Here Now & Just Back - A Place To Share Your Recent Experiences

[MusicalAstronaut]

For the most part, people did follow the social distance markers in the queues. There would be certain people that always went 2 steps past their marker, every single time. That was annoying. And occasionally people would absent mindedly go past their marker, not realizing the line had stopped ahead of them. Usually they would then scamper back to their marker, but sometimes the next party would have already reached that marker, meaning they were now only 3 feet from the parties around them. But overall I do believe almost everyone was trying to follow the markers.

In that specific Navi queue, the party ahead of us went to their correct marker. But when they sat down, they spread out behind their marker, bringing the closest person to within about 3 feet of us. Part of the problem is that Disney measured exactly 6 feet between most of the markers, which means that groups with more than 1-2 people will typically be much closer than 6 feet away from the next party.

From what I saw when USO did their presentation, I liked the way they did it better. They had "stand here" and "don't stand here" areas. 1-2 people could stand on the line Disney had, but you're right, larger parties couldn't all fit there. You can always leave more space for the people in front of you, but that won't stop the people behind you from getting close. I experience this at the grocery store a lot. The person behind me won't stay back, and it's not like I can move up, because they'll just move too. I did have one instance (at Sleepy Hollow) where the group behind me was very spread out and almost next to me (I think they were trying to get out of the rain). A CM came up, asked if we were all together, and asked them to move back.

I also saw a lot of people going past their marker in windy queues and then backing up when they turned the corner & realized that the line had stopped. I don't think there's a lot Disney can do to avoid that, it's a sightline problem. Luckily most people were moving slowly and if you got "stuck" between spacing lines, it wasn't for long.

 

[The Expert]

I can only speak to how AK was on Sunday. We arrived at 9am, 1 hour after rope drop. We went straight to Flight of Passage, and it was almost a walk-on. We then did Na'vi River Journey, and had about a 30 minute wait. Then we did Kilimanjaro Safaris and it was a walk on. When we got of KS, Expedition Everest was showing a 20 minute wait. By the time we got to it after seeing the bird show EE was down. We then did Dinosaur which was a walk on. After our lunch at Tiffins, Flight of Passage and Na'vi River Journey were both near walk-ons. Kilimanjaro Safaris was showing a 5 minute wait.

I've seen mention a few times above about changes to the bird show. Since you saw it, would you mind telling us what's changed? DH and I loved the original show, but hated the UP version (even though we love that movie) and haven't been back since our first post-change viewing. I'm curious if it's worth going back now.

 

[Chisoxcollector]

I've seen mention a few times above about changes to the bird show. Since you saw it, would you mind telling us what's changed? DH and I loved the original show, but hated the UP version (even though we love that movie) and haven't been back since our first post-change viewing. I'm curious if it's worth going back now.

Unfortunately I don't remember the older version well enough to do a direct comparison. Compared to the Up version, the new show is really about the birds, with the hosts providing just a bit of comedy. There is no forced narrative. They just bring out the birds, the birds fly around and/or perform in some way, and they talk about the birds. And the hosts weren't over the top and obnoxious.

The birds very rarely did what they were supposed to, when they were supposed to, as they have only been practicing this new show for a few weeks. It was very entertaining and sweet.

They also did a good job spreading people out, though many guests had a difficult time following instructions. Basically every other row is closed entirely. The rows that are open have giant "Do Not Sit Here" stickers covering sections of the bench. When you enter the theater, they tell you not to sit in a closed row, and not to sit on the stickers. Quite a few people sat right on the stickers, and the CMs had to come move them.

 

[The Expert]

Unfortunately I don't remember the older version well enough to do a direct comparison. Compared to the Up version, the new show is really about the birds, with the hosts providing just a bit of comedy. There is no forced narrative. They just bring out the birds, the birds fly around and/or perform in some way, and they talk about the birds. And the hosts weren't over the top and obnoxious.

The birds very rarely did what they were supposed to, when they were supposed to, as they have only been practicing this new show for a few weeks. It was very entertaining and sweet.

They also did a good job spreading people out, though many guests had a difficult time following instructions. Basically every other row is closed entirely. The rows that are open have giant "Do Not Sit Here" stickers covering sections of the bench. When you enter the theater, they tell you not to sit in a closed row, and not to sit on the stickers. Quite a few people sat right on the stickers, and the CMs had to come move them.

Thanks for the info! It sounds like an even more streamlined version than the original, which I like. We will most definitely check it out (and NOT sit on the don't-sit-here stickers)!

