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

[Day-Day]

Is getting to Epcot by skyline from pop as difficult as it appears to be to DHS?

It depends on what time you plan to go. It is worse if you are planning to get to EPCOT early. Wait in line with mostly folks that are going to DHS at POP then wait in line at the Caribbean Beach station and wait for the skyliner operations to EPCOT to begin.

 

[imjen]

Splash Mountain is my favorite ride, but I won’t ride it at DL because I got a absolutely drenched on it a few years ago. They seriously need to turn the water level down!!

It's one of my favs too but I didn't ride it last time I was at DL in Feb. bc it wasn't a very hot day and I didn't want to get soaked. I really want to ride it a couple times at MK. We have 2 MK days. Is the best time to ride in the morning or are the lines in the afternoon typically not too bad? We're there on a Wednesday and Friday.

On a similar note, is Kali RR similar to Grizzly RR at DCA? Do you get really wet?

 

[only hope]

Sounds like a fantastic day with really good wait times.

Does Splash Mountain typically get you very wet? I'm a DL vet and sometimes wear a poncho on Splash Mtn at DL because I've walked away quite soaked before. How fast do you usually dry off in Florida?

Normally it’s a crapshoot; some people get soaked and some sprinkled. When I rode last month, many water features had been turned off, including the cannon that hits boats after the drop as you drift back by the drop. I’ve seen reports of others saying the same thing.

It's one of my favs too but I didn't ride it last time I was at DL in Feb. bc it wasn't a very hot day and I didn't want to get soaked. I really want to ride it a couple times at MK. We have 2 MK days. Is the best time to ride in the morning or are the lines in the afternoon typically not too bad? We're there on a Wednesday and Friday.

Splash is always busy now, probably due to the announced retheme and reduced capacity. Rope dropping is best but risky as it often isn’t ready to go when the park opens. Currently it’s only 25 though. Watch wait times on the app during the week or so preceding your trip to get an idea of what to expect.

 

[Beer Me]

It's one of my favs too but I didn't ride it last time I was at DL in Feb. bc it wasn't a very hot day and I didn't want to get soaked. I really want to ride it a couple times at MK. We have 2 MK days. Is the best time to ride in the morning or are the lines in the afternoon typically not too bad? We're there on a Wednesday and Friday.

On a similar note, is Kali RR similar to Grizzly RR at DCA? Do you get really wet?

I haven’t been to DCA but on Kali RR it’s common to get significantly wet with a possibility of getting completely soaked.

 

[My3SonsSTX]

Alrighty, here is my trip report. I didn't take my laptop with me and wasn't going to try to do a daily on my phone. Hopefully, this is informative for some of you.

Our trip was from 22-27 Oct with the 4-day military "park hopper (RIP)" tickets. I had my 5 y/o DS and senior DM with me (I'm the DD). Overall, we have a good trip and the parks were plenty of fun, plenty of good experiences, but I will say I wish I would have waited until mid-Nov. My initial expectation was more Halloween theming (scarce at best) and cooler weather to cope with wearing masks. It was rather warm, and while wearing the masks wasn't super-duper awful it was ok.

We flew into MCO, and if anyone can correct me if I'm wrong but our last trip in 2016 we found the Magical Express really easily with some CM help. Signage seemed to be better then, as well. This go around, it was a bit of a struggle. So, I'm not sure if anything in MCO changed or if Disney pulled any CM's from helping wayward travelers. Regardless, when we got to CBR we were dropped at Old Port Royale as expected. I kind of lucked out as I had ordered groceries through Walmart beforehand, the driver was waiting on us, was super nice, and actually gave us a ride to Jamaica. Immediately, I was thinking "such magic."

