Trip Report Completed: 24 Disney Hours! May 2015 Trip Report

Hi Everyone!
I've read so many trip reports here which has inspired me to write my own after many trips.
Hope y'all will follow along!


Who:
My sister, Alyssa (25), and me, Sam (27)
Here we are last December...our first visit to see the Osbourne Lights

When:
May 21-May 27th
We were originally planning just to go Thursday the 21st - Monday, but airfare was crazy for Memorial Day, so we were able to add two more days to the vacation and still come out ahead!

Where:
Port Orleans French Quarter


On our last trip in December 2014, we were both sad as we were on our final day, not knowing when we’d return. Then it hit me; we have to do the 24-hour day if it was happening in 2015! We had always wanted to do it but hadn't been able to make it happen, but this year – it was set, if it were to happen, we’d be there!

Imagine my excitement when I get a call from work saying I’d be traveling to Boston to co-produce Disney’s announcement of the COOLEST SUMMER EVER, kicking off with the Magic Kingdom staying open for 24 hours on May 22nd! (I'm a meteorologist/producer for Good Morning America and Disney was announcing the Coolest Summer Ever on our show! I'm also the Disney go-to person for the show, and love to take full advantage of all of the benefits working for The Walt Disney Company)

I immediately called my sister BEYOND excited that we FOR SURE have a trip to plan!!

In Boston for the announcement with OLAF!

So here we are, May 21st, Disney bound!!

Alyssa was able to get crazy cheap airfare out of Philly, so she left from there, meanwhile I work in NYC and grabbed a great deal out of LaGuardia. Luckily our flights both left at the same time, and we met in MCO!


Magicbands+Disney Alex & Ani ready!

We headed to DME and unfortunately had to wait FOREVER! But we eventually made it! By this point it was around 8:30, we both had long days (I start work at 4am) and had to be up early for the kickoff to the 24 hour day…but we couldn’t just go to bed, we were in DISNEY WORLD! SO off to Magic Kingdom we went

SO HAPPY TO BE IN FLORIDA, PALM TREES!

Alyssa recreating a picture from last trip when we weren’t paying attention and got off the bus at FQ instead of Riverside hah!

I had booked FP+ in advance, in case we decided we wanted to go Thursday night, so we got there in time for the Wishes FP. I really liked the FP area, we could see great, and it didn’t feel that crowded.

Wishes is my favorite thing in the world, I could watch it every single night and get goosebumps.

After Wishes, we made our way to Princess Fairytale Hall for our FP with Rapunzel and Cinderella. Cinderella will always be my all time favorite, but I love Rapunzel SO much. She is always so fun!

Rapunzel commented on our ears- she said she wants to make ears for Pascal! But since he is smaller than her foot, they would have to be really tiny! And has to change colors just like him

Cinderella was scared of Alyssa’s Maleficent ears ha

It was getting late, and we had an early morning and long day ahead, so decided to head back, unpack and get to bed.

 

[samantha788]

Then we took a nice little walk through the Swiss Family Treehouse and a ride through the Jungle Cruise! We also did the Enchanted Tiki room for the first time maybe ever? Neither of us remember going before, then it was time to lock down our spot for the 3:00 FOF parade again!

This one had the pre-parade with the Disney channel stars

 

[TheMouseFan]

I'm in! Loving your TR! Fantastic pics of FOF! I absolutely love that parade! I'm with you on Splash, I like the actual ride, but can't stand walking around wet after, and I always end up wetter than anyone else in our family! Can't wait to read more!

 

[samantha788]

I'm in! Loving your TR! Fantastic pics of FOF! I absolutely love that parade! I'm with you on Splash, I like the actual ride, but can't stand walking around wet after, and I always end up wetter than anyone else in our family! Can't wait to read more!

Thank you so much! I definitely recommend watching FOF from Frontierland then running to Main Street- was so much fun, i feel like we will never watch FOF the same again
Next round of FOF pics are coming up next!

Thank you for reading!

 

[samantha788]

FOF #3!!

 

[samantha788]

Then we hurried again down to the end of the parade route to make it for FOF #4!

4 times watching Festival of Fantasy...complete!

 

[Alyssawnek]

I still can't believe we were able to pull that off! Can't wait to do it again!

 

[smk]

Great report! Loving it!

 

[Disney-leaf]

Loving this TR!

 

[samantha788]

Great report! Loving it!

thanks so much!

Loving this TR!

thank you for reading!

 

[samantha788]

After our FOF marathon, we headed back to POFQ for a nap and would plan to make it back to MK in time for our 7-8 FP for Mine Train.

Next thing I know, we wake up and it’s 8:30. We missed our FP for the Mine Train, and no way are we making our FP for Wishes! Major fail! Hahaha

Oh well….we got to MK in time to see this from where the buses unload:

So we went for a spin on the carousal

During the FP booking, I had booked us for wishes but then they randomly canceled them all, so when I called we got our FP back for Wishes, and got to keep the 3rd one it was replaced with. There was some problem though bc my sister had Peter Pan and I had nothing. So she went to ride Peter Pan and I watched Celebrate the Magic while waiting. I was so confused though bc there was Lilo and Stich, The Little Mermaid…I was like wait, I don’t remember seeing this last night? Then I realized it was the first night of the summer scenes which I never had seen before!

