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

[bastraker]

Exactly. This is our HS day and we are going to leave after lunch without riding a single ride.

 

[bastraker]

Forgot to add to the closures this morning at HS. We tried to watch the 11am Beauty and the beast, no first show was down. Next show 1pm.

We decided to leave and walk to our hotel to swim. I went to the blue experience tents and asked for them to refund my $44. Of course they did without any issue.

 

[ocassionalDISer]

Long time viewer, first time poster! I so appreciated all the posts here while planning my trip, so I figured I would make a contribution We just got back from a quick trip 2/12-2/15 with 2 park days.

2/13 – Instead of doing G+ today, I just picked up an ILL for Guardians. I had my pick of times when I made the selection just after 7am. We were meeting up with my BIL and SIL at Magic Kingdom this morning, but since they have a 2-yr-old, we decided to split up for rides and then meet up to walk around and eat. If I remember correctly, the park had opened for early entry at 7:30 but we didn’t get there until closer to 8:30. Even so, we were able to ride Space Mountain and Buzz right away with no more than a 10-minute wait for either. Then we met up with our family to ride Aladdin with the baby (probably had a 15 min wait) and walk through the Treehouse. BIL/SIL had a G+ for Small World next, so we headed to Pirates in the meantime. Wait time was listed as 45, but we got through in closer to 35. Then we headed back to Skipper Canteen to all met up for lunch. This wasn’t our favorite food, but we were really hungry after no real breakfast, so it was great to sit down for a meal. Service was great!

After lunch, it was time for baby’s nap, so they headed back to the hotel and we stayed for more rides. First was Haunted Mansion (posted 45 mins, waited 30), then Thunder Mountain (posted 60 mins, waited 40), and finally we grabbed Dole Whips at Aloha Isle and took the raft over to Tom Sawyer Island and walked around for a while. This is a great quiet spot – would highly recommend! By this point it was 3pm and we had a 4:30-5:30pm ILL for Guardians, so we went back to the hotel to change clothes.

We ended up making it to Epcot by 4:45 or so, but Guardians was down! We went and talked to the cast members outside the ride, and they quickly modified our ILL so we could use it any time that day. We had a 5:30 reservation at Spice Road Table, so we ended up just taking a leisurely stroll through the World Showcase and looking at the art until dinner. Dinner was great – would highly recommend this spot!

After dinner, we noticed that Guardians was back up so we went back over there and used our ILL. So glad we did this one! My husband especially loved it and said it was his favorite of the whole trip. We met up with BIL/SIL in Mexico for a bit, but by that point baby was close to bedtime so we said our goodnights. To wrap up our night we headed to Soarin (posted 35 and this was accurate) and then of course, we had to stop at Living with the Land – no wait and we actually got our own boat! I was pretty tired by this point and we decided to head back instead of staying for the show.

2/14 – I decided to buy G+ today and try the strategy of stacking afternoon LL’s for Hollywood Studios. We met up with BIL/SIL for breakfast at the hotel and got to Animal Kingdom right at early entry time for the Safari! The line moved quickly and we were in our car within about 20 minutes from getting to the back of the line. BIL and SIL were using their G+ for Navi next, so we all went to the Gorilla Walk to kill some time before their reservation. Really love the paths and theming in AK! I think it was my favorite to just walk around. Around 10am, they headed over to Navi and I saw that Everest had a 15-min wait listed, so we headed over there. By the time we got there, it was up to 25 and that was pretty accurate. Then we headed to Dinosaur and walked right on. BIL and SIL were at the petting zoo, so we met up with them and headed over for the lunch at the Rainforest Café. The food was surprisingly good and baby loved the animals and rain effects. After lunch, we all headed back to the hotel. We were pooped after 2 early morning and busy days and needed a nap as much as baby did! I had been booking LL’s all day and by this point had the following:

• Booked at 7am – Slinky – first got 11am, but modified back to 7pm
• Booked at 10:30am – ToT for around 4:30
• Booked at 12:30pm – RnR for around 4:30
• Booked at 2:30pm – MMRR for around 6:15

I knew my husband wanted to do Millennium, but it seems the ride was not very popular this day! LL times were just 30-60 mins out and I only saw wait times go up to 45 mins, so I figured we’d be fine.