Day One at MK: I had booked an ECV for my mom, inadvertently somehow it was delivered to Beach Club (I really think this happened when I called to talk to someone at ScooterBug the week prior who accidentally changed it because there's just no way I could've made this mistake...laugh), so we took the bus from OPR to MK. ScooterBug changed the delivery of the ECV up for me to Contemporary, so we could swing over there later to pick that up. Minor hiccup, no big deal. We ended up just messing around for a bit at MK before picking up the ECV. My mom is 72 with a bad hip, so I didn't want to push it for her. Naturally, as much as I wanted to get to every park before rope drop this never happened during our visit (keep that in mind). We had an early lunch at Contempo Cafe (great place to cool off, a short ride on the monorail--no problems), then headed back to MK. Security/temp check is just fine, easy to get through. I didn't get a DAS for my mom initially because I've read on this very site mobility issues are not considered worthy of a DAS by Disney, so that misinformation must get dispelled because it's not true. Regardless, we got through most lines just fine at MK. They were usually shorter than advertised, and if a CM happened to spot my mom on her rollerskate they would point us to the ACA entrance anyway. Sometimes that happened, sometimes it didn't. The chokepoints around Small World and Peter Pan are a bit annoying. They're working on the facade of Small World so there is even less distance between both ride fronts/lines, which it was already a packed area. If you don't want to be on top of one another going through there, just take the long way around. People are pretty good about keeping their distance overall, but as people do, they don't always pay attention to those around them as they're fixated on what's in front of them. I will say, mom's ECV was a decent deterrent of parting the waves.

We stayed until it was dark. Got some great photos of the castle and Main Street (sorry, but iPhone 11 Pro cam is superior!). There were a few rides I wanted to ride that we just couldn't get to, that was kind of frustrating but it is what it is. Don't expect to ride everything right now with shortened hours unless you get there during "magic hour" and stay until the end. It's hard enough during full park hours, right now with shortened hours (why?) I just can't see it for nearly anyone yet alone anyone with small children. You HAVE to take breaks from mask face.

I found all CM's to be really wonderful throughout this entire trip, barring the occasional CM telling my little guy to pull up his mask the moment we were stepping off a ride. Only one time I lost my patience on that, and feel bad about that, but it was after waiting in a very long line... MTF on that.

Day Two at Epcot: Total. Waste. Of. Time. Ok, maybe not entirely but I made a great mistake here. I didn't realize the Fall Food & Wine Fest had been extended nor was so freaking popular with locals. The park was PACKED. Not only just packed, but packed with drunk adults who were acting like I did in my early 20s when I had no cares. Being around that with a child and your mom was just no bueno.
We took Skyliner to Epcot that morning Oh, no we didn't. We had to take the bus from the SL station by CBR because.... wait for it... SL to Epcot was down. (I have an entire rant on this on my podcast which I'll link but be forewarned, I'm an Army retiree so it's a little brash My crazy podcast) When you've been waiting to ride SL since you learned it was being planned, and you get your little child excited about it, it's just like the Griswold's at Wally World. I wasn't upset, just disappointed. Disney Parks did a solid immediately having bus service arrive to transport people (superb!) but they would fail hard on this for HS transportation. We waited over a good hour to ride Frozen Forever and ever and ever and ever. I'm glad that at least in that area, there is a lot of shade. I wouldn't wait that long twice, but even my son and I are big Frozen fans (we did get a pic with Elsa at her meeting point which was really cool, I did ask her hand in marriage but she didn't hear me through my mask) so I didn't want to miss this. That was by the afternoon. In the morning, we got on stuff rather quickly. Not much waiting for the simple rides upfront in the park. We even had a Pooh interaction by Figment that was really neat.

Overall with Epcot, we could've skipped it and done a second day of MK but everything is clearer in hindsight. If you go, do a weekday visit to avoid the festival crowds. On one hand, if a lot of people are there just to buy overpriced food and beer they're congregating in the world tour area so that should free up rides up front...should.

