Grad Nite report...

Ok guys, before I pass out for the day I figured I'd let you guys who have never been and wanted to go how it was. We did the "blast-off party" which turned out to be GENIUS. They said we'd get in 2 hours early and we all thought "yeah, us and everyone else who would pay the extra 20 bucks". Well, turns out we were the only ones in the park for a good 2 hours (or it seemed). Instead of going through the main entrance, our buses drove around the MK past the Contemporary. It was cool, we went all around the MK and we saw the Monorail facilities. We entered through the path where the parade route starts. We saw all the floats in their warehouses and a bunch of portables and stuff. Nothing special at all. We went in and me and my buds were the first to ride Splash Mountain! It was fun. We did all the rides we wanted to by 10 and by then the actual thing started so all the schools came in. There was foam all over Ariels Grotto and it was real fun. The little "dance cruise" on the Tom Sawyer boat was real cool. The only disappointing thing was the comedy show. That really sucked :hurl:

I didn't notice anything new besides what we already know. The Lagoon had the wall around it and to my surprise so did Snow White. I didn't see any exterior progress on Stitch and Toontown fair was closed off for the night. Some characters did greets which I didn't expect. Just Mickey and the gang in cap and gowns......and the country bears!? They're quite popular nowadays, but I didn't think they'd appear on Grad Nite..

I never noticed how big the Fantasyland Skyway area was. Wow, they can do a lot in that space. All the stages were set up real nice and they had awesome sound systems and bass (of course this is di$ney so they wont have your typical crappy high school prom/kids birthday party DJ's)

It was a lot of fun overall and those two hours early really made a difference. After that, everything had a pretty long line. We didn't run into any rude CM's but I had a brownie that I didn't want so I asked a HM CM if he wanted it and he said "is there pot in it? I don't want it if there's no pot." I was kind of like ? whatever...

I would suggest going if your school gets the chance to go. It won't be your typical Disney Day with mommy and daddy and if thats how you like it then its possible you might NOT enjoy grad nite as much. But other than that, everyone had buttloads of fun and we were all tired. I'm hitting the sack now, if anyone has specific questions about something feel free to ask since I was rather vague in this post

 

[Danrol388]

Sounds like alot of fun, wish I could do my Grad Nite all over again that was a great night, lots of fun. The Country Bears were also out during our Grad Nite in '03.

 

[Scooter]

Sounds like you had a great time...

...although I'm not quite sure if I'D want to have a

"Buttload" of fun. :lookaroun

 

[Pixie Duster]

I worked it last night collecting e-mails :brick:

I was so ticked the first 3 hours, lord knows why we even worked during the Blast Off, great idea for the students, but stupid to have us researchers there. Found that I had to use bad, dirty words to get the seniors to give me their e-mail.

Was the HM CM a guy with blonde hair? Ya he's a little off...

But I was really impressed by the improvements we made. We changed a lot in Grad Nite this year because of the feedback we as researchers got from last year's surveys.

 

[Mission: SPACE]

Originally posted by Pixie Duster
I worked it last night collecting e-mails :brick:

I was so ticked the first 3 hours, lord knows why we even worked during the Blast Off, great idea for the students, but stupid to have us researchers there. Found that I had to use bad, dirty words to get the seniors to give me their e-mail.

Was the HM CM a guy with blonde hair? Ya he's a little off...

But I was really impressed by the improvements we made. We changed a lot in Grad Nite this year because of the feedback we as researchers got from last year's surveys.

Pixie Duster...

Since you work in Research, I just wanted to let you know that I found the Pleasure Island part to be absolutely REDICULOUS. It was SO crowded, you couldn't move or do anything. I was so disappointed my Grad Nite experience began at 7:00, yet I didn't do ANYTHING until 10:15. Getting on the bus was a mess; we had to search through hundreds of buses to find our's. Then once at MK the process of going through all those CMs on the STOL port was just dumb. we spent an hour driving from PI to MK.

Overall I was pleased with the experience, but PI was much too crowded to do anything.

And to Piebald, I wish we would have started at 8 at MK... Sounds like you guys really got to enjoy the park!

 

[Piebald]

Originally posted by Pixie Duster
I worked it last night collecting e-mails :brick:

I was so ticked the first 3 hours, lord knows why we even worked during the Blast Off, great idea for the students, but stupid to have us researchers there. Found that I had to use bad, dirty words to get the seniors to give me their e-mail.

Was the HM CM a guy with blonde hair? Ya he's a little off...

But I was really impressed by the improvements we made. We changed a lot in Grad Nite this year because of the feedback we as researchers got from last year's surveys.

LOL, the HM guy was in the front. I don't know if that helps but he wasn't in the building or the queue when we walked by he was just in front of the tent where the Queue starts.
I thought Grad Nite surpassed everyone's expectations (except the comedy show lol). It was a lot of fun though. My friend went to Grad Bash and said "grad bash was pretty damn cool, but I don't think it compares to Disney".

 

[Pixie Duster]

Ya that's him, ya I talked to him last night he is a bit not there.

Unfortunetely me being in research does not mean I am able to just relay random guest comments to the powers that be. The only way I do that is through the surveys and focus groups I conduct. Hopefully you gave one of us your e-mail address that night and if not then hopefully people who did the PI blast off will speak up in their survey if they gave us their e-mail address. This year was the year we tried a ton of new stuff so hopefully we will learn from any problems that occurred.

 

[Spectroman2003]

Originally posted by Pixie Duster
I worked it last night collecting e-mails :brick:

I was so ticked the first 3 hours, lord knows why we even worked during the Blast Off, great idea for the students, but stupid to have us researchers there. Found that I had to use bad, dirty words to get the seniors to give me their e-mail.

Wow, you sound like a high-quality, fine addition to the Walt Disney Cast Members. Dirty words, come on. I hope I don't run into you when I start working there.