We headed off the Hollywood Studios around 4pm for our ToT and RnR LLs. Then we had a 5:30 dinner reservation at the Brown Derby. We both got the Cobb Salad (amazing!!) and also enjoyed the Bananas Foster for dessert. We had an really funny waiter and would recommend this spot for a sit down meal!

By the time we finished dinner it was close to 7, so we headed right to MMRR. This was new for me and IMO is a perfect addition to HS. Really fun and cute. Then we went to Pixar Land for SDD – the line was crazy! It was listing a 100 min standby, and even the LL took about 20 mins. This was a fun ride, but next time I’ll probably leave it for others given the amount of demand. At this point, I did book Millenium and Toy Story Mania LLs, just because … but it wasn’t needed. Lines were basically walk ons and LLs were for just a few minutes out. We got paired as the engineers along with a family with 2 little boys for Millenium … but once the cast members started explaining the pilot roles, the mom turned around right away and said we should switch because that sounded too complicated for her kiddos! Their whole family was so sweet and we had a blast being the pilots.

After this, our plan was to head to Rise and wait standby as long as it took! We got in line around 8:15 and it was listing a 75 min wait – we walked right to the inside portion of the line, so we were feeling pretty optimistic. Until – about 15 mins into our wait, we got the dreaded message on the intercom – the ride was down! We saw a few dozen people leaving the line and were feeling a little bummed, but we had known we were taking a risk with not doing an earlier ILL. We had a 9:30 reservation at Oga’s anyways so we decided to wait it out. Magically, the ride was fixed in about 30 mins! After that announcement came on (and everyone in line cheered!), we breezed through and got right on. We were the 2nd to last group to ride, and we felt really lucky! We were walking back to Oga’s by 9:10. In this case, trying to strategy of doing Rise at the end of the night really worked out, but it sure came close to NOT working it out. I definitely wouldn’t recommend rolling the dice if your heart is set on riding.

Overall we really enjoyed our trip! We were pretty flexible and not too set on doing any certain things, but regardless I feel we did a lot! Last time we visited it was with Fastpasses; as someone who only visits occasionally but likes to do my research when we do go, I didn’t notice too much of a difference other than obviously, you have to pay! Of course that is a bummer but for us, $30 for ILL and $36 for G+ was manageable in the budget. I do prefer booking day-of compared to 60 (or was it 30?) days out, but I think that’s also because we don’t have kids so not too much disappointment if we can’t hit one particular item.

 

[Sara W]

Got back last night after a few days down there. We went to Epcot on Monday to take advantage of the late night hours for deluxe guests. Kids still wanted to rope drop even though I got a LL for Remy. We grabbed a coffee and walked from BWV around 7:30am, got in a little before 8, rode Remy close to 8:30. As we were leaving people were streaming in. Hit Soarin and Living with the Land without a wait. I was hoping to grab breakfast at Sunshine Seasons, but it was slim pickings. Walked to Creations Cafe and got breakfast sandwiches. Husband and kids waited an hour at Test Track as I looked around shops and started hitting food booths. Got an avocado margarita and our boarding group was called for Guardians. I was very nervous about feeling sick after I downed some scallops and a margarita, but btwn the Dramamine and a mint in my mouth I was fine. Wow, what a ride. I wished we had bought a LL to ride it again. They were available before we went in, but sold out by the time we were done. My daughter said she didn’t want to ride anything else for a while bc she had such a high from the ride. I kept modifying my Remy LL and a Test Track LL to try to get times for the evening. Test Track LL was full before Remy’s, so our evening was planned around that. Walked the world showcase to eat more and went to BWV to check into our room and have some pool time. BWV is in desperate need of the upcoming refurb. It’s our favorite, but we won’t stay there again until it’s had a refurb.we were able to get another boarding group from the room at the 6pm drop, then headed back for the Remy and Test Track LLs. While Genie+ wasn’t really worth the $ at Epcot, it did allow us to get on those rides in the evening when lines were long. We listened to the Disney on Broadway show and then our boarding group was called right before Harmonious. We made our way to Norway and watched from there so we could be close to Guardians. The ride shut down while we were close to the front. My son really wanted to leave to do Test Track again, but I pulled the “mom sacrificed and you already rode it twice” card. I think we spent like 15min waiting for it to come up? It wasn’t bad. We did get stuck in that front room of the ride, so we got our question of what happens if you’re on the ride and it shuts down question answered. It was dark in there! And my son did get on Test Track for a 3rd time after.

