Walt Disney World (FL)

One More Disney Day: And This Day Has 24 Hours

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Disney rang in the new year with an official announcement of the often rumored 24-hour park schedule. To celebrate leap day 2012 the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland Park will remain open from 6:00am on February 29 until 6:00am on March 1, 2012. Disney is calling it “One More Disney Day.”

As to how this event will affect crowds, it is unclear. This is the first time an event of this type has occurred. Our guess is that the wait times in the park will remain fairly close to seasonal norms for that time of year but that the extra attention from the media and Disneyphiles may make these parks a little difficult to navigate on February 29. Watch for an update to the crowd calendar where the Magic Kingdom will become a park to avoid due to a special event.

Incidentally, since the TouringPlans.com team falls into the categories of both media and Disneyphile, we fully expect to take part in the festivities. If you do head to the parks that day, watch out for herds of TouringPlan-ers armed with caffeine and smelling salts.

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Fred Hazelton

Fred Hazelton maintains the crowd calendar, theme park wait time models and does hotel rate analysis for the Unofficial Guides. He's also done the models for the new mobile wait times product Lines. Fred Hazelton is a professional statistician living in Ontario, Canada. His email address is fred@touringplans.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @DisneyStatsWhiz.

15 thoughts on “One More Disney Day: And This Day Has 24 Hours

  • We lucked out and will be there for the Princess Half Marathon. Now if the half doesn’t wear me out, trying to do 24 hours in the MK just might!

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  • We changed our trip dates to be there that week. We were going at the end of the year, however this announcement changed it. My youngest is a Leap Day 2008 baby,so he’s “real birthday” is this day. I told my husband that we had to be there and this would just be a HUGE 4th bday present. LOL! This will be his 3rd trip down, so know need for people to say that he’s too young to remember it. He still talks about the Jan 2011 trip and he was only 2, almost 3 then. We are really excited and hoping that they do lots of special things that day. My thinking is that there will be more people there then usual that date of the year, however it will thin out. MK open from 6am-6am Thursday–very few people will make it the whole time. So all you night owls, this is your change to play after midnight 🙂

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    • WOW, what a special birthday for your son. I think you should even make him a special t-shirt for that special day to really stand out!

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    • Happy Birthday to your son, a fellow leap baby……I too, will be celebrating my birthday there this year….Only I am a bit older…it is my “12th” birthday 🙂 ENJOY!!

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  • My husband got me tickets to see Flogging Molly at the Downtown Disney House of Blues that night (birthday week!), so our plan now is to go to MK after the show and stay as long as we can stand. I’m not sure how enthused he is about that, but since this is MY birthday, tough! I’ve never been in a park after about 12:30am.

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  • I’ll be at DL the night of the 29th! The latest I have ever been in the park is 3 am, so I am excited to be there at dawn.

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  • Sigh, why does Feb 29 have to fall on a Wednesday? Hmmm, is it really worth it to plan a trip just so I can see what it’s like to ride Big Thunder at 5am? Tempting… 😉

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    • don’t book yet… Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will be closed for an extensive refurbishment, January 9 until at least April 30, 2012. 🙁

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  • This seems like so much fun. I have been working on my touring plan for the event. I don’t really think I will be able to make it down, but making the touring plan has been tons of fun!

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  • We have a vacation planned for that time. I think it sounds like a lot of fun. It is still going to be low season, but the park will have the hours of high season. My problem is that I had scheduled Animal Kingdom on the 29th and Magic Kingdom as our park on March 1 because of the electrical parade. We don’t have the park hopper because we’re cutting corners where we can. I wonder if Disney will change the day of the electrical parade to the 29th now instead of the 1st.

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  • Is this Disney’s big announcement/event for the year? I don’t know if I could possibly be more underwhelmed and disappointed. Bring back the Year of a Million Dreams!

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    • You would be VERY excited if you were a leap baby like me! 😉 Leaving Indiana to spend my “12th” birthday at Disney…FUN.

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  • So excited for One More Disney Day on the 29th. We already had plans to be there that week! Can’t wait for more details!

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  • UGG we go this time for the low crowds……hope not too many people take advantage………and ruin our good time haha

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