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

[Leigh L]

My experiences so far have been 3 days in late Aug (least busy), 3 days in late Oct (2nd-most busy), 3 days in early Dec (most busy), and 3 days in late Jan (2nd least busy) - all weekdays, with the exception of one Sunday at EP in Jan... never once was I stuck in a situation that was so crowded I couldn't be 6' from other people for more than 30 seconds, tops. I simply won't visit during the most crowded holiday periods, and I'm not doing weekends, which helps a LOT to avoid crowds.

I think that's the key and I'd totally echo this.
We've done August (least busy), early November (still not bad but busier - we avoided weekends), mid-January (still not bad but busier than August and I think we did 1 Saturday but the rest weekdays).

We're here now and mostly staying offsite school/work We did last Thursday and Sunday (President's week) and planned 2 days this week (today and tomorrow is the 2nd day). This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment trip and park days were added as an afterthought.

Expected Thursday and Sunday of President's week to be busy, but I did not expect DHS to be as busy as it was with wait times today. Although, we did still do the entire park (except Disney Jr, Muppets, and Cars - and we were there open to close) and a couple of rides 2x. But it was busy. We didn't feel unsafe but it definitely is a change now that we didn't see before with wait times. I saw one guy actively defy a CM tell him to put his mask on and stop eating while walking. He yes'd him and then walked away continuing. I saw that CM get another CM and we decided not to get on the ride they were going because we would have been right behind him. Other than that, people were mostly great about masking up and staying stationary.

MK tomorrow and our last day. Be interesting to see how it compares to President's week.

 

[Leigh L]

dupe post sorry!

 

[Leigh L]

I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask this question here but.....is Universal more manageable than Disney right now? I’ve never been and haven’t really ever wanted to go but express passes, more dining options, etc are making me consider going to Universal instead of Disney.

If you decide to do that, go during the week, avoid weekends. That was true even back in August in our experience. We still had 2 days left on our tickets and jumped over in January on a Sunday. We left after a couple of hours as we were not comfortable.

I guess I am confused, if you are not there right now how is the above true. It seems like speculation. If you are just going off wait times MDE has not be accurate for a long time. Touring Plans Line App has made it seem very nice there lately. In fact right now at MK everything is listed under 40 minutes except 7DMT on TP App. I have seen very little worry about crowds and spacing outside of the crazy holiday times and certain weekends.

It's definitely busier right now. MK was also extended from closing at 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. tomorrow which threw me off because they must expect it to be busy.

TP is great, but we've found their morning times to be drastically off last week (I noticed you posted at 10 a.m., TP was probably off TBH) and this week for the 3 days we've been to a park. Their Slinky time was way off at 2 p.m. last Thursday, everything else was pretty spot on.

 

[JoanneAZ]

For bus transportation how early does the first bus run? Is it 45 minutes before official park opening or from “early entry” ?

 

[MomOTwins]

For bus transportation how early does the first bus run? Is it 45 minutes before official park opening or from “early entry” ?

We really need a sticky on this since it gets asked virtually every 10 posts on this thread. You can read back and you’ll see, but buses run 60-75 mins before park open. There is no early access—that is starting later this year.

 

[maciemouse]

We just returned from our trip. We were in the parks Saturday and Sunday. I have been to DW four times since they reopened in July. Yes, this was the busiest it has been in all of my trips. All parks were sold out for the day. Boat captain told us leaving Wilderness lodge on our way to MK that it is indeed only open 35% but that is 35% of New Year’s Eve level crowds. He said that MK can hold 40,000 people at 35%. We did not do rope drop. On Saturday at MK we did wait 80 minutes for 7 dwarfs, 50 for space mountain, 45 for thunder mountain, and 60 for splash. Everything else was less. That evening was much better. Splash and Thunder were walk ons and space was 20. I don’t know about 7 dwarfs. On Sunday we went to AK. It was also at capacity. Expedition was 35, 50 for dinosaur, 35 for safari, and 60 for flight of passage.

For the good news....we had a wonderful time! The weather was great and food was good. We did wait slightly more this trip in lines but nothing Crazy (besides 7 dwarfs). I would do again in a heartbeat! Lines look a lot longer than they are because of distancing. Mask compliance was great both days. Characters were out. Also ate a fantastic supper at chef art’s homecomin. We got donuts from Everglazed as well.

