Being There Opening Day

[NakedMickey]

I was just wondering how many of you have been to the opening day of a Disney park.

My mom was at the opening day of Epcot and she has this awesome commemerative ticket in her photo album. It's a huge ticket that has a like a painting of Epcot on the front. She also has her park map from that day. I always love to go and look at it once in a while. She also has some pictures I believe. If I get the chance I would love to post them for everyone.

 

[ArchiDanDisney]

Nope, never have, that would be awesome though, we have been at the opening of a resort, but never a park.

 

[BenS]

Nope, but that would be cool.

 

[DisneyWorld30th]

I was at Opening Day of Typhoon Lagoon...

...no big deal was made...

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

A colleague at work was there for the opening day of AK.
Do the parks have soft openings (like the rides) or is it just one big official opening day ??

 

[DCL]

The year MGM opened, my family left the day before. We were on property the day the AK opened, but we weren't in there to see it. But it was cool, since the whole week we were there before it opened, they were letting all people staying on property the chance to check everything out there before it opened to the public.

That was the first and only chance I got to ride the boats that they had there! Way back when... when Dinosaur was still Countdown to Extinction.... ahhhh... memories!

 

[TheOneVader]

My parents went, but they didn't get into Epcot. There were way too many ppl, they closed the parking lot at 8 AM!

 

[mbro2002]

I was working at the main entrance of Animal Kingdom on opening day.

For most of us working there (at least in my area), it really wasn't much of an event. At that time, the park had essentially been open (for cast, media, and resort previews) for well over a month. I remember watching a few people scramble for the gate when we opened the parking lot trying to be the 'first people in the park.' It was just kind of odd from my perspective, because of how many people had been in the park in the weeks before.

Opening day was a disappointment for a lot of us, because the park was actually pretty empty. We'd been geared up for huge crowds, but WDW did such a good job of getting the word out that the park would probably close for capacity reasons that most people didn't even try to get in. To make matters worse, management panicked during the morning and began phase closures well before they should have, meaning that we turned a lot of people away.

The really exciting day was April 21, the day before Grand Opening. That was the big media event, with all sorts of special things going on. After that, Grand Opening was really dull.

 

[Mission: SPACE]

I was at AK for the resort previews, but not for opening day... Kinda cool, I thought, letting resort guests in before the park opened... it was only like $15 or $18 to get in, and I don't think you needed a regular park ticket... not sure, because I have an annual pass and if we did it wouldn't have been a big deal.

 

[Disneyanna0521]

one of my closest friends' parents were there for the opening of epcot..they didnt even know...they were on their honeymoon and didnt know they would be there for that