Wow! The thread has really grown since I last saw it! I read all the posts and there were lots of questions posted so I'm going to try to answer most of them! Here goes. . .
The pumpkin mickey buckets were for sale at WDW. I bought mine a couple of weeks before on a separate trip in anticipation. I stared at it sitting next to the computer every day and got more and more excited!
The totals for singing, roll call, etc. are a little inaccurate, because we stopped counting after the parade - we had expended a lot of energy by then!
The totals we have recorded are something to the effect of:
song - 53 times
ask about annette - 8
ask about cubby - 3
roll call - we stopped counting this one really early because we did it every single time we went through any turnstiles or a line of any kind.
The train station rehab and locker situation seems to change pretty often. I never know which end is going to be blocked off. As far as I am aware, there are no lockers available at this time. It may very well be too hot for your costume at 4pm. We started off with tights on with our socks (the girls) and quickly changed out of those in Downtown Disney because it was so hot. We were sweating bullets for a while once we got in MK and we weren't even wearing that hot of costumes (except that the shirts are pretty thick). My only advice would be to maybe fold your costumes up neatly if you don't want to wear them right away and carry them in a plastic bag or something. It is very likely that it will be extremely hot until the sun goes down or maybe even raining, this is FL after all.
As to the question why isn't this posted in trip reports - as with most of our photo posts it's kindof a combination trip report and update. While we are posting about what we did on our trip, we are also updating on what happens at a MNSSHP and what it looks like, what's new this year, etc, which usually qualifies as news since a lot of people don't know what happens at this event. Plus, I was up till about 4 am working on the thing, so posting it in two places might seem a little much for me that late at night. Maybe I'll post a link in that section later or something we'll see. :wave:
Donald Duck I believe was once again dressed up as a pumpkin. I don't recall if I saw him in the parade, but we did see him in Toontown, and I am fairly certain he was a pumpkin.
The camera we used for the night shots and, actually, all of the shots is a Kodak Easy Share CX7430. Pretty easy to use (although Ryland's better at it than me) and takes great pictures. I don't even have it on the highest quality setting, either.
Whoever referred to the teacup full of candy - I was surprised as you were! Hence the picture. I took a ton that didn't make the photo post cut (Ryland said this was far too many) but Disney REALLY upped the amount of candy this year. NOT AN EXAGGERATION. That whole 11 billion pieces of candy for the whole event statistic that was mentioned is completely fathomable once I saw how much candy they handed out. Holy cow. Disney folks really listened from the past couple of years when guests complained about lack of candy. If you miss your candy this year you must be asleep!
Am I sure that you can get into the park at 4pm? Yes. I am absolutely sure. After attending 3 MNSSHPs and one MVMCP in the past years, this has always been the case. We even asked a few CMs in Downtown Disney to confirm that this was still going on, and confirm they did. One year we arrived at the gates at about 3:40 and they did make us wait until 4pm to pass through (this was before we had APs).
And finally, why on earth was a Jungle Cruise CM in the parking lot? I have no idea. And why did he stop us and make us sing? I don't know but I'm glad he did. It was hilarious. We were excited to get so much attention and since we're theatre people we always love an opportunity to be in character. (Little did we know how far we'd carry it in the park!) He told us his name and to come visit him on Jungle Cruise but we totally forgot! Probably for a number of reasons - first of all I'm not the biggest Jungle Cruise fan, frankly it scares me quite a bit (I don't like AA in the water - I don't care how state of the art it is, it freaks me out), so I'm never really like Whoopee! Let's go on Jungle Cruise! Also it didn't used to be open for these events, it being dark and all, I think last year they added it to the attractions that would be open for MNSSHP and MVMCP. So sadly, between all our marching and singing, we missed him. Hats of to you, buddy!
Did that cover everything? I hope so! Thanks so much guys for your enthusiastic response - it's been a long time since I've done a photo post and I was really excited to do it again!:wave: :sohappy: