A couple of questions. I listened to a blog and they said that hardly any of the stores were open in Epcot's WS. None in England, China Germany and they thought Italy and Japan were also closed. Can someone please confirm? I thought it was just the CS and some TS closed. Also, only two more days until we make our TS resv. There is really not a lot of choices, we had planned on having dinner a couple of nights at DS but after hearing the reviews regarding distancing issues and less stringent mask wearing we are crossing DS off our list except for 1 or 2 early lunches. Our party includes a 1 and 3 year old, what are your thoughts about resv CA Grill or Tiffins. If there was a meltdown we would absolutely remove the little offender but the 1 year old in particular can be loud, really cute, sweet and adorable but a real chatter. I don't want to get the death stare.
A lot of stores ARE closed, with apparently no plans to re-open any time soon. Looking in the windows this past weekend, no plexi shields in site, so no plans to open. Unfortunately, two of the stores we specifically went to Studios to visit were on the closed list. At Epcot, Germany, Norway, Japan, Italy, Mexico and Morocco were all partially open. England's tea shop was open, but not the rest.
You can go to your Disney experience app, go to the map, instead of looking for wait times, look at merchandise. It will tell you what is open and what is closed ('temporarily unavailable'). Same for dining options. I should have done that myself before the trip. We didn't notice that Backlot Express closed early, so I missed out on getting a Wookie Cookie
Maybe because it was 99+ degrees with heat indexes in the 105+ range, but we did not run into any overly zealous CM mask police at Epcot nor at Studios. At Studios, every window service eatery with seating (even the dining locations that were closed) had most of the 'open' tables full of people with their masks off. They got fuller as the day went on. To the point that some did not have any open tables. Many had water or other liquids trying to stay hydrated, but even without "actively heating and drinking", if you were seated, you were left alone since the tables were already socially distanced. They became de facto 'relaxation' areas.
Woody's Lunchbox, as an example, in Toy Story Land is closed, but their seating area was full a good bit of the afternoon. "Open" tables had the umbrellas open to provide shade, with all the fans in the area on high. There was only one food/drink cart in the whole land, so not a lot of "actively" drinking or eating going on as there wasn't much to buy in that area. Did I mention it felt like 105+ degrees out? Maybe it was suppose to be an official relaxation area, but there were no signs to that effect.
On the attractions side, several folks in lines would slip their mask down to drink water, or briefly to talk to each other (VERY briefly to help clarify a specific word, for example, that got muffled in the mask). A mom with a handful of young ones took her mask off while entering the theater with Mickey's vacation short film. The young one she was holding may have aided in pulling it down to start with. She got everyone situated, sat down herself, and put the mask back on without any CM berating her. In that instant, the CM at the control station watched her and I'm sure would have said something if the mask had not gone back on, but waited to give the mom the chance to do it herself.
If you don't want to see a random nose or maskless faces sitting in the shade, don't go. Because you WILL see them. There are still some semi-see through one layer masks as well. Just because someone wore a thick one at the gate, doesn't mean they didn't swap it out later in the day. If that doesn't bother you, lines are reasonably short, but a lot of the shops and food options are closed. Yes, you will hear about some CM's going above and beyond, some borderline militant, with enforcement, but they are outnumbered by those that understand the reality and know most people are not trying to "beat the system", but are just doing the best they can.
An issue that larger families need to be aware of is if you are a group larger than 4 you have to separate in pretty much all theater type attractions (Muppetvision, Canada circle vision, etc). So mom, dad and 3 kids ... figure out how you are going to break up and sit because they will only let 4 people sit together. I get that that's the "easy" way to make sure there are gaps between each group. They have stickers on the seats you aren't allowed to stand in. Makes less sense in circle visions that you stand in, but okay, still easier than telling folks "make sure you leave 4 empty seats between you and the next group of people".
just in time to sign up for ROR. Whole family tried for a boarding pass and my daughter who lives in Connecticut actually was the one to snag our passes for us, boarding group 15! If you are ok getting up early, Skyliner was awesome. The line got long pretty fast. Best of luck to you!