We did the After Hours at DHS on Wednesday. This is now my preferred way to do a park. I got to run in the morning, did the surrey bike as a family, got a nap, hit the pool, and then did a nice dinner at Topolino’s before riding the Skyliner to HS. We got there a few minutes before 7pm and they let us in a few minutes after 7. We looked in some shops and went to watch Fantasmic for the 8pm showing. I wish we exited to the right instead of the left bc the walk back into the park was LONG. We got to MFSR right around 9pm and waited maybe 10 or 15min. At that point day guests had to leave and we walked over to Toy Story Land. Kids did Swirling Saucers while I got snacks and drinks. It was a great night- not hot and not overly crowded. We did Slinky Dog, TSMM x2, RNR, ToT, husband/daughter went back to RNR and son and I went to TSMM. When we got off they let us right back on bc nobody was waiting. Husband and daughter rode MMRR, then we met them there and rode it again. We had 4min to make it to Rise before the party ended. Some serious speed walking! Got there with 10 seconds to spare. It was so weird to be on the transport with only 6 people. Lots of empty cars around us. Walked out right around 1am. We planned on taking the boat or skyliner back, neither were running. We thought that maybe there would be a bus, but the stop for Boardwalk was one of the last and we didn’t see anyone to ask, so we walked back to BWV. We all agreed that we got so much more done than we could have gotten in during the day. The kids also enjoyed lots of ice cream and I liked not having to carry around a bunch of water bottles.

 

[Lady Hiss]

Got back last night after a few days down there. We went to Epcot on Monday to take advantage of the late night hours for deluxe guests. Kids still wanted to rope drop even though I got a LL for Remy. We grabbed a coffee and walked from BWV around 7:30am, got in a little before 8, rode Remy close to 8:30. As we were leaving people were streaming in. Hit Soarin and Living with the Land without a wait. I was hoping to grab breakfast at Sunshine Seasons, but it was slim pickings. Walked to Creations Cafe and got breakfast sandwiches. Husband and kids waited an hour at Test Track as I looked around shops and started hitting food booths. Got an avocado margarita and our boarding group was called for Guardians. I was very nervous about feeling sick after I downed some scallops and a margarita, but btwn the Dramamine and a mint in my mouth I was fine. Wow, what a ride. I wished we had bought a LL to ride it again. They were available before we went in, but sold out by the time we were done. My daughter said she didn’t want to ride anything else for a while bc she had such a high from the ride. I kept modifying my Remy LL and a Test Track LL to try to get times for the evening. Test Track LL was full before Remy’s, so our evening was planned around that. Walked the world showcase to eat more and went to BWV to check into our room and have some pool time. BWV is in desperate need of the upcoming refurb. It’s our favorite, but we won’t stay there again until it’s had a refurb.we were able to get another boarding group from the room at the 6pm drop, then headed back for the Remy and Test Track LLs. While Genie+ wasn’t really worth the $ at Epcot, it did allow us to get on those rides in the evening when lines were long. We listened to the Disney on Broadway show and then our boarding group was called right before Harmonious. We made our way to Norway and watched from there so we could be close to Guardians. The ride shut down while we were close to the front. My son really wanted to leave to do Test Track again, but I pulled the “mom sacrificed and you already rode it twice” card. I think we spent like 15min waiting for it to come up? It wasn’t bad. We did get stuck in that front room of the ride, so we got our question of what happens if you’re on the ride and it shuts down question answered. It was dark in there! And my son did get on Test Track for a 3rd time after.

