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Old 03-16-2012, 01:01 AM
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Join Date: Dec 2011
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phillitup is spinning in a Cursed Storm
1.You are abot to see one more disney day covrage from a website i folow. PS this is from disneyland.A house party spirals out of control. Unexpected guests arrive with each ring of the door bell, and before long, hundreds, even thousands of people are dancing on the furniture and trashing the yard—until the sun rises and everyone vanishes, leaving the hapless host wondering just where it all went wrong, and what they could have done to prevent it.

Could this be the plot of the next Disney Channel movie? No, this was the Disneyland version of the One More Disney Day event, a 24-hour party hosted at both Disneyland in California and the Magic Kingdom park in Florida. We can only imagine the reactions of senior Disney managers who woke up the next morning and checked their e-mail, only to find two wildly different reports from the Orlando and Anaheim theme parks.


An estimated 2600 people lined up before Disneyland opened on leap day, hoping to receive a free pair of Mickey Mouse ears. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

By most accounts, the Walt Disney World event was a smash hit. Although the Florida park saw large crowds turn out for the evening fireworks show, and reportedly experienced some frustration with transportation delays as thousands of arriving visitors temporarily exceeded the monorail and ferry capacity, the park never neared capacity.

Disneyland's event was, by many measures, also a rousing success. Though the resort did not quite break all-time attendance records (due no doubt to the early closure of Disney California Adventure), Disneyland attendance approached that of the highest New Year's Eve number the park has ever recorded. Almost all of the merchandise created for the event sold out, most restaurants ran out of the special menu items devised for the 24-hour party, and the extra performance of Mickey's Soundsational Parade and the bonus 1:00 a.m. showing of Fantasmic were packed to capacity. Inside the park, the mood was "New Year's Eve meets Grad Nite," with a noticeably younger crowd arriving as the families and day guests went home for the night. Yet while the Florida park's attendance waned in the late evening hours, Disneyland became increasingly crowded as thousands of local annual passholders came to join the party.


A family from Banning, California was selected to lead the countdown to One More Disney Day. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.



6:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. - the opening and closing moments of One More Disney Day at Disneyland. Video by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

Even with 20/20 hindsight, and as someone who stayed for the entire 24-hour event, it's hard to believe just how quickly the park went from comfortably busy to completely packed, seemingly in mere minutes. Disneyland's managers seemed equally surprised by the sudden attendance spike, and the measures taken to address the problem seemed to come too late to really make a difference.

One Disney, two parties

From the outset, the Disneyland and Walt Disney World events were vastly different, with some East Coast Disney fans complaining that Disneyland was hosting a far better party. Disneyland promised a free limited edition "One More Disney Day" Mickey Mouse ear hat to the first 2,000 people to enter the park Wednesday morning, and even arranged for a parking lot to remain open overnight for those who wanted to wait for the party to start. Hundreds of people did just that, forming a line outside Disneyland shortly after the park closed Tuesday night. By 5 a.m. Disney estimated that there were 2,600 people waiting outside the gates.


2000 pairs of Mickey Mouse ears were distributed to the first guests to enter Disneyland Wednesday. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

Following the opening "moment," where a local family officially announced the start of One More Disney Day, eager guests flooded through the turnstiles to claim their Mickey Mouse ears. As anyone who has been to a Disney pin release will believe, the distribution process for the 2000 ear hats was a bit of a mess, with some guests given their hats before they entered the park, others issued wristbands to exchange for one of the special souvenirs once they got inside, and others told that they only needed to enter through a specific gate to snag the hat. The ear hat distribution point was positioned inside one of the two tunnels leading onto Main Street, U.S.A., causing a huge backlog once the gates opened. Disney also created a special button for the event, and readers have reported that they were able to get one as late as 7:00 p.m.


A row of park managers and cast members line Main Street to greet guests arriving for One More Disney Day. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

Inside the park, lines immediately formed at the Emporium, where shoppers snapped up the logo clothing designed for the event. Many made a bee line for the Main Street lockers to stow their extra layers of clothing, and a long line formed at the Main Street Market House as savvy Disneyland regulars bought their first cup of coffee. The Market House offers free same-day coffee refills, a perk some guests seemed detemined to take full advantage of during the 24-hour party.

Others headed directly to their favorite restaurant, with lines forming outside the Jolly Holiday Bakery and River Belle Terrace. Though a posting on the Disney Parks Blog seemed to indicate that the special menu items created for One More Disney Day would only be available from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., it turned out that many of the locations offered these items all day, with the chorizo and egg breakfast pizza at Redd Rockett’s Pizza Port becoming a popular breakfast alternative to the usual Tomorrowland Terrace fare.

