…for a good deal!  Many are familiar with Black Friday and the possibility of chaos that can come with the early, early opening of the doors to a store or the unwrapping of the palates of merchandise, hidden from view with a mile of black shrink wrap.  It’s like a feeding frenzy of hungry shoppers that get a whiff of what’s about to be revealed and don’t care what it is, but they’d better get it before the guy next to them does.  The good thing is that there are always lessons to be learned, both in timing and technique, although keeping in mind that every sale is unique.

Our second annual trip to “The World of Disney” sale was last Saturday.  I’m not positive about the absolutes regarding the scheduling of the date, but it seems to come the Saturday following the Black Friday weekend.  This year it was December 4th.  Megan and I got up a little after 1:00am and left the house at 2:30am to make the trip from San Diego to Anaheim.  I love driving on the freeway at that time of morning – NO traffic!  Arriving at about 3:45am, we got right into the line that was waiting to be let into parking lot by Downtown Disney.  Megan couldn’t just wait in the car, but had to scope out how the line would form.  I stayed in the car to hold our place in line.  After some discussion with the security guards (and getting kicked out of the store area), Megan was just heading back to the car to give me the scoop when on my end, the security guards, probably because of the line of cars in the road waiting to get in, decided to let us into the parking lot early…about 5:00am.  She heard the engines of the cars turning back on, so she turned around and headed back to start forming the line.  By the time I was parked and joined her, there were about 25 people ahead of us in line, but considering how many joined us later, that was an awesome advantage.  The line formed on the sidewalk inside the parking lot by the Rainforest Cafe.  There were 4 teenage girls in front of us that promptly sat down and went to sleep…how, I don’t know!  But the mood was filled with the anticipation of shopping for the good deal. 

Our dilema before we left home was whether to dress warmly or keep outerwear to a minimum, because once you get into the store, it gets hot fast and you need to be nimble…a really hard task for me!  I opted for tennies and a light sweatshirt. 

 
Silly Megan wore flip flops, usually her first choice in footwear!  It was cold, not terribly so, but her toes did get a little numb.

About 5:45am, a cast member and security guard WALKED us onto the property like a large group of school children orderly walking out of the school for a fire drill.  I will admit that Disney cast members are well trained in the art of line formation and crowd control.  At one point, a younger man was walking right past “the line” heading to the store.  After waiting in line for hours, “the line” was having none of that line-cutting.  He was politely asked to go to the end of the line, didn’t comply, so the line stopped while another security guard went to the young man, stopped him, discussion was held and then he was escorted back…don’t know to where, but the line started moving and we continued to form another line outside the store.

At 6:15am, the doors opened and inside we hurried.  I grabbed a few things, but it wasn’t long before I had parked myself in a convenient spot and was the drop-off place for Megan.  I watched the bags of gathered items and purses while Megan power shopped.  When there are limited supplies of things, you have to grab first, and then decide later.  If it turns out you don’t want something, there will be another near-by shopper that will happily take it off your hands! We positioned ourselves right by one of the check-outs, which worked really well.  When you are done shopping, all you have to do is move into the line. 

We left the store, bags in hand, about 7:30am.  This is what we greeting as we were leaving…

 
and this…

 
and still  this!
This is the line waiting to get INTO the store and people were still coming to join them!

I can’t tell you what we got (since there might be Christmas presents involved), but it was a lot…as you can see!

 
Megan did the majority of the shopping and the deals we got were incredible.  When I am tired from the event is not the time to ask me if I will do it next year, but after a good night’s sleep, I am ready to entertain the idea.  This is definitely at least a two-person endeavour;  I ran into someone later in the day that said they didn’t go because they didn’t want to attempt it solo.  Everyone needs a buddy for this sale, just like Black Friday.  I’m thinking that I will increase the team effort next time…oh yeah, I think there will definitely be a next time!!!

As a final note for those of you that might consider attending the sale next year:  go early!  After Megan and I went to breakfast, we went back to Downtown Disney…there was something that Megan wanted from the D Street store.  She meandered back to The World of Disney store, hoping to get in to get another couple items that she had wished she’d gotten more of, but there were still people that hadn’t gotten into the store for the first time yet…after 10:00am.  Oh yeah – and have a cart or a dolly waiting outside for you to help you get your packages back to your car!!!