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View Full Version : Disney open til 1am Sept. 13??



chifan
09-11-2013, 07:07 PM
How come Disneyland is staying open til 1am on Friday night??

Blacksheep Uncle
09-11-2013, 07:26 PM
Holiday Haunted Mansion's 13 anniversary party that night...another limited time magic deal I think...

currence
09-11-2013, 08:25 PM
Yep, the "magic" this week is that they are staying open until the 13th hour (aka 1am) on Friday the 13th to celebrate their 13th anniversary.

Shortpix77
09-12-2013, 07:47 AM
Villain appearances, Villain dance party, and pumpkin yummies... yes, please :-)

olegc
09-12-2013, 12:35 PM
We'll see y'all there!

Mickeygirlforever
09-12-2013, 04:35 PM
Headed out bright and early tomorrow morning for it! How busy do you guys think it'll be?

Blacksheep Uncle
09-13-2013, 12:20 PM
I just got a text that my friends, they were re-directed to the Convention Center parking and M&F was blocked off...is it full already? I still have a couple hours before can leave work... :confused:

Shortpix77
09-13-2013, 12:48 PM
Anyone else there now? Is the park insane? Trying to decide if a Villain Dance Party is worth it if you can't even move through the crowds...

cstephens
09-13-2013, 01:05 PM
I just got a text that my friends, they were re-directed to the Convention Center parking and M&F was blocked off...is it full already? I still have a couple hours before can leave work... :confused:

I wouldn't necessarily assume that. I've been there in the late morning/early afternoon where for whatever reason, they've temporarily closed off M&F even when it's not full. Sometimes, by the time I've circled around to figure out where to go, they've re-opened it again. I've also seen where one entrance to M&F is closed but another is still open. That doesn't mean it's NOT already full, just that it's not necessarily full just because M&F is currently unavailable.

AnotherJenny
09-13-2013, 02:49 PM
I would just like to point out that 1pm is the 13th hour (or maybe, technically 12:00 pm to 12:59 pm.) 1am is the 2nd hour of Sept 14th. I know Disney's been promoting it as the 13th hour, but that doesn't make sense.

Carabear930
09-13-2013, 02:56 PM
Hope everyone going has a great time!

3Princesses1Prince
09-13-2013, 04:58 PM
I would just like to point out that 1pm is the 13th hour (or maybe, technically 12:00 pm to 12:59 pm.) 1am is the 2nd hour of Sept 14th. I know Disney's been promoting it as the 13th hour, but that doesn't make sense.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought about that. :p

Princess of Pi
09-13-2013, 07:15 PM
I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought about that. :p

Ditto

tea4two
09-14-2013, 05:06 PM
Did everyone who went have a good time? Interested in hearing about other padder's experiences. Other boards are reporting "nightmare" crowds and conditions, but we had a fairly easy time parking and entering the park (around 10:30 pm -- crowds were no different than on a busy summer day) and a fun time overall.

Nikara
09-14-2013, 05:55 PM
It was super crazy busy when we were there, particularly for the time of year. I felt bad for the people who had no idea that the event was happening- it was much more crowded than predicted for normal vacation goers. My group arrived at 5pm (came after school) and had a little bit of a delay, but only about ten minutes. We didn't try to park at the structure, instead parking at Toy Story. It was a little backed up, but not too bad. Took the shuttle and entered the park quickly and easily. Main Street wasn't that bad when we got there. We grabbed some fastpasses for Star Tours and watched Mickey and the Magical Map (5:40pm showing), which had plenty of space, even when the showing started. Things started getting crazy after we rode Star Tours. We went over to the Frontierland and grabbed some food at the Hungry Bear, which wasn't that backed up. However, moving through the area was crazy. They were setting up for the party still, but the crowds were definitely huge. After dinner, we went over to find a spot for the 9pm Fantasmic. It was packed an hour before the show (which I expected), but what was crazy were the crowds while walking around. It was incredibly packed and challenging to deal with. After Fantasmic, we decided to leave (Tired siblings plus twitter reports of crazy crowds). It was pretty intense leaving during the fireworks, but luckily they opened up the back passageway behind main street, so we got out easily. Leaving the park, we saw the incredible lines to enter from DCA- backed up 3/4ths of the way to DCA! The line to get on the bus back to the parking lot was a bit backed up, but what was really bad was the traffic for the bus trying to get from Disney to Toy Story. It took at least 30 minutes to get there. Traffic leaving after that point was fine (but I drove out of the areas where people were approaching). I'm sure others will have some interesting stories.

