This is Doug at our hotel room door. It’s 5:03 AM and outside the world is pitchy dark; Doug, Betsy, and Tom await us in their park finery. There had been some question the night before as to whether we were going to get up in time. Joe likes sleeping in on vacation, and despite my rampant desire to always get there for park opening, I’d had to wake up at 4:00 yesterday morning so’s to catch my plane on time. Despite these possible detriments, we are (relatively) bright-eyed and bushy-tailed(ish) as we step out into the early-morning cool.
But whatever enthusiasm we’re eking out of pre-caffeinated stupor, Tom’s already got it in spades. He’s bounding from foot to foot, giggling, with a Joker smile plastered to his face. “I’m excited!” he proclaims, bustling with energy. Tom’s from England, and my explanation for right now is that he’s still on British time, where our 5:00 AM is his high tea or something and he’s all about crumpets. Right? I’m bad at time zones. And England.
The giddiness is infectious, however, and soon enough we’re parked and on the monorail, swooshing our way to the Magic Kingdom and into history. For those of you who aren’t up on why I’m on monorail earlier than I’m usually out of bed, let’s catch you up. On New Year’s Eve, Disney announced this promotion called One More Disney Day, inventing a marketing campaign around Leap Day and announcing that both Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World and Disneyland Park in California would be open for twenty-four hours: 6AM on February 29th to 6:00 AM on March 1st. Reaction was mixed, especially on fan sites where Everything’s The Worst. Some were cautiously optimistic, but most seemed mystified by the whole thing. The event was taking place mid-week, school was in, and most early prognostication was that the whole thing was destined to be either mildly attended or an abject failure.
As the monorail pulls into Magic Kingdom Station, we are immediately and forcibly aware that prognostication is a bunch of pucky.
Oh my gremlins.
It’s a little after 5:30 AM and the courtyard outside the gates to the Magic Kingdom is crammed with people. News media has descended upon the crowds like bemused vultures. Disney fan-sphere luminaries like Lou Mongello and the WDW Today guys (well, Mike Newell and Mike Scopa so far) wander about, as awestruck as we are. On a lighted dais just inside the entrance turnstiles, Mickey and Minnie Mouse wave to the crowd proudly in their sleepy-time pajamas. Mickey’s holding a Duffy bear. I suddenly want a Duffy bear.
Through the turnstiles, we immediately swarm around the Cast Member with free swag. Several young people before us have boxes overflowing with One More Disney Day buttons, yellow and festive and coveted. For some reason, almost everyone is all up on one fellow by the planter, while literally two steps away, another guy with a full box is being completely ignored. I exchange glances with Doug and Joe and sidle on over to Mr. Lonely Button Man and secure a couple each. This is not the last time we will witness (or fall victim to) the hive mind this glorious morning.
I got a HAT!
We are at once on our phones, trying to locate the rest of us. We find Kim and Lori and Shelly and Meghan. We find Scarlett and Jeff. We find the Perlmutters. Deep in the crowd, I spot the Panda and gave him a giant Pete-sized hug. Like the 40th Anniversary and, later, Reunion, this event has ceased being merely a homecoming and has elevated to a family gathering. Almost all of us are here. Paul, Marty, Kristen, Kelly, Erin, Steve, Neil, Colin, Lee, Robbie: where are you guys? I miss you.
Opening ceremonies begin ten minutes before park opening, and watching the Mayor of Main Street orate under dark canopy of pre-dawn is a distinct oddity. Even odder is Kim’s overwhelming crush on the Mayor, which she can’t explain but which she throws herself into with a fervor. Then the gates are open, and guests throng forth, crushing against each other through the two gateways onto Main Street. Most are headed for merch, what little there is. It’s strange, the way things play out: at turns, pundits on the Internet seemed to think Disney was overestimating the interest in this event, dismissing it as a silly marketing stunt. As the group of us charge with the rest of the sheep into the Emporium, it immediately becomes clear that Disney underestimated its fan base. There’s a silly commemorative T-shirt flying off the racks: it’s blue and says, “I took the leap and didn’t sleep / I pulled an all-nighter at The Magic Kingdom.” Silly, but fun. I pick up a large and hold it up to myself for a moment.
“Nah,” I tell Joe. “I mean, it’s okay, but I don’t really need one.”