Day Three at AK: I really love Animal Kingdom, I do I do I do. Again though, I think we could've given AK a pass on this Sunday and just planned on two days at HS. However, I wanted my son to experience all that makes AK so lovable and it was pretty good. Lion King is still shut down for some bizarre reason and I say that because It's Tough to Be A Bug is open. What's the difference here? They social distance the audience inside a space, why can you not do this at the Lion King? This is one of those little checkmarks that go in my regret section. That show is amazing, and I knew it wasn't running but none the less it's really disappointing. We actually arrived by bus to this park right before rope drop, small miracle, and headed straight for our Safari adventure where we basically walked right on. This is always fun, though, I recommend going a little later when the sun isn't blinding while trying to see those lions stretch out and about (we did get to see all three, so awesome). Nothing took away from this experience as it was business as usual, which was about how it was for most of the park until... Na'vi River Journey. "Jason, why didn't you go straight there at park opening?" Argh, I don't know! We had to get it in before leaving, it was a 65 minute wait according to the MDE app and it was AT LEAST that long. My friend that lives in Orlando who regularly goes said he's never waited more than 15 min for that ride. So, ***? I can understand FoP being a long wait but NRJ? Maybe from cleaning the boats a lot? Plus, this queue when that long is nearly entirely in the sun. My son fell asleep on my shoulders eventually. This was the ride where I snapped at a CM as we got out of the boat for telling my son to pull up his mask. I wasn't mean, I just replied, "he's very healthy, calm down." LOL... I felt bad immediately and before we walked out entirely, I went back to her and apologized. But seriously, you wait over an hour for a six-minute ride... let parents correct the healthiest bodies in the park, CM. The people to truly worry about are super spreader adults walking around with masks pulled under their chins not caring and touching everything. Again though, this rarely happened and 99.9% of the time it did I reminded him to pull the mask up. It's harder to find decent fitting masks for little heads. (this is really long, right? Sorry, I'm a writer.)

As we left AK, I told my mom we could've skipped that one too but she said she enjoyed it still and I know my son did. I would've preferred two days at the best parks anyway.

Day four at HS: Hooray! We're going to get to the park early, get on that virtual queue for ROTR, and have a ball! Easy peasy, baby! Bahahahahaha! Wrong, peasant! You WILL ride the Skyliner and you WILL like it! This was the nightmare everyone has been discussing and it's absolutely true. We were headed to HS on a Monday morning, you'd just imagine the crowd would be a little lighter. However, with Pop and AoA, plus CBR being pushed to this station and zero bus service to HS from this area--it's just ridiculous. I cannot for the life of me understand their logic on this one. Ride by TTC and you'll see nearly 100 buses just sitting. Is it a driver issue? I'm not sure but this issue right here really pushes me to not stay at an Epcot area resort because I sure as heck am not dealing with this twice.

Now, with every problem pointed out one should provide a solution. So, here is mine: use Lyft or Uber for your HS day if you're at one of these resorts. We did not because my mom's ECV. I didn't see an ACA-friendly ride option using either Lyft or Uber. I was probably missing something to find that option but had I found it, you bet your *** I would have taken that car. We waited nearly an hour to get on the SL which put us at the park a bit after 10. I wasn't a happy person about this at all, my son was already in tired mode by the time we got there, and we were close to implosion. We had to take a moment to gather ourselves before heading in, which upon entry (and finally grabbing a DAS thankfully) the magic sprinkled on our sweaty little heads returning happiness to our troop. From then on, the day was great! I'm very happy I scheduled HS on our last day because overall, our trip ended on a good note. Had I done Epcot or AK last, it would've just been a meh ending. If you can use a DAS, do so. I have no shame in doing the happy dance about passing on a 105 minute wait for MMRR. That's just stupid and unavoidable if you can't sprint to the ride before rope drop. I'm curious what the wait time was before pandemia set in.

Galaxy's Edge is the best damn theming in all the world over. From interactions with Kylo and stormtroopers (we had sugar skull Dark Side of the Force shirts on Get them here... ) trying to recruit my son, to being yelled at by Rey for being against the Resistance (love her), building a BB droid (wish we would've done the R2), GE is just awesome. I could spend an entire day there. This is a preference, of course, but I think a good one.

Are there some disappointments? Absolutely. But I think whether it's normal time or not you'll always stuble upon some frustrations. Overall, there isn't a place I would rather be than WDW. I do wish we would've waited until mid-Nov to go for the holiday theming but no real regrets. I am turning around and planning for our 2021 50th anny trip now. WDW is gonna get your money, I just want 100% in return for it. Time will tell.

Again, sorry for it being so long but writing is second nature for me. I'll probably even add to this as I think about more. Please ask me any questions you'd like. Also, I'll be working on a couple of short video clips to toss on to my personal YT channel which I'll link back at some time.

