I tried to post last night when we got home at 1:30 am, but the boards were down. So I'm posting first thing this morning.
We had a great time at DL yesterday. It was very crowded, but surprisingly not as crowded as we expected. We had some things to do before we left for DL so we got there around 2pm and by that time the cars were being parked on the Donald Duck level of the parking structure. We've never parked that high before so we thought for sure it was going to be more crowded than ever.
We hit DCA first because we wanted to take our girls straight to the water play area at Bug's Land. The water play area was pretty crowded so our girls decided they wanted to start going on rides. We literally walked onto every ride in Bug's Land. There was no wait anywhere! It surprised us because when we were there in June we had to wait a while for everything. We were even able to get right back on rides after we got off because there was no one in line. After Bug's Land we went to Monster's Inc. and had to wait about 5 min. Then we saw the show "Drawn to Magic". We got there at 4:15 and got perfect seats for the 4:30 show.
We walked through the main gates at DL at about 5pm. DH & I both commented on how empty Main Street seemed. Definitely not as crowded as when we were there in early June. Since one of the main things we wanted to do while we were there yesterday was look at the DVC model, we headed straight over to the DVC kiosk. (We're seriously considering buying into DVC so this was important to us). We found out they close the tour office at 5:00 and it was 5:15, but they were able to arrange to get up picked up right away so we could go and see the model. We got picked up by the DVC bus and went to the sales office. This was really interesting and we didn't end up leaving the office until around 6:45. We were pleasantly surprised when they gave us a handful of Fast Passes at the end of our tour.
We got back to DL at close to 7pm and by this time it was REALLY CROWDED. We figured a bunch of AP holders must go after work. We tried to find a place to eat, but there were huge lines everywhere. We finanally decided on Hungry Bear and sat by the water while we ate. This was nice. Afterwards we hit Pooh before heading back to DCA for the EP. We got a great spot for the EP and our girls loved it!
After the parade we went back to DL for the fireworks. We got a perfect spot for that too. When the parade was over we decided to utilize our Fast Passes. We went on Buzz twice, then on Slash Mountain & Space Mountain. It was sure great not to wait in line, but by the time we got off of Space Mountain we were ready to leave. We had 4 Fast Passes left so we gave them to a family that was just about to wait in the 40 minute line for Space Mountain. They were appreciative and we were happy we didn't waste them.
We got back to our car at 11:55, put the girls in their pajamas and headed home. Our girls thanked us for a fun day and fell asleep before we even left the parking structure.
*A note to those people who leave north of DL: They have the I-5 COMPLETELY closed at the 91. They are doing construction and the sign said it would be closed from 11:30pm - 4:00am. It was bumper to bumper traffic so I would suggest you find an alternate route to get home. Luckily DH knew of another way so we got off of the freeway and avoided all of that mess.
Even though it wasn't our usual day at DL and we weren't as productive as we usually are, we had a great time. We're so glad we went! It wasn't as crowded as we expected, but did get a lot more crowded at night. But still not as bad as when we were there in June.
To all of you going to DL this week, have a great time!!!
.
Have fun today and wave at Mickey for me.
