Cruise and Theme Park Operational Updates due to Coronavirus

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Absolutely, and I specifically did not say that "all wait times are inflated." I never mentioned actual wait times vs. posted wait times, actually. I'm saying that just because a line looks "long," that doesn't necessarily mean it will also take a long time to wait in it: those are two different things. Sometimes a line looks long and takes a long time to wait in, but there are also times when a line looks like it could take hours to get through, but only takes 20 minutes.
Yes, I agree. Sometimes the lines just look long but they move very fast. I didn't mean to imply that you said that but I have seen it in a lot of posts that the lines are much less. Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. It was definitely hit or miss when it came to line length. I just don't want people to expect to walk on everything when waits say 30 minutes+ because they would be unhappy then. Go expecting the worst and if you are lucky and things are walk on then you will be pleasantly surprised.

Overall the waits I experienced weren't too bad especially since there is no fastpass and they were moving constantly. But my DHS day was not great. MFSR, TOT & MMRR were all 60+ minutes waits and aside from MFSR most of that was in the HOT sun. The day was very humid and being in the direct sunlight was oppressive and draining. Usually the lines are more covered and fans are going so help. If they can get this part fixed by next summer or if we can stop social distancing things will be better.
 
And that is a failure of management. They need to do one of the following then
-close the line when it hits a certain point & do not allow people to wait around the area
-reduce park capacity
-increase ride capacity

Sounds like they’re sniffing around the third option?

They were closing lines if they got too crazy. They shut down the MMRR line for a while one morning because it got too long, the attendant was telling people the line was closed and come back in 20 minutes.
 
Many moons ago (like mid-2019?), they announced the Big Blue Pool would be undergoing a refurb this fall (I think they said Sept-Dec?), so this just appears to be the official postponement of that. I feel like it would be strange to reopen AoA without its feature pool at first.
We stayed at AoA in Aug 2019 and there were signs up everywhere that the Big Blue Pool would be closed fall 2020.

(It seemed a million miles away at the time - and now kinda feels even longer ago).
 
I would certainly hope reducing park capacity is not even on the table as an option (Unless of course they have to due to Covid number, god forbid).

They need to start making a profit to bring back staff, restaurants, hours and experiences. Not make less money. ;)

Feels like from anecdotal evidence and lots of reports I have read that all of the parks except DHS are doing ok. (maybe a bad moment here or there but overall fine). I do think they need to do something with DHS - ideally by adding capacity with more shows (I mean, at least something like Indy they should be able to do) or maybe reduce overall park capacity a little

Or like your idea of having afer hours ... maybe split the park day there into two sections? Reduce capacity by 30% and shorten hours by 2, but then add a "2nd day" worth of time - so you have more total people per day, but noticeably less in at any one time - and should bring in more $ for Disney
 

I'm sure WDW has been aware for a while of issues surrounding FP+, or in some cases some communication failures regarding FP+. We've all heard anecdotally of folks who don't go often thinking that you needed to pay extra for FP+ or that you didn't need to select them ahead of time for any ride, etc. I'm sure most visitors that used FP+ as intended thought they could only ever get 3 FP+ and never even thought they could get more. Heck you had folks that only used there iphones in the parks to take pictures, and there were still folks that didn't have or use iphones at all.

Then you had the hard-core folks that were gaming the system in various ways over the years (let's just say that the "refresh" method was the last one left as others eventually ended up circumventing WDW "rules" when those loopholes were disavowed). WDW was very aware of this, with folks boasting they were able to get double-digit number of FP+ while average stand-by wait times at the parks creeped ever higher and affected many. I'm sure there were plenty of survey responses returned complaining of wait times and/or not being able to FP+ certain rides or do many rides. What possibly ended up happening are that the folks that WDW would rather have spending money in the parks were instead spending way too much time in lines, while the FP+ savvy folks that may not be the biggest spenders were doing all the rides but also spending a lot of time "refreshing" to get the next FP+ and hence not spending as much at the parks. They somehow created a no-win situation for themselves.

