Our Disneyland All-Nighter Trip Report 05.24 - 05.25 2013

[FreshBakedDisney]

Hey guys! Dave here and I wanted to share you with everyone our trip report from our visit to Disneyland on 5/24/2013 for the monstrous summer all-nighter. On this trip report, it will be myself (43) and my son, The Disney Ninja (10). We go all the time, but we've never posted a trip report here before. Probably because our experiences at the park are a little different than others because of the fact that we do go all the time. But this is a special occasion and special occasions deserve their proper respect!

This is me:

And here's the Disney Ninja:

So yeah, we're a couple of handsome guys looking to have some fun at Disneyland at 3am.

This trip report is over a year in the making. Last year Disneyland held a special One More Disney Day event on leap day. It was wildly popular and completely crazy by all accounts. We didn't go unfortunately, mostly because at the time, we didn't really appreciate what it meant. Only after reading the account of the day did we fully understand what a fun night it could be. So when Disney announced they were doing it again this year to kick off their monstrous summer, we decided to go for it.

Now, doing anything at all for 24 hours straight is pretty much impossible for me personally. I do love my beauty sleep, and clearly need it. But I know I can do 12-13 hours. The Disney Ninja and I have actually gone bell to bell twice in the last year or so (8am to midnight). The hard part though would be the not sleeping when we're usually sleeping part. Again, for the aforementioned beauty factor. But it's possibly the only chance we'll ever get to spend the night and Disneyland, and this opportunity just can't be passed up.

Our plan was thus. Go to work/school. Take a nap at around 2:30-3:00 pm, then leave no later than 4:30 pm to get to the park no later than 5:30 pm. The rest is up to those Disney spirits.

And thus begins our trip report. Stay tuned for future installments!

 

[FreshBakedDisney]

So without too much fanfare, I'll begin with the report. I do want to apologize in advance though for the crudity of the photos provided. I have an SLR, but many of my photos from the night were deleted These are snapshots clipped from the video footage.

2:30 pm PST

The Disney Ninja gets home from school and immediately takes a nap. I head to the store to pick up some trail mix and a couple of energy drinks for myself. I don't normally drink these (in fact I never do), but I decided they may come in handy right around 2:00 am or so. I get home at around 3:00 pm and try to catch a nap myself. My goal was to be out of the house by 4:30 pm.

3:300 pm PST

So much for my nap. I slept for exactly 30 minutes. After getting the Disney Ninja up and ready, we were out the door at 4:00 pm. I had read online that the freeways were starting to jam up, and I didn't want to take a risk at getting to the Toy Story parking lot too late. The idea of parking at Mickey and Friends...or worse...did not appeal to me at all.

4:45 pm PST

Traffic wasn't bad. At least not for 4:00 pm on a Friday in Southern California. And the Toy Story lot is still open! We're parked and at the bus at 4:45 pm. Things so far are working in our favor. Perhaps the Disney spirits will smile on us today!

5:00 pm PST

After what seemed like an endless bus ride that was actually just 15 minutes, we're at bag check. There were only about a dozen people in line! I've seen bigger lines at 5 pm on a random day. Now I'm really optimistic. We have an equally easy time getting through the entrance and we're in the park at 5:10 pm. The entrance area is crowded, but it's not intense. I don't start feeling the intensity of the crowd until we run in to Pinocchio and Gideon. When I see them, I stop to get my camera out and am nearly get run over by a herd of people trying to get to the tunnel. I won't make that mistake again! If you need to stop, don't just stop. Stop and slide to the left or the right. Like pulling over to the shoulder on the freeway. Doing anything else will piss everyone off.

5:20 pm PST

We check out the event merchandise at The Emporium. The Sully hat is pretty cool at first, but the more I see of it throughout the day, the less I'm impressed with it. Something seems like it's missing. I think it may be the rest of Sully, but I'm not sure. And I'm not really sure why they put the clear Mickey ears over the horns. Seems kind of...pointless. The 3 eye glasses are kind of weird. Not sure I'd wear those. I did like the Mickey hat though. The way it should be I think. Classic, with just a bit of event branding on it.

5:30 pm PST

We make our way down Main Street and it's getting very intense. There are A LOT of people on Main Street. This will be party central for the rest of the day. The one thing my trained Disneyland eyes and ears find is the distinct increase in young adults. It's grad night season, and there are a lot of teenagers running around. I get a little nervous right then that things will probably only get worse from there. The grads tend to get louder and less inhibited as the nights go on.