By 7:00 a.m., Star Tours, Space Mountain and Indiana Jones Adventure all had stand-by lines of 35 to 45 minutes, though other popular rides like Pirates of the Caribbean were still walk-ons. The lines were still light by mid-morning, as it seemed that many of the early birds had returned to their hotels or homes to rest.


Breakfast was the first order of the day for many early visitors to One More Disney Day. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

We noticed that passholders were not required to get a hand stamp upon leaving Disneyland. The resort only ever requires passholders to obtain a hand stamp on days where there is a chance a park will reach capacity, in the event they later restrict admission to re-entering guests only. The absence of this measure by early afternoon was a strong sign that the resort still had no expectation that the park would reach capacity that day. Further indicating that Disney wasn't terribly worried about crowds, the television show Modern Family taped an episode inside Disneyland on Wednesday, with areas of the park closed off for the filming throughout the day.


A number of visitors wore pajamas to the 6:00 a.m. park opening, or changed into them at night to pose for photos with the characters. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

For most of the afternoon, the lines for Disneyland attractions—though larger than normal for an off-season weekday—were still fairly short. Attendance seemed to pick up around 4:00 p.m. as the earliest of the after-work crowd arrived, and grew steadily for the next several hours.

Traffic tie-ups and ticket booth lines

As darkness fell and thousands of local annual passholders left work and headed to the resort, the first reports of traffic delays began to surface. Someone who arrived around 7:00 p.m. described the gridlock on the surface streets immediate around the resort, with inbound traffic eventually causing a back-up several miles long on Interstate 5.

The Mickey and Friends parking structure turned into a free-for-all, as the arriving cars were left to find their own parking spots in the nearly full structure. What has been described by a cast member as "a scheduling snafu" at the Toy Story parking lot left the toll booths unstaffed. There were intermittent reports that one parking lot or the other had briefly closed, but no official word from Disney.


Mickey and friends dressed in their pajamas for this One More Disney Day photo opportunity. Photo by Doug Williams.

After taking shuttles from the various parking lots, visitors were next confronted with a long wait at the two bag checkpoints, followed by lines of up to 40 minutes at the ticket booths. Readers sent photos showing the line waiting to get into Disneyland stretching to the middle of the Esplanade between the two parks; later, the line would extend all the way back to the DCA entrance gates.

Perhaps reassured by the reports coming out of Florida—where everything happened three hours ahead of California—Disneyland managers seemed completely unprepared for how much busier the park was about to become. But while Walt Disney World's party was winding down, Disneyland's was just getting started.

Food and souvenirs sales stronger than expected

The large array of menu items created for the One More Disney Day event drew a large crowd of hungry visitors eager to try the new dishes. By 8:00 p.m., the line for the Plaza Inn restaurant stretched into Tomorrowland, and several restaurants had already sold out of their special entrees. A cast member at Rancho del Zocalo said guests were complaining to her about lines at every Disneyland restaurant and food cart. The wait at the French Market reportedly wrapped around the building, and Cafe Orleans and the Blue Bayou were booked solid until dawn the next morning.


The Jambalaya Jazz Band performed at the French Market during One More Disney Day. Photo by Doug Williams.

The special merchandise created for the event was equally popular, and by early evening the little remaining inventory was consolidated to a single Main Street location. The Mad Hatter shop reportedly sold over 300 pairs of a regular Mickey Mouse ear hat embroidered with the One More Disney Day logo in just a few hours—at $21 a pop—with a long line waiting for more to be embroidered.


The Country Bears made a rare appearance during One More Disney Day. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

Back in Frontierland, an unofficial line had already formed for the very limited-capacity "midnight snack" hosted by the Disney Parks Blog. Though Disney said hopeful attendees could not line up before 10 p.m., one reader let us know that there were already over 300 people waiting by 9 p.m. The 200 people who did get in were treated a dessert buffet, live entertainment, character meet-and-greets and reserved seating for Fantasmic. If you were not one of the lucky few, the Disney Parks Blog posted a photo recap last week.

...And then it got busy

The first official indication that attendance had spiked beyond expectation came at 9:30 p.m., when Disneyland published a Twitter message that read " 'One More Disney Day' at Disneyland park is extremely popular. Disneyland park is currently full. Updates to follow." While this message came as a surprise to those inside the park, the thousands stuck in traffic outside the resort knew all too well exactly how "popular" the park had become.


Lines of cars entering the Mickey and Friends parking structure just before midnight. Photo by Tony Phoenix.

This initial message was really the first step in the normal sequence of events leading to an eventual gate closure; in reality, Disneyland would not close the front gates for more than another hour.

