We just got back from a 6 night stay from Tuesday 10/6 - Monday 10/12, so a couple days before the holiday weekend and then the weekend itself. We are DVC and stayed at Saratoga Springs for the first time. It was the only resort with availability when we rescheduled our spring break trip but then we decided to keep it because we had read that it was nicely spread out with outside entrances so we thought it would be great for social distancing. We did get a rental car which is something we never do for our on-property stays but I’m really glad we did this time. Everyone was so helpful with their trip reports in the weeks before we went! Here are our experiences:
Tuesday, October 6 - Our flight arrived around 6:00 pm and MCO was a ghost town! Seriously, there were maybe a dozen people there! I wished O‘Hare was like that in Chicago but alas it felt busy and our United flight was full. Mask compliance on the flight was good. We had on both face masks and face shields and were the only ones on our flight to have both besides the attendants but I didn’t mind. We got our rental car and received our room notification while on the flight and learned that we had been upgraded to a preferred room in Congress Park! This was our first time at the resort and such a nice treat! We went straight to our room, dropped off our bags and walked to Disney Springs for dinner at Blaze pizza, which was excellent. Disney Springs was easy to navigate and while there were people there I wouldn‘t say it was crowded. The restaurant was pretty full so we opted to eat outside at a nice table by the water.
Wednesday, October 7 - Magic Kingdom. We aimed to get to the parking gate by 8:15 am but there are 5 of us and we ended up getting there at 8:25 am. Not bad, but not being used to driving we forgot to add in the time for parking, temperature check, security, and the ride from the TTC. A nice cast member tipped us off that if we were willing to break down our stroller, the bus was the way to go so we headed that way and waited less than 5 minutes when there was a substantial line forming for the ferry and monorail. We still made it in by around 8:50 am. We went straight to 7 Dwarfs Mine Train which was posting a 60 minute wait. We got Rider Swap for that as my youngest doesn’t like roller coasters. For those curious about how Rider Swap is working now, it goes right on your band and two others and is effective from after the posted wait time through the end of the day. I thought this way was ideal because then you don’t have to wait around the ride area with the little one for that one hour window to appear. You are only allowed to have one Rider Swap on your Magic Band at a time still. They actually waited about 45 minutes during which time DD and I did Peter Pan, Under the Sea and Haunted Mansion. All were walk on except for Haunted Mansion which was at a standstill for about 10 minutes when we got there and might have been at the tail end of a cleaning cycle. I thought mask compliance was excellent that day! I only saw maybe 2 noses all day and everyone kept their distance. We had lunch at Pecos Bills which was packed. Many thanks for the tip to mobile order early in the day and select a later arrival window! We made a late reservation at 5:55 pm for Skipper‘s Canteen for a 6:00pm close. It was our first indoor dining experience of this whole time and we felt good about the spacing of tables especially with being one of the last reservations and people starting to clear out. We did get the impression that they wanted us to move us along though, but they weren’t overly pushy and we enjoyed our meal.
Thursday, October 7 - Epcot. We specifically picked Epcot for a non-weekend day and I’m really glad we did after reading others’ trip reports. We were in the park by 10:30 am for an 11:00 am open and went straight to Soarin’ which was essentially a walk on. ( Wait was mostly the time it took to get through the queue.) Next to Spaceship Earth which looked long but was at most 15 minutes and then did Seas and Imagination which were both the time it took to walk through the queue but did have posted wait times of around 30 minutes each. Test Track was down so we headed to World Showcase. At that point, there was a line just to get in the Mexico pavilion apart from the ride. That took about 15 minutes with another 10-15 minute wait for the ride inside. I had read horror stories about an hour long wait to get inside the pavilion itself so we considered ourselves lucky! As an aside, the Smoky mango margarita at the festival booth is delicious! We decided that we wanted to do the Remy Scavenger Hunt and I backtracked to the Festival tent to buy the maps. With the AP/DVC discount it was a great deal and all my kids (even my teenager) had a blast looking for him! And we liked the prizes too. We tried to eat around the booths for lunch but it was hard with the heat and all the walking. I finally sat everyone down in the relaxation station at Akershus, which was a total lifesaver, and delivered food to them from as many close by booths as I could. Dinner was supposed to be at Spice Road Table, more about that below. Again, mask compliance was excellent and there was plenty of room to walk around everyone.
