We were at EPCOT for Dec 31, 1999. I remember we took the first bus over in the a.m., around 6:30 or 7 a.m. if I remember, from the Lake Buena Vista Embassy Suites and the third bus, 1.5 or 2 hours later, was denied entrance. I don't know if it hit Phase 3 or Phase 4, or if they even used the same terminology, but by mid morning you could hardly move and they relayed that you could no longer park in the parking lots. It stayed that way the entire day. We slept on the grass outside Universe of Energy (even then that area of the park was the least crowded!) in the mid-afternoon, then moved to World Showcase, had a 4 p.m. dinner, and took turns staking out our fireworks spot until midnight.
When it wasn't our turn to guard the 4'x8' spot we staked out for 10 of us, my 21 year old self, 23 year old sister, 29 year old brother in law, and cousin (age not disclosed!), drank our way around the world twice out of sheer boredom. The grog almost killed me. Never again. You couldn't get on a ride if you wanted to, and QS and drink lines were 35 minutes to 2 hours long. I've never seen the Showcase walkway shoulder to shoulder and completely blocked like that. CMs were desperately trying to clear a path 2 people wide pretty much the whole evening and it just wasn't going to happen.
We saw the fireworks and then just sat there until 2 a.m. while the park tried to empty. Eventually we got a bus back to Buena Vista Village after 3 a.m. from one of the EPCOT resorts and walked back to the Embassy Suites. I remember getting in the door sometime after 4 a.m. It's a neat thing to have done for the millennial changeover, but it wasn't the most fun I've ever had at Disney. It was close to 23 hours door to door from the hotel.