Now, one of the things I was curious about was they were going to handle fast passes. From my basic understanding of the system, there is a fast pass budget. This budget is based on how long a ride will be operational for that day. Once all of the fast passes for a day have been handed out, no more are available. Radiator Springs Racers are out by 11 am. Space Mountain mountain is usually out by 5 or 6 pm. But what if there is no end to the day? Does that mean they'll keep giving out fast passes? Would they come up with some sort of algorithm to determine how many more fast passes should be made available? The answer to all of these questions was answered at 5:30 pm, and that answer was a resounding...NO. None of that was done. When they ran out of their usual amount, that was it.

So when we got to Space Mountain to get our first fast pass...we didn't. They were already out and it was stand-by only. And the wait was already an hour and a half. Where those guys are standing upstairs, in the stand-by queue, usually always indicates a solid hour of wait. We considered it for later, but not right now. Now, we needed to eat.

That's all I have time for tonight I'm afraid. I'll pick this up again tomorrow. Thanks for standing by

 

[nrichards]

Thanks for sharing your experiences! I was really curious about this event - i.e. whether it would be as crowded or managed better than the leap day one last year. Sounds insane either way - I don't know if I could handle crowds like that without having a panic attack!

 

[FreshBakedDisney]

6:00 pm PST

I let the Disney Ninja decide where to eat. His first choice was The Golden Horseshoe so we could have chicken and watch Billy Hilly. Unfortunately, the boys had just finished their last set until later in the night at 11 pm. So the Ninja opted for his favorite restaurant, The River Belle. He loves the BBQ Pork sandwich, and so it was to be!

The sandwich was pretty good. The actual BBQ Pork is tasty, but I do wish they would give you more. Most Disney sandwiches are usually pretty substantial. The Ninja and I can usually share one, which is cool as it saves us some money. But this sandwich was a little light on the BBQ. The cole slaw was also pretty good, if you're in to Cole Slaw. It was closer to the vinegary side than to the creamy side.

The best part of the meal for me though was the chance to calm a little anxiety I was feeling. I don't do well in crowds, which is odd for someone who goes to Disneyland every week. But it's also why I prefer to go in the mornings. But the food and the view and slow start to the day helped quite a bit.

6:15 pm PST

Indiana Jones is the next casualty in our quest for a fast pass. They were gone and it was another 90 minutes for stand-by. Our plans are changing quickly. But not so much that we can't spare 10 minutes for Tarzan's tree house...which we do.

By the way, now is a good time to suggest to everyone reading this that Adventureland is a place you probably want to avoid if you can on really crowded days. Go if you have a purpose, like riding Indiana Jones. But if you're looking to make your way from point A to point B, I suggest going via Point C first. Because that is one heck of a bottleneck they have there.

6:40 pm PST

That leaves only Star Tours and Autopia left for fast passes, so back to Tomorrowland we go. I also want to head this way because I have a jones to film a ride through of the Astro Orbitor during sunset. I imagined this to be a beautiful thing (I personally was not disappointed at all. Hopefully it comes out on video well).

While waiting for Astro Orbitor we grabbed some fast passes for Star Tours and ran in to a whole bunch of Stormtroopers working the crowd. I really enjoyed this part of the day.

7:00 pm PST

This is about when we decided that the best way to get through the night was to just keep getting on rides. Get in line, ride a ride, go to the next one. It didn't really matter which ride. So naturally our next stop was Buzz Lightyear as it was right next door. The line was long, doubling once and extending into the back of the building by Pixie Hollow. The Disney Ninja and I love to do this one together, but he beats me every single time. And I even try hard!

Then it was off to Matterhorn we went! We made our way there via the Tomorrowland Terrace while a cover band was playing. I don't usually like to hate on performers too much, because what they do is hard and takes a lot of love and guts, but I didn't enjoy it.

More coming soon!

 

[Briarrose1306]

Couldn't agree more about Adventure Land. What sucks more is when you head that way for JC or IJ and find it's broken down or there's an extremely long line.

 

[FreshBakedDisney]

7:45 pm PST

After a pretty good run at the Matterhorn, we hear from Sara, who says she's hungry and needs to eat. But since we've just had dinner, we opt for a ride on the Monorail instead. What a great idea this turned out to be. There was a longish line, which gave me a few minutes to get some good video of one my favorite scenic spots, and right at magic hour too!