 

[GPC0321]

In that specific Navi queue, the party ahead of us went to their correct marker. But when they sat down, they spread out behind their marker, bringing the closest person to within about 3 feet of us.

Was the queue that slow-moving that people had time to literally sit down and eat? I've never seen that even in normal times. Yikes.

 

[Chisoxcollector]

Was the queue that slow-moving that people had time to literally sit down and eat? I've never seen that even in normal times. Yikes.

The queue completely stopped for about 10, maybe 15 minutes. I'm not sure if they were cleaning the boats, or if something was wrong. They didn't make any announcements.

 

[yulilin3]

PLEASE THIS THREAD IS NOT TO TALK ABOUT THE VIRUS AND HOW IT SPREADS

 

[GBRforWDW]

Sorry yulilin.

Thanks for the livestream at DHS today. Was good to see how things were flowing there.

 

[Doingitagain]

We are staying at kidani and rode the bus to magic kingdom yesterday, the buses are supposed to start running at 8:30 to the magic kingdom but a transportation guy came by and said it would be there at 8:15, it showed up at 8:07. Seated us by family size and try to take people who were standing there first, only allowing about 20 people on the bus. There was another magic kingdom bus behind ours and it looked like it could get everyone else. We arrived at the bus stop at 7:45 and there was already 3 families waiting.

How did the handle picking up people at Jambo? Did they save room or was there a separate bus?

 

[YawningDodo]

I'm very interested to see feedback in this thread about DHS, particularly RotR--though I know that has its own thread (dangit I thought I was finally free of eternally watching that thread). Going to be very curious to see whether they let people in ahead of opening time to be able to book a boarding group at 10:00--seems like they would have discouraged rope droppers more effectively by bumping the first reservation period to 10:30 or 11:00. If my chances of getting a boarding group during one of the later reservation periods are decent (and if the shorter waits later in the day continue to hold) I'm probably going to avoid rope drop across the board on this upcoming trip.

No luggage service as of July 15. You have to pick it up from baggage claim yourself and bring it with you to the bus to the resort (like you did before if you landed after 10 pm). No resort service for luggage to the airport when you depart, either.

Glad I stumbled across this info here, though I suspect I'll probably get a heads up about it when I finally get around to booking DME for my September trip (didn't have my flights done when I booked, didn't want to wait since I wasn't sure if those deep AP discounts would last or book fast). Where is Disney communicating this info? Is it in the Know Before You Go stuff on the WDW site?

Side note, the airports are what have me most concerned about this trip after reading reports from those who have gone. But I've still got plenty of time to cancel if it's looking untenable. At least I've got TSA Precheck so I shouldn't be waiting in the full security line at MCO.

 

[brockash]

I had a wonderful time in MK on Friday! Skipper Canteen & BOG were taking walk-ups (I tried & failed to make an ADR so this made me happy) so I had lunch at Skipper Canteen. Saw some snakes & the ducks were almost aggressive, haha. One tried to eat my toes and they had no issue coming up to people & nibbling on them, begging for food. [friendly reminder to not feed the ducks!] The park music was almost weirdly loud, probably because the parks had so few people in them. You could hear things a lot better on rides too. Water rides like Splash & Small World seemed more backed up than usual (big line of boats all bumping into each other much earlier in the ride than normal), probably due to the extra time it took to spray the boats down. This wasn't a big deal, but just something I noticed. Wearing a mask was fine. It wasn't too warm on Friday - it rained in the morning and I think the high was 88 degrees with a heat index of 100. The day absolutely flew by and I can't wait to do all 4 parks this weekend. I'm going to scroll back through this thread and read it again, but if there are any questions or picture requests let me know! I thought the castle looked very nice, but it was weird to see it with such different colors! By the end of the day I was used to it.

You saw snskes at MK? Were you in Tom Sawyer Island? Just curious as I've seen a few at resorts but never at a park.

 

[coubogle]

How did the handle picking up people at Jambo? Did they save room or was there a separate bus?

They did not go to Jambo, I assumed they had a separate bus in the morning, when we came back from magic kingdom I noticed a bus coming from kidani going into Jambo. The usual route is pick up at kidani first and then Jambo second

 

[Doingitagain]

Glad I stumbled across this info here, though I suspect I'll probably get a heads up about it when I finally get around to booking DME for my September trip (didn't have my flights done when I booked, didn't want to wait since I wasn't sure if those deep AP discounts would last or book fast). Where is Disney communicating this info? Is it in the Know Before You Go stuff on the WDW site?

www.wdwinfo has important updates on it, I follow that. BTW, the "bring your own luggage to DME" starts July 16.