For lack of a better term, it seems we've created a generation of wait time or FP+ "snobs". In pre-COVID times - if they don't have a FP+, they aren't going to wait to get on a ride and just won't do it at all. That's fine for folks that live close by and/or visit often, but problematic for folks that don't. When the parks opened July in our COVID times, the lack of FP+ wasn't necessarily a problem due to attendance being at an all-time low. However as attendance has increased over time the fact that everyone is in the same boat with regards to wait times is starting to interfere with the "snobs" who are now questioning their future visits.

With the initial removal of FP+, I think for the moment WDW is "leveling the playing field" with regard to wait times. This is in prep for whatever future plans regarding FP+ or whatever replaces FP+ in the future. I'm of the belief that the future will bring something that is fairer to everyone across the board, but I really think they need to work on methods of line management (such as virtual queues) that free the guest from lines. And whatever they do, they may still have to somehow account for folks that still don't use iphones. It's a difficult task.

ETA: I had mistakenly typed "leveling the paying field" above instead of "leveling the playing field". In the end it might end up with both being correct.
I really like this assessment and think you are correct. I like the maxpass system at DL much better than FP+ and feel it is more fair since it is day of. It also doesn't limit anyone to thinking they can only get 3 fastpasses. I hope whatever they come up with is better than either system we have currently.
 
Question about the Mexico pyramid. So is there a queue line outside to get in and then when you get inside you’re free to get in any line? Say I wanted to do the boat ride and go to La Cava, am I better off making a San Angel reservation and then once I’m in and done eating I can enjoy the ride and line up for La Cava? We originally were doing MK and HWS but I’m late buying tickets so we may do Epcot instead and the pyramid is my favorite part of Epcot. I definitely don’t want to be in line for an hour to get in. I will if I have to for La Cava though! Thanks for your review of your experience at Epcot.
Yes, the queue to enter the pyramid to shop, ride Gran Fiesta or get a drink from La Cava wraps around towards Norway. Exact reason we made an ADR at San Angel. San Angel serves many of the same Margaritas that La Cava does so we skipped the La Cava line and just had drinks and apps at San Angel then shopped/rode Gran Fiesta.
 
Not really a week off. Schools usually get Monday off for Columbus Day, but not sure if some schools have already eliminated that as a holiday. But I’m sure a lot of parents extend the 3 day weekend.
Fall break is a southern thing, as schools start a month to a month and a half before schools in the north, so they usually get a bit of an extended break in the fall.

We live in KS, our school district would normally have had inservice/conferences this Thurs and Fri so kids would have been out of school. This year we started school 2 weeks late due to Covid so everything got push back 2 weeks. We usually go in the summer every year, and IMO the fall is just as busy, if not busier, than summer.
 
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Yes but I went in July when they first reopened & was there this past weekend & it was noticeably substantially more crowded.
Not denying that at all - I agree it's more crowded now than it was in July or Aug. But that doesn't mean capacity isn't capped at 25% of full capacity - it only means that parks weren't close to hitting that 25% mark earlier and are getting close to it now.
 
Yes, the queue to enter the pyramid to shop, ride Gran Fiesta or get a drink from La Cava wraps around towards Norway. Exact reason we made an ADR at San Angel. San Angel serves many of the same Margaritas that La Cava does so we skipped the La Cava line and just had drinks and apps at San Angel then shopped/rode Gran Fiesta.
Great info! I have a reservation for San Angel for lunch on what will be our Epcot day if I can't get us into HWS. Thank you!
 
Not denying that at all - I agree it's more crowded now than it was in July or Aug. But that doesn't mean capacity isn't capped at 25% of full capacity - it only means that parks weren't close to hitting that 25% mark earlier and are getting close to it now.

But the capacity numbers speculated by knowledgeable sources when when they reopened suggested the parks were well under a 25% capacity limit, closer to 10% at DHS and AK and 15% at MK and Epcot. If it was always 25%, that would have been very, very risky by Disney if their hopes of demand were met. Reopening with crowds the way they currently are would have been ugly
 
Did I miss a post about the monorail being down? Just saw it on WDW Prep Instagram stories from 45 minutes ago. Holy moly that line for the ferry. :oops:
 
I agree that offering an after hours extra ticketed event would be a hit right now. It’s a chance to enjoy the parks when it’s not so hot while wearing the M word. We did the e-ticket nights in the late 90s when there were no extras- parades, fireworks, etc - just all the best rides with little to no wait. It would not require the same amount of staff as daily operations as most of fantasy land was closed along with the show attractions.

