Your probably thinking that this day really isn't sounding too bad yet. A little rain, some changed plans, nothing too bad right? It wasn't up until that point. Sure the rain had made me a bit grouchy because my plans were shot, but an afternoon at DTD wasn't too bad of a trade off. Unfortunately that's when things took a bit of a turn.
We made it back to our room so we could get changed for
MVMCP. The temperatures were really dropping, and I wanted to be sure I was wearing some warm jeans for the night out in the park. I had also brought along a holiday t-shirt for the occasion. We were out the door at about 4:15 or so for our 5:20 ADR at Ohana. We were half way down the walkway to the bus stop at the Boardwalk when we noticed that a MK bus had just showed up. I was all for running down to catch the bus, but my friend didn't want to run so we just took our time and missed that bus.
In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman -
Big Mistake. Huge.
I didn't even get to go shopping afterwards.
If you've never stayed at the Boardwalk, the bus stop there is pretty small. Since they don't offer bus service to either Epcot or DHS there is only one small covered area. We sat down and watched about 4 buses show up heading to DTD, and another 3 or 4 show up heading to the AK.
No buses for the MK.
In the mean time the area is becoming more and more crowded. It seemed like there everyone was heading to the MK for the Christmas party and where getting more and more cranky that no buses were coming. We spent some time chatting with a group who had just arrived in Orlando from Minnesota. An hour passed by and still no bus. A CM had come by at one point and called for a bus, but it didn't seem to be helping any. It was now 5:20 and we were officially late for our dinner ADR. I was getting more and more irritated and cranky as the minutes were dragging by. It was now wall to wall people in the small bus area, groaning in unison everytime a bus going somewhere else showed up.
I probably should have just went and called a cab earlier, but in the back of my brain I was afraid that as soon as we ventured away from the bus stop the bus would show up. I had just given myself a 5 minute deadline to call a cab when a MK bus showed up.
Two seconds later all pandemonium broke out. It was at that moment that I realized how nice those line corrals are at the value resorts. The doors of the bus opened to find a solidly packed bus. I think only about 10 people got off.

My friend and I were standing pretty close to where the door had opened, and as we had been waiting there longer than anyone else I was determined to get on the bus. As the bus first let off a wheelchair guest, I watched a couple hop on the bus through the back door while the rest of us were waiting to board the bus properly. The woman hadn't been waiting all that long, but was complaining loudly that she was going to miss her ADR at the GF and didn't care. One of the men we had been chatting with pointed out a large group of about 20 people that had just arrived, but were pushing through everyone determined to get on the bus first. When the door opened up to board the bus he stepped over to block the group long enough for us to hop on without being trampled.
We squished onto the bus, and I got stuck standing near where the *****y lady who had hopped on the back of the bus had planted herself, still going on about how she was entitled to get on because she was going to miss her ADR. The guy we had made friends with wanted to step on her toes, and tempting though it was we all held back from injuring her. I don't know how many people got on the bus, but the depot was still packed as we pulled away. The people already on the bus told us that the bus had gotten lost driving back to the Epcot resorts.

They had been nearly back to the resorts when the bus somehow looped around and headed back to the MK. They had been on the bus for nearly an hour taking the scenic tour of Disney property. There was more ugliness as we stopped at the Yacht/Beach Club and the Swolfin to find equally packed bus stops and equally cranky people. Finally we were on our way.
We finally arrived at the Magic Kingdom, and made yet our second mistake of the night. We probably should have just skipped heading over to Ohanas and just headed to the party, but we both really wanted to eat there so we decided to just go to the Poly and see if they could fit us in. We headed over to the monorail station to find a resort monorail just pulling in. Our relief of catching a monorail right away soon slipped away when it became apparent that we weren't moving anywhere. A message came on over the intercom telling us that they were pulling a new monorail into service so we would be delayed until it was operating.
Ugh!!!!

About now is when I wanted to just start crying and go home and curl up into a little ball. I really didn't care anymore at this point. We were already an hour and a half late for our ADR thanks to a bus driver who didn't know where he was going and now we were delayed again on the monorail. I stood there watching out the window at the large clocks on the wall counting down the minutes that the two monorails were sitting motionless on the platform. I think that when it hit 15 I may have whimpered a bit. My friend was trying to make some conversation with me, but at moment I wasn't feeling any Disney magic at all.
The monorail started moving again, and we finally made it over to the Poly at, according to my Facebook post, 6:10. Two hours after leaving our room at the Boardwalk we had made it to the Poly.
STRIKE 3
I felt like I was on the verge of losing what little grip I had on things at this point. Everything that had been building up over this trip seemed to be just about hitting a crescendo. At the Ohana check in desk I explained to the CM what had happened, and asked if there was anyway she could possibly fit us in. I don't know if she could tell that I was just fried or what, but she assured me she's get us in as soon as possible.
We've already hit 3 strikes for the day, there couldn't possibly be anymore waiting for us could there be?