Shortly after the "full" message went out on Twitter, traffic signs around the resort and on inbound freeways displayed a message reading "Disneyland is full," and main entrance managers deployed a team of cast members to each ticket booth. These cast members alerted visitors just joining the line that the park was nearing capacity, and they might not be allowed to purchase a ticket. Normally when Disneyland reaches capacity, new arrivals are offered a ticket granting immediate admission to Disney California Adventure, and entry to Disneyland later that same night when the gates reopened. With DCA already closed for the night, there was no alternative to offer the hundreds of people still looking to buy admission.


Disneyland was closed to new arrivals for nearly two hours, leaving hundreds waiting outside the gates for the crowds to thin. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

Meanwhile, traffic outside the resort worsened. The southbound I-5 freeway was now backed up all the way to Highway 91. One reader who made it into the park just before the gates closed said it took her two hours to get from the Disneyland Drive exit to the Disneyland main gate.

"So sorry, we're full"

Though the Mickey and Friends parking structure remained open, tram drivers warned new arrivals that the park was already closed. Downtown Disney restaurants and bars filled with people waiting for word that the gates had reopened. Just before 11:00 p.m., Disney published another update message on Twitter, saying, "'One More Disney Day' at Disneyland continues to be very popular. Disneyland park is currently full. Updates to follow."

In fact, the resort had just closed the gates to new entries 10 minutes earlier, but was still allowing guests who had previously entered the park to re-enter. Even if you knew that re-entry was still allowed (something most visitors would only have learned by following updates from fansites), Disney did not set up a dedicated re-entry gate for these people, forcing them to make their way through the growing crowd to an open gate.


The line of cars trying to enter the Mickey and Friends parking structure at midnight stretched back to the 5 freeway. Photo by Tony Phoenix.

Some cast members tried shouting into the crowd asking if anyone was re-entering the park, but those waiting all the way back by the DCA entrance gates had almost no hope of making their way to the front. One reader stuck outside the gates said, "I didn't feel safe out there, and I wasn't going to risk annoying someone by cutting in front of them."

Even cast members had trouble getting to work. One third-shift maintenance worker reported being late to work because it took nearly two hours to travel the 15 miles from home to the resort. Other workers were asked to extend their shifts to help keep rides and restaurants operating with as much capacity as possible, since it was clearly too late to call in added workers.

Special entertainment and bonus Fantastic packs in the crowds

Inside the park, Disney announced that the viewing area for Fantasmic was completely full. Some believe the 1:00 a.m. bonus Fantasmic, the show's first performance since closing in January for a seasonal hiatus, actually made the crowding situation worse than it might have been. Where many of the passholders who came out for the event may have been content to come for dinner, stay for the 10:00 p.m. parade and then go home, the opportunity to see Fantasmic seems to have lured many to stay an extra few hours.


Special shows and atmosphere entertainment kept the crowds energized during the 24-hour party. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

Disneyland usually sees large crowds leave the park after the evening fireworks or second parade, and cast members at the main gate set up the exit gates and traffic control usually needed to handled the evening exodus. Instead, the small trickle of people heading to the exit gates after the 10:00 p.m. parade proved that capacity wasn't going to drop as park managers no doubt hoped.

All of the extra entertainment proved very popular, with standing room only crowds packing the Golden Horseshoe for late night performances of Billy Hill and the Hillbillies, and long lines forming at three character greeting locations so guests could snap photos of a pajama-clad Mickey and friends, or rare appearances by the Country Bears.

Radio station-hosted dance club adds to the party atmosphere

At the Tomorrowland Terrace, local radio station KISS-FM hosted "Club 29," a dance party that some claim resulted in some very un-Disney-like behavior among the mostly high school and college-age crowd that assembled in Tomorrowland. Twitter reports of a "rave" at Disneyland may have lured even more people to the event.


Hundreds wait in line to purchase tickets for One More Disney Day, even after Disneyland closed the gates to new arrivals. Photo by Tony Phoenix.

For the first time in all of my Disney visits, I was surprised when I left the parking structure the next morning by the trash and empty bottles littering the lot. Perhaps some saw this event as a way to relive their Grad Nite experience, and took full advantage of the lack of dress code and full-body pat downs to sneak in some normally-prohibited items but some say they saw nothing of the sort during their One More Disney Day.

Disneyland gates finally reopen at 12:30 a.m.

By 12:30 a.m., the crowd waiting to get into Disneyland filled the Esplanade and stretched to the DCA entrance, with the bag check line reportedly reaching the World of Disney store. The restless crowd just outside the Disneyland gates periodically struck up a chant of "let us in," only to be quelled by the managers and security officers inside the gates. When Disneyland finally reopened the gates nearly two hours after halting first entry, streams of guests poured into Disneyland to enjoy the last five and a half hours of the party.



