack for where you're going to stop.

Most of these seasonal Halloween foods are offered at Disneyland's quick-service restaurants, where you can take advantage of mobile ordering. We always recommend mobile ordering your food to skip the long ordering lines and save time! If you're visiting during the busier month of October, make sure you place your mobile order as early as possible once you know what you're having, as return windows get pushed out further in the day more quickly when the parks are crowded.

Radiator Springs Racers Will Be Closed for Part of the Halloween Celebration

This year, the extremely popular Radiator Springs Racers ride will be closed for refurbishment right before the start of the Halloween celebration. The ride will close on August 18, and it will be unavailable for a little over a month as teams do routine work on the attraction and make other updates. You can see more details about what they're working on in our separate article on the closure here.

This is one of the two rides in the highest demand at the resort that offer Lightning Lane Single Pass. While the ride is down, you can expect this demand to shift to some of the other major Disney California Adventure rides, especially at rope drop. Make sure you're not caught off-guard by this closure and adjust your strategy accordingly.

You can keep up-to-date with other upcoming and current Disneyland ride closures here.

Oogie Boogie Bash Parties Will Close Park Early

In recent years, Disneyland has expanded the Oogie Boogie Bash party dates, and they are now starting even before the kickoff of the Halloween celebration on select nights from August 17 through October 31. It's important to note that on these party nights, Disney California Adventure will close early at 6 pm. If you have a 1 Park Per Day ticket to Disney California Adventure, you will be forced to leave the park when it closes. Make sure you are not caught off guard by this!

We recommend making your 1 Park Per Day park reservation for Disneyland Park on event nights, or if you have a Park Hopper ticket, you can start out your day at Disney California Adventure and hop over to Disneyland Park when the event starts. Make sure you look at all of the dates Disney California Adventure is closing early, so you are prepared.

If you secured Oogie Boogie Bash tickets for this year, see our Oogie Boogie Bash guide for all offerings and tips, and the top mistakes to avoid at Oogie Boogie Bash.

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