10/3 40th Anniversary of the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World – Photos and Report
Jeff gave me some screen shots to show the perimeters from his viewpoint at the Main Street Train Station. Friends of ours held this spot for over 5 hours! I went up to see them for a few minutes – and when I arrived, there were 20 or 25 friends hanging out.
After the fireworks, we had the worst gridlock I've ever encountered in the Magic Kingdom. Everything just came to a halt. I ducked into Casey's Corner, thinking I could avoid the Main Street traffic – but it ended up taking 20 – 25 minutes to walk from Casey's to the Adventureland bridge. Disney clearly didn't expect the crowds that showed up.
The lines after that for rides weren't bad. I think we only did one more attraction – Jeff enjoying the Jungle Cruise:
We found Room for 1 More event merchandise:
And another highlight of my day? We ran into artist Jody Daily at the end of the night, over at Disney's Polynesian Resort. There was no way we could get into the Kevin & Jody signing in the Diamond Horseshoe, so we stopped to say hi – and ended up talking with him for nearly a half hour. He and Kevin Kidney are just very nice, down-to-earth people. As Jeff said, this was the best ending for our day.
If you don't know who Kevin & Jody are, they designed the Soundsational parade at Disneyland (my favorite Disney parade in many years), and create merchandise for events. They also had a hand in Trader Sam's at the Disneyland Hotel, including designing the Wicked Wench. I don't know where they have the time to do it all, but you can keep up with them at Kevin's blog! Jody told us they will be designing the new Tokyo Disneyland parade for 2013 (I hadn't known this, but I made sure online that it's already been posted elsewhere before mentioning it myself!) I can't wait to see the parade!
Happy 40th to the Magic Kingdom! Thanks also to Adam Roth and Tom Corless from WDW Celebrations for inviting us to join you at your event (Project XL). I wish we had had more free time!