I Went to Disneyland for 5/24th of Their Leap Day Hell Day

I love Disney, I love Disney movies, I love Disney TV shows, but most of all I love going to Disneyland and feeling like a 6 year old again. Disneyland is the best theme park in the world. Where else can you meet the man himself, Mickey Mouse? Where else can you see Michael Jackson in arguably his best performance as Captain Eo? Where else in the world is it okay for anyone of any age to act like a kid for a day? No where. That's what makes Disneyland so much better than anywhere else in the world.

You know what makes Disneyland terrible? Obnoxious amounts of people. Disneyland more often than not has a lot of people at the park. But yesterday (and early this morning) was just ridiculous. I left my house around 8 PM and went to pick up a friend. It wasn't until an hour later that we were on Ball St. trying to enter the parking structure. That took 40 minutes. 40 minutes! I have never seen it so packed. I am okay with crowds to a point, this is that point. When there is so much traffic that I can't even get into the parking structure in a normal amount of time, that is when I am no longer ok with crowds.

We parked and everything was okay after that. We decided to walk to the park instead of taking the tram because it was packed. We even had a smarter idea of taking the Monorail in Downtown Disney that drops you off in Tomorrowland. It was closed. So we had to walk Downtown Disney to the entrance to the park. It isn't far but it would have been a lot quicker to take the walkway next to the tram. But that was our fault. There was a huge line of people at the security check, but after that we just walked through the turnstiles and made it into Disneyland!

Now I had read online that they were giving away special pins for this event ("One More Day of Disney"). Well when we got into the park at 10 PM they were already out. That took some wind out of my sails which were at that point being blown by an asthmatic.

Every line for every ride was too long so we just walked around the park taking in the atmosphere. We decide to get some Mickey Mouse shaped beignets. This is where I saw the first of many interesting things people would decide to do. The woman in front of us in line decided to wait for 20 minutes to get a large Coke. Why? I don't drink much soda anymore but when I did I didn't like it enough to wait 20 minutes to get a large Coke that is 45% ice. More power to her though.

As I said before Disneyland was out of the special day pins. But I saw people walking around with Captain Eo pins. I like Captain Eo, I like pins, so I decided to seek these pins out. So the first place I went was the Captain Eo theater. I should be a detective because I nailed it. That was the place they were handing the pins out at! So I got three. I feel kind of bad, but they just kept handing them to me and I didn't want to make them feel bad for not taking something from them. Then I didn't even go see Captain Eo because it wasn't going to start for another 10 minutes.

As I was walking out of the Captain Eo entryway, I heard a spattering of people doing a call and response with their best Michael Jackson impressions. That was good. I liked that.

Now there wasn't much to do because everything was so packed so we decided to ride the train around the park. We were waiting at the Main Street train station. You can see from the train station that they had stopped letting people into the park because they had hit capacity. Hit capacity?? Disneyland's capacity is 70,000 people. The best part? There was a line to get into the park that stretched all the way to the entrance of California Adventures and then wrapped all the way to the ticket stands on the other side of the entry way.

We decided after an hour and one and a half loops on the train track we decided to get off at the Toon Town station. I was falling asleep so I had to get off and walk around. It was 1 AM at Disneyland, how can you sleep!! We get off and walk away from Toon Town. To the left we see the line for It's a Small World. Or should I say we saw the railing that would house the people interested in riding It's a Small World. What I'm trying to say is there was no line for It's a Small World. so we rode it.

After we got off It's a Small World, we just kept walking around looking at all the people passed out on benches, overflowing the smoking section, and mobbing the dance party in Tomorrowland.

2 AM rolls around and for some reason everything is starting to close. All the stands for popcorn, cotton candy, ice cream, and anything else you can think of were turning people away because they had to close. Why? I didn't understand this. 2:30 AM rolls around and we decide to start riding the train again. I see the line to enter the park, and it still goes all the way to the entrance of California Adventures. What are these people do? I think the better question is what am I doing? I came to the park 4 and a half hours ago and all I've done was ride It's a Small World.

We get on the train and I rest my eyes, and wake up half an hour later realizing it is time to leave. I can't keep my eyes open and everything is closing and they ran out of special day pins. Time to go home.

Now this rant may make it sound like I did not enjoy my time at Disneyland last night and this morning, but I did. I just decided to point out the odd and aggravating parts of my time there. Disneyland is awesome and everyone should get to enjoy it for a day. I know I enjoyed my time there and would be interested to go back if they decided to do this again in four years.





So here are my random pictures and notes I took on my phone while I was at Disneyland:

This one is going right next to my 11/11/11 parking pass

Country Bear Jamboree, what basement did they drag these costumes out of?

To awesome. The gang in their pajamas. 

Yeah this picture sucks but you can kind of see the people lined up for the park if you squint

And here are all my notes verbatim so you can enjoy all my spelling and gramatical errors early in the morning:

Lady in like for 15 minutes for a large coke.
Longest line for corn dogs I have ever seen
People standing against the bars like prisoners
27 dollar shirt that they could have easily charged 29 for because it's the 29th.
Running out of special pins
Captain Eo pins
People bringing their iPhone charges and stealing Disneyland's power
Not riding any rides
Super elite midnight snack at santas village
Shitty forward facing train
Train conductor reminding us we're nearing tomorrow land station, but we can't get off. Good to know.
Donald's sister, was she drawn?
Small world line was short. Why not?
Rode the train for an hour
New seats in the boats, or entirely new boats? Which makes more sense and is cheaper?
People in their pajamas
It's 2 am. Why is everything closing?
It's 230 am and there is still a line all the way to ca adventures.
Subway open at 330.