I'm back! ; Work's kicking my butt now, so I haven't had much chance to get on here and update - spent last night trying to crop and process my photos from the trip...I've finally done a bunch of them for the first batch (I sometimes go back later to some I didn't bother to process or upload because they weren't that good, and see what I can get out of them with a little more time and effort).
It was hot, very humid, hot, not crowded at all, hot, moist but not rainy, hot...oh, and it was hot. ; Parks were quite thin - wait times maxed out for Toy Story Mania at 30 minutes, while some other usually-long waits had standby lines with 5 minutes or less wait times, like Everest, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Kilimanjaro Safari, and Kali River Rapids. ; Test Track and Soarin were 15 minutes or so.
The love bugs were floating around here and there, but not many at all. ; Though that's mostly because they are all currently sitting just south of Disney. ; I had to drive through huge blankets of them from Yeehaw Junction to Ft. Pierce, and my car was essentially solid black with carcasses across all front surfaces.
Despite 40-50% chances of rain every day and night, we had not so much as a single drop of moisture fall from the sky in the whole 5 days. ; Not only did it never rain at the parks, but I stopped by the car wash on 192 when I first came up Thursday (to knock the lovebugs off), and when I left on Monday, the car's finish had not one watermark on it, and was mostly just coated in a light dust. ; Even the briefest overnight sprinkle would have left a watermark.
Thursday was somewhat fun - we decided to hit marketplace in the afternoon upon arrival, and then thought we'd head over to Port Orleans French Quarter for some biegnets...we took a not-too-crowded boat over, but found the dock positively overflowing with people waiting to get on the next boat out of FQ. ; You'd have thought the place was being evacuated! ; Arriving at the main building, the bus lines were flowing nearly into the building. ; This was just at POFQ! ; Having just arrived, I was thinking I'd never seen Septembers that crowded and if it was a sign of things to come, I might not be going to any parks. ; By the time we wanted to head back, we realized the busses hadn't come for a good few hours, and people were scattering and giving up, getting taxis, or just yelling at the front desk staff to vent. ; We were using boats to get back to Saratoga, but had to stand in line while two boats arriving at POFQ from Riverside were already fully occupied. ; We could see the trend, and with dozens of people waiting at POFQ, it was unlikely we'd ever get on a boat towards Downtown Disney. ; So we changed tack, and jumped aboard a boat just arrived from Downtown Disney and headed towards Riverside, then stayed aboard as it headed back to POFQ. ; We were full-up and none could board from POFQ, so we sailed on, and I saw the same people in line that were there behind me still waiting in vain.
Ends up there was a 'suspicious package' found under a bus at the depot near AK, and all busses were pulled from service for an inspection. ; It took some time to figure out the device, since it was large enough for explosives, and seemed to have some form of radio transmitting capability or receiver capability. ; Very humorous to hear later it was something Disney had installed years ago as a test to transmit bus information electronically - it didn't work well and wasn't used - but apparently was never taken off the test bus. ; Years of maintenance folks never noticed or cared about it, until a newer employee found it and didn't know what it was. ; Personally, I'm fine with the extra caution...but some folks felt differently and were complaining. ; I guess I'd expect something if I missed hard-to-get reservations or a show because of the stoppage...but otherwise, it seemed about as well handled IMHO as can be.
I hope to post some pics again starting tonight, when I get the chance!