We were at Epcot last night, to see the Fourth of July show. The crowds, as usual, were ridiculous, and my group needed to post up at our "spot" on the bridge between France and England nearly three hours before the show. I wanted to test out the range on my Speedlight 580EX, so here's a shot I took a little before the 10 pm start time of the area below the bridge, showing the mass of people waiting to see the show: I loved the show, but the crowds are just so ridiculous it almost sucks any enjoyment right out of it. We tried to get there early and get a good spot for the kids, and I still had at least four incidents in the last 30 minutes where people just shoved their way into our group at the last minute (literally between parent and child) to see better. I almost came to blows with one non-English speaking gentleman when he knocked my two year old over shoving his way in between our strollers and up to the railing to get a better view. Luckily, another nearby visitor who spoke Spanish better than I intervened and told the guy off, but I have to say that overall this trip has been the worst in terms of crowd behaviour that I've ever seen.
That is sad how people act- we set up early in a new spot close to the castle to watch Wishes a few months ago with the kids and had a similar negative experience.
It's not just the adults. When I was stationed near the flagpole for wishes, I got the same experience from kids who kept kicking my tripod in an effort to try and get a better view. I understand kids are short and have a hard time seeing. Heck, many kids are taller than me. But, I shouldn't get punished because they were late to the party
On a positive note, at mgm for the starwars parade, the lady in front of us pushed her husband over and moved over herself, and asked Dina to come up next to her so she could see better. Now dina had a front row view of the parade! We had noted that despite all the crowds for starwars weekends, it seemed like all the guests were very polite and getting along. We talked to a few people at wickets warehouse even!
That is awefully nice of that lady. Granted, I'm normally that generous when I don't have a tripod setup to photograph fireworks. But being barely 5'3" tall, I don't get to see many parades unless I'm at the front of the pack
Funny - we had another terrible experience at Star Wars weekend with a family of Brits. We posted up about an hour and half early for a parade, and lined the strollers up so the little ones could see. Literally 2 minutes before the parade started, 2 british "ladies" and their husbands were being pushed along the parade route by park employees clearing the way, and just stopped in front of the strollers. They absolutely would not move, and when myself and four other families near by were complaining, they called us all "ignorant gats" (whatever those are). The lady was screaming at us "what do you want us to do - they put us here". Two of the park employees actually escorted them to another location. Now in a 2 week trip, those were the only 2 real bad examples, but still .... I've never had any problem like these at Disney before. For what it's worth, since the 4th, it's been great in the parks - surprisingly light crowds for this time of year, and few waits. As long as you avoid the extra magic hour parks, it's been real nice !
