I generally stay away from threads like this, but this is a Disney World fan site, so I will share my fan experience and hopefully provide another perspective as opposed to the "Oh look, that person is nuts," or "It's just all re-sellers."
I went on launch day. I have an AP. I know very well that if Disney shows merchandise that looks interesting to me and will drop on a specific day, I have to come that day, or I might not get it at all, because that's how it unfortunately works. I hate it, but I've missed out on things before, I'm a huge fan of Figment, and I had some Disney gift cards that I had from Christmas. I've never purchased a popcorn bucket - I only wanted it because it's Figment.
I got in line at 10:40 am, and the park had opened at 10. I figured that this would be fine - I had come for the Spaceship Earth merchandise drop last year around that time, and I was able to get what I wanted. It took my husband and I a little bit to just find the end of the line, as it was looped around quite a ways. I found out soon after that Disney had allowed people to queue for the bucket starting at 9 am, which, you know, would have been helpful to know about ahead of time, but it is what it is.
Around 11 the line was at a standstill for a long period. I heard that there were only 3 CMs working the booth. No one told us how long the expected wait would be. We didn't really move at all until over an hour later, and we'd barely move at all. The line didn't pick up the pace until after 1 pm. Thankfully we were standing next to some interesting people who were also fans of Figment, and I actually made new friends! There were a lot of people in line that loved Figment, many wearing Figment shirts, ears, or bounding as the character. A camaraderie was formed, and yes, while we'd have many people make snide remarks as they would look at us in line, we'd have even more ask what we were waiting for. The few that thought they were clever and ask that if we were really waiting that long for popcorn, we'd come back with, "Actually, tomato soup!" "Really?" "Yes, the best tomato soup in the world!"
Once you've waited an hour or so, convincing yourself to leave the line seems worthless. I had a lot of fun just talking to people that were also fans of Figment and the parks, and we had some really interesting discussions. And after having been cooped up at home for so long, it was really nice, and it made the time go by.
By the time we exited with our SINGLE Figment bucket (I dislike the re-seller game, but understand the temptation after waiting as long as we did), and grabbing a few other items from POP Eats, we'd waited just under 6 hours. Is that a ridiculous time to wait? Yes. Do I regret the experience? No. I still had a lot of fun at EPCOT, I still got to see and experience a few fun things from the festival, and I got to meet some cool people. We'll be going back to experience more because we have APs soon.
Roll your eyes if you want. We're all weirdos and all do our own eccentric things. Let people enjoy things.
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