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

[JasonTCV]

Excited for all the new things to open. Glad Hollywood Studios will have a nighttime show again too.

Really happy for all the "entertainment" cast members to be able to come back to work too.

(hopefully one step closer to hoop dee doo revue!)

 

[mdmost]

What time does that HS nighttime show usually start?

 

[The13thLetter]

What time does that HS nighttime show usually start?

Its not on their calendar yet. I was trying to remember this too. If i recall correctly its usually right at park close but dont quote me on that.

 

[becauseimnew]

Its not on their calendar yet. I was trying to remember this too. If i recall correctly its usually right at park close but dont quote me on that.

I’m guessing 9pm since that’s when the park closes beginning 8/1

 

[TexanInTheMidwest]

I think part of the problem is everyone seems to be celebrating SOMETHING these days. