Just back - I already posted our DS (4/19) and AK (4/20) experiences. Me (not a thrill ride person), DH and DS27. By the time I realized we needed to buy new tickets rather than using our old once we got there, HS reservations were gone and I felt like we will wait to do E next trip. However, I really did miss seeing those parks this trip.
MK - 4/21 Wed. - Since the car alarms got us up by 4:30 yesterday morning and gave me plenty of time to get ready, I set my alarm for 4:30 and, again, we were out of the door by 6:20 a.m. Decided to wait at Turtle Pond stop rather than walk to Peninsular and a MK bus pulled up as we were approaching! We were the only ones on the bus and the first bus to arrive at MK at 6:50 a.m. where they held us for a bit. Beautiful weather today. We went right to SDMT and my guys were on the 3rd train of people. PP walk on through long queue, Pirates walk on. People were lined up at JC but I don't think it opened for a while, so they were "wasting" precious time. There was already a long line for Splash but it wasn't open yet. BTMRR @ 8 - posted was 5 min and it was! They did it 2x. Then they waited in line for Splash which said 25 min - I felt like I waited a lot longer for them to get off, but maybe not. Buzz - walk on 9:05. Placed MO @ Cosmic Rays for 10:30-11. Tomorrowland seemed much less crowded than other areas. Space - 20 min posted. I got in line for Pooh while they rode Space and then they joined me in line when I was still outside (every family gets their own honey pot, so they didn't take anyone's spot). It was starting to get crowded by now. LM and then Barnstormer and @ 10:33 pushed 'we are here' for lunch. There was a crowd waiting for their orders and we got ours at 10:47. Good spicy, crispy chicken sandwich and ate at a small table inside. Felt very "safe". 11:30 HM (posted 30 min - it was less). Then JC - posted was 40 min and it was. We had a great captain but I didn't catch her name. Waited for Tom Sawyer's because TP said it was 11 min but the line was quickly forming so it took us about 50 minutes - we would NEVER have waited for this, but we were trying to take it easy/spend the day here and had already done a lot. My guys did do BTMRR while I waited in line for TSI raft. DH and DS26 enjoyed doing the caves and exploring since we haven't done it since kids were young. While we were waiting, we saw Tinkerbell going through Frontierland. As we were walking toward Fantasyland after TSI, we saw Country Bear characters up on the roof. Philharmagic was 40 min wait. Found a quite alcove in Tomorrowland to enjoy a coffee while guys did SM. Then Buzz 2x - they must have been cleaning because wait turned out to be about 50 minutes (as
MDE posted but TP kept saying 11 min). Waited so long for the first ride that we went right back in for the second. At 5:30 we got in line for Speedway (20 min posted and it was). HM one more time. We were tired, so we grabbed some pizza and cheeseburger egg rolls and sat for a snack. Then walked out and saw Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald and Daisy on the train platform. I was thrilled!!!
4/22 Thurs - DH birthday. We walked to DS from OKW in the a.m. to buy a few souveniers for the grandkids. We had a 5:00 reservation for Raglan Road. We've never been there and we loved it! ETA - our utensils wrapped in napkins were under a dome when we arrived at our table. Our food came delivered by several people and the plates with domes were set in front of us and then the domes were removed. We had a high table in the corner and a fantastic waiter named Jack who took our drink orders immediately, described menu items and checked on us plenty but not annoyingly so. There was entertainment and the food was great! No Rush Pork, Braised Be Beef and Vegan Shepard pie. A shrimp app was awesome as well as the bread pudding we shared. Then we walked to the new shopping area to look around. DS is huge now! It got extremely crowded. We left close to 8.
Masks and distancing - I wanted to agree with other posters about this week about mask wearing and people staying on designated spots in lines. I wish the announcements would include a reminder about staying on designated spots in lines because some people just aren't doing it. At Buzz, they must have been cleaning because we had a long wait when it shouldn't have been and the line grew pretty long. People were clustered together just like any other time. Only CM I heard correct anyone the entire trip was in line for the 3D Bugs at AK.
Bus - I will say that being at the bus stops by 6:25 a.m., if you can do it, is great. At OKW, both days we went to parks we did this. If we had been a minute late, we would have missed our bus. We were only on with 3 other people on our AK day and the only ones on our MK day. We were the first ones in AK (I think) and the first in line at our queue at MK. Unfortunately, on our MK day, we walked to the bus stop to go back to OKW about 5:15 and people were there who had been waiting an hour and were really complaining. I don't know what happened.
Overall experience - I was surprised at how many small children were there this past week. Not only because of the virus, but there really aren't characters around like usual and I only saw Mickey and friends on the way out of MK by chance. I think this modified experience might be best for older kids and adults who really love the rides more than seeing the characters. I really missed the parades and character spottings that usually go on, since I'm not a thrill ride person and usually wander a little when my family is riding. This time I felt like I was just waiting for them at MK - especially as the day wore on and it got really crowded - with no castle shows, parades, PeopleMover, autograph signings to watch, etc. At AK I can wander the trails or watch the monkeys in the middle, etc. I'm glad we went but two days at the parks in 5 nights was plenty. We spent the first and last day around the resort.
Our drives from MD were uneventful but UGH!
For some reason I received two different Disney survey emails prior to my trip asking me to review my trip. Today, the survey links are expired.
I have no idea why Disney thought my trip was the week before.
My trip overlaps with them, too, but I didn’t know it at the time. Not a fan of groups, even well behaved ones. Their volume wreaks havoc on the parks.