 

[Lumpy1106]

It's one of my favs too but I didn't ride it last time I was at DL in Feb. bc it wasn't a very hot day and I didn't want to get soaked. I really want to ride it a couple times at MK. We have 2 MK days. Is the best time to ride in the morning or are the lines in the afternoon typically not too bad? We're there on a Wednesday and Friday.

On a similar note, is Kali RR similar to Grizzly RR at DCA? Do you get really wet?

We stayed pretty dry on our trip in Aug. You really only get wet on the drop, so then it's really only the people in that one seat. All the squirty water features were off (I think due to Covid). IMHO - temper your expectations - Grizzly RR is a MUCH better ride.

 

[dboughner]

Yes you can...no mobile order needed.

Thanks!

 

[teach22180]

Thanks for the info, but I’m trying to get to AK! Any thoughts on whether is better to bus or Uber there?


ETA: People coming from Pop and Riviera were sent to the back of the DHS line at CBR. Not sure what time those lines start running, but I would say they are at a disadvantage because the line at CBR was quite long by the time they started running it.

The first 10 gondolas from pop are not sent to the back of the line. That's why I got in line by 715. I know that happens later. Youll make it by 10 but not in time to ride MMRR first. We left CBR around 845 and were at HS before they started temp screening at 9. Only people in front of us were some of the first buses and walkers. No cars allowed in, including uber's, before gondolas started arriving.

About AK, if you are in one of the first buses, you will beat the ubers. Otherwise uber.

 

[disneyseniors]

My friend and I live in Georgia, we get our strawberries from the same areas Florida does. Just a note, they took all things with berries off the menu at the waffle stand at F&W in Epcot this week too. We do have strawberries, but they don't look great and are not as plentiful. I can get them from Costco, but do I want to eat them looking the way they have been? Absolutely not.

That's really weird! Up here in northern Mn., we get lovely juicy, sweet strawberries right now? Go figure?

 

[only hope]

Alrighty, here is my trip report. I didn't take my laptop with me and wasn't going to try to do a daily on my phone. Hopefully, this is informative for some of you.

Our trip was from 22-27 Oct with the 4-day military "park hopper (RIP)" tickets. I had my 5 y/o DS and senior DM with me (I'm the DD). Overall, we have a good trip and the parks were plenty of fun, plenty of good experiences, but I will say I wish I would have waited until mid-Nov. My initial expectation was more Halloween theming (scarce at best) and cooler weather to cope with wearing masks. It was rather warm, and while wearing the masks wasn't super-duper awful it was ok.

We flew into MCO, and if anyone can correct me if I'm wrong but our last trip in 2016 we found the Magical Express really easily with some CM help. Signage seemed to be better then, as well. This go around, it was a bit of a struggle. So, I'm not sure if anything in MCO changed or if Disney pulled any CM's from helping wayward travelers. Regardless, when we got to CBR we were dropped at Old Port Royale as expected. I kind of lucked out as I had ordered groceries through Walmart beforehand, the driver was waiting on us, was super nice, and actually gave us a ride to Jamaica. Immediately, I was thinking "such magic."

Day One at MK: I had booked an ECV for my mom, inadvertently somehow it was delivered to Beach Club (I really think this happened when I called to talk to someone at ScooterBug the week prior who accidentally changed it because there's just no way I could've made this mistake...laugh), so we took the bus from OPR to MK. ScooterBug changed the delivery of the ECV up for me to Contemporary, so we could swing over there later to pick that up. Minor hiccup, no big deal. We ended up just messing around for a bit at MK before picking up the ECV. My mom is 72 with a bad hip, so I didn't want to push it for her. Naturally, as much as I wanted to get to every park before rope drop this never happened during our visit (keep that in mind). We had an early lunch at Contempo Cafe (great place to cool off, a short ride on the monorail--no problems), then headed back to MK. Security/temp check is just fine, easy to get through. I didn't get a DAS for my mom initially because I've read on this very site mobility issues are not considered worthy of a DAS by Disney, so that misinformation must get dispelled because it's not true. Regardless, we got through most lines just fine at MK. They were usually shorter than advertised, and if a CM happened to spot my mom on her rollerskate they would point us to the ACA entrance anyway. Sometimes that happened, sometimes it didn't. The chokepoints around Small World and Peter Pan are a bit annoying. They're working on the facade of Small World so there is even less distance between both ride fronts/lines, which it was already a packed area. If you don't want to be on top of one another going through there, just take the long way around. People are pretty good about keeping their distance overall, but as people do, they don't always pay attention to those around them as they're fixated on what's in front of them. I will say, mom's ECV was a decent deterrent of parting the waves.

