It is amazing what you can do at the end of the day especially if you are willing to give on the end of day shows. In the last 1-2 hours of the day we did:
HS - MFSR - 2 times with 20 min waits each, A2S - walked on, TSM - 10 min
MK - Speedway - 10 min., Tea Party - walked on, Pooh (grabbed a FP while on TS), IASM - grabbed a FP while on Pooh, HM - walked on, JC - walked on (and still saw the projections on the castle because they showed them at 8:00 as listed and again at 9:00 which wasn’t listed)
EP - FOP with a 30 min wait by watching the early ROL show on the side and rushing to FOP as soon as the show was done. We beat out all the people sitting in the FP seating area. (we could have done much more but the kids were tired at that point so we left a bit early)
When was this? Were the two projection shows identical? The one at 8:00 was HEA complete with fireworks that coordinate with the projections. The one at 9:00 (scheduled for 8:45) would have been Once Upon a Time, which does not have (much) fireworks.
The one at 9:00 didn’t have fireworks. so they weren’t identical. I didn’t check the show schedule because we were trying to do rides, not shows. But the workers told us they were doing the show at 8:00, so I assumed there wasn’t one scheduled for 9:00. So I guess we saw the 8:45 Once Upon a Time. It was cool.
My family have always been “close out the park” kind of people, and I totally agree with you on this! Plus, I find empty Main Street lit up at night to be even more magical than empty morning Main Street.
Now that our kids are older (18, 15, 10, 10) we’ve become huge fans of the RD, midday swim/nap, AND close out the parks schedule. We’re still not ready to give up the fireworks shows, though…