Dee8197
<font color=indigo>Those blinking rats get me ever
- Joined
- May 21, 2005
Thanks to all for the welcome back.
I will tell you about the holiday later but thought I would fill you in on the Wishes incident.
We saw Wishes on the first night, very good, but our view was a bit restricted by the trees and the Winnie the Pooh sound system. DS was desperate to see it again and so we decided to watch it on the final night (Wednesday ) but in order to have a better view to stand directly in front of the castle.
We watched the Fantillusion Parade from the side of the pavement behind the rope across from the castle. When the parade finished and the rope was taken down we, along with many others moved forward, crossing the road to stand behind the people who were alrready on the pavement in front of the castle. Unbeknown to everyone, at the same time the Cast member were ordering everyone who was stood on the pavement in front of the castle to move backwards off the pavement and they were then putting up ropes to stop the crowd moving forward. Of course this meant that you had many hundreds of people moving forward while at the same time you had loads moving back - logic tells you that sooner or later the two lots would connect pushing in opposite directions. A recipe for desaster, no-one could move backwards, forwards or sideways, there was a serious danger of people loosing there balance and falling, if this had happened there would have been a domino affect and I think many people may have been seriously injured. The cast members were all talking in French ( Ithink, anyway not english ) and people all around us who could speak the lingo were getting very upset and angry I think that they were trying to tell the cast members that it was really getting dangerous, whatever the frustration was obvious and the atmosphere increasingly intense has people were concerned that they or their children were going to get hurt. The fear was very real and tangible. The lady next to me was very angry and upset, and had a pushchair pushed right up against the back of her calves she couldn't move an inch and was in danger of falling - she was quite a large lady and had a rucksack on her back, she had been determined that she and her family were going to be in the front line to watch Wishes and all was not going to plan for her. She had a large backpack which had hit me in the chest and stomach several times during her advance forward ( all be it everyone was pretty crushed ) Anyway the cast members ithen decided to tell everyone that they had to sit on the ground, they had to be joking there was barely room to stand - this seemed to be the final straw for this lady who suddenly turned on me - with no warning and for no reason she suddenly started to punch me, before I had time to even realise what was going on she had reigned down four hefty punches onto the top of my arm and shoulder, thankfully I didn'y instinctively react because it would have been to defend myself and I think that she would have attacked me even more - her family managed to stop her and she seemed to understand the word " Police ! in english. My DS was in tears because he had seen her thump me with her fist and my husband was just flaberghasted, I was totally dismayed. He family seemed to be very appologetic but it had spoilt the evening - very undisney I must say. When we did manage to sit down she was next to me, still very angry and ranting to the cast members in her lingo, I didn't exactly relish me or my family sitting next to her, we were a bit too vunerable but we had no choice there was no chance of moving anywhere. So my advice would be, do not step off the pavement to move forward in front of the castle because you will be crushed by people moving in opposite directions. You could find, like us that you become the filling in the sandwich - not very nice
I will tell you about the holiday later but thought I would fill you in on the Wishes incident.
We saw Wishes on the first night, very good, but our view was a bit restricted by the trees and the Winnie the Pooh sound system. DS was desperate to see it again and so we decided to watch it on the final night (Wednesday ) but in order to have a better view to stand directly in front of the castle.
We watched the Fantillusion Parade from the side of the pavement behind the rope across from the castle. When the parade finished and the rope was taken down we, along with many others moved forward, crossing the road to stand behind the people who were alrready on the pavement in front of the castle. Unbeknown to everyone, at the same time the Cast member were ordering everyone who was stood on the pavement in front of the castle to move backwards off the pavement and they were then putting up ropes to stop the crowd moving forward. Of course this meant that you had many hundreds of people moving forward while at the same time you had loads moving back - logic tells you that sooner or later the two lots would connect pushing in opposite directions. A recipe for desaster, no-one could move backwards, forwards or sideways, there was a serious danger of people loosing there balance and falling, if this had happened there would have been a domino affect and I think many people may have been seriously injured. The cast members were all talking in French ( Ithink, anyway not english ) and people all around us who could speak the lingo were getting very upset and angry I think that they were trying to tell the cast members that it was really getting dangerous, whatever the frustration was obvious and the atmosphere increasingly intense has people were concerned that they or their children were going to get hurt. The fear was very real and tangible. The lady next to me was very angry and upset, and had a pushchair pushed right up against the back of her calves she couldn't move an inch and was in danger of falling - she was quite a large lady and had a rucksack on her back, she had been determined that she and her family were going to be in the front line to watch Wishes and all was not going to plan for her. She had a large backpack which had hit me in the chest and stomach several times during her advance forward ( all be it everyone was pretty crushed ) Anyway the cast members ithen decided to tell everyone that they had to sit on the ground, they had to be joking there was barely room to stand - this seemed to be the final straw for this lady who suddenly turned on me - with no warning and for no reason she suddenly started to punch me, before I had time to even realise what was going on she had reigned down four hefty punches onto the top of my arm and shoulder, thankfully I didn'y instinctively react because it would have been to defend myself and I think that she would have attacked me even more - her family managed to stop her and she seemed to understand the word " Police ! in english. My DS was in tears because he had seen her thump me with her fist and my husband was just flaberghasted, I was totally dismayed. He family seemed to be very appologetic but it had spoilt the evening - very undisney I must say. When we did manage to sit down she was next to me, still very angry and ranting to the cast members in her lingo, I didn't exactly relish me or my family sitting next to her, we were a bit too vunerable but we had no choice there was no chance of moving anywhere. So my advice would be, do not step off the pavement to move forward in front of the castle because you will be crushed by people moving in opposite directions. You could find, like us that you become the filling in the sandwich - not very nice
I know how you mean about the total chaos that can ensue at DLP when large crowds are there, NYE was bad too with people being shoved in every direction simultaniously. The CMs seemed totally unable to control the crowd and took to either ignoring the problem or just shouting instructions incoherently at the crowd.
I hope at least you were able to enjoy your holiday before this awful incident.