We stayed until it was dark. Got some great photos of the castle and Main Street (sorry, but iPhone 11 Pro cam is superior!). There were a few rides I wanted to ride that we just couldn't get to, that was kind of frustrating but it is what it is. Don't expect to ride everything right now with shortened hours unless you get there during "magic hour" and stay until the end. It's hard enough during full park hours, right now with shortened hours (why?) I just can't see it for nearly anyone yet alone anyone with small children. You HAVE to take breaks from mask face.

I found all CM's to be really wonderful throughout this entire trip, barring the occasional CM telling my little guy to pull up his mask the moment we were stepping off a ride. Only one time I lost my patience on that, and feel bad about that, but it was after waiting in a very long line... MTF on that.

Day Two at Epcot: Total. Waste. Of. Time. Ok, maybe not entirely but I made a great mistake here. I didn't realize the Fall Food & Wine Fest had been extended nor was so freaking popular with locals. The park was PACKED. Not only just packed, but packed with drunk adults who were acting like I did in my early 20s when I had no cares. Being around that with a child and your mom was just no bueno.
We took Skyliner to Epcot that morning Oh, no we didn't. We had to take the bus from the SL station by CBR because.... wait for it... SL to Epcot was down. (I have an entire rant on this on my podcast which I'll link but be forewarned, I'm an Army retiree so it's a little brash My crazy podcast) When you've been waiting to ride SL since you learned it was being planned, and you get your little child excited about it, it's just like the Griswold's at Wally World. I wasn't upset, just disappointed. Disney Parks did a solid immediately having bus service arrive to transport people (superb!) but they would fail hard on this for HS transportation. We waited over a good hour to ride Frozen Forever and ever and ever and ever. I'm glad that at least in that area, there is a lot of shade. I wouldn't wait that long twice, but even my son and I are big Frozen fans (we did get a pic with Elsa at her meeting point which was really cool, I did ask her hand in marriage but she didn't hear me through my mask) so I didn't want to miss this. That was by the afternoon. In the morning, we got on stuff rather quickly. Not much waiting for the simple rides upfront in the park. We even had a Pooh interaction by Figment that was really neat.

Overall with Epcot, we could've skipped it and done a second day of MK but everything is clearer in hindsight. If you go, do a weekday visit to avoid the festival crowds. On one hand, if a lot of people are there just to buy overpriced food and beer they're congregating in the world tour area so that should free up rides up front...should.

Day Three at AK: I really love Animal Kingdom, I do I do I do. Again though, I think we could've given AK a pass on this Sunday and just planned on two days at HS. However, I wanted my son to experience all that makes AK so lovable and it was pretty good. Lion King is still shut down for some bizarre reason and I say that because It's Tough to Be A Bug is open. What's the difference here? They social distance the audience inside a space, why can you not do this at the Lion King? This is one of those little checkmarks that go in my regret section. That show is amazing, and I knew it wasn't running but none the less it's really disappointing. We actually arrived by bus to this park right before rope drop, small miracle, and headed straight for our Safari adventure where we basically walked right on. This is always fun, though, I recommend going a little later when the sun isn't blinding while trying to see those lions stretch out and about (we did get to see all three, so awesome). Nothing took away from this experience as it was business as usual, which was about how it was for most of the park until... Na'vi River Journey. "Jason, why didn't you go straight there at park opening?" Argh, I don't know! We had to get it in before leaving, it was a 65 minute wait according to the MDE app and it was AT LEAST that long. My friend that lives in Orlando who regularly goes said he's never waited more than 15 min for that ride. So, ***? I can understand FoP being a long wait but NRJ? Maybe from cleaning the boats a lot? Plus, this queue when that long is nearly entirely in the sun. My son fell asleep on my shoulders eventually. This was the ride where I snapped at a CM as we got out of the boat for telling my son to pull up his mask. I wasn't mean, I just replied, "he's very healthy, calm down." LOL... I felt bad immediately and before we walked out entirely, I went back to her and apologized. But seriously, you wait over an hour for a six-minute ride... let parents correct the healthiest bodies in the park, CM. The people to truly worry about are super spreader adults walking around with masks pulled under their chins not caring and touching everything. Again though, this rarely happened and 99.9% of the time it did I reminded him to pull the mask up. It's harder to find decent fitting masks for little heads. (this is really long, right? Sorry, I'm a writer.)

As we left AK, I told my mom we could've skipped that one too but she said she enjoyed it still and I know my son did. I would've preferred two days at the best parks anyway.

Day four at HS: Hooray! We're going to get to the park early, get on that virtual queue for ROTR, and have a ball! Easy peasy, baby! Bahahahahaha! Wrong, peasant! You WILL ride the Skyliner and you WILL like it! This was the nightmare everyone has been discussing and it's absolutely true. We were headed to HS on a Monday morning, you'd just imagine the crowd would be a little lighter. However, with Pop and AoA, plus CBR being pushed to this station and zero bus service to HS from this area--it's just ridiculous. I cannot for the life of me understand their logic on this one. Ride by TTC and you'll see nearly 100 buses just sitting. Is it a driver issue? I'm not sure but this issue right here really pushes me to not stay at an Epcot area resort because I sure as heck am not dealing with this twice.

Now, with every problem pointed out one should provide a solution. So, here is mine: use Lyft or Uber for your HS day if you're at one of these resorts. We did not because my mom's ECV. I didn't see an ACA-friendly ride option using either Lyft or Uber. I was probably missing something to find that option but had I found it, you bet your *** I would have taken that car. We waited nearly an hour to get on the SL which put us at the park a bit after 10. I wasn't a happy person about this at all, my son was already in tired mode by the time we got there, and we were close to implosion. We had to take a moment to gather ourselves before heading in, which upon entry (and finally grabbing a DAS thankfully) the magic sprinkled on our sweaty little heads returning happiness to our troop. From then on, the day was great! I'm very happy I scheduled HS on our last day because overall, our trip ended on a good note. Had I done Epcot or AK last, it would've just been a meh ending. If you can use a DAS, do so. I have no shame in doing the happy dance about passing on a 105 minute wait for MMRR. That's just stupid and unavoidable if you can't sprint to the ride before rope drop. I'm curious what the wait time was before pandemia set in.

Galaxy's Edge is the best damn theming in all the world over. From interactions with Kylo and stormtroopers (we had sugar skull Dark Side of the Force shirts on Get them here... ) trying to recruit my son, to being yelled at by Rey for being against the Resistance (love her), building a BB droid (wish we would've done the R2), GE is just awesome. I could spend an entire day there. This is a preference, of course, but I think a good one.

Are there some disappointments? Absolutely. But I think whether it's normal time or not you'll always stuble upon some frustrations. Overall, there isn't a place I would rather be than WDW. I do wish we would've waited until mid-Nov to go for the holiday theming but no real regrets. I am turning around and planning for our 2021 50th anny trip now. WDW is gonna get your money, I just want 100% in return for it. Time will tell.

Again, sorry for it being so long but writing is second nature for me. I'll probably even add to this as I think about more. Please ask me any questions you'd like. Also, I'll be working on a couple of short video clips to toss on to my personal YT channel which I'll link back at some time.

Being discussed elsewhere, but nearly every Equity actor has now been laid off, including the Festival of the Lion King actors. It’s not coming back any time soon. The actors would be closer than six feet, which is different from It’s a Bugs Life. Anyways, further discussion on News Board if you want to get into it.

 

[lorileahb]

Being discussed elsewhere, but nearly every Equity actor has now been laid off, including the Festival of the Lion King actors. It’s not coming back any time soon. The actors would be closer than six feet, which is different from It’s a Bugs Life. Anyways, further discussion on News Board if you want to get into it.