Friday, October 9 - Hollywood Studios. This was the start of the holiday weekend but the Studios was filled each day of our trip so I don’t really think that made much difference. We drove and were at the parking gates by 9:15 and at the tapstiles by 9:40 am. I was beyond impressed by how organized the entry procedure is for that many people all trying to enter at the same time. There was a line for temperature screening and the whole thing with security and tap stiles took minutes! My husband had the stroller and that maybe added another minute or two to our time. It was really a well oiled machine. We headed to MMRR first but by that point the line was posted at 105 minutes and they had already closed it for social distancing purposes.
I had read so many reports about HS being awful and I had really low expectations for our day, but it actually was pretty great. The only disappointment was that we didn’t get a boarding group for ROTR at 10 or 2 and that really bummed out my sons and husband. But thankfully we had been right when it opened in December and got to ride it then (twice for the boys with rider swap). I think we might have had some technical difficulty because we were able to hit join, pick our party and then it just spun and spun before gettting the “something went wrong” message repeatedly. My husband and I were in two different sections of the park and the same thing happened to both of us. I was at Smuggler’s Run with my sons and we were able to walk on to that afterwards, then do TSMM with a 15-20 minute wait ( posted 50). The wait times were weirdly inconsistent that day. We waited at least half an hour for the Muppets (!) when the posted wait was 19 (Touring Plans had it at 24) and then later in the day Star Tours was posted at 60 with Touring Plans having it at 12. I thought there was no way TP could be that far off and we took a chance and they were right and it was right at 13. We went back to MMRR later in the afternoon with a posted 60 minute wait and it was about that. The line wasn’t bad at all though. It was almost all outside and there was a rain shower that cooled everything off while we were there. We could even see one of the calvacades in the distance. We loved the ride and I came back with my daughter at 6:45 pm for a 7:00 pm close while my husband and sons went to Slinky Dog. It took 38 minutes from start of line until we were off and they were done before us! This was the first day I saw any mask non-compliance. There was a nice young couple behind us at TSMM that I started chatting with and then noticed that his mask was only covering his mouth. A lot of that line is inside so I started edging back to my distancing marker then. And both times at MMRR we had families behind us in line that ate a full meal of snacks while waiting - pretzels, beer, popcorn you name it. That was all during the outside portion of the line so we really weren’t all that bothered by it. Just mentioning in case that might bother anyone. I have to say that with the park being at capacity and with decent lines, it was still remarkably easy to get around. I never felt that the walkways were crowded. Actually, sometimes they were down right empty!
Saturday, October 10 - Animal Kingdom. We closed out the pool at Saratoga Friday night and didn‘t even try to get there for opening at 8:00:am. We got there closer to 11:00 am and the Pandora rides already had significant waits so we headed to the Safari which had a posted wait of 50 minutes with an actual wait of 30 and would have been shorter but the trucks had a technical problem that paused the line for 10 minutes. We split up a bit and everyone ended up doing everything they wanted to do - both animal trails, both Pandora rides, Kali, Everest, bird show. We ordered our mobile order for Santu‘li Canteen at 12:15 with the earliest window being 12:45 pm. That was fine because we were on the animal trail at the time but when we got there and hit the “I’m here” button it took them over half an hour to make our food. There were literally people everywhere. The park was rated a 6 on Touring Plans that day for the holiday weekend and that was the first time we had felt it. When I asked a CM about it they told me that they had paused making orders because the was nowhere for people to sit. So that part wasn’t ideal but our meal was delicious and worth the wait. We didn’t feel unsafe really, it was just impossible to find somewhere to go as there were people standing everywhere. We finally waited in the Pandora store in the a/c and opted to eat outside in the shade when our food was finally ready.
Sunday, October 11 - Magic Kingdom. We went back to the Magic Kingdom and between the holiday weekend and the longer hours, I was expecting it to be awful and instead it was great. We found out that morning that they moved up the opening time to 8 am but we were already planning on being there at 8:15 am for a 9:00 am opening and it was too late to move that up so that it what we did. We went to Splash this time and got in the line at 8:45 am and even with the park being open for 45 minutes already we only waited 13 minutes. Then we did BTMRR and Pirates each with about a 20 minute wait. We were hoping to make it to Tom Sawyer‘s Island when the afternoon lines built but it was closed all day for work on the river which was disappointing. Instead my kids played several rounds of Sorcerers from Frontierland and Liberty Square which allowed us to see all the calvacades that we had missed which was great fun!
