Day 58: Leap Year at Disneyland!

by Janice H. Reinold on February 29, 2012

This entry is part 13 of 23 in the series Fun

Today’s “Photo a Day” theme: Something that I’m listening to

Happy Leap Day! Oh how I love that we get one extra day in the year – it makes me feel like I should do something extraordinary and memorable. So that is why I decided to go to the “One More Day at Disney” at Disneyland where the park stayed open for 24hours – 6am to 6am. The idea of staying up all night and playing at Disneyland sounded awesome to me and I was really excited about it… until I got there… It took an hour from the highway to the parking lot, and line to get into the park at 8pm was ridiculous!! It was like a mad house, almost like getting on a train during rush hour in Tokyo. Once we finally got in, all of the FastPass distributions were turned off and all of the good rides were about 90mins. It was crazier and busier than weekends during the summer!

Despite the big crowds, it was still epic to be able to run around Disneyland at 3am. Most of the people there were high school and college students who clearly didn’t have to go to work the next day. While standing in line, we talked to people who have been there since 6am and plan to stay till closing. There was one guy who drove down from the Bay area to go on every ride in BOTH California Adventure and Disneyland except for 6 rides that he was still working on. Here are some overheard conversations:

“Oh my gawd, we better not hit traffic with those going to work!”
“You’re SO missing first period tomorrow.”
“I’m sleeping in till noon tomorrow.”
“I’ve been here since 8am and I have no idea where my friends are.”
“I need coffee”
“I can’t update my [Facebook] status, there are too many people in Disneyland!”

Well, at least now I can say that I’ve ran around Disneyland at 3am. Definitely a memorable Leap Day!