(This is pasted from the Here Now thread but I wanted to update you all! Kind of long... )
Alrighty, here is my trip report. I didn't take my laptop with me and wasn't going to try to do a daily on my phone. Hopefully, this is informative for some of you.
Our trip was from 22-27 Oct with the 4-day military "park hopper (RIP)" tickets. I had my 5 y/o DS and senior DM with me (I'm the DD). Overall, we have a good trip and the parks were plenty of fun, plenty of good experiences, but I will say I wish I would have waited until mid-Nov. My initial expectation was more Halloween theming (scarce at best) and cooler weather to cope with wearing masks. It was rather warm, and while wearing the masks wasn't super-duper awful it was ok.
We flew into MCO, and if anyone can correct me if I'm wrong but our last trip in 2016 we found the Magical Express really easily with some CM help. Signage seemed to be better then, as well. This go around, it was a bit of a struggle. So, I'm not sure if anything in MCO changed or if Disney pulled any CM's from helping wayward travelers. Regardless, when we got to CBR we were dropped at Old Port Royale as expected. I kind of lucked out as I had ordered groceries through
Walmart beforehand, the driver was waiting on us, was super nice, and actually gave us a ride to Jamaica.
Immediately, I was thinking "such magic."
Day One at MK: I had booked an
ECV for my mom, inadvertently somehow it was delivered to Beach Club (I really think this happened when I called to talk to someone at ScooterBug the week prior who accidentally changed it because there's just no way I could've made this mistake...laugh), so we took the bus from OPR to MK. ScooterBug changed the delivery of the ECV up for me to Contemporary, so we could swing over there later to pick that up. Minor hiccup, no big deal. We ended up just messing around for a bit at MK before picking up the ECV. My mom is 72 with a bad hip, so I didn't want to push it for her. Naturally, as much as I wanted to get to every park before rope drop this never happened during our visit (keep that in mind). We had an early lunch at Contempo Cafe (great place to cool off, a short ride on the monorail--no problems), then headed back to MK. Security/temp check is just fine, easy to get through. I didn't get a
DAS for my mom initially because I've read on this very site mobility issues are not considered worthy of a DAS by Disney, so that misinformation must get dispelled because it's not true. Regardless, we got through most lines just fine at MK. They were usually shorter than advertised, and if a CM happened to spot my mom on her rollerskate they would point us to the ACA entrance anyway. Sometimes that happened, sometimes it didn't. The chokepoints around Small World and Peter Pan are a bit annoying. They're working on the facade of Small World so there is even less distance between both ride fronts/lines, which it was already a packed area. If you don't want to be on top of one another going through there, just take the long way around. People are pretty good about keeping their distance overall, but as people do, they don't always pay attention to those around them as they're fixated on what's in front of them. I will say, mom's ECV was a decent deterrent of parting the waves.
We stayed until it was dark. Got some great photos of the castle and Main Street (sorry, but iPhone 11 Pro cam is superior!). There were a few rides I wanted to ride that we just couldn't get to, that was kind of frustrating but it is what it is. Don't expect to ride everything right now with shortened hours unless you get there during "magic hour" and stay until the end. It's hard enough during full park hours, right now with shortened hours (why?) I just can't see it for nearly anyone yet alone anyone with small children. You HAVE to take breaks from mask face.
I found all CM's to be really wonderful throughout this entire trip, barring the occasional CM telling my little guy to pull up his mask the moment we were stepping off a ride. Only one time I lost my patience on that, and feel bad about that, but it was after waiting in a very long line... MTF on that.
Day Two at Epcot: Total. Waste. Of. Time. Ok, maybe not entirely but I made a great mistake here. I didn't realize the Fall Food & Wine Fest had been extended nor was so freaking popular with locals. The park was PACKED. Not only just packed, but packed with drunk adults who were acting like I did in my early 20s when I had no cares. Being around that with a child and your mom was just no bueno.
We took Skyliner to Epcot that morning Oh, no we didn't. We had to take the bus from the SL station by CBR because.... wait for it... SL to Epcot was down. (I have an entire rant on this on my podcast which I'll link but be forewarned, I'm an Army retiree so it's a little brash
My crazy podcast) When you've been waiting to ride SL since you learned it was being planned, and you get your little child excited about it, it's just like the Griswold's at Wally World. I wasn't upset, just disappointed. Disney Parks did a solid immediately having bus service arrive to transport people (superb!) but they would fail hard on this for HS transportation. We waited over a good hour to ride Frozen Forever and ever and ever and ever. I'm glad that at least in that area, there is a lot of shade. I wouldn't wait that long twice, but even my son and I are big Frozen fans (we did get a pic with Elsa at her meeting point which was really cool, I did ask her hand in marriage but she didn't hear me through my mask) so I didn't want to miss this. That was by the afternoon. In the morning, we got on stuff rather quickly. Not much waiting for the simple rides upfront in the park. We even had a Pooh interaction by Figment that was really neat.