The monorail ride was equally good. It was dusk as we reached Downtown Disney, and the sun was pretty much set by the time we rode by the main entrance to the park. All in all, a very interesting way to take this ride.

8:30 pm PST

When we got off the Monorail, we tried Sara again, but she had decided to take in the firework show. It was too late for us to even think about trying to do battle with those crowds, so we headed for the next best thing. Finding Nemo. Wait...what!??!? Ok, so neither of us are exactly fans of the ride. Love the lagoon. The actual ride? Not so much, but I was determined. If we weren't going to ride Nemo when we had 10 more hours to kill, we'd probably never ride it again. Logic aside, I still had to drag the Disney Ninja in there.

It turns out the wait wasn't too bad! Maybe 30 minutes in line, and it moved it ok. Even better, I actually kind of enjoyed the trip, and so did the Ninja! I still get that Disney feeling when the bubbles go past your port hole and the captain makes his announcements.

I will say this though, I think the ride would be greatly improved if they went more old school instead of new. Get rid of the animated segments, and put in more practical effects. I believe people respond quite a bit more that sort of thing. Especially Disney people like myself.

9:15 pm PST

Our plan was to go to Innoventions next. The Ninja wanted to play some video games, and I wanted to see if there was a place I could charge my camera batteries a little. But Innoventions was closed! I don't go there much at night, so I'm not sure if it was supposed to be open or not. But I did see that they were getting ready for something out in front of the building. More on that later. So to satisfy the Ninja's hopes of playing some video games, I took him to the Star Trader to play a little Fix it Felix while I relaxed for a bit.

We spent a good 30 minutes there I think, and when done, we made for Star Tours to cash in the fast passes we got earlier in the day. If you've been to Disneyland, then you'll know what I mean when I say that the area in front of Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear (the two buildings face each other) was complete bedlam.

Disney does what they can to make it easier by making it one way traffic only. The Star Tours side must goes IN to Tomorrowland, while the Buzz Lightyear side must LEAVE Tomorrowland. The two sides are split by the elevated track for the People Mover. But holy heck does this get congested. It's kind of scary at times.

But we survived and made it in to Star Tours and enjoyed our ride. Leaving Star Tours was more of the same though. Exiting in to this gift shop is an exercise in practicing patience. In other words, try not to kill anyone. From there we went straight to Autopia. On the way there, we learned that the setup in front of Innoventions was for a meet and greet with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy dressed in Star Wars costumes. Now I had heard that Star Wars characters would be in Tomorrowland, but I was hoping they would be actual characters, not Disney ones. But this is still very cool.

10:30 pm PST

On to Autopia! We don't go to Disneyland a lot at night, so it's fun to do some of these rides in a different environment. Autopia is one of those rides that seems quite a bit different to me at night. Some parts of the track are actually quite dark. We had our usual good time here. The Ninja loves to drive badly, and I like to ham it up for him, like I think he's a maniac. It's a good time.

11:15 pm PST

We finally hear from Sara! But instead of meeting up with her, we find out she had to leave because she got sick. What a bummer! So it was going to be just the Ninja and I for the rest of the night. We decided to take a breather at the Jolly Holiday at that point.

The Disney Ninja got himself a Cherry Coke and I had an energy drink. Now, I don't know if this stuff worked or not because I didn't feel any different after drinking it (I never have these). But I didn't get too tired at any point in the day either, so there's that.

11:30 pm PST

Princess Fantasy Faire is just across the way from Jolly Holiday, so we decided to check out the Swing Dance party going on. This was surprisingly enjoyable for me. We didn't dance of course, because both the Ninja and I are far too self conscious for that. But it was great fun to watch (there was a viewing area, which was kind of weird), and I very much enjoyed seeing those guests who took the extra step of dressing up for the occasion. I really appreciate this (check out our article on Dapper Days if you do too).

It was getting close to midnight now, and we thought it best to head toward Toontown to see how that was looking. We were both really excited for the pajama party, and I wanted to see if there was a crowd. Spoiler alert: YES!! Here's another visual for those of you who have been to Disneyland. The entrance to Toontown is at the bottom of a slope that travels underneath the berm and Disneyland Railroad. The hill begins at Small World and creates a bowl like effect that stretches laterally from Small World to the Fantasyland Theater. That entire bowl was filled with people at 11:45 pm when we got there.

