Hi Everybody! This weekend I was a little bit obsessive about the 24 hour Magic Kingdom extravaganza and I called Disney to ask lots of questions! I spoke to one of the most wonderful people; unfortunately, she could not give me too many details. Due to the fact that this is an inaugural event, Disney headquarters is not being very open or forthcoming with information. Ok, so Disney is being a little bit hush, hush about it. They don’t want to spoil the magic. Got it.
Even though I could not get too many specifics, the customer service representative did give me some excellent suggestions and some food for thought, too. And here I am to share those with you!
Make dining reservations in advance. Disney has no real way of accurately predicting crowd levels, but they are predicting that restaurants, both quick service and sit down, will be jam packed. None of the sit down restaurants will be taking walk-ins this day, so if you are looking to have a character breakfast at the Crystal Palace or slurp up some yummy spaghetti at Tony’s, you have NO CHOICE but to reserve. If you don’t want to go the reservation route, that’s fine. The quick serve restaurants will be open for almost the full 24 hours. You can head in there at any time; however, be prepared to wait a long time to place you order and even longer to get a table. There will also be snack and beverage carts serving guests all night, but I don’t recommend going the full 24 hours hyped up on Mickey Premium Bars and popcorn. It is tempting, but probably not a plan for success.
Another really helpful piece of information that I gathered was that there is no way to determine if they will have to close down entrance to the park during the day. As with any other public place, Disney World has crowd limits and has to keep overall safety in mind. Once the parks hit a certain number of visitors, they have to start limiting the number of people admitted. If it reaches the limit, they refuse admission all together. Luckily, Disney has what they call “3 phases of closing.” These phases designate the appropriate crowd control and admission procedures for the parks depending upon the number of people currently in the park. The customer service representative that I spoke with said that any cast member should be able to tell you at what phase of closing the park is in. If you want to be 100% sure that leaving is a good or bad idea, stop in Guest Relations before leaving the park. They will tell you whether or not your should be able to get back in later on in the day.
Transportation between other resort areas and the Magic Kingdom will be running from approximately 1 hour prior to opening through their normal schedule on March 1st. You will never be stranded!
There are also supposed to be some surprise events going on throughout the day. I would stay on the look out for anything from commemorative t-shirts to special parades to fireworks galore. I DO NOT know if any of this will happen, but just stay on the look out. You could run into some really cool, unexpected happenings.
I would also stay on the look out for long lines, especially at the bathrooms. What’s our plan for waiting on long lines? We’ll be doing a Hidden Mickey hunt, of course! No better way to kill some time than by straining our eyes for the smallest hint of every ones favorite mouse!
If we get more details, we’ll post more updates! Oh, and I’d like to recommend one thing. If you are in the mood for some waffles and it’s 3 AM, head to Sleepy Hollow in Liberty Square. It is a small, hole in the wall (literally) that never sees too much traffic. We have never eaten here before, but apparently they make the best waffle sandwiches ever tasted. Kristin’s not big into waffles, but I think I may be able to convince her to split the Nutella and fruit one with me. Just maybe....
TTFN!
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