Actually in the mid to late 80's it was the Japanese Tour Groups. They too did the Flag thing. The groups were huge and kinda discombobulated any attraction they moved onto, you quickly learned the wait times would escalate dramatically and went elsewhere. They were loud only because of the largeness of the groups. They didn't desire the attention the Brazilians crave.
The Japanese had a different cultural difference than the Brazilians. Japanese tour groups pushed, physically pushed. I had a small child at the time and we'd be in a queue and all of the sudden the whole queue was being shoved forward into each other. I got shoved onto the monorail at the Contemporary with my toddler. I was angry. That could be deadly. But the very worst was the theater at the Imagination pavilion. A huge group came in behind us and little by little we were being herded toward the theater pre-show doors ahead. When the doors did open it became a stampede from behind us, my son was pushed face down into the rug and they kept going right over him as I tried to peel him off the floor, they thought nothing of it. The doors closed, they got in we did not. I, nearly in tears told the door CM. She escorted us into the show before the group in the World of Color group entered so we could be seated.
These tour groups ended when Tokyo opened. Amen. But with the speech on Main St., the point driven home was they wanted to loosen Visa red tape to move in tour groups from Brazil, China and India. The difference with China and India, I have not, on a whole seen China and India throw money around like the groups from Brazil.
I'll never forget that.
