About seven or eight years ago I was having some time to myself at WDW and decided to stay late at the Magic Kingdom and witness what I wasn’t even really sure actually existed - the “Kiss Goodnight.”

Back then I really wasn’t even sure what it was - I’d just heard that something really special happened at the very end of the night and it involved the castle. I asked two cast members about it that day and they looked genuinely puzzled, telling me they had no idea what I was talking about. (I’ve come to believe that Disney gives all new hires a class on how to give guests the “I have no idea what you are talking about” look in a convincing way.)

I got myself a blueberry muffin and a coffee at the Main Street Bakery, found myself a bench, and decided to find out for myself. It’s fun to be there at that time of night anyway because they are usually playing classic Disney music and lights are twinkling on every tree and building as sleepy children are carried down Main Street by sleepy parents.

I was just about to give up and leave, feeling extra silly waiting for something the employees had just claimed was not going to happen when things started to happen.

“When You Wish Upon a Star” began filling the park with emotion only a Disney fanatic could appreciate, and all of the sudden there was a light show on the castle the likes of which I’d never seen. Then we were wished good night with an emotional speech that evoked Walt himself, Mickey added his farewell, and the music swelled to an emotional crescendo.

Honestly, it’s enough to make a true WDW lover cry, which is pretty funny when you think about it because it’s probably something they dreamed up to just get us the hell out of there. A very pretty way to say, “Would you please go home!”

It’s worth staying for, if only to experience the Magic Kingdom for a few moments with about as few people as you are ever going to. As far as I know the “Kiss Goodnight” is an unpublished event and not on any schedule, so I don’t even know if they do it every night. I just know that if you are lucky enough to see it, it is, as we WDW fanatics love to say, magical. It’s there up at the top  courtesy of my new favorite WDW site, WDWMagic!