The only thing that bothered me was when one family member waited in line and then the rest of the family joined in right when they were close to getting on the ride. They are walking past sooo many people in a tight area. I am surprised Disney allows this. This happened on 7 dwarfs. I had already waited a good 50 minutes and I was finally getting into the actual que. I looked up and 4 adults jumped in front of me right where the cast member stands to let you into the que. I told them that the line started 50 minutes back and they said they were catching up to their family. The cast member let them in. I watched them squeeze past everyone in line. They were already coming off the ride by the time I was even inside the building. They waved at me as they left. Something similar happened on space as well.

 

[JoanneAZ]

We really need a sticky on this since it gets asked virtually every 10 posts on this thread. You can read back and you’ll see, but buses run 60-75 mins before park open. There is no early access—that is starting later this year.

Thank you and I agree, a sticky would be very helpful.

 

[scrappinginontario]

For bus transportation how early does the first bus run? Is it 45 minutes before official park opening or from “early entry” ?

Although buses start running approx 45-60 mins before park opening it’s recommended you arrive at the bus stop approx 90 mins before park opening as by the time buses start running, lines are very long.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Same. We arrive on the 4th. I think we will hit rope drop and first 2 hours and then get the heck out of the parks. Check evening wait times for a return, maybe.

We decided to bump up our April trip in the hopes that we would catch a slow period. I'm so bummed to read all these reports. We arrive a few days after you on the 7th.

Wait times on apps like TP are estimations based upon historical data, at individual points in time during a day they can be inaccurate. The morning is probably the hardest to gauge on the apps which has been stated previously in this thread.

Wish I'd known this before I joined TP a couple days ago for the line estimates I thought they were supposed to be better than the Disney App? Maybe both are bad, LOL.

This is partially true. The TP App relies mainly on crowd sourced data. They ask you to start and end a timer for each line you get into. That is why it is so much more accurate.

Ah, okay. Hope it's more accurate!

 

[BigOHawk]

I wish they would add back into MDE 'MK bus/Epcot bus arriving' in x amount of minutes or turn on the screens at the bus stop so you knew roundabout when the next one was coming.

 

[MrsBueno]

We decided to bump up our April trip in the hopes that we would catch a slow period. I'm so bummed to read all these reports. We arrive a few days after you on the 7th.


Wish I'd known this before I joined TP a couple days ago for the line estimates I thought they were supposed to be better than the Disney App? Maybe both are bad, LOL.


Ah, okay. Hope it's more accurate!

For what it’s worth we found them more accurate than Disney today but not perfect. No complaints but I’d use TP more as a guide to what might be overstated. Still really useful imho.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

For what it’s worth we found them more accurate than Disney today but not perfect. No complaints but I’d use TP more as a guide to what might be overstated. Still really useful imho.

Awesome, thank you! I don't feel so bad now, LOL. The only reason I did that subscription was for the wait times!

 

[HokieRaven5]

Yeah I wasn't trying to be in any way disparaging of the Lines app. I use that more often than MDE to get a gauge of wait times as I find them to be more accurate too.

 

[brockash]

We just returned from our trip. We were in the parks Saturday and Sunday. I have been to DW four times since they reopened in July. Yes, this was the busiest it has been in all of my trips. All parks were sold out for the day. Boat captain told us leaving Wilderness lodge on our way to MK that it is indeed only open 35% but that is 35% of New Year’s Eve level crowds. He said that MK can hold 40,000 people at 35%. We did not do rope drop. On Saturday at MK we did wait 80 minutes for 7 dwarfs, 50 for space mountain, 45 for thunder mountain, and 60 for splash. Everything else was less. That evening was much better. Splash and Thunder were walk ons and space was 20. I don’t know about 7 dwarfs. On Sunday we went to AK. It was also at capacity. Expedition was 35, 50 for dinosaur, 35 for safari, and 60 for flight of passage.

For the good news....we had a wonderful time! The weather was great and food was good. We did wait slightly more this trip in lines but nothing Crazy (besides 7 dwarfs). I would do again in a heartbeat! Lines look a lot longer than they are because of distancing. Mask compliance was great both days. Characters were out. Also ate a fantastic supper at chef art’s homecomin. We got donuts from Everglazed as well.

