Goober's Wife

If I ever went to Epcot for NYE, which I will never do, I would not park in the main parking lot at Epcot. I park in the BW overflow lot and enter through the International Gateway.

The walk to your car afterwards is shorter, and no tram. Then you're outta there with no hassle.

When we do it on the 4th or NYE (done Epcot on both those super crowded days), we go very early, well before rope drop.  We are always able to get parking in the rows right behind the handicapped section of the lot, so it's just a quick walk to the main gate, no tram required. :)

Yes the drive out of the park was bad but I meant just trying to walk out of the MK to get to any transportation mode, once you got out the gate the crowds would criss cross each other to get to what they wanted to ride on. If they could have divided the monorail and the bus lines early to at least try to divide the people heading to each. Yes I know that I am asking a lot here, I mean to have people READ and FOLLOW simple directions is to much to ask so I guess I will just have to grin and bear it and still enjoy our New Years Eve in the MK!!!!

      WOW that almost sounds like a TROLL RANTTM

Yeah that's what I was referring to when I said getting out of the MK after close on a crowded night.  Getting back across the lagoon is a huge bottleneck, whether you're taking a bus or the monorail back to the parking lot.  And people are running in all directions, yes. :)

I'm honestly not sure how Disney's booking system works for Fort Wilderness but I will honestly say I think it's bizarre.

In the past, I have had to make reservations for a larger window than we wanted, and then I would call back and drop the extra days.  For example, if I tried to reserve say a Wed-Saturday 4 night stay, the system would tell me there were no sites, but if I changed it to Tuesday-Saturday nights or Sunday-Saturday nights then suddenly like magic there was a site.  They just didn't want to give it to me for 4 nights.  In other words, I think they try to force people to book longer stays.  If enough people aren't savvy enough to realize they can call back later and modify the nights to trim them down, that could account for some of the "empties" where people are arriving late or leaving early.

That said, prices keep climbing, so maybe they are finally beginning to price out some campers.

Last time we did New Years Eve was at the MK, we got there around 9am and never left, just found a spot to rest awhile, then enjoyed the festivities, the only bad part was trying to leave around 1am. I think they could have done a better job getting the mass of people out of the park. We plan to do the same thing this year as that is what my son picked, so we just hope for the best, we go in with high crowds planned so that way we are not disappointed.

Departure is one reason we favor Epcot on NYE.  If you get there before rope drop,  you're at or near the front of the lot.  No need to even ride the tram, just hike the sidewalk under the bridge and go.

One of the things I like least about WDW is the bottleneck of getting out of MK after closing on a busy night.

Oh yuck! We are big fans of mixing borax with sugar to get rid of ants.[/quote

So the sugar attracts them and the borax kills them. Hmmm makes sense. As long as they are sugar-loving ants.

This definitely works on regular black garden ants.  I have killed entire massive ant hills with 1 cup of borax and 1 cup of sugar.

 

I've never tried it on fire ants, no idea if they will eat it or not.

You couldn't actually pay me to set foot in HS on NYE; that park is not built for crowds.  Too many of the walkways especially on the "north" and "west" sides of the park are excruiciatingly narrow.

Last year we did NYE in Epcot and it was awesome!  We went in at rope drop and stayed until about 1am.

My suggestions to make it a workable day:

1. Wear lots of layers so as it warms up and then gets cold again you can adjust your clothing.  Don't forget scarves and mittens for late night, it got pretty chilly once we sat down on the grass to wait for the fireworks.

2. I don't usually let our kid take toys into the parks but this one day I took his Nintendo DS.  I carried it in my bag and he got to play with it during quiet time.  18 hours of good behavior is a lot to ask of any child and having something to do when we were "waiting" for something helped quite a bit.

3. We took a blanket.  We rented a locker and stashed our coats and blanket in it.  About midafternoon we pulled out the blanket, found a nice patch of shady unoccupied ground, and took a nap in Epcot.  We used the blanket again to rest after 10pm while we waited on the fireworks.

4. We booked two table service meals so we would have 2 chances to go inside and sit down for an hour or so away from the worst of the chaos.  Dinner was in England when they hit midnight in London, so that was bonus fun (and "free" champagne).  Funnily enough, the Showcase walkway outside of Rose & Crown (basically from Canada to the International Gateway bridge) got jammed (completely jammed, nobody could move at all) and the park CMs couldn't get it untangled, so the restaurant staff and CMs escorted us back through the restaurant and out a back way down that little sidewalk that is closed to normal guest traffic. England at 7pm EST is a crazy place...

5. Drink lots. 

ETA:  Don't expect to do a lot of rides this day.  Standby lines are VERY long.  We went straight to Soarin at rope drop last year, and I think only rode 2 other rides the rest of the day, maybe 3.  This year since there is now FP+ we will ride those 3 things we reserved, and maybe we'll go to something at rope drop.  But NYE is about the atmosphere and people watching and drinking and eating and dancing, so who wants to stand in line 2 or 3 hours for a ride?

Also ETA:  I would be afraid to try park-hopping on this day.  Park closures are as common on this day as they ever get at WDW.  And you didn't mention how you were planning to move, but transportation is jammed as well.  I would not at ALL recommend trying to move by car after 11am, because the parking lots will be capacity and the roads bonkers.  If you really want to spend the evening in Epcot, it might be worth switching your fast passes and just staying there all day.

During the coldest nights last NY week (there were some nights in the 30s IIRC) we used our little wooden box infrared heater inside the tent, but only in the morning when we were awake and getting ready.  We would never leave it plugged in or turned on while sleeping or away from the campsite.  My husband would turn it on and let the tent heat up while he fixed his coffee before waking the rest of us up.  It actually warmed the tent quite a bit for the hour or so we had it running.

We also took electric blankets and we did keep those plugged in and turned on for the colder nights.

Aww I just saw this, thank you very much! It's a whole birthday week, anyway, right?? :)