After enjoying Sanaa it was time for our next adventure. That night would be one of the night's we spent at MK. When I had first been planning the trip MK was supposed to be open until 10 pm that night, and as I had said earlier, it might have been our only chance to see MSEP and Wishes That is why I planned AK for that morning since I knew it wouldn't be an all-day park (this was before any night-time happenings were announced) and we would have plenty of time to head back and enjoy the MK for a bit.
Well, about a month before our trip I was checking park times as I would do randomly every now and again, and I was SO excited to see the times had changed for MK that day...in a positive way! They added in EMH until 1:00 a.m. that night! Woo hoo!!!! That would be the latest EMH the entire trip. I know they generally don't stay open that late when it's supposed to be a slower time of year. My guess is maybe they extended the hours because of the MSEP going away? They added in a second showing of it that night as well.
Since it was going to be such a late night we agreed to go back to the hotel for a quick nap. After Sanaa we hopped on the first park bus that came, which was AK and that was nice since it was a 5 minute ride! The bus gods must have been looking down on us, because as soon as we got off the AK bus, a POP bus appeared! We were the only ones in line so we got right on, and I said jokingly "we can leave now" and to my utter shock, the bus driver closed the doors and started to take off!
I had to take a picture just to prove we were the only ones on the bus.
When we got back to the hotel we had time for about a 20 minute power-nap because we both wanted to shower after sweating our way around AK that morning
. After we were freshened up we headed out for the buses. We waited about 15 minutes for a MK bus to arrive, which had been the typical wait, but we got to MK around 8:00 or 8:30. After going through security (I've forgotten to mention that Mark and I were both randomly selected for extra security every.single.time. we went into one of the parks
) all hell broke loose!
I've never experienced something so awful at the parks. I don't know if I will even be able to accurately describe the situation to give the full understanding. Remember how I mentioned they added in a second showing of MSEP that night? Well, we walked right into it. We got to the park right at the beginning of the parade. Poor timing on our part, but I also completely forgot the MSEP is one of the only parades to START at Main Street. Needless to say we were shoe-horned among a sea of people.
We were all herded to the right of MSUSA. As expected, there was a sea of people lined up on MSUSA to watch the parade, but they were taking up more than half of the sidewalk. THEN, you had a sea of people trying to
leave the park. Add on top of that the sea of people trying to
enter the park for EMH and it was a complete nightmare. As soon as I saw this I immediately lead Mark into the confectionary to try and walk through the shops and avoid that mess. Well, several other people had that same idea and as soon as we were making some headway, we had to exit because the next shop wasn't connected. We had only made it about 1/4 of the way down Main Street.
At this point, I would have just stayed put and tried to watch the parade, but when I say I was jammed between people, I'm not exaggerating. I had Mark in front of me, a nice woman with a few children pressed into my back, a man with a stroller who rolled over my foot on several occasions to my left, and then a wall to my right. And surrounding all of them were more people trying to make their way to their destination. We were all stuck there for at least 10 minutes unable to move. During that time we all got shoved though, and that was fun. The lady behind me apologized for bumping into me but I completely understood. I told her not to worry as I know it was a chain reaction from her getting shoved. We both commented how we have never seen the park this bad and this poorly planned. We were packed like sardines. FINALLY a CM came through telling everyone to keep moving. Brilliant! That was easier said than done though. Some people started shuffling along so Mark grabbed my hand and started leading a path as best as he could. I immediately responded by grabbing the lady's hand behind me so she could try and get her kids out of the herd. After being pushed and shoved we finally made it to Uptown Jewelers.
I lead us in there just to get away from the crowds and have a little more breathing room. I also figured we could continue on through Main Street Bakery and at least get out a bit further. WRONG AGAIN! They had the doorway to MSB roped off with a CM standing guard.
It takes quite a bit to get Mark worked up, he keeps a calm and rational head pretty well, but as soon as we got there and saw it was roped off we both pounced on the CM and told him he needed to open the rope and let everyone through immediately. Several other people with us agreed emphatically. The CM said he couldn't because it was a safety issue, and we immediately responded by explaining it was a safety issue to
not open the pathway. People were getting shoved outside and several fights were about to break out. Mark actually witnessed a man screaming at a little kid because the boy was pushed into him even though it wasn't his fault.
The CM continued on in his Disney way and politely told us that we couldn't exit through the bakery. So, I asked for a manager. She gave us the same safety line. Something about if the wall to MSB caved in, everyone would be trapped in there and it's a safety concern. This is when Mark pointed out that if the wall does cave in, we would all be trapped anyways because you can't move outside. In the end, a group of about 10 of us were forced to stand there until the parade ended. It was better than being on the sidewalk, but it was just insane. I was close to just saying, let's go back to the hotel, but I really didn't want that nonsense to ruin our night.
We finally made it out of MSUSA and we just kept walking toward the castle along with a mass of other people. Celebrate the Magic would be starting in about 10 minutes so I figured we should just grab whatever spot we could and set up for the fireworks. Once we stopped, we both looked at each other, took a deep breath and tried shaking off that nightmare.