Oh, how three minutes changes a man.
“Joe! Joe!” I’ve been from one side of the store to the other and several life truths are now apparent: getting this shirt is now the most important thing I will ever do in life, and if I end this day without getting one, I will quite likely fall victim to a sadness so deep that it manifests itself physically, until you’ll find me on the TTA at 3:30 AM, wasting away to nothing before you, my rampant desire and subsequent crushing disappointment registering only in my flickering, far-away eyes. “Holy balls I need that shirt.”
“What happened to it’s okay but you don’t really need one?”
“Hive mind!” Joe stared at me. “Look, just because I know it’s ridiculous doesn’t mean I’m not a willing victim.”
We scour the store. Kim acquires one. Meghan, too, and Tom and Lori and Doug and Betsy. Everyone who wants one has one but me. Oh my God, this was the iPad all over again. I’m a social pariah. I’m an outcast hiding devilishly amongst the in-crowd. I’m
“Hey, Kevin, this woman’s giving out larges.” I nearly tackle the Cast Member who emerges from the back room, arms laden with swag. Triumphantly, I hold the shirt high above my head, contemplating only momentarily the urge that gets people pumped when they win the right to buy something. I don’t contemplate long, though. I used to collect rare books. I’ve been in line at midnight to buy albums. This one time, I waited in line for seventeen hours to get a primo spot at a Springsteen concert. The urge makes no sense, but when it’s got its claws in you, it won’t let you go until you win or fail. I’d won. My adrenaline surges. My endorphins pop.
“Oh hey,” I remark. “That sure is a long line to buy shirts.”
Boy howdy, is it. It does to our morning what a long camping trip in the snow does to a seven-book fantasy series nearing its climactic finale. Made bold by inertia, Lori, Kim, and I glance out onto Main Street. One way. The other way. And then, shirts in hands, we amble across the street to the jeweler, whose store is empty and whose counter is magically approachable. After some checking, she informs us that, sadly, she can’t sell the shirts here … so we amble back to the Emporium and get ourselves into a different line. We’re a rambunctious bunch, but we’re honest.
FUN!
Finally free of the clutches of early-morning purchase frenzy, we head out toward the Hub. There, before us, is one of the most spectacular sights to which I have ever borne witness. Light has come to the world, filtered through low clouds and ground mist. Street lamps glow mutely, suggesting our path like benevolent will o’the wisps, their glass coverings limned in fairy-rings. The flags ahead of the forecourt are jaunty in daylight, red and blue and yellow; now, they seem more somber, signals of a change in the normal order of things. And rising above all this, the stately majesty of Cinderella Castle, fog swirling between its spires.
Joe and I get a picture in front of this magnificent sight, and then the whole group is here, crowding together in front of the Partners Statue. We’re a living multi-plane movie: us in the front, then the statue, then the Castle holding sway over all. We all make a pact to come back to this very spot the next morning and take a follow-up picture. It doesn’t quite happen, but that’s okay. That one picture makes me happy every single time I see it; that’s enough continuity for me.
From there, the park, and everything in it. Our first stop is Sleepy Hollow Refreshments, where we all gorge on waffles until we burst. More people joined our little cadre as others took off for regions unknown. This would happen throughout the day, our group morphing and mutating and coming back together, because companionship is delightfully elastic. Before the fog burns off, we need to get to the Haunted Mansion; if the fog in the Hub makes the Castle look even more Old World, the fog at Mansion lends an ominous air. We crowd into the stretching room –and literally everyone recites our Ghost Host’s spooky spiel: “Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you … prematurely” is never more fun than when sixty people are saying it together.
Then Liberty Square, where Lori and I get into stocks and no one will visit the Hall of Presidents because no one “needs a nap just yet.” Ingrates.
In Fantasyland we ride “it’s a small world,” and then I almost get arrested because Kim’s persuasive.
“Aw, I wish I could see over the wall so I could see into the New Fantasyland construction,” I tell the group en masse.
“Oh, well what you need to do,” says Kim, “is get up on that little rock wall outside Winnie-the-Pooh and take pictures.”
“That sounds both unsafe and illegal.”
“DO IT.”
“Okay!”
