1st scheduled MNSSHP Fiasco

[Mom2Stitch]

I was at the first party last year and it can best be described as CHAOS. We've been to many parties, none have been like that. We staked out a spot for fireworks early on and it wasn't long until we were surrounded by people not wearing bands. One family parked their stroller in front of us and then left it there full of their belongings. DH moved it to the side as it was blocking the walk way and we were getting dirty looks as if it were ours. When the family returned-after the lights were dimmed for fireworks-they acted upset at us for doing that. The only line we got through for candy was the craisins, lol. Everything else was just too much. It was evident that the CMs were overwhelmed by what was going on.

I did come back and make a nicely worded complaint-we were refunded our tickets.

I just tried to make a ressie for the dessert party on 9/8, nothing available and it was just released today. I'm thinking we will watch the fireworks from the Poly beach and have a nice dinner at Kona and forego the madness this year.

ETA: Guess the madness is back on...I was trying to book the dessert party for 2 people, at the advice of another Diser I put in 3 and there it was. So the 3rd "person" is my infant cat

 

[ellie05]

I did notice a difference between last year and previous years. Previous year they will have an announcement a few times (I think it was 10 min and 5 min) before 7pm informing everyone that they party is starting at 7pm and if you don't have tickets you need to make your way to the exit. Last year the only announcement was at 7pm. The other difference was before they had walls of CMs last year in hub they had a little rope and ONE CM at the end checking wrist bands. It seem it took a lot longer for them to clear the park and I still saw a few people without wrist bands at the parade route. All the rides were checking wrist bands until 9pm or so. Now with the new cuts this year who knows how it is going to go. I didn't go to the first party ours was I think either the 28th or 29th.

 

[godders]

I was lucky enough to attend the first 3 parties last year and there was a HUGE difference from the first one to the third.

I personally avoided most of the chaos of the first night by hitting the rides and skipping the fireworks but the parade was crazy busy (saw the first one from Frontierland) and I only crossed the Hub once just before the first Hocus Pocus show and it was awful. I'm really short sighted so I didn't notice the lack of magic bands but the lack of CMs was noticeable.

The previous year there were several "walls" of CMs looking for wristbands which were no where to be found on the first night and they had returned in some capacity by night two and were in full force by night three. Similarly there weren't any announcements that I heard that first night to announce the park would be closing.

I think one of the problems was that there were so many new CMs working the parties who just didn't know what they were doing. Also as PPs have mentioned there were higher crowds than expected for that time of year due to three consecutive long weekends and a hurricane scare the week before.

I imagine Disney will have learnt given the amount of refunds they had to give out last year.