In what is becoming a Memorial Day tradition at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland, Disney is keeping the Magic Kingdom and both Disneyland and California Adventure open from 6:00 am on May 23 to 6:00 am on May 24.  Last year, the theme was Disney’s Monstrous Summer.

This year, the theme is Rock Your Disney Side: 24 Hours.  Disney is advertising this with a darker tone by actively promoting the Disney Villains.

Guests can get it with their Disney tickets.  This is not a “hard ticket” event like the Halloween and Christmas Parties.  All of the attractions, however, will be open all 24 hours.  Some attractions will “go dark”, most likely, during lower attended time periods.

Another addition, this year, is Disney is actively promoting that guests come in costumes to “show their Disney side,” which is Disney’s current tagline.  There are restrictions on the costumes that guests can wear:

• Child-Friendly
• Not be obstructive, offensive, violent or violent
• Drag on the ground
• Contain sharp objects, pointed objects on materials that may hit other guests
• Masks may be worn but can not obstruction vision and the eyes must be seen at all times
• Guests who dress like Disney characters may not pose for pictures or sign autographs

Guests who do not follow this guidelines may be refused admission or asked to leave the park.

Speaking as a Vacation Member, whose home resort is Bay Lake Tower next to the Contemporary resort, staying at the Contemporary Resort or Bay Lake Tower could be an important part of making this 24 hours an enjoyable experience even if it just for the night of the event.  Why would staying at either of these resorts be important?  Guests can walk from the Magic Kingdom to both resorts and it’s only about 10 minute walk (15 minutes if guests have a small child in tow).   Walking to a resort as opposed taking either a bus, boat or monorail to get and from the resort can take away potentially much-needed minutes of sleep or recharge before returning to the parks.

For full disclosure, I have never attended one of Disney’s 24 hour parties so I don’t know the best plan of attack for these events.  However, I have been at the parks when they have been open late into the night (2 or 3 am).  In my opinion, the best plan of attack would be to avoid the parks when they open and into the day on the 23th.  Early in the morning will be packed with people who are trying to do all 24 hours in the park and the park will fill up as the day goes on and more and more families make their way into the parks.  However, when day turns to night some of these people especially those with smaller children will be exiting the parks  This would be the ideal time to go.  The park should be getting emptier crowd-wise which should reduce the wait-times for meet-and-greets and attractions.  Again, this is just my theory based on my experiences on when the park is open late NOT when it is open for 24 hours straight.

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