This October, the Pumpkin Men and Pink Witches join Stitch, the Disney Villains and all your favourites for an extra-special Halloween spooktacular... to the power of 15! For the 15th Anniversary year, expect a Disney's Halloween Festival bigger and bolder than any before. More frights, more fun and more characters bring the park to life with seasonal Autumn chills.

Meet the Pumpkin Men - a bizarre army of creatures spawned from the rivers of Halloweenland (Frontierland) who set about painting the park orange every Halloween. On the opposite side, the Pink Witches cast spells of sorcery, whilst the Disney Villains are let loose for screams, shouts and surprises.

With Minnie Mouse and Stitch watching over events, however, you can be guaranteed "fun" throughout the frights!

Spooktacular events, not to be missed... In Halloweenland, the renamed Trick or Treat Stage nestles amongst the trees at Cowboy Cookout Barbeque, a venue for cute character shows and live music such as Goofy and the Magic Cauldron and Minnie and the Bat Boys.

New for the 15th Anniversary, Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade is preceeded by a special Halloween Opening Parade starring Stitch and the Pink Witches, whilst the highlight of each pumpkin-filled day is the new Disney Villains' Halloween Showtime on Central Plaza, a chance to see Disney's most vicious stars in a toe-tapping musical revue.

On 31st October, the Disney's Halloween Soirée party takes over the park from 8.30pm to 1am, providing atmosphere, parades and rides in the dark to its victims. Extra tickets required, costumes not essential but recommended!

Hallowe'en en France? Qu'est-ce qui se passe? The children's holiday of Halloween most certainly doesn't come naturally to France. A Pagan Celtic celebration taken by Irish immigrants from the British Isles to the United States, where it developed to the more light-hearted spook it is today, Halloween eventually made it back across the Atlantic and to France in the early 1980s. Celebrated at a lone bar in Paris, staff first had to explain the concept to many customers.

Eventually, by the mid 1990s, it became a well-known event and has since grown in popularity sharply each year. Disneyland Resort Paris launched its first Halloween festival in 1997, five years after opening, with an immediately more sinister and "dark" tone to its American cousins. Europeans, it seems, are seen to be able to handle (and indeed expect) a more fearsome tone for Halloween celebrations.

In more recent years, Disneyland Park has dared to lighten the atmosphere and expand it from continued ghouls with the heavier presence of Disney characters and bright colours of Pumpkin Men.

In France, at Disneyland Resort Paris, Halloween has found its natural home - a meeting point between its darker European past and more "cartoonish" American present.

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