Similar to Broadway in New York remaining closed.

 

[Broncho52]

If you want my just facts break down of each park for Thursday-Sunday park trip with two adults and children ages 8, 7, 4, 1, you can look in my profile for previous posts about each park.

Overall thoughts:

Masks are hard. I wear a mask almost all day everyday weekday for work but that did not prepare me for wearing a mask in heat and humidity while walking that much. The Disney speed walk almost suffocated me.

Drive drive drive!!! If you can afford both the rental and parking it was comforting to control as much as I could. Many people have posted getting in line for buses/skylines 60-90 minutes early. Doing that with four kids under 8 one of the which was an infant was just not an option for me.

I highly recommend Touring Plans line app it is crowd sourced in real time and was almost spot on all week it really let us know if we should stop in a line.

Almost every line wait was shorter than listed. Only a handful were within a couple minutes. Only Space Mountain at the end of this the night was longer than expected and it was way off.

Even with shorter hours you can accomplish almost everything. (Standby only is not that bad but if you knew how to play the FP+ game I understand your views.) But the following exceptions apply:
1. Doing headliners more than once is not realistic unless you are dedicating a lot of time to them.
2. You have to super early rope drop. It is essentially unadvertised extra hours.
3. You can’t leave for midday breaks and must stay to till close.
4. Child swap is much more tedious than before since everything is standby only. It adds about 15-20 minutes each swap for the other to go through.

If shows (like Muppets, Frozen) are a priority you need to go earlier with limited seating they can build long waits for something you used to just wing

Lower capacity and no FP+ actually helps the shorter trip people because you would of been hard pressed to get a headliner at Hollywood Studios or FOP at Animal Kingdom. Now you can do it if you want to wait for it.

I have never taken an umbrella to Disney before mainly to carry less and generally large crowds. Glad we did it this time. I recommend it to shelter from the sun when needed.

If you can afford it, I highly recommend at least one table service meal a day some from 12-4 depending park hours. It gets you a break during high times and it helps avoid some of the chaos of quick service right now.

Read up on Boarding Groups, security screening, morning procedures. Every step cuts time and helps you in the morning.

Mask compliance is not something I cared about or really intentionally looked for. There will be people who cheat, don’t comply, fight over it, eat and walk, eat in line. Disney does their best to make it safe but they can’t police everything. If someone not complying bothers you than Disney is not the place for you because you will experience it.

It appears they are finally opening more snack carts because I did not have the issues others were having locating snacks. Many food vendors still closed.

Not having people climbing on you in queues is amazing. I know that can’t last but it is liberating.

My park experience may not be yours Disney is changing rapidly and crowd levels are unpredictable. I would go back soon if I wanted. If things remain status quo or only increase 5-10% Thanksgiving and Christmas people should be fine but no one knows exactly how things will progress.

Why is child swap longer? Don’t they still go through the fastpass line?

 

[disneygirlsng]

Why is child swap longer? Don’t they still go through the fastpass line?

The 2nd group/person that rides does, but the 1st riders have to wait standby as you usually would if you didn't have a FP for that ride.

 

[yulilin3]

Being discussed elsewhere, but nearly every Equity actor has now been laid off, including the Festival of the Lion King actors. It’s not coming back any time soon. The actors would be closer than six feet, which is different from It’s a Bugs Life. Anyways, further discussion on News Board if you want to get into it.

just want to clarify that the layoff of almost all equity has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with cutting cost. Before the parks reopen all the live shows were in the process of reblocking their shows so everyone would be distanced, then the union/Disney dispute happened and that was halted. This is being discussed in the operational thread but wanted to make sure everyone understood why it happened

 

[Victoria3]