The only thing that bothered me was when one family member waited in line and then the rest of the family joined in right when they were close to getting on the ride. They are walking past sooo many people in a tight area. I am surprised Disney allows this. This happened on 7 dwarfs. I had already waited a good 50 minutes and I was finally getting into the actual que. I looked up and 4 adults jumped in front of me right where the cast member stands to let you into the que. I told them that the line started 50 minutes back and they said they were catching up to their family. The cast member let them in. I watched them squeeze past everyone in line. They were already coming off the ride by the time I was even inside the building. They waved at me as they left. Something similar happened on space as well.

Thanks for the report. I will say when we were there in Oct. my sister and I often sent the kids (ones a teenager and the other 2 are young elementary age) to go sit in the shade somewhere near the front/towards the actual que and then we would wait the 30 mins. in the hot blazing sun, because it was just really rough and unpleasant. Lines in general were so much worse than we'd ever experienced before and then adding to that they're out in the beating down sun and it was just miserable. I had never really thought anyone would feel it was unsafe/be annoyed having them join towards the actual que (it wasn't after we were alreadyin the main que though and it looks like you experienced something a little differen,) but it definitely helped us be able to stay in the parks for a reasonable amount of time, because we wouldn't have lasted long otherwise.

 

[Leigh L]

We decided to bump up our April trip in the hopes that we would catch a slow period. I'm so bummed to read all these reports. We arrive a few days after you on the 7th.

Wish I'd known this before I joined TP a couple days ago for the line estimates I thought they were supposed to be better than the Disney App? Maybe both are bad, LOL.

Ah, okay. Hope it's more accurate!

We joined TP this year for the first time also. So far, liking the Lines app. While we've found the morning times are not accurate, my DD noticed at least on one day few people were submitting wait times in the mornings. In the afternoon/evening we're finding more accuracy than MDE.

(We're trying to be better about remembering to start the timer so more actual wait times are submitted)

 

[emmabelle]

Here now and we’re supposed to go to MK this morning but thinking maybe we should just go to AK. Not a fan of huge crowds and with MK open until 10pm that might bring everyone in. I feel as though the crowds have been pretty big all week but we come so often that we don’t need to do everything. The first hour and last hour are the best for getting things in. We got TOT, RNRC, TSM and Smugglers done yesterday by 9:50am. We left after that. Lol

 

[scrappinginontario]

I’m guessing the lines app in the morning is less accurate because a lot of their data is based on guests entering real-time data and as many have pointed out here, that changes greatly in the morning as the crowds grow. I read here almost daily that someone at park opening has a low wait and by the time they exit the ride the line is exponentially longer. Based on that, the first times are accurate for them but not for those arriving 15 or 30 mins later. It takes a bit for the waits to be accurate in the morning as they’re changing at such a fast rate. I think a lot has to do with how TP is weighting the historical data vs the real time data being submitted that day.

 

[Leigh L]

Our experience so far driving in

MK toll booths open 8 am, we've lined up 7:30ish on Sunday and today at 7:45.

DHS yesterday let cars line up just before 8 (like 2 to 4 minutes or had to circle) but the booth itself didn't open until 8:15

 

[Jen75]

we are SO hoping AK is like this during our trip. we have time planned there on 3/5 and at night on 3/6 since it's open til 8, and if the other parks are crazy we may just end up at AK most evenings. My son rode EE 7x last trip and still talks about it.

My hub and 8yr old daughter rode a total of 14 times. I tapped out at 3. Because he wasn’t tall enough to ride it on our last trip this ride had been hyped up a lot by his sister before we got here. My 6yr old son is my nervous one to start with and then he and I ended up in the first row. When we got to the broken track he just started shaking and when we got off he started crying hysterically. It was quite the scene. Throw in big sis telling him it was awesome and be a big boy and get back on I was happy to split up for a while. Lol

 

[Wosmama6]

My hub and 8yr old daughter rode a total of 14 times. I tapped out at 3. Because he wasn’t tall enough to ride it on our last trip this ride had been hyped up a lot by his sister before we got here. My 6yr old son is my nervous one to start with and then he and I ended up in the first row. When we got to the broken track he just started shaking and when we got off he started crying hysterically. It was quite the scene. Throw in big sis telling him it was awesome and be a big boy and get back on I was happy to split up for a while. Lol

I tricked my younger brother into riding a roller coaster in Vegas when he was 6. He was mad at the moment but has been a huge fan ever since. I still feel guilty about it though lol