cstephens
09-14-2013, 10:30 PM
I had a good time, but that was mostly because I was with friends, and we know how to amuse ourselves. Disney's offerings were underwhelming, to put it mildly. I got off the 5 freeway south at Disneyland Drive at about 7:30, and traffic was backed up onto the onramp. The line of cars trying to get into the structure was moving incredibly slowly. I made the mistake of getting to the turnstiles just after 8:00, which is when the dance party at the Main Street train station, so it was packed. Seems like an incredibly bad idea to hold the dance party there, given the gridlock problems. It probably took me 10 minutes to get through Town Square. I eventually made my way to Cafe Orleans, already late for my 7:30 reservation, but one of my friends had been there, and some other friends ended up helping to save our table. The other friends left, and then the third in our party came probably 20 minutes after I did. And even though the park had extended hours, the restaurants didn't seem to. We ended up putting our order in just before the kitchen closed (including ordering for the friend who arrived later than I did), and our server didn't tell us that drink service would be stopped as well, so we didn't get refills on our sodas/iced teas. We did finish our meal (the pumpkin beignets that were supposed to be on the dessert menu had long been sold out) and we listened to the 9pm Fantasmic have a blip at the start and then a delay before the show finally started. As we were finishing up our meal, our other friends came back. We went to look at the dance party at the New Orleans Square train station, which seemed fairly minimal and oddly staged. It was really crowded there and the 10:30 Fantasmic was due to start soon, so we wanted out of the area. We ended up going on Indy and then made our way to Tomorrowland and watched the exterior of Space Mountain for a little bit before heading through Tomorrowland and then the back side of Fantasyland. And all through this time, there was not an open ODV cart to be found. I was thirsty and wanted something to drink. Nope. It wasn't until we got to the cart in front of the Fantasyland chalet that we found an open location. We then headed back over to New Orleans Square, our other friends called it a night, and three of us got in line for Haunted Mansion Holiday.

As I said, I still had a good time, but there didn't seem much offered in the way of special events. Disney's Hollywood Studios got special fireworks. We just had Remember. There was stuff going on in the Big Thunder area earlier in the day, but for whatever reason, that's only open until 6pm. Weird.

tea4two
09-15-2013, 01:27 AM
Agree that many restaurants seemed to be closed. We ended up at Jolly Holiday after midnight and stayed there until 2 am.

DisneyFunFamily4
09-15-2013, 07:56 AM
We arrived around 5ish I think. This is after we happened to meet up with friends (who we knew were going to be at DL but we didnt have any set plans to meet up) on the freeway. We parked in the parking structure with relatively little problem, there was a bit of a line but considering the reports and pics we saw later I wont complain. The lines for bag check and getting in to DL were not bad at all. Main St was starting to get congested as they were setting up for the dance party. We headed back to HMH to see if they had the FP machines open. No luck there and the posted wait time was 50 minutes. We decided to get in line with lots of whining from the children (and maybe a husband) about the line being way TOOOO long. The line moved pretty fast and when all was said and done we had waited 40 minutes. The ride went down right as we got off and the lines were getting crazy. New Orleans square was packed, oh and I forgot to mention the crazy line to get event tee shirts. After the Half Marathon Expo 2 weeks ago I was totally done with Merchandising Experiences. We rode pirates and they decided to get some dinner. We headed over to Zocalo but the line was out in to frontierland so at this point we all decided it was a good idea to head over to DCA and find food and beer. Main St was getting crazy and the lines to get in were getting long too.

We stayed at DCA until it closed at 10pm (we were hoping they'd throw a little magic over our way and keep DCA open an extra hour but no such luck). The lines to get in to DL at that point were 3/4 of the way across the esplanade with everyone leaving DCA. We walked back to the parking structure and there was still a line of care heading to DTD and quite a few people coming in to the parking structure.

All in all we had a fun time and i'm glad we went but that was more due to the fact that we were in good company and we all have a great time hanging out.

Tinkermommy
09-15-2013, 09:29 PM
I wasn't expecting the traffic. The Ball Road exit was SO backed up on the 57 Freeway that I gave up and exited at Katella. I ended up dropping the Tinkerteen and her boyfriend off on Harbor and going back to Katella. I got off the freeway around 5:45, and didn't get parked until around 9. (I would have gone home, but I was their ride.) I encountered many instances of cars blocking an intersection when the light changed and cross traffic being unable to move, and wondered over and over where the heck traffic control was.

Once in the structure, they were directing cars up to Donald level where it was every man for himself. There were lots of cars driving in circles trying to find spaces with more cars pouring in, but in the exit row, they had every other space coned off on both sides of the lane. There would be a car, then a cone, then a car, etc. I finally stopped in the exit lane and begged the sole cast member there to move a cone because I needed to use a restroom. (Which was the truth.) Fortunately for me, he did it. I saw other frustrated drivers stopping and moving the cones themselves. The bag check and turnstiles at that point weren't too bad -- maybe five minutes. Inside, it was PACKED. I was a little disappointed that they seemed to be out of all the specialty stuff that attracted us in the first place, but they seemed to be trying. They had long since run out of pumpkin beignets, for example, but they gave the kids regular beignets with pumpkin sugar on them. I talked to some people in line who said they'd been serving the specialty foods since the afternoon, which made me think it was nuts to invite everyone to come try them starting at 8 only to find them gone.

I enjoyed watching the dance parties for a little while, but that was all I experienced. The kids had a great time dancing. I would ONLY do this again if I could leave home earlier and arrive before most people get out of work and school. I think that was the biggest problem -- so many people trying to go after work. We ended up having dinner at Pizza Port, which we could have done any night, without the three-hour traffic nightmare.

adriennek
09-16-2013, 07:41 AM
I got off the freeway around 5:45, and didn't get parked until around 9.

