The Fabulous Disney Babe returns from her first 24 hour Disneyland party with a trip report and some personal opinions. Take a look and let us know your own experience.
It was my first time doing the 24-hour thing at a Disney Park. Okay, I’m being all technical here. In 1985, my friend Kim Alziebler and I did 30 hours for 30 years. We ate breakfast at 4 AM at Tomorrowland Terrace. It was awful. It was wonderful! The carnage! We saw teenagers stretched out on the floor of the giant group phone booth, which I think could still be a Thing today. People snored through show after show of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. I caught my one and only glimpse of Walt’s daughter Diane Disney Miller and my first sight of hardcore Disney fans adorned with buttons and t-shirts, camped out for hours on the sidewalk, waiting for the ceremony. Until then, I had no idea that others like me existed. But I digress.
My daughter Alice did a 24-hour stint with her dad, Jim Hill, for the release of Monsters University a while back. They did it in small bites, coming and going, and enjoyed it. Noe and I stayed home, and enjoyed that, too. After hearing stories that brought back fond memories of bodies sprawled across curbs (kerbs for you folks across the water) and on benches and of cookies and milk and characters in pajamas, I decided that this year, I’d help Jim out and give it a shot. My duties with Jim were essentially taking pictures, writing down people’s names (fun fact: Fab has mild face blindness and wishes everyone on earth wore name tags. If I’m staring at you, it’s because I’m trying to memorize you.), and making sure he actually got something to eat, because people constantly stop him to talk at press events and he’s lucky if he gets water and a napkin for dinner by the time it’s over.
He got back from doing remote interviews after the media premieres of Paint the Night and Disneyland Forever at about 3AM, so the four of us ended up sleeping through the beginning of the event. We were not worried; there was plenty of coverage and Jim was going for more human interest. Noe went to work, Alice did some homework for her digital art class, and I strolled up to the monorail station at Downtown Disney at about 10:30. No wait. Five minutes later, I was on a half-empty monorail on my way into Disneyland. I saw some very long lines for food and merchandise around the park. Main Street, U.S.A. was very crowded, the hub was just ridiculously awful, but the rest of the park seemed merely busy. I just did a quick jaunt around the park’s main thoroughfares, then headed across the esplanade.
Noon: Disney California Adventure was a little busy, but not terribly so. I loved that it was threatening rain, my favorite weather. I got Alice a couple oil cans (the neat new sipper cups) from the short line at Cozy Cone, and, since she’d finished with her project, she joined me. We noticed that all of the quick service food lines were very long. As we passed through Grizzly Peak Airfield, we noticed that they were selling balloon popcorn buckets and bought one. We had lunch at Earl of Sandwich, noted that they were playing some really great jazz at Downtown Disney instead of the usual pop. I wish they’d do this all year. It makes me want to spend all of my money on the great stores and restaurants there. (Do you think that worked?) Stuck our heads in Trader Sam’s: crowded and noisy (screaming drunk dance moms) on the inside, full and slow on the outside.
9:30PM: Everyone in my party was asleep back at the hotel, and it was my shift, so I headed down to see what was happening. Jim had been covering the afternoon. All hell had broken loose and I missed it. I’m really, really good at that. According to Twitter, Michael Colglazier had ordered Disneyland closed and was all
According to the security CMs, the Fire Marshall had barred anyone from entering Disneyland. According to the 24-Hour Event webcams, which will probably be Glowing Away Forever (at least on a 24 hour basis), Disneyland was pretty empty. The wait to get bags checked was as long as a busy summer day; bag check was peremptory at best. DCA’s entrance plaza was like a mosh pit full of angry teenagers. I worked my way back to Mad-T-Party, where White Rabbit Guy worked a sea of joyfully bouncing humanity. Got my new Disneyland book by Tim O’Day and Kevin Kidney after really, really, REALLY long lines at Off the Page, but long lines were everywhere. Dusty Sage reports that over at Disneyland there are empty registers and a lack of crowds everywhere. Cool, I’ll be right over. Stopped at the rope with a nope nope nope, showed my media badge and was sent to the media entrance and was waved right in (don’t hate me, it’s a rare perk I was able to cash in on).
11:30PM: Main Street, U.S.A. is “parade crowded” but all of the walkways were clear. Went to see the DJ at Tomorrowland Terrace. No lines for food, light crowd. Three people gathered around an electrical socket charging their phones. It’s time for DJs to stop turning down the volume on the word “more” during “Rebel Yell”. It’s done. So, so done.
1AM: It was almost time for Jim to come to cover the last of the hoopla with the pajamas and all, so I started to head back to the hotel. On my way down Main Street, the chimes that signaled the beginning of Paint the Night started. “HEY!” A guy shouted. “Is that the Electrical Parade song?” (Bonus points for not calling it the Electric Light Parade). I stopped to look. No Disney gear on, jean vest with an Iron Maiden patch, similarly dressed pals, looked to be in his 20s. Probably not a hardcore Disney fan; a civilian. Didn’t know about the new parade being sort of a continuation. This might be fun. I ducked under the rope, and was shortly joined by a newlywed couple, whom I let stand in front of me. “I’ve seen it,” I explained.
