When we had some other travel plans get cancelled so I made this booking a few months ago with the attitude "Well, not idea if this will happen or not." Lo an behold, it happened. Trip was me, my wife, and our 2 boys (7 and 10).
Background:
Had originally booked Caribbean Beach, with the plan to get in late 7/15, then his the parks 7/16-18, fly back the 19th. Only figured we'd hit 3 parks anyway, so the lack of park hopper wasn't a big deal (and hadn't booked park hopper tickets to begin with). Called in a few weeks back, and got moved to the Contemporary as CBR still isn't open. Which brings us to the trip.
7/15
Flight was very, very empty. I had arranged a car service to pick us up, and they were very cautious about COVID (driver was wearing 2 masks; disposable on top of fabric). Arrived late (11 pm) at the Contemporary, online check in worked great, went straight to the room, only to see one of the few issues. Nothing was open, and the vending machines were...not great. Our floor (12) didn't work. I managed to get some snacks by going floor to floor, but nearly every drink machine was sold out of everything. Finally got a bottle of tea on one floor. We all went to bed.
7/16 - Magic Kingdom
Mobile ordered breakfast at Contempo Cafe. It was fine, but there was no syrup for the waffles. Getting downstairs proved to be a challenge for a lot of people. Being on 12, took us about 3 elevators to get one (Elevators are limited to one party or 4 people; being a party of 4, we had to have our own elevator). We then stopped at every floor on the way down. I can't imagine how long it took to get an elevator on, say, the 7th floor. Monorail was awesome; one party per cabin, felt very safe. Temperature check was inside the hotel, before going through security.
Getting into the park, it was almost surreal how empty it was. I've been in some low crowd times before, but nothing like this. I don't think we waited more than 20 minutes for any ride all day. No splash mountain merch anywhere; store was closed and the ride exit store had nothing but pressed pennies. Kind of disappointing. The splashing is turned way down, which is great for people like me who don't like being soaked. No poncho necessary. Haunted Mansion is a bit odd with no stretching room. Rides are frequently paused for loading to be disinfected. Every line has a minimum of 3 hand sanitizer stations: one at the entrance to the line, one at the end of the line before you board, and one when you get off the ride. Had lunch at Cosmic Ray's, and mobile order again was well managed. And remember: everything is cashless. Don't show up without a credit card or magic band or a phone with mobile payments enabled.
All in all, it's still fun. Some stores are closed, but I can't think of a time I was within 6 feet of someone with a mask off. We headed back to the room to shower before dinner at California Grill. 7:40 reservation, and not seated until 8:10, but I'd rather be a little behind than them rushing folks or putting people too close together. Spacing was great, and the lack of fireworks kept any folks standing outside to a minimum. Food was as good as ever, occupied tables were plenty far apart, and servers were going out of their way to remain cautious. I really like the QR code mobile only menus.
7/17 - Hollywood Studios
Took the bus, and no issues. They were careful to keep the loads only to what the bus could fit, and there were more busses running to make up for the lack of people per bus. More of a crowd today, for sure. That said, the only significant waits were Rise of the Resistance (Boarding Group 9, but the ride went down while we were in line and we chose to wait that out) and Runaway Railway (probably 50 minutes). Slinky Dog Dash was probably 30 minutes, but Midway Mania was nearly a walk on, as was Smuggler's Run. You could see more people in Galaxy's Edge and Toy Story Land, but the Tower of Terror/Rockin' Roller Coaster end of the park was pretty empty. Had lunch at Ronto Roasters, and they were having people wait for tables to be sanitized between every party (using a yellow EcoLab spray). Had a late afternoon reservation at Olga's, and that was very well spaced. All the booths seemed to be in use, then there were standing tables and bar spots as space allowed. There are only 2 collectible cups now (the Endor one and the Porg mug); not sure if that's a permanent change. We also built droids (with a reservation) later in the day; crowd there was low. They have the bays with barriers between them. Some were single, others double, which meant both the boys were working side by side without a divider between them. Dinner was at 50s Prime Time. Table spacing was a bit more odd in here (some tables seemed less than a full 6 feet apart, but the layout inside is a bit atypical to being with), but we didn't feel uncomfortable. We got the last bus back (7:40 dinner reservation), and were the only ones on it.
7/18 - EPCOT
Took the bus again (as the EPCOT monorail isn't running), and it went fine. Lower crowd than HS for sure. After HS the day before, it was a reminder of how badly EPCOT needs some of the coming attractions. But it's still the same EPCOT I love despite the construction. Nice to see Spaceship Earth one more time in the current form. The Food and Wine Booths were all good, though some were closed unexpectedly. Similarly, most of the country pavilions only had one set of shops open. Surprised to still see some cast members from their countries (Germany and Japan, in particular, had quite a few). Lunch was just snacking around some Food and Wine booths (China's was a big hit with the dumplings and bao buns), and dinner was at Germany. I've never seen the Biergarten so empty, but spacing was not an issue and the family style system works. This was also the day the rule changed to "you must stand still to eat/drink with your mask off" and, not that I saw much of it, but cast members were working to enforce it.
7/19 - Checkout was super easy and automatic. No issues.
Odds and Ends:
-Photopass ride photos and magic photos seemed to take a lot longer than normal to appear in the account. Regular photopass photographer photos shows up very quickly, though.
-I didn't see the typical rude people or entitled person meltdown the entire trip. I can't remember a time I haven't witnessed at least one or the other per day. People were well behaved and happy to be there.
-Pin Trading is nearly non-existent. We only found a handful of boards across all the parks.
-Checked everyone's temperatures this morning, and no fevers so *knock on wood* we ended up as safe as we felt.
-Wearing masks are no big deal. We used disposable ones mostly; they seemed to be the most comfortable in the heat. You could get by with one a day, but changing to a clean one mid-day was nice. Not a fan of the Disney ones comfort level, but YMMV. (We did use cloth ones on the flights.)
Happy to answer questions if anyone has them about what things are like right now.
