The scene: The Magic Kingdom, 2 years ago. The family and I were at the park when it opened, and after zipping through most of the rides in Tomorrowland, decided to head into Frontierland when it opened to be among the first ones on Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain (for those who don't know - Frontierland and Adventureland open an hour later than the rest of the park). This is our story:
It was a hot and sunny Florida morning. After finishing up our early morning turns on Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear, we strategized how best to maximize our ridage with minimal wait times. The consensus? Walk back through Tomorrowland, through Fantasyland and past all those suckers waiting in line for Winnie the Pooh, then stand by the entrance to Frontierland and when the Cast Member untethers the rope, walk briskly to the Splash Mountain line. Get on and off ride, repeat on Big Thunder Mountain. Aha! Two E-ticket rides in under 15 minutes, with no fast passes. It was the perfect plan ...
... until we realized about 200 other people had already thought of it. As we rounded the corner and came up on the bridge to Liberty Square, a mass of people had already gathered, poised to enter.
"Pssh," I scoffed. "We walk much faster than the normal person, and we're small - we'll just walk speedily and outmanuever - piece of cake."
The Cast Member addressed the crowd: "No running, and have a magical time." Our leg muscles tightened. We looked left, looked right, sized up our competition. The rope was released.
Pandemonium. Everywhere around us - moms, dads, kids in strollers - were full-out running through Liberty Square, with Cast Members feebly trying to keep up and ask the mob to heed the safety warning. Rubber sandals clopped along the sidewalk as the angry mob screamed, shouted, pushed, and ran to reach the most coveted prize of all - a wait-free ride on Splash Mountain. Being the fastest walker in the family, I positioned mother and sister to walk in front of me so as not to lose them to the crowd - after all, Mama Disney had the room key. Sweat formed on my palms as I gripped The Disney Chicklette's hand in white-knuckle terror and promised - Titanic-style - that I would never let go. Fear coarsed through my body - would I be trampled to death? Left to lie in front of Pecos Bills, broken and dirty, with Croc imprints all over my body? I did my best to push these thoughts from my mind and focus on surviving. After doing our best to politely power-walk our way through the crowd, we became swept up in the tide and were carried - at a jogger's pace - to the entrance of the Splash Mountain queue.
Those of you who have visited this attraction in the past will remember that the width of the queue does not accomodate more than 2 people. The angry mob of 200+ people pushed, crammed, and wedged into line. Screams of angry parents and those accused of cutting were mixed with cries of children wondering what they had possibly done to deserve such punishment. During this bottleneck, my sweaty and slippery palm came unglued from The Disney Chicklette's, and I was swept backwards through the tide of people and landed about 3 parties back in line. Mother and sister looked at me helplessly. What now?
"Excuse me," I asked fearfully to the scary suburbanite in front of me, "The rest of my party is up there. Do you mind if I get by?"
The woman looked at me as if I had just asked if I could eat her baby. I steeled my will, did as the Romans do, summoned my inner New Yorker, and elbowed my way to meet my family. Dazed, bruised, and terrified, we made it onto and off of Splash Mountain in about 10 minutes, and had about a 15 minute wait for Big Thunder Mountain, but it wasn't until that afternoon when our nerves finally settled and our muscles unclenched. "Let's NEVER do that again," said The Disney Chicklette.
The moral here: Some things in life are worth waiting for. Not dying is one of those things.
Check out more travel stories (and general Disney awesomeness) at the DisMarks Blog Carnival!
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1 comments:
I felt this way almost two weeks ago at DHS. Since TSMM opened, I have been to the parks 4 or 5 times and I have NEVER seen a crowd stampede for a ride like they did that day (and this includes a trip last July). 'Twas scary indeed! We waited 20 minutes in the Fastpass line - by then, the standby time was 90 minutes. Crazy.
(Oh, and I don't have an inner New Yorker but I do have an inner B-word. Will that work? LOL)
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