'Eve' and I won't be there for the final night of Illuminations, though we are pretty much suckers when it comes to the emotionality of those special things we've come to love that will be sorely missed. This will be loss number four in less than four years.
When they announced that the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights were going away (we'd only 'discovered' them in 2012, but spent many hours there afterwards), we carved out some time at the final minute and drove down from Lake Placid NY to be there. That was just a few weeks before the finale. Our last night before having to return home, we sat at the end of one of the side roads until they all but kicked us out.
For the trip near the ending of the Main Street Electrical Parade, we got a prime spot early. We'd not checked the camera's battery, and after realizing that it would not last long enough to film the entire parade, we sat back and just enjoyed the show. That may have been a good thing.
'Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams' was the heart-breaker. We watched it every night that we could during its final week. 'Wishes' and the Castle are what Eve originally made Eve fall in love with Walt Disney World. The evening of the last show we found a prime spot early and parked ourselves. There were so many others around us that came out just for the finale, and the sentiment and sensations were palpable. Tears were everywhere, and so many of us were 'best friends', even if just for those few hours. It was hard to leave the park that night.
Returning the next night for the debut of 'Happily Ever After', we'd arrived later than we should have and the colossal mass of humanity and raw emotions were just too much. We stayed way back where much of the show was obscured by a tree, and ended up leaving with a feeling of wanting. We like the new show better now, but as I've said before, some people listen to singles, and some listen to albums. We've always been 'album' people. Put it on and let it play, hopefully it tells a story. The new show is definitely a 'hit singles' show, with not the same continuity that endeared so many to 'Wishes'.
We'll be there next week, and for sure much of our night time will be spent at Epcot. We're also going down for the party in August, and my guess is that I'll have to tear Eve away from Illuminations. The four things she most fell in love with will then be gone, and still no nighttime parade at the Magic Kingdom. At least the Dragon is working again, and FOP rocks, but Wishes and Osborne were something special, and not blatantly 'Disneyfied'. We love many things Disney, though to have that other quality non-IP entertainment showed amazing diversity. Something tells it might be quite a while before we anything of that nature again.
"You can only lose what you cling to...."