Well, just a quick update on my July 4th visit. Prior to yesterday, I hadn't been to
Disneyland for the 50th celebration, but I assume that compared to weekends, the crowds were surprisingly light. We got there at 7:30 for the 8:00 opening, and the lines at the gates looked like they were pretty long, but they didn't reach the California sign for California Adventure. As soon as we got in, we headed straight for the bank to process our APs. I was glad to see that we were the first ones there. We spent a few minutes in there, and I made sure to ask the CM if she scanned our APs so that we could use them for the FP machines. After she said yes, we headed straight for Pirates. The wait was only about 15 minutes, and there was one particular new effect that I thought was amazing. After Pirates, we were going to get a FP for Indy, but the standby time was only 15 minutes, so we just waited. After that, we went to get a FP for Splash. The machine spit out invalid tickets, saying our APs were not used for admission. With no CM around to ask for help, we decided to take a stroll back to the Main St. bank to see if something was wrong with our APs.
The CM we spoke with apologized for the problem, looked at my AP and noticed there was a scratch on my picture, so she printed me a new one. I told her it wasn't necessary, but she insisted, and even gave us free mouse pads for our "troubles." The CM then said she scanned our passes multiple times to make sure they worked, gave us a FP voucher for Splash, and apologized that nobody was at the FP machine to help us. Needless to say, we were delighted with this CM and her kindness. We then decided to head over to Tomorrowland.
We went to Buzz and decided to get a FP. We went to the machine, and again got the invalid ticket problem. This time, there was a CM by the FP distributors, so we talked to him. He looked at our passes and realized that we had just activated them that day (yesterday). He explained to us that our APs wouldn't work for the FP machines the entire day because it takes a day for the AP to process, and that we can just ask a CM at each attraction to override the FP machine so we could get one. Throughout the rest of the day, though, we found that we actually didn't need to use FP. The longest standby line we saw was at Space Mountain, and that wait was only 25-30 minutes. The only FP we used the whole day was the Splash one we received.
The first real problem we encountered yesterday was when we ate lunch/dinner at the Plaza Inn. My girlfriend was getting ready to pay, and she had her AP and VISA card out at the same time. Insticintively, my GF handed the VISA card first, thinking she could show the CM the AP before having the card swiped. Unfortunately, the CM swiped the card immediately without giving us our AP discount. We asked her about it, and she said she couldn't reverse the transaction. Not understanding why this couldn't be done, we asked her to get the manager to do it, so she left and came back, saying the manager said it couldn't be done. I wanted to speak to the manager directly, but my GF wanted to avoid any confrontation, so I just let it go. The only other problem we encountered was with crowds. It seemed like everybody decided to show up to camp out fireworks spots. We were expecting this though, so we can't really complain about this problem. I just wish people had more courtesy than to trample, bump, and stand in front of us, especially when there isn't even room in front of us. Anyway, I'm not sure how bad Main St. gets for the fireworks show during summer weekends, but it was packed last night. We were standing in the circle right in front of Walt and Mickey, and when I turned around to look at Main St., all I could see was a sea of people. By the time the fireworks were about to start, it literally looked like you wouldn't be able to move down Main St., even if you tried to push people aside.
Overall, the 4th was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. Throughout most of the day, the crowds were light, and the temperature wasn't as hot as it was over the weekend. Also, now that we are AP holders, it was great to feel like we didn't have to rush and get everything done in one day, since we knew we could always go back.