We did the After Hours at DHS on Wednesday. This is now my preferred way to do a park. I got to run in the morning, did the surrey bike as a family, got a nap, hit the pool, and then did a nice dinner at Topolino’s before riding the Skyliner to HS. We got there a few minutes before 7pm and they let us in a few minutes after 7. We looked in some shops and went to watch Fantasmic for the 8pm showing. I wish we exited to the right instead of the left bc the walk back into the park was LONG. We got to MFSR right around 9pm and waited maybe 10 or 15min. At that point day guests had to leave and we walked over to Toy Story Land. Kids did Swirling Saucers while I got snacks and drinks. It was a great night- not hot and not overly crowded. We did Slinky Dog, TSMM x2, RNR, ToT, husband/daughter went back to RNR and son and I went to TSMM. When we got off they let us right back on bc nobody was waiting. Husband and daughter rode MMRR, then we met them there and rode it again. We had 4min to make it to Rise before the party ended. Some serious speed walking! Got there with 10 seconds to spare. It was so weird to be on the transport with only 6 people. Lots of empty cars around us. Walked out right around 1am. We planned on taking the boat or skyliner back, neither were running. We thought that maybe there would be a bus, but the stop for Boardwalk was one of the last and we didn’t see anyone to ask, so we walked back to BWV. We all agreed that we got so much more done than we could have gotten in during the day. The kids also enjoyed lots of ice cream and I liked not having to carry around a bunch of water bottles.

Just curious about ‘slim pickings’ at Sunshine Seasons for breakfast - do they not offer many options or was it mobbed with people & sold out of a lot of stuff?

 

[pixiedust2u]

Forgot to add to the closures this morning at HS. We tried to watch the 11am Beauty and the beast, no first show was down. Next show 1pm.

We decided to leave and walk to our hotel to swim. I went to the blue experience tents and asked for them to refund my $44. Of course they did without any issue.

Even a “show” was down?
Wow, I’m glad you got your $44 back. But really, what about those people who had planned to hop at 2? They essentially paid a park ticket price and didn’t get a park out of it, at least a half day! These is where it’d be helpful to be able to hop before 2.
Hope you were able to salvage the rest of your day!

 

[Sara W]

Just curious about ‘slim pickings’ at Sunshine Seasons for breakfast - do they not offer many options or was it mobbed with people & sold out of a lot of stuff?

They had a couple of pre-made sandwiches and a cinnamon roll. There wasn’t much to choose from. Definitely not sold out of stuff, it was a bit of a ghost town.

 

[dreamscometrue47]

Husband and I in ECV's went to AK last week. We are in ou late 60's and decided no rides (have done them all in the past) except the Safari. Had an amazing day from 9 to 3:30.
In this order:
Festival of the Lion King. Our absolute favorite Disney World thing! First time seeing the tumble monkeys back. I forgot how much they add to the show. A++++!
Safari. Saw so many animals up and about. Male lion gave a show, walking around. A ++
Finding Nemo. I was a little undecided as I was not a fan of previous show. Well are we glad we saw it! Amazing soundtrack and puppeteers! A+
Grabbed a quick hot dog and coke. Broke the bank LOL
Tiger jungle track. A bit disappointed as we saw 1 sleeping tiger and 6 water Buffalo and 2 iguana. But pretty foliage. C
Feathered friends in flight. Surprisingly entertaining! B+
Stopped to watch Tan Tan Drummers and have Dole Whip. Drummers were awesome but something was off with our Dole Whips.
Explored Pandora. I love it there just to experience the land.
Even though no rides it was so much fun. I would do this again but try to add Navi River ride.