I glance around, see some Cast Members manning the Winnie-the-Pooh exit, glance at Kim who is staring at me with an expression that clearly states if I don’t do this right now then I can’t possibly retain any dwindling respect she might have for me. I climb up.
“What do you see?”
“A crane!”
“Sir, please come down from there right now!”
“Yes, you’re right, absolutely!”
Kim looks at me. “Did you get a picture?”
“I got a picture of a crane!”
“You sure did.”
I sure did.
Then, Tomorrowland! Our friends Kirk and Shane are attempting the improbable: riding the TTA Peoplemover for 24 hours straight. Someone tells me they tried to get into Guinness for doing it, but Disney wasn’t having it. So now they’re just doing it. Over and over again. For 24 hours. I’m both impressed and terrified.
And awake!
We take a jaunt around Tomorrowland with Kirk and then beeline over to Space Mountain, where some folks are about to have their worlds flip-turned upside-down by British terror.
The inside of Space Mountain is cool and calm and pleasant, the Star Tunnel music at once dragging me away from the hustle of the morning and the roar of the crowds. Space Mountain is such an odd juxtaposition – it’s one of Disney World’s fastest and most intense rides, but the queue leading up to it is so sedate, everything awash in gentle blue light. It’s the calm before the space storm.
“I want to ride with Tom this time!” Lori proclaims as we near the front of the line. “I never have!”
“Dear God,” Tom says, because Tom says that a lot on Space Mountain. I get the privilege of riding behind Lori, which benefits everyone because Tom’s fear is for some reason my pinnacle of hilarity. We settle into our seats, Tom in front (“Dear God.”) and blast through the blue tunnel and up the first climb.
I’ve talked about Tom’s reaction to Space Mountain in the past, but there’s some stuff I’d forgotten. It was easy to remember the yips – those short, startled barks that explode out of Tom when the cars jump or turn suddenly. Oh, but how had I forgotten the screams? The high-octane blood-curdling screams that sounded like a kind young British chap being slaughtered in a low-budget slasher movie. Every time we plunge down in the dark, every time, Tom shrieks, to the delight and merriment of us all.
We ride again (and will ride still more), but soon we return to world of daylight and crowds. The fog has all burned away and one of the predictions has come true: during normal daytime hours, the Magic Kingdom has reverted to a normal day. The crowds are no bigger or smaller than any Wednesday during the off-season, and being thrust back into the world of the semi-regular seems a little odd; we’re like time travelers who have seen too much and know too much to readily acclimate back to our own reality. We’ve been to the dark side, man. Literally. I mean, when we got here it was really dark. Because it was before dawn. Remember?
When I only knew them on Twitter, I used to think Kim and Doug were young lovers. This type of picture is why. (Spoiler alert: they're so not young lovers.)
There’s a stop for the trolley show (my God, am I a sucker for trolley shows) and a picture on Main Street USA where Doug is stuck in the back of the group and tries, and tries, and tries to jump sufficiently to get his blond mug into the picture. Joe and I (and, as it will turn out, Lori and Doug and Kim and Tom) have lunch at the Plaza at 11:20, the fact of which Joe is gleefully unaware.
“Are we having Italian today?”
“No.”
“So we’re eating at the Plaza.”
“But how?!”
“Because there are like three sit-down places in the Magic Kingdom, we’ve been to Crystal Palace, and we’re not eating at Tony’s.”
“There could be another place. There could be a hidden place. I could be taking you to the Blue Bayou.”
“That’s in Disneyland.”
“Curses!”
Before breaking for the afternoon, we decide that a jaunt around the park on the Disneyland Railroad is just the ticket. Kim, who has had to skedaddle away to join a conference call, texts us and says that work ended more quickly than she thought and she’s on our way to join us. The group of us (multiplied now exponentially) climb up to the train station overlooking Main Street. “There she is!” Todd shouts, pointing at Kim making her way toward the station. “Hey! Kim!”
Hey! Kim!
We all take it up: “Kim! Kim! KIM!” Maybe twenty-five of us, shouting her name down. A man we don’t know looks up and smiles and waves. We wave back. We’re a friendly bunch, who like doing things in perfect unison. And then there’s Kim, right below us, cracking up and raising her hand.
Then she’s with us, and just in time. We’ve got a train to catch!
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