Leap Day
February 29, 2012
I had an extra day and this is what I did!
What did you do?
3:30am woke up and drove to the airport
10:00am - I was on a plane from Atlanta to Orlando and I made a new friend
10:30am - picked up rental car, had a hard time explaining to the the agent that I really was "staying" in the Magic Kingdom that night.
Agent: "Where are you staying while you are here?"
Me: "I'm staying at the Magic Kingdom tonight"
Agent: "Yes but which hotel are you staying at?"
Me: "No, no, I'm really staying in the Magic Kingdom all
night"
night"
Agent: "Are you sleeping in the castle?"
Me: "Well wouldn't that be nice..."
11:00am - Arrived at the Magic Kingdom, 5 hours late for the full 24 hours
11:30am - Sneaked a picture with Mickey in his PJ's while he was being interviewed by the local news.
11:40am - Picked up fastpass for Buzz Lightyear
12:00pm - started stalking the Emporium because they were continually sold out of the One More Disney Day t-shirts in Small and Medium...
12:15pm - Picked up my first set of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom cards!!
1:15pm - Lunch at the Plaza, which was booked solid but oddly had sooooo many empty tables... I wonder if people were just skipping out on their reservations... Also check out my cool set of Mickey ears, just for One More Disney Day!
2:00pm - Main Street Philharmonic Band!!!
2:15pm - Dole Whip #1 - nectar of the gods... no joke
3:00pm - The 3 O'clock parade... Celebrate a Dream Come True
3:30pm - Tom Sawyer's Island... To those of you who know this story, you will appreciate the humor in this picture... To those of you who do not, This is the entrance to a cave.
3:50pm - Got fastpasses for Peter Pan
4:00pm - Haunted Mansion - got stuck in Madame Leota's Seance scene... this becomes important later
4:30pm - Phone started dying, started borrowing power from every outlet I found
5:00-7:00pm - rode various rides, really enjoyed just being in the park!
7:00pm - Tomorrowland Terrace where people were gathering for a WDW Radio meet up! I met so many Disney fans through out the day! It was a great feeling to be surrounded by so many people that knew more about Disney than I do!
7:30pm - Lou Mongello of the WDW Radio Podcast was doing a live recording of his podcast! You can watch the video of that broadcast below!
8:00pm - Watched Wishes from the TTA, the crowd on Mainstreet was shoulder to shoulder and it turned out that the TTA is a great place to watch from!!
1:00am - Grouped up with the coolest group of people for the Touringplans Great All Nighter Scavenger hunt!
1:15am - Literally sprinting through the Magic Kingdom in a race against 10 other teams
1:30am - Trying with everything we had to pull the sword out of the stone!
2:00am - Begging our way through the line at the Haunted Mansion. We needed to know how many candles were in Madame Leota's seance's scene... (10 incase you are wondering) Ran into the Inside the Magic meet up group and convinced Ricky to let us pass his group of 60 people... You can hear this transaction on the Inside the Magic Podcast, show #361. At about 1 hour, 19 minutes, and 30 seconds in you can hear me shouting "Ricky" from afar...
3:00am - Endured the excruciating last step on the scavenger hunt, drove a lap around the Tomorrowland Speedway
3:15am - Arrived at the finishline
4:00am - Rode Space Mountain with my team. The coolest picture ever of me on Space Mountain!
Look closely, you can see arms sprouting from my ears!
4:30am - Victory Dole Whip #2 with my team to celebrate finishing the race!
4:45am - Exchanged contact information with my team and we parted ways! Awesome team!
5:00am - enjoyed a Nutella and fruit waffle from Sleepy Hallow for breakfast!
5:30am - Watched the last "The Magic, The Memories, and You" show on the castle
6:00am - I could see the sun beginning to make an appearance from behind Tomorrowland as the park officially closed for the night, I mean morning!
At this point most everyone was in zombie mode but it was totally worth it!
6:15am - Mickey gives his good night kiss to the park and everyone starts making their way down mainstreet.
The cast members where high-fiving everyone on the way out saying "You did it!" Many people stopped to take pictures in front of the Main Street clock.
All in all, I'm very glad that I made this journey. It seemed a little crazy on the outside, at least to outsiders. But once I arrived in the park, it was as if I had arrived at the best Disney fan convention ever! Much like Comic Con or Blizzcon... everyone there was just like me! I was surrounded by people who knew more about Disney than I do! And at least 1 in every 5 people had gotten on a plane to come down for the day all by themselves! It turns out that if I am crazy, there are at least 30-40,000 people that are just as crazy as I am (at least the ones that were at WDW, there were even more at Disneyland!).
The park was surging with an energy that day that can not be described! It was like taking the normal Disney magic and sprinkling it all with pixie dust and wishes and dreams and blue fairies to make it even more magical! And being surrounded by so many people that love Disney as much as I do and were just as excited to be there, it was just great!
I'm now counting down to Leap Day 2016. I will be there, without question!!!
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