Its hard to believe that we are almost at 3,000 pages in this thread!
 
I agree that offering an after hours extra ticketed event would be a hit right now. It’s a chance to enjoy the parks when it’s not so hot while wearing the M word. We did the e-ticket nights in the late 90s when there were no extras- parades, fireworks, etc - just all the best rides with little to no wait. It would not require the same amount of staff as daily operations as most of fantasy land was closed along with the show attractions.

Its hard to believe that we are almost at 3,000 pages in this thread!

But it has to be worth bringing on probably a whole extra shift of employees at $15/hour (to include CMs, maintenance, custodial, transport, etc). Right now, they are running employee lean - to expand hours into that type of extra event, they'd have to re-increase the employee base, which they don't seem to want to do in 2020...
 
But the capacity numbers speculated by knowledgeable sources when when they reopened suggested the parks were well under a 25% capacity limit, closer to 10% at DHS and AK and 15% at MK and Epcot. If it was always 25%, that would have been very, very risky by Disney if their hopes of demand were met. Reopening with crowds the way they currently are would have been ugly

If I remember correctly, the July & August park availability calendar for some parks - especially HS - appeared to fill up for resort guests & APs. Not sure if it filled up for guests with tickets. In the case of HS, I can't imagine that they would have initially allotted 15% to the just ticketed folks and split up just 5% each for resort guests and APs. Similarly for the other parks. This is why I'm skeptical that they haven't somehow changed capacity between July and now.

ETA: The only other explanation I can think of is once the park reservation system went online a LOT of folks tried it out of curiosity - some even if they had no trip planned - and taken up slots that they never released. And this could happen because a lot of tickets now expire in Sept 2021. Over time and further away from the July opening, I would expect fewer and fewer of these "phantom" reservations to have been made to the point where very few exist. There's no way that Disney can clear these out because they really have no way of knowing.
 
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I agree that offering an after hours extra ticketed event would be a hit right now. It’s a chance to enjoy the parks when it’s not so hot while wearing the M word. We did the e-ticket nights in the late 90s when there were no extras- parades, fireworks, etc - just all the best rides with little to no wait. It would not require the same amount of staff as daily operations as most of fantasy land was closed along with the show attractions.

Its hard to believe that we are almost at 3,000 pages in this thread!
Events now have to be run with zero financial safety net. Refunds must be offered because they cannot have sick folks in the parks- this was never the case before. You could beg and plead and maybe get a refund before but the revenue was basically guaranteed if the tickets were sold. (Minus like 1-2 parties in case of hurricane.) Not so now all of it would be refundable. A paid event would basically be a gamble and Disney doesn’t have the funds to be gambling anymore.
 
But it has to be worth bringing on probably a whole extra shift of employees at $15/hour (to include CMs, maintenance, custodial, transport, etc). Right now, they are running employee lean - to expand hours into that type of extra event, they'd have to re-increase the employee base, which they don't seem to want to do in 2020...
...or offer them overtime
 
But it has to be worth bringing on probably a whole extra shift of employees at $15/hour (to include CMs, maintenance, custodial, transport, etc). Right now, they are running employee lean - to expand hours into that type of extra event, they'd have to re-increase the employee base, which they don't seem to want to do in 2020...

This was along the lines of what I was getting at. It’s not that it wouldn’t be wanted for some people, it’s that I think determining if these kind of things are worthwhile to the current Disney, not the pre pandemic Disney, hinges on more than would some people pay and want said thing.

Would some people want a water park open, and would some have gone to them as early as July? Of course! Would some people have stayed in the closed down resorts if Disney had opened them all? You bet. The question is really if we’re at the point that it makes financial sense to take on the incremental cost of the various things people want to come back, and I think they also are probably looking at whether starting something back up gives them little change in overall revenue as people shift spending priorities instead of increasing spending, and the same people who were already coming are still coming just like the same people who are definitely not coming are still not coming. Despite how crowded it feels, they’re still getting away with operating with shuttered resorts, restaurants, attractions, parks (water parks), scaled back hours, scaled back entertainment, and missing special events. Are we really at the point where demand is enough to support the after hour events, or does it just feel like a lot of people because of other factors?
 
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