Ever had a bad idea? I mean one that you knew was bad, before you even started on it. I've had a few really bad ideas in my life. Dying my hair white, then coloring the ends of each strand pitch black - bad idea. Assuming that "spicy" meant the same thing in Mexico that it does in Canada - bad idea. Pointing out to the officer who pulled me over that he was going just as fast as I was - really bad idea. So since it's apparent that I have some experience with ideas that should never have been put into practice, I feel qualified to say that the latest Disneyland promotion has inspired, what I'm sure will turn out to be, a very bad idea.
The Disney promo for 2012 has three parts to it. The first part is getting an extra day on your theme park tickets when you buy a 3 day package including a stay at one of the Disney Resort hotels. An extra day in the park is nice, if not thrilling, so there's no real inspiration there. The second part of the promo is a daily giveaway of a four night Disney vacation including airfare, accommodations, and park tickets. That actually sounds like a good idea, so no problems here either. The third part of the promo is that, in order to celebrate the leap year, Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom are going to be open for 24 hours in a row starting at 6am on February 29th. Houston, we have bad idea liftoff.
I went back and checked, but the e-mail announcing the details of the promotion doesn't actually start "Dear Mr. Pratt, We have a challenge for you!", but it might as well have. I'm sure that every Disney fanatic out there had the same thought go through their
head..."Hey, I could stay in the park for the entire 24 hours!" It's a Disney nerd's dream, and I'm sure there will be plenty of people trying to last the entire time without leaving the park, except for those with actual jobs as Feb 29th falls on a Wednesday. Since it is mid-week, Lori won't be able to come with me (Which, let's face it, is probably a good thing. There's no way I could afford a trip where she has 24 hour a day access to the Disneyland stores.), so I've enlisted the boy as my partner in crime. Of course he'll have to miss a couple days of school, which probably qualifies as a bad idea on it's own, but I can only deal with one bad idea at a time, so I'm going to let that one slide.
We spent a little time tonight kicking around some of the more important details of our adventure. Things like "Is 24 hours enough time to ride every permutation of the new Star Tours ride?", or "Can we survive the entire 24 hours on nothing but Churros?" We've been discussing whether or not it would be cheating to go over to California Adventure during the day, or if we should be confined to Disneyland itself. We've also started making a list of all the beds they have in Disneyland such as Tarzan's Treehouse, or the Innoventions Home of the Future display, just in case. Also, if you'd like to play along, we're opening the over/under betting line on "Number of times
Space Mountain will break down in a 24 hour period" at six.
The real key to ensuring the success of a bad idea though, is commitment. I've booked the flights and hotel, and most importantly, I've gotten permission from Lori to go without her. I'm not going to buy the entrance tickets until we decide if we need a park-hopper or not, plus I've never bought a one day pass to Disneyland and I know I'm going to choke a little paying that much for just one day, although if you're ever going to get your money's worth on a one day ticket, this would be the time. Even without the ticket though, we've done enough to lock ourselves in to this challenge. I know it will be tough, but that's the sign of a great bad idea. Of course, if I want to make it a
really tough, we could switch our flight home to the one that leaves three hours after the park closes on March 1st. That might even outrank giving my wife a Nintendo for our anniversary on the scale of really bad ideas.
