Walt Disney World is supposed to be a place that is fun for the whole family, especially young kids. As such, none of the entertainment, even during Halloween, is ever really supposed to be truly scary. Disney World tries to balance the frights with the fun, but they can’t always get it perfect, as a recent viral video shows.
The video was recently posted to Instagram but actually is from last season at Walt Disney World. It shows two young girls, one seven-years-old standing on Main Street U.S.A as the Boo to You parade is coming toward them. At first, you see the young girl bouncing around and having a blast, but as some of the parade elements get closer, she’s clearly shaken a bit. Check it out.
While the kid did not run to her parents, the accompanying post from mom is shocked by the fact that she didn’t. You can see her take a step back as the black monsters get closer. She was apparently quite scared by the fire breathing dragon, and honestly, for a kid that young, that’s not that surprising.
The after hours party at Magic Kingdom is literally called Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, and that basically sums up the entire tone of Halloween at Disney Parks. They do a little to create a slightly spooky mood, with Halloween decorations and a greater emphasis on the Disney Villains in the parks, but they usually stop short of anything that would legitimately frighten anybody.
From the earliest days of Disneyland Walt Disney had wanted to build a Haunted Mansion attraction, but one of the most difficult questions to overcome was whether the attraction should be truly scary, or balance the frights with laughs. In the end, the Haunted Mansion is more fun than frightening. There aren’t any real jump scares or terrifying images. The music and tone of the Ghost Host narrator doesn’t put you on edge.
Disney Parks are quite possibly the least frightening of any theme parks in the country. Most U.S. parks put on some sort of Halloween themed event and the majority of the others go for the sort of attractions that might make their guests truly scream and probably aren’t going to be suitable for the whole family. Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights are really not designed for kids this young.
But all kids are different and some are going to be more sensitive to these things than others. Certainly, at night, with a black fire breathing dragon coming right at you, it’s not that crazy that a kid would be a little upset. Maybe this year, with the kid a bit older, they won’t be quite so scared.
