Just Back from OMDD- INSANITY! Mini TR. UPDATE! Pics and Thoughts pg.2

[DLR29]

It's 4:45am and I just got back from being at DL all night. Me and my friend couldn't last until 6...and we have class tomorrow so we figured we should get at least some sleep.

Anyway, it took us 2 hours to get there from USC (1 hour alone from the freeway offramp to actually parking). From the moment we entered, we knew that this would be a crazy night. Lines for EVERYTHING were so long. I can honestly say that out of all of my trips to DLR, it was THE most crowded I've ever seen the park.

Ticket lines filled the entire queue out there, even when we left at 3:30am. At 1:40am, Space's line was 115 min. At 3:30am, Indy's line was 110 min. It was a madhouse. I cannot believe how many people were there. And people were going nuts...maybe because of the late night thing or maybe because people were impatiently waiting outside of a capacity-filled park for a couple hours before being let in just after midnight. Lots of yelling and screaming and just a very different vibe than DL usually gets (really loud dance party in Tomorrowland). I love people watching, and tonight certainly was a good night for that.

A lot of logistics were not planned well. I'm pretty sure Disney did not expect that many people there because multiple attractions were operating with a limited capacity (Big Thunder's 80-90 min line all night was probably in part due to not operating all 5 trains, and the Disneyland Railroad had really long lines because they were not running the 2 trains efficiently).

Overall, I had a lot of fun but it was unlike any other Disneyland experience I've ever had. It'd be so awesome to be a fly on the wall during an executive meeting about how tonight went. I'm sure Disney made bank, but this was certainly an unexpected evening in terms of a lot of other things.

I'll put up some pics tomorrow.

 

[TigerlilyAJ]

Can't wait for more details! What time were you driving that it took so long to get there?

AJ

 

[PinkBudgie]

Thanks for the mini report. I'm looking forward to your pics.

 

[Eeee-va]

Thanks for the report! It sounds like it was as bad or worse than New Year's. (The fact that they decided to do filming for Modern Family all day--I heard they were on Main Street at midnight!--could not have helped. ) Reading the reports this morning, I'm suddenly glad I wasn't there.

 

[bakerudall]

Wow! I figured by 3 AM you would start having your pick of the rides. That sounds like a crazy night.

 

[tdashgirl]

 

[rentayenta]

Wow, what a madhouse. Glad you had fun and I'm looking forward to the photos.

 

[4ucullen]

I was waiting to hear about this so thanks. I so wish I was there, but not sure if I would have wanted to put my little ones through that. I wonder if they're going to do the 24 hrs. here and there just for the heck of it, since the turnout for this was so great. We shall see.

 

[disneymom0104]

Can't wait to see the pics!

 

[perlster]

BTMRR was closed for quite some time because of Modern Family taping. The genius who decided that this day, of all days, was the time for a TV show to interfere with park operations ....

 

[perlster]

Going to be posting more photos on flickr, here's something you don't see ever day at Disneyland:
"Mice and their PDA!" by perlster, on Flickr

 

[ter-moo]

Insane is right! I was there until about 12:30 and then just had had it. My trip report (along with many others) is on THIS thread:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2886158

 

[DSNY4ever]

Wow! Yeah I agree with the choice of days to film Modern Family, haha. My cousin was there and posted pictures of them filming by the park entrance.

For some reason I am weirded out by Mickey and Minnie kissing I think because their mouths don't move!

 

[DLR29]

Can't wait for more details! What time were you driving that it took so long to get there?

AJ

We left USC around 6:20ish, got to Anaheim around 7:30ish, got into Mickey and Friends around 8:30ish, and got to the park gates a little before 9. At this point, they had not closed the park yet.

Pics are uploading, but I have to take a nap first. I have 4 classes today (2 down, 2 more to go later this afternoon). I'm running off of like 3.5 hours of sleep but I'm doing pretty well. I'm about to crash though.

 

[BecBennett]

Can't wait to see pics, I saw some on FB and people were mainly complaining about how busy it was.

I watched for a little on the Hojo cam and couldn't believe the amount of people pouring out at around 4am.

 

[disney121]

I seen pics of people sleeping at DL and it amazed me. If people were so tired, then they should have left and let the awake people get there chance to go in. You dont go to DL to sleep!

 

[DLR29]

Pics!

Welcome to Leap Day at Disneyland!

These are the ticket lines that were there when we got there a little before 9

After grabbing a quick bite to eat at the Hungry Bear we rode HM with only like a 25 min line

A little after midnight we wanted to get coffee. We tried the Coke Corner because Jolly Holiday was PACKED all night. The Coke Corner line didn't move at all, so we went to the Riverbelle Terrace but not before we heard this guy!

Rode IASW later on in the evening because it had a really short wait

Taken around 1:40AM at Space

On our way out around 3:30AM over by Indy

And get this, these were the ticket lines at 3:30AM! It doesn't look like they got any smaller between 9:00PM and 3:30AM (they might have grown actually).

Finally, me and my friend outside of the castle!

My opinion on what went wrong:

1. DCA not being open. I think that a lot of the stresses of the night could have been avoided if they had had both parks operating for most of the evening. DCA closed at 8. Had DCA had been open a few more hours (if not the whole night), it really would have dispersed some of the crowds and allowed more people to enter the parks.

2. Disney was not prepared for the crowds. Disneyland was not running at full capacity when it came to open attractions and food places. My goodness, the Dole Whip place closed at like 1...they would have made a TON more money had the Dole Whip place continued to operate into the night. Theater attractions like Captain EO and Lincoln weren't running late in the night, forcing the crowds to be focused on attractions with lesser capacities.

Along the same lines, the DLRR was only running 2 trains and really inefficiently too. I'm not entirely sure because we were intimidated by the 80 min line, but I'd bet that BTMRR was not running 4 or 5 trains. The capacities of attractions seemed to be too limited for the amount of guests that they needed to handle.

3. Disney chose a bad time...for a couple reasons. First, like I mentioned in #2, the capacity of the park fluctuates with the individual capacities of the rides. With Matterhorn, Monorail, and the Mark Twain Riverboat down for refurb, that's a significant amount of capacity gone from the park. I understand the idea that they wanted to bring in people during a time when it wouldn't normally have crowds, but these times also have the most refurbs, and thus a lower overall park capacity.

Add to that, the heaviest crowds were in the middle of the night and thus, you also eliminate the capacity of Tom Sawyer Island and the 2 other Rivers of America boats and Toontown.

Furthermore, although it was a Wednesday night (and I expected more people to be deterred by that), ALL APs were good. I'd bet a great majority of people there last night were AP holders, ranging from all 4 of the levels.

I'm sure there are other things that went wrong. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast! But I think it was a logistical nightmare. Some things could have been prevented, while others were a toss up, being that there were a lot of uncertain factors contributing to the chaos of last night.

 

[DLtorgo]

Thanks for the observations! I didn't think it would be so crowded. That is crazy!

 

[Amommy21]

my thoughts?

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=44198662#post44198662

 

[DisneyMomma81]

Wow ~ that looks crazy but fun if one is brave! I'm curious... were SR lines up and running at IJA & Splash?