Day Three at AK: I really love Animal Kingdom, I do I do I do. Again though, I think we could've given AK a pass on this Sunday and just planned on two days at HS. However, I wanted my son to experience all that makes AK so lovable and it was pretty good. Lion King is still shut down for some bizarre reason and I say that because It's Tough to Be A Bug is open. What's the difference here? They social distance the audience inside a space, why can you not do this at the Lion King? This is one of those little checkmarks that go in my regret section. That show is amazing, and I knew it wasn't running but none the less it's really disappointing. We actually arrived by bus to this park right before rope drop, small miracle, and headed straight for our Safari adventure where we basically walked right on. This is always fun, though, I recommend going a little later when the sun isn't blinding while trying to see those lions stretch out and about (we did get to see all three, so awesome). Nothing took away from this experience as it was business as usual, which was about how it was for most of the park until... Na'vi River Journey. "Jason, why didn't you go straight there at park opening?" Argh, I don't know! We had to get it in before leaving, it was a 65 minute wait according to the MDE app and it was AT LEAST that long. My friend that lives in Orlando who regularly goes said he's never waited more than 15 min for that ride. So, ***? I can understand FoP being a long wait but NRJ? Maybe from cleaning the boats a lot? Plus, this queue when that long is nearly entirely in the sun. My son fell asleep on my shoulders eventually. This was the ride where I snapped at a CM as we got out of the boat for telling my son to pull up his mask. I wasn't mean, I just replied, "he's very healthy, calm down." LOL... I felt bad immediately and before we walked out entirely, I went back to her and apologized. But seriously, you wait over an hour for a six-minute ride... let parents correct the healthiest bodies in the park, CM. The people to truly worry about are super spreader adults walking around with masks pulled under their chins not caring and touching everything. Again though, this rarely happened and 99.9% of the time it did I reminded him to pull the mask up. It's harder to find decent fitting masks for little heads. (this is really long, right? Sorry, I'm a writer.)

I'm glad you apologized. We all have our moments but she was just doing her job. A lot of parents don't correct their children's behavior.

 

[wilkydelts]

Why is child swap longer? Don’t they still go through the fastpass line?

It is longer because with standby only the first part of the swap waits in line the whole time when previously you may of had FP+. Child swap still uses the FP+ line but when you add up getting in line, walking the queue, possibly waiting some time in the queue, the ride time, and then getting back to your group- it adds up. When you have that 15-20min per child swap a day you designate 1-2 hours of time redoing rides instead of just moving on to the next.

 

[Erica Ladd]

I know it’s been posted but do you have to cross the street from speedway? We’ve always stayed at BWI but never went to the speedway and for the life of me with all the maps and pics posted I still can’t visualize it in my head!!!

I see. Well the only thing i can tell you is that its as safe as any other walkway in Disney

 

[Befferk]

I know it’s been posted but do you have to cross the street from speedway? We’ve always stayed at BWI but never went to the speedway and for the life of me with all the maps and pics posted I still can’t visualize it in my head!!!

On the map where it shows you crossing Buena Vista Dr, you are actually walking on a path UNDER the bridge, so not across that street.

 

[Disneyfan754321]

I have a somewhat specific (and kind of gross) situation that I'm looking for some feedback on - hopefully from someone who has had this experience since the parks reopened.

I wear Invisalign and am supposed to brush my teeth after eating before I put the trays back in. I know masks need to stay on in the bathroom so I'm wondering if there's been anyone else in this group who has gone and found a good way to brush their teeth while obeying the rules and staying safe. I'm kind of thinking I could find a lonely corner outside somewhere and just use a spare cup and water to brush them quickly while staying away from others. Just curious if there's a better option that I just haven't thought of.

Note (because I feel like I need it?): My first priority is respecting the cast members and other guests at WDW by following the rules and guidelines. If I can't find a way to clean my teeth and still follow the rules, then I'll just deal with dirty teeth (oral health be darned).

The family bathrooms are a good option.. they are a single bathroom.

 

[Disneymom1126]

Tuesday, DHS - Drove. Arrived at the entrance at 8:30 for 10:00 am RD and they were still turning people around. We made one loop and got back around 9:45 and they were allowing cars to queue at the toll booths. We were about 8-10 cars back.


Sunday, DHS - Drove. Arrived at 8:45 am for 10:00 am RD. The cones were still out but they were getting ready to take them up and had started allowing cars to queue instead of turning them around. We were about 10 cars back, but when they removed the cones and the lanes spread out to the toll booths, we ended being only 3 cars back.

We are planning to drive to DHS, so this was super helpful. Where did this put you compared to those who arrived using other transportation as it relates to getting into the park? Thanks!