It was really cool to see and hear the reactions of non-media, regular people. They were so delighted. When “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Disney proudly…”started, Vest Man doubled up his fists, bent his elbows and knees and howled his approval moonward. The bride kept yelling “OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!!” during the parade. Yes, she was completely sober, just really, really happy. When the Frozen float appeared, everyone around me seriously lost their freaking minds. The people in my inner circle might have Frozen Fatigue, but it hasn’t struck the general public yet. It’s an important thing to remember because when you spend a lot of time online and with other Disney fans you (and by you, I mean I) tend to get stuck in a bubble and forget about people outside of that bubble.
2AM: I limped back to the Disneyland Hotel, cursing whomever decided that the Disneyland Hotel Tram should Glow Away Forever.
I woke up to the fantastic (meaning grounded in fantasy, not wonderful) theories surrounding the disorganized mess of the night before. Jim fell for the bomb scare one. (false) I fell for the “It was all part of the plan to get the board to pay for the third park!” one (also false).
Just no. Okay, maybe. It’s as good as anything else I’ve heard.
Last 24-hour event, they didn’t have to close either of the parks. It may have led them into a false sense of security. I don’t run the place, so I don’t know. I do know that getting the park re-opened after a level 4 closure is like turning around an aircraft carrier, but it can, eventually, be done. And they did. Eventually. They lost a lot of revenue, but it would have been really horrible getting all those people past all those other people waiting for the parade. I think the new people might have tried to squeeze in and there wasn’t much room. Could have made for ugliness. I hope not. We’ll never know.
What’s done is done. It sucks that it happened. A lot of people are unhappy. They have every right to be unhappy. The way people were crowded into DCA was pretty inhumane. When I reckon it to a mosh pit I do so from years of experience. I can’t speak to any part of the park other than Hollywood or Buena Vista St. Should guests have known better? Maybe. I can’t speak to other people’s level of experience. I just know that it was far too crowded to be remotely enjoyable in the Buena Vista Street area. Hollywood was better. Mad-T-Party was impossibly impassible.
What could they do? Walk several hundred people at a time to the Monorail Station, so that they’d bypass Main Street and the parade route? Walk them straight through the new guest corridor? We can all be Monday Morning quarterbacks. I’m sure there will be a lot of discussion Tuesday morning in both Burbank and Anaheim.
So what happens next? Who takes the blame for this?
Instead of asking “Whose fault is this?” ask “What can we do differently next time to make it better for everyone?” Not everyone’s talented enough to think of good solutions. Let’s hear yours.
Communication is key. D23 just started doing something really fantastic with The Walt Disney Company; whenever someone has a history or general question about Disney and calls another area of the company, they’re sent to D23. This ensures that they always get the same answer, and that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. It’s genius, really, and something that should have been done decades ago. Saturday morning, guests read tweets that they could once again park-hop to Disneyland, but the Cast Members on the front lines had no idea, and this caused a lot of stress for everyone involved. Get the media to help. Have them inform consumers that the parks may be crowded to capacity, so come early and be prepared. I understand that this may backfire like in the opening week for DCA, but those warnings were so dire that it scared people away from Anaheim altogether. Find a happy medium. “It might get crowded!” could work.
Make it a hard-ticket event. Oh, I just heard Premium Passholders scream. I know, I know, I’m one. 365 days a year, except special ticketed events. Boom, fixed it. Hey, someone’s at the door. Oh, hi! What’s with the torches and pitchforks?
As for me, I’m going to save up my pennies and next time, do it this way:
Pick a park and stick to it, unless that park is DCA.
The first second I can: make reservations for a slow, long, late sit-down lunch, a morning tour and nighttime show dinner package (if they have it).
Day 0: Stay in a hotel across the street from the Toy Story bus drop-off. The Disneyland Hotel is too far to walk and there’s no tram. I’ll want something immediately nearby.
Day 1: I won’t die if I’m not one of the first people in, so I’ll get some sleep, get a decent breakfast, (Uva and Steakhouse 55 are great, and take reservations), then take the Monorail into the park sometime before noon. I will stay away from Main Street, USA as much as possible. When I’m not doing scheduled events, I’ll relax with friends. It’s a great time for a meet far, far away from the Hub. Far away. Very far. A long, chatty meet. Have I wasted away the day? Is the sun setting and I haven’t done a damn thing? Good! I’m doing it right. Honest.
First parade, done. Fireworks – they won’t be new, this time. Done. Without me, both of them. I’ll see them so many times this year, because I adore them. The park will clear. If I still want to see the parade, I’ll grab some empty curb. Otherwise, Disneyland is in Tuesday morning in February status. I’ll go on rides. I’ll eat things. I’ll walk on to attractions over and over. I’ll be rested. I’ll have fun. I’ll do Disneyland stuff til the sun rises over the Matterhorn, then say hi to Mickey and pals in pajamas, gather for the big goodbye and take a short stroll back to my hotel to sleep it off for half a day. That’s how I’d do it. How would you do it?
PS: Alice wants you to know that she saw a possum during the last 24-hour event, but only cats during this one.
How were your 24 hours at the Disneyland Resort?
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