A vocal crowd waits for Disneyland to reopen the main entrance during One More Disney Day. Video by Jennifer Rich.

Even with the park shutting down in a few hours, hundreds were still waiting at every open ticket booth to purchase tickets, with lines again approaching 40 minutes. Reader Oleg said people were still buying tickets when he left the park after 3:00 a.m., many purchasing the Southern California resident 2-day ticket so they could return the next day, and that the shuttles coming from the Toy Story parking lot were still filled with late arrivals.


This group concluded their One More Disney Day with breakfast outside the Jolly Holiday Bakery. We're still trying to figure out how they got a toaster through security. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

The rest of the event passed without incident, though we hear park managers were ready to close the gates again if in-park attendance did not drop sufficiently after Fantasmic ended. The most popular attractions still boasted lines of up to 120 minutes, and the restaurants continued to do brisk business right up to closing time.


The Disney characters returned to the Main Street train station to wave farewell to departing guests Thursday morning. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.

As the sun rose over Disneyland and hundreds of sleep-deprived guests made their way to the exits, cast members lined Main Street U.S.A. to wave good-bye—and begin the clean-up process to get the park ready to reopen in just four hours. Some of the park managers had worked the entire 24-hour party, while other workers were just arriving to learn what had transpired overnight.

Lessons learned

Unfortunately, thousands of visitors had a poor experience, due primarily to Disney's lack of planning, failure to keep ahead of a rapidly changing situation, and confusing communication practices. Disney is famous for crowd management, but clearly, this was not the case for the event.

Disneyland reaches capacity several times a year, usually during the busy holiday season, and the resort has a time-tested system of limiting ticket sales and restricting admission to keep in-park attendance at the desired level. For this event, Disney may have made a serious error by assuming that the park would not reach peak capacity, and so never implemented the type of capacity-control measures used on busier days.

To make matters worse, there appeared to be no special plan to address the unique aspects of this 24-hour event as they pertained specifically to Disneyland. The crowds that swarmed Disneyland Wednesday night weren't normal vacationers who arrive during the day and can be diverted to DCA if Disneyland is getting too full. A large number were Annual Passholders, none of whom were blocked out on this off-season weekday, arriving after DCA had already closed for the night. The normal techniques used to slow admission didn't work the same way. Short of closing the parking lots—a step park managers did not seem willing to take—there was nothing Disney could do to stem the flow of guests arriving at the resort into the early morning hours.

As Disneyland managers evaluate the event and discuss how to better prepare for a next time, hopefully they also look to their social media channels. Disneyland's "we are full" announcement at 9:30 p.m. was not only inaccurate, but confusing and incomplete. What does "full" mean? While the word seems self-explanatory, consider that the park didn't actually close the gates for another hour, and even then, they still continued to allow re-entry.

The 11:00 p.m. announcement, made once the gates had actually closed, still failed to communicate that re-entry was allowed. There's only so much detail that can be included in 140 characters, but this may have been the time to use the official Parks Blog to post a more detailed update, to explain to guests exactly what was going on—or at least post two Twitter messages in quick succession.

What will this mean for Cars Land?

In the wake of One More Disney Day, several bloggers and readers have asked if Disney will be able to prevent a repeat once Cars Land opens this June. While blockouts for the least expensive annual passport begin before the rumored opening date of Cars Land, Southern California passes are valid for a few days after the new land opens. Deluxe passholders are only blocked out on Saturdays, and Premium passholders have no blockout dates at all. Annual passholder previews may help alleviate some of the demand, but it's not unreasonable to expect DCA to set attendance records in the days and weeks following the Cars Land opening. How will Disney respond if thousands of passholders descend again on Anaheim to see the newly reimagined California Adventure? Given the lack of preparation when they were overwhelmed by the demand to get into Disneyland, how will they handle the crowds trying to get into a single land with just a fraction of Disneyland's capacity?

While we agree Cars Land will be the biggest test DCA has faced since opening in 2001, the situation is not the same as faced the resort last week. For one thing, Disneyland will be open whenever DCA is open, meaning park managers can divert guests to Disneyland if (ok, when) DCA gets too crowded. Also, the resort will almost certainly treat the opening weeks of Cars Land as they would Christmas Eve or New Years Eve, with the usual capacity plans and practices in place. Disney definitely has some issues to resolve and plans to make before Cars Land opens, but how to handle 5,000 passholders arriving at midnight won't be among them.

Last edited by Jezzi; 03-16-2012 at 03:06 AM.. Reason: non-g/advertising/cursing