 

[NashvilleMama]

Here now, and yes a lot was down at dhs yesterday but we got an incredible amount done by managing G+. Crowds were high at DHS but not the worst I’ve seen.

Animal kingdom today? INSANE. glad we had very very low expectations and got FOP ILL because at one point it was a 235 minute wait. (Why do people do that? It’s nuts to me.)

Flew in yesterday and checked in at Pop then took skyliner to DHS:

Thursday DHS
7am Rise ILL (got 5:25), ToT G+
Landed 11:30, Lyft to Pop
12:35 on skyliner
1:25 TOT LL - done 1:40
2:30 frozen - standby
3:05 MMRR LL
3:50 mama Melrose (fantasmic dining pkg)
4:55 Toy Story LL
5:25 Rise ILL
5:55 star tours LL
7:15 entered for 8pm fantasmic (standby line was nuts an hour in advance but looked like everyone in it got in. This was our first time and I have lots of thoughts on crowd management at this thing. Feels super dangerous.)
8:30 RNRC LL

Today at AK, did a late start on purpose as hopping to MK for a late night tonight:

Friday AK
Arrived 10am via bus
FOP ILL 10:05
Gorilla Falls
EE 11:15 LL
Nomad Lounge (90 min wait)

Service has been great. Weather is absolutely gorgeous. We knew it would be crowded and it is, would never recommend anyone come here if it’s your only visit and you have a long list of things you want to do - but nice if you can be leisurely about it.

 

[bastraker]

Even a “show” was down?
Wow, I’m glad you got your $44 back. But really, what about those people who had planned to hop at 2? They essentially paid a park ticket price and didn’t get a park out of it, at least a half day! These is where it’d be helpful to be able to hop before 2.
Hope you were able to salvage the rest of your day!

It was a really nice warm day so we just walked back to our hotel and went swimming after lunch at Hollywood brown derby. We didn't do a single ride.

When a lot of rides are down at rope drop - it really makes the rest of the day impossible on a busy day. Especially when you have a plan to just be there for the morning. It puts so much pressure on other rides that wouldn't normally have crazy long waits in the morning.

We have annual passes and are a quick flight away - New Jersey. So we are only here for a long weekend.

 

[NJlauren]

Arrived yesterday staying off site but went to springs last night, and booked genie+ for today, and well crowds seem insane! I have been here this week a number of times including last year and it def crowded!!!

Happy to answer any questions/give updates!

 

[blistex]

Arrived yesterday staying off site but went to springs last night, and booked genie+ for today, and well crowds seem insane! I have been here this week a number of times including last year and it def crowded!!!

Happy to answer any questions/give updates!

I'm very curious how it compares to crowds from pre-2021, since Disney is saying they are actually capping park capacity at 20% below what historically was let in during heavy crowd times. If that's true this week shouldn't be any worse than our 2020 trip but I have a hard time believing it. Also not thrilled to see two consecutive days of $29 pp Genie+ pricing but it is what it is.

 

[NJlauren]

I'm very curious how it compares to crowds from pre-2021, since Disney is saying they are actually capping park capacity at 20% below what historically was let in during heavy crowd times. If that's true this week shouldn't be any worse than our 2020 trip but I have a hard time believing it. Also not thrilled to see two consecutive days of $29 pp Genie+ pricing but it is what it is.

Same, we were here in 2020 and it was crowded but this seems worse…. It maybe the nature of the way crowds act? Ie FP was pre booked so more people arrived late? I have no idea

 

[gottalovepluto]

I'm very curious how it compares to crowds from pre-2021, since Disney is saying they are actually capping park capacity at 20% below what historically was let in during heavy crowd times. If that's true this week shouldn't be any worse than our 2020 trip but I have a hard time believing it. Also not thrilled to see two consecutive days of $29 pp Genie+ pricing but it is what it is.