After, we headed over to BOG for our dinner reservation! We had lunch there in December and loved it and had been wanted to have dinner here for a long time but could never get a reservation. One random night I looked and there it was for 10pm on the 24 hour day, after Wishes…Perfect!!!

Funny too, we were seated at the EXACT same table we sat last year for lunch in the west wing!

After BOG there was a short wait for Ariel so we visited her

 

[samantha788]

Next we made our way to Main Street to watch the Frozen pre-parade and Electric Parade!

Then we were able to get a FP for Cinderella and Rapunzel so we went back to New Fantasyland.

I can’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember Rapunzel exclaiming, “this is the best night EVER!”

 

[samantha788]

Next up was Enchanted Tales with Belle. This was fun and different because it was 2:30 AM at this point, so the whole show was put on by adults!

After Enchanted Tales we walked through the dance party in front of the castle then went to refuel and watch a little bit of Frozen in Tomorrowland!

Then a ride on the Tomorrowland Speedway. Alyssa wanted to drive and I thought I was going to die! The car just kept bouncing back and forth. Then I tried steering and the same thing happened, we came to the conclusion that it was the car.

 

[samantha788]

Then we headed to meet Anna and Elsa. We had been obsessively walking past and checking wait times knowing if there was ONE thing we had to do, it was meet them so they could see our shirts The wait was only 15 minutes at 4am

Anna saw our shirts and yelled “OH MY GOODNESS!” it was cute, she was excited. I feel like she didn’t get the whole “parks awake, so i'm awake” thing, but that’s okay

Elsa complimented our shirts, and laughed at the image of Anna saying “well that’s the picture of sophisticated grace” it was funny!

Then we went for a ride on the teacups

And then up Main Street to meet Mickey!!
This was our first time meeting talking Mickey, he had us pick a pose for his wall haha.

We were getting close to the 5:45am kiss goodnight, so we decided to split a yummy special event cupcake. What else do you eat at 5:30 am?

 

[samantha788]

The kiss goodnight was fun, so cute everyone in their PJ’s!

After the kiss goodnight we walked back down main street for some more pictures to wrap up the night.

6am at the castle

Now THIS morning was setting up to be a beautiful sunrise, but Alyssa was getting tired and I was pushing my limit with all the pictures I was taking haha so we slowly made our way home

Stopping for one more picture…notices our hands, we’re so silly (and tired)- holding up 42 instead of 24 haha.

Then we fixed it haha

We made it back to the hotel around 7 to be welcomed back by a GIANT dragonfly in our room. Neither of us do good with bugs, it took us forever to figure out how to get rid of it. Alyssa said if I got it, then we could watch Dream Along With Mickey again, so okay
After conquering the dragonfly, Alyssa fell right asleep, and I stayed up until 9 looking through all my pictures, I was too excited to sleep

The 24 hour day was SO much fun. I would definitely do it again. As much as we didn’t want to go back and nap, it was the right thing to do. Mostly because we had such a long day before and wanted to enjoy the rest of the night. Maybe next year we’ll attempt the full 24 hours, with a relaxing non-working/traveling day/night before

 

[coachwnh]

So glad you all had a great trip!

Welcome to WDW Magic!

 

[coachwnh]

Love the great pictures.
I so regret that I didnt do a live report for the 24 hour party last year only so I could relive what we did. Its easy to forget all that you were able to do, but you will not have that problem. Thanks for taking the time to share.

 

[samantha788]

Love the great pictures.
I so regret that I didnt do a live report for the 24 hour party last year only so I could relive what we did. Its easy to forget all that you were able to do, but you will not have that problem. Thanks for taking the time to share.

Do it next year!
Definitely all the pictures are helping me remember, but I know i've forgotten things too.
Thank you for reading!!

 

[coachwnh]

Do it next year!
Definitely all the pictures are helping me remember, but I know i've forgotten things too.
Thank you for reading!!

I wish! My wife and I did the trip at the very last minute last year (without the kids!!!!!) Not sure that will happen again anytime soon, LOL.

 

[samantha788]

SATURDAY – MAY 23

We woke up around 1 Saturday afternoon, kind of rested and definitely disoriented haha. But we had a 3:00 reservation for Akershus!

This was our first time to Akershus. I loved the atmosphere, and the service was great – the food was good too, just a bit different!

Cinderella was the first to greet us, she commented on our matching outfits. Which was not planned and became the theme to everyone we saw that day haha we both got dressed earlier and were like ummm im not changing so matching it is!

At this point we (I) decided we’ve been here 3 days, and met Cinderella each day. We should probably make it a point to meet her everyday Alyssa agreed that it would be funny.


Then snow white…she was the loveliest snow white we’ve met in a long time! She loved our matching shirts, and said that we match aurora. And that aurora’s fairies can change our shirt colors

 

[samantha788]

After Snow White, Aurora came by! But she wasn’t understanding when we were telling her about our conversation with Snow and changing the colors of our shirts haha.

Before Ariel came to see us, the princesses did their little parade around the restaurant with all the little kids, it was so cute!

Then Ariel came by - she was gorgeous! I love her on legs and in this dress! She said she was still getting used to her legs

After lunch, we went were off to Test Track

Then to my sisters true favorite, FIGMENT. This was one of the longest waits..15 minutes. For figment. I don't get it haha, but she's obsessed.