HOLY COW!!!!!!!!

We left home at about 3:50. It's normally a 30-35 minute drive door to parking spot. It was about an hour and 10 minutes, with the last 30 minutes of that Just getting into the parking structure and getting parked.

It would've been longer but I did take advantage of a short cut I knew.

The part that boggled me the most was that they didn't seem prepared for it - the fact that food locations did not stay open later and ran out of food.

When we were exiting Disneyland at about 7:00, I wondered about the wisdom of setting up the dance floor/stage right at Town Square. It was starting to get crowded.

And, as DFF4 said, I do wish they'd kept DCA open later than 10 pm, too. It was very odd to see how Mad T Party just SHUTS down. We got in line for Monster's Inc at about 9:45/9:50. Mad T Party was in full force and seemed to have a fairly decent size crowd going. When we came out of the ride, it was after 10 and everything was just - off. There was a small group waiting to take pictures with one of the DJs. There was the leftover trash lining the stages (mostly soda cups). And it was just - over. I'm sure there's wisdom in the Disney scheduling department but with a 10:15 WOC and the hoopla over at Disneyland, it seemed like they could've kept DCA open longer and sustained the crowds for it.

But, obviously, they didn't seem prepared for it at DL with the restaurants closing at such an early hour (even restaurants outside of Disneyland don't close their kitchens by 8:40 on a Friday night!), I'm sure they weren't at DCA.

ETA: At about 10:30 pm, when we were walking back to Mickey & Friends, there was still a lot of traffic trying to get into Downtown Disney. The overpass next to M&F was full and the left turn lane into DtD from the South was as well. All lanes of that street between M&F and DtD were full.

Mickeygirlforever
09-16-2013, 08:31 AM
Here are my thoughts: it was fun to have something different to do in the evening, but other than that it was kind of a disaster.

We fought people all day for merchandise. I had to have my pins and we REALLY wanted the Unleash the Villains tee. We sat down in front of Port Royal at 4:30 (they started selling the shirts at 6). We were only about the 10th person in line, but the line eventually extended all the way over the bridge, past tarzan's tree house and in front of Indy. It was insane. We were sure proud of ourselves for getting one though. We promptly put them on and walked past the line waiting so everyone could see us :).

Apparently we should've camped out at Town Square because we really wanted to meet some villains but we were probably in a 2.5 hour line at Town Square to do so. After moving MAYBE 7 or 8 feet in an hour, we gave up. My friend was super disappointed, we drove all the way from Utah just for this! We walked over to NOS just to see if we'd maybe have a better chance there for the dance party, but couldn't even get over there! We ended up spending the evening in Tomorrowland and Fantasyland just to get away from everyone.

IMHO the dance party was LAME compared to what dance parties are in WDW. The villains were behind a barrier so not really dancing with you.

Anyway, all in all it was a fun evening with Halloween stuff to do, but so not worth the whole trip over there. It was astounding how busy it got that evening (because the whole day in the park was so nice and calm!). Saturday and Sunday were nice and slow too. I just don't think Disney should've done something that big in such small spaces. They should've used the Festival Arena or something.

olegc
09-16-2013, 08:31 AM
I arrived in the park much earlier to meet friends from Arizona who came out for the event. around 12 noon. the park was a normal friday but around 4-ish I started reading tweets from some about traffic issues starting. And - in looking at what was being offered food wise, etc, there was some trepidation about the event turning into OMDD.

We decided to cross the esplanade and head to Tower's gift shop for the T-shirts, knowing that Port Orleans would not be able to handle any kind of line (they ended up selling at Le Bat but it was the same problem). The CMs at Tower Gifts told us all they knew was that shirts were going to be sold. No idea how. No one could line up early. We were told to hang out in front or around the store but not to block exits or registers. When a CM finally said here is how they were going to do it, and began his slow motion to point to the other side of the store (the photo line was used) we shuffled quickly and were in a good spot. 9 of us so we did ok. From what I read about NOS's line going to DCA early was genius.

We headed back to Disneyland for dinner at Zocalo and then grabbed a spot for 9pm Fantasmic. It was kind of like New years or OMDD - you had to build in an additional hour for certain things and only hit shows. Attraction lines actually looked OK (except HMH was about 65 minutes). After the 9pm fantasmic and fireworks - we turned around and headed to the NOS Dance Party and I think we ended up merging into almost the front of the line. we cut past a lot of the crazy backlog of people trying to get out and those trying to come in. We hung out and boogied on the track dance floor for a while - saw 12 villains until they started to repeat (no 13th?) and then left. it was about 1130pm then. Hungry and tired - walked to Tomorrowland Terrace, hit buzz, and out the door. The line for Photo Op was still decent in Town Square at about 1215am.

To summarize - I guess we placed ourselves in the park well before the afternoon drive, and then placed ourselves again in NOS well before any festivities - and that insulated us from crushing traffic and congestion of bodies. Should it have been better planned? yeah. Having events that are just one day available to all in an open fashion is great for all guests but it sure makes it difficult from an operational standpoint.