 

[Lumpy1106]

I had a question from a video I saw. This was on the ferry - I have to assume it's elsewhere too. They showed the benches on one level of the ferry had a "do not sit" sticker on all but one seat on a bench. The idea I get - there is not room on the bench for social distancing. OK, but if you are with your family, can the whole family sit on the bench (i.e., on the sticker) or are they enforcing the one person per bench?

 

[HollyMD]

Ok wait, does the bring you down luggage to the bus start July 15 or 16?! We come in in the 15th, but we haven’t gotten our luggage tags in the mail and someone said earlier it started the 15?

 

[soniam]

I had a question from a video I saw. This was on the ferry - I have to assume it's elsewhere too. They showed the benches on one level of the ferry had a "do not sit" sticker on all but one seat on a bench. The idea I get - there is not room on the bench for social distancing. OK, but if you are with your family, can the whole family sit on the bench (i.e., on the sticker) or are they enforcing the one person per bench?

The 3 of us sat on a bench together. I think it’s to discourage non-groups sitting together on a bench.

 

[Doingitagain]

Ok wait, does the bring you down luggage to the bus start July 15 or 16?! We come in in the 15th, but we haven’t gotten our luggage tags in the mail and someone said earlier it started the 15?

I believe the last day they do luggage is the 15th. But DVC said they aren’t sending luggage tags, when I talked to them.

 

[soniam]

We were at UO Thurs-Sun staying onsite. Went to Volcano Bay and then the other 2 parks. I can’t comment too much on the regular parks, because my diverticulitis kicked in Wednesday night, and I stayed in the room Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday. Ate some indoors and some outdoors.

We went to MK today. Staying at BWV and drove to the TTC. Did DS last night. Ate indoors at Plaza and outdoors at Homecoming.

I generally agree with what others have said. People are mostly following the rules. Employees are sometimes saying something. WDW spacing feels tighter than UO. Groups feel bigger at WDW, so they are taking up more walkways and more space in queues. I just don’t move until I can see that the people in front of me have a spot to go to. Make sure your group stays close together instead of spreading out like a bunch of rude, privileged Americans. I did see people taking masks off in dark rides. I saw a decent number of exposed noses. There is also the usual meandering idiots, who can’t figure out what they are doing or where they are going. Some things never change.

As for eating/drinking in line, I saw some but not a ton. I know that I would drink in line, because it’s difficult to pull down my mask (head straps) to drink while moving w/o spilling. However, I only pull mine down, really kind of out, while pouring water into my mouth; I pull it back up to swallow. Or I take 2-3 very quick drinks and then back on with the mask. We also keep ours on at restaurants if we are not actively eating or drinking.

We got to Plaza when it opened, so it wasn’t very crowded. Tables were spaced decently. So even when full, it wasn’t too close. We sat outside at Homecoming. I would have preferred a little more separation there, but people were not on top of us.

I like how UO puts the sanitizer on your hand right before you get in the attraction vehicle or in the seat. There is no one ensuring that people use the sanitizer before getting on. The only attraction that we saw being sanitized was BTMR. They could have been doing others though. BTMR and 7DMT had plastic up in the inside queues.

Saw weird spikes in wait times. I don’t know if it was due to cleaning or not. Wait times were generally low to non-existent. 7DMT and Splash were down in the morning. Those had the longest waits once back up, 30-40 min. Some of the wait times were inflated. We would get off a ride, and then see it backed up a bit. Walked onto Peter Pan. It was sometimes difficult to hear the cast members over the PPE and background music/sound.

 

[Chisoxcollector]

As for eating/drinking in line, I saw some but not a ton. I know that I would drink in line, because it’s difficult to pull down my mask (head straps) to drink while moving w/o spilling. However, I only pull mine down, really kind of out, while pouring water into my mouth; I pull it back up to swallow. Or I take 2-3 very quick drinks and then back on with the mask. We also keep ours on at restaurants if we are not actively eating or drinking.

See, this I have no problem with. Pop your mask down for a quick moment to take a drink or two, and then pull it right back up. If everybody did this, particularly in queues, I would have had no complaints.

my diverticulitis kicked in Wednesday night, and I stayed in the room Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday.

I feel for you! Diverticulitis is the pits.

 

[soniam]

I feel for you! Diverticulitis is the pits.

I see what you did there I had liquids only for 2 days. I don’t remember losing that much weight on vacation before. All the fat bloaty clothes I brought are kind of falling off. Luckily, most of the shorts have ties/drawstring.