Overall with Epcot, we could've skipped it and done a second day of MK but everything is clearer in hindsight. If you go, do a weekday visit to avoid the festival crowds. On one hand, if a lot of people are there just to buy overpriced food and beer they're congregating in the world tour area so that should free up rides up front...should.
Day Three at AK: I really love Animal Kingdom, I do I do I do. Again though, I think we could've given AK a pass on this Sunday and just planned on two days at HS. However, I wanted my son to experience all that makes AK so lovable and it was pretty good. Lion King is still shut down for some bizarre reason and I say that because It's Tough to Be A Bug is open. What's the difference here? They social distance the audience inside a space, why can you not do this at the Lion King? This is one of those little checkmarks that go in my regret section. That show is amazing, and I knew it wasn't running but none the less it's really disappointing. We actually arrived by bus to this park right before rope drop, small miracle, and headed straight for our Safari adventure where we basically walked right on. This is always fun, though, I recommend going a little later when the sun isn't blinding while trying to see those lions stretch out and about (we did get to see all three, so awesome). Nothing took away from this experience as it was business as usual, which was about how it was for most of the park until... Na'vi River Journey. "Jason, why didn't you go straight there at park opening?" Argh, I don't know! We had to get it in before leaving, it was a 65 minute wait according to the
MDE app and it was AT LEAST that long. My friend that lives in Orlando who regularly goes said he's never waited more than 15 min for that ride. So, ***? I can understand FoP being a long wait but NRJ? Maybe from cleaning the boats a lot? Plus, this queue when that long is nearly entirely in the sun. My son fell asleep on my shoulders eventually. This was the ride where I snapped at a CM as we got out of the boat for telling my son to pull up his mask. I wasn't mean, I just replied, "he's very healthy, calm down." LOL... I felt bad immediately and before we walked out entirely, I went back to her and apologized. But seriously, you wait over an hour for a six-minute ride... let parents correct the healthiest bodies in the park, CM. The people to truly worry about are super spreader adults walking around with masks pulled under their chins not caring and touching everything. Again though, this rarely happened and 99.9% of the time it did I reminded him to pull the mask up. It's harder to find decent fitting masks for little heads. (this is really long, right? Sorry, I'm a writer.)
As we left AK, I told my mom we could've skipped that one too but she said she enjoyed it still and I know my son did. I would've preferred two days at the best parks anyway.
Day four at HS: Hooray! We're going to get to the park early, get on that virtual queue for ROTR, and have a ball!
Easy peasy, baby! Bahahahahaha! Wrong, peasant! You WILL ride the Skyliner and you WILL like it! This was the nightmare everyone has been discussing and it's absolutely true. We were headed to HS on a Monday morning, you'd just imagine the crowd would be a little lighter. However, with Pop and AoA, plus CBR being pushed to this station and zero bus service to HS from this area--it's just ridiculous. I cannot for the life of me understand their logic on this one. Ride by TTC and you'll see nearly 100 buses just sitting. Is it a driver issue? I'm not sure but this issue right here really pushes me to not stay at an Epcot area resort because I sure as heck am not dealing with this twice.
Now, with every problem pointed out one should provide a solution. So, here is mine: use Lyft or Uber for your HS day if you're at one of these resorts. We did not because my mom's ECV. I didn't see an ACA-friendly ride option using either Lyft or Uber. I was probably missing something to find that option but had I found it, you bet your *** I would have taken that car. We waited nearly an hour to get on the SL which put us at the park a bit after 10. I wasn't a happy person about this at all, my son was already in tired mode by the time we got there, and we were close to implosion. We had to take a moment to gather ourselves before heading in, which upon entry (and finally grabbing a DAS thankfully) the magic sprinkled on our sweaty little heads returning happiness to our troop. From then on, the day was great! I'm very happy I scheduled HS on our last day because overall, our trip ended on a good note. Had I done Epcot or AK last, it would've just been a meh ending. If you can use a DAS, do so. I have no shame in doing the happy dance about passing on a 105 minute wait for MMRR. That's just stupid and unavoidable if you can't sprint to the ride before rope drop. I'm curious what the wait time was before pandemia set in.
Galaxy's Edge is the best damn theming in all the world over. From interactions with Kylo and stormtroopers (we had sugar skull Dark Side of the Force shirts on
Get them here... ) trying to recruit my son, to being yelled at by Rey for being against the Resistance (love her), building a BB droid (wish we would've done the R2), GE is just awesome. I could spend an entire day there. This is a preference, of course, but I think a good one.
Are there some disappointments? Absolutely. But I think whether it's normal time or not you'll always stuble upon some frustrations. Overall, there isn't a place I would rather be than WDW. I do wish we would've waited until mid-Nov to go for the holiday theming but no real regrets. I am turning around and planning for our 2021 50th anny trip now. WDW is gonna get your money, I just want 100% in return for it. Time will tell.
Again, sorry for it being so long but writing is second nature for me. I'll probably even add to this as I think about more. Please ask me any questions you'd like.