Same, we were here in 2020 and it was crowded but this seems worse…. It maybe the nature of the way crowds act? Ie FP was pre booked so more people arrived late? I have no idea

Keep in mind you need to shave 20% off crowds when they were so big the parks triggered capacity closure levels

 

[gottalovepluto]

Here now, and yes a lot was down at dhs yesterday but we got an incredible amount done by managing G+. Crowds were high at DHS but not the worst I’ve seen.

Animal kingdom today? INSANE. glad we had very very low expectations and got FOP ILL because at one point it was a 235 minute wait. (Why do people do that? It’s nuts to me.)

Flew in yesterday and checked in at Pop then took skyliner to DHS:

Thursday DHS
7am Rise ILL (got 5:25), ToT G+
Landed 11:30, Lyft to Pop
12:35 on skyliner
1:25 TOT LL - done 1:40
2:30 frozen - standby
3:05 MMRR LL
3:50 mama Melrose (fantasmic dining pkg)
4:55 Toy Story LL
5:25 Rise ILL
5:55 star tours LL
7:15 entered for 8pm fantasmic (standby line was nuts an hour in advance but looked like everyone in it got in. This was our first time and I have lots of thoughts on crowd management at this thing. Feels super dangerous.)
8:30 RNRC LL

Today at AK, did a late start on purpose as hopping to MK for a late night tonight:

Friday AK
Arrived 10am via bus
FOP ILL 10:05
Gorilla Falls
EE 11:15 LL
Nomad Lounge (90 min wait)

Service has been great. Weather is absolutely gorgeous. We knew it would be crowded and it is, would never recommend anyone come here if it’s your only visit and you have a long list of things you want to do - but nice if you can be leisurely about it.

When you say entered at 7:15 for F! Dining package did you line up before hand or did you get there at 7:15 and were able to walk right in? (Trying to figure out my timing for our package)

 

[NashvilleMama]

When you say entered at 7:15 for F! Dining package did you line up before hand or did you get there at 7:15 and were able to walk right in? (Trying to figure out my timing for our package)

Walked up at 7:15 and walked right in. Reserved section was already filling up so wouldn’t recommend much later than that.

 

[NashvilleMama]

Same, we were here in 2020 and it was crowded but this seems worse…. It maybe the nature of the way crowds act? Ie FP was pre booked so more people arrived late? I have no idea

This feels way way worse than anytime in 2020 (or before that.) We always tend to come at super busy times and I just think AK in particular can’t handle the volume on walkways.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

I'm very curious how it compares to crowds from pre-2021, since Disney is saying they are actually capping park capacity at 20% below what historically was let in during heavy crowd times. If that's true this week shouldn't be any worse than our 2020 trip but I have a hard time believing it. Also not thrilled to see two consecutive days of $29 pp Genie+ pricing but it is what it is.

Agree on the $29 G+ the past 2 days. I guess the way it's supposed to work is $29 seems to be the top level fee based on crowds. Crazy. Busy holiday weekend. And top level - for now......

We visited December and also last month, and we also thought things felt so busy and heavy with crowds. But then we thought part of it might have been due to a couple trips we did in 21 and even early 22 where we were still doing a bit of distancing and crowds seemed really 'low' and spread out. Maybe getting back to more normal crowds just seems really heavy!!

 

[NashvilleMama]

In front of some (off duty, corporate) cast members in line at Epcot talking about the Tron previews for friends/family members, and apparently there’s no crowd control for those large numbers (we saw them yesterday and it’s a LOT of people) - they’re supposed to leave the park after they ride but apparently a lot of people are just removing their wristbands and staying to do rides and see fireworks. Could explain some of the recent MK volume that isn’t being planned for in crowd estimates right now.

 

[NJlauren]

In front of some (off duty, corporate) cast members in line at Epcot talking about the Tron previews for friends/family members, and apparently there’s no crowd control for those large numbers (we saw them yesterday and it’s a LOT of people) - they’re supposed to leave the park after they ride but apparently a lot of people are just removing their wristbands and staying to do rides and see fireworks. Could explain some of the recent MK volume that isn’t being planned for in crowd estimates right now.

Interesting! Cause it is insane here!!!