I generally don't have the need to be the first to do anything. I can wait. So we took that opportunity to take a ride on the train from the Toontown station. Here's what I observed on this train: lots of people getting ready to pass out. There are 4 stops for the train. Main Street, New Orleans Square, Toontown and Tomorrowland. We took a round trip, but there were many guests who did way more than that I think. It was basically a place to get a good 30 minute nap.

Ok, I'll pick this up again soon!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Loving the detail in your report. Thanks for sharing.

 

[FreshBakedDisney]

12:10 amPST

We make for Toontown after completing our train ride and are immediately impressed with what's going on. There's a karaoke party going on in front Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin. There are classic cartoon being played at the concession area in the middle of the land, where the gazebo is. Lots of kids sitting in bean bags wearing pajamas. Very cool. There was hot chocolate and cookies being served (sold!) as well, but the line was way too long for us to get a sample.

The real highlight for me though was finding all of the classic characters at the Toontown hub. Chip and Dale were in a old school sleeping gown with nightcaps. Mickey was in a robe and Minnie in some pajamas. Pluto, as usual, didn't have an elaborate costume. Just a sleeping cap. Goofy was in those long john type sleeping onesies. He was the best! And Daisy was there too! You never see Daisy in the park. She was with Donald out in front of Minnie's house. They were both in contemporary pajamas. This scene was pretty epic.

The only problem I had with it was that it didn't really allow for you to just walk around and observe. They kept asking me to get in a line to meet a character. I don't want to meet a character! I just want to walk around and watch. Why can't I do that?! Anyway, it was pretty great. There was lots of real good energy there, the people were having a great time. And the best news of all, is that it gave me a second wind. Leaving Toontown, I felt like a new man, and I was ready to go for the rest of the night.

1:00 am PST

We wanted to get some coffee and hot chocolate, so we headed back to Main Street for a little Jolly Holiday. On the way, we caught a shot of the parade and a really awesome moon. I don't normally notice moons, but this one was impressive.

The Tiki Room was the perfect stop at this point. It's right next door to the Jolly Holiday, we can sit and relax for a good 15 minutes, and they let you take your drinks in! Perfect! And while we were waiting to go in, we found another very cool looking moon. So ominous and foreboding.

Now seeing as how the pajama meet and great was so awesome, we decided we had to go check out Mickey and his friends in their Star Wars costumes. It hadn't occurred to me at the time, but this is pretty rare. They don't show up in these costumes ever. Except for maybe at Star Wars weekends, but that's only in Florida. So we NEVER get to see them here in Anaheim. So I think I should have been more excited. Maybe I was getting tired. But they looked great. Goofy had has boxers with hearts on them, and Minnie was real cute in her Princess Leia outfit.

1:30 am

Dance party at Tomorrowland Terrace. They pulled this off well I think. The music was good, and they kept it simple. No obvious staging or anything like that. There was a DJ and two dancers on stage. They even had a bit of a velvet rope thing going on for the dance floor. It was so full, you had to wait in a stand-by queue to go dancing!

2:00 am PST

So now it's officially late. We've reached the "nothing good ever happens after 2 am" point in the evening. Not that anything "bad" happened, but there was a visible change in the personality of the crowds at this point. We caught the last showing of Captain EO then, which was another opportunity to rest. We had the great pleasure though of sitting next to some guests who were completely blitzed. Not drunk blitzed, but high blitzed. The guy to my immediate right was doing some very awkward dance moves along with the show. Kind of ravey I think. I'm positive though he thought he was dancing with complete style and awesomeness though. Which is funny when you think about it. He tried to talk to the Ninja and I after the show, which was really weird. My fatherly instincts kicked in at that point and we just shrugged him off and headed out of there. Oh, and the line for Space Mountain was still 90 minutes. Sheesh.

2:45 am PST

We're hungry again and it's time for some Chicken and Waffles. I've been jonesing for Chicken and Waffles ever since they started teasing us with a Roscoe's on Harbor Blvd. about 3 or 4 months ago. It's still under construction. I'm patient, but come on man!!

The Disneyland version of this dish was ok. I didn't like the way they prepared the fried chicken, though I'm at a loss to explain why. It's a texture thing for me I think. And there was way more chicken than waffle, which is odd, because waffles are pretty cheap to make. And there's the problem with the single plate costing $15. I'm not sure how to justify that. But the boy and I had fun mixing things up. You know, syrup on the chicken, gravy on the waffles. That sort of thing.

Ok...final chapter coming tomorrow hopefully. Thanks for following along!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Sounds like you held up well into the early hours. Looking forward to the last update.