Monday, October 12 - Epcot. Our flight left at 4:30 pm and we needed to pack and check out so we only had about 3 hours at Epcot. But in that time we did Soarin, Test Track, Spaceship Earth and had lunch so we were happy. Soarin was posted 50 at 11:15 am when we got in line and climbed to 90 right after. We waited 40. When we went back to Seasons for lunch at 2 pm it was down to 20 minutes. Test Track was posted 65 at noon, we waited 40 and that is with a cleaning cycle. Spaceship Earth was posted 35 and was a walk on. We timed it and it was literally 3 minutes.
Here are some of our overall thoughts that I hope will help with planning:
Dining - This was the biggest challenge of the trip. We love Disney dining and feel like it’s an attraction in itself. With limited offerings, dinner reservations are imperative if you want to make sure you eat in the parks. With shortened hours we tried to make reservations at park closing but that didn’t really work out well for us. At Skipper’s Canteen we felt a bit rushed. At Spice Road our reservation was for 20 minutes before close and after ordering, receiving our appetizer and waiting an hour they told us and another family that were seated after us that the kitchen had closed 10 minutes before we were seated and had never filled our order. I’m not exactly sure how that happened especially when we had received an appetizer but the manager clearly felt horrible and did all she could to make it right. They threw just about every cold appetizer plate they still had at us that they could and comped our drinks and app but we still ended up having to get something for our kids at the resort quick service at 9 pm. Thankfully it didn’t close until 10. We had a 5:15 pm reservation at Yak n Yeti for a 6 pm close at AK and got stuck on the safari. My husband was able to check us in but they told him that the kitchen closed at 5:30 pm so I had to check the menu and text him our order from the ride and then come rushing in worrying the whole time we wouldn’t have anywhere to eat. As far as safety, we felt good at all the restaurants. In addition to those mentioned, we ate at Sci Fi and Be Our Guest. There was a couple at the next car but down a row at Sci Fi. The tables were very spaced out at Be Our Guest. Spice Road we asked to be seated outside and Yak and Yeti there were only three tables dining besides us and we were all spread out.
Photopass - I’ve seen people asking whether Photopass is worth it with masks and I would say definitely yes! We saw more photographers than we’ve seen on any trip and they were bringing it! Multiple poses and almost every one had a Magic Shot with tons of Halloween themed ones! So fun! We got pictures from several places that we never had before and so many fun Magic Shots. Most were great and did them on their own but a few I asked nicely if they had them and if they did they would do one.
Calvacades - We loved them! I just wished we knew when they were coming (which I know would defeat the purpose). We were able to see them all in the MK, mostly because my kids were playing Sorcerers in Frontierland and Liberty Square. They must do the princess one more often because we saw that 5 times over 2 days! We only saw one at Epcot which was very short and we were in World Showcase all afternoon. Never saw Anna and Elsa which was a bummer. We just saw one at the Studios and none at Animal Kingdom, although we weren’t trying too hard at either because we only had one day at each.
Lines/social distancing/mask compliance - Overall we thought this was very good. There were a few instances where I felt uncomfortable. The line for Mickey’s Philharmagic is a mess. There weren’t enough markings outside so everyone was all scrunched up and once inside when it’s clear you’ve missed the seating for the show, everyone sat down and a bunch of masks came off. Same at Test Track while inside during the cleaning cycle. I thought we must have bad luck to have groups near us that took off masks both times but then I looked around and could see at least 5 groups throughout the line that had done the same. Ironically, I feel like inside during a stationary waiting time is when you need masks the most. I was able to side eye the people closest to us into partial compliance. As an FYI Small World’s line is almost all outside and scorching. I would try to do that when it’s not the middle of the day. In contrast, Splash’s line is mostly shaded and wasn’t bad at all.
Overall, we had a great trip. I’m glad we went and since we used DVC points and got APs for the first time last year, it wasn’t a huge expense. However, I’m not sure I would go right now if we had to pay for tickets. The 6 pm close feels really early. The 8 pm close felt like we had more park time but definitely shorter than we are used to. We did swim after the parks closed one night and played mini golf another and both were a lot of fun. I really missed the liveliness of the World Showcase and Animal Kingdom. It feels very different without the cast members and entertainment. In any event, we’ll be back in March for one more trip with our AP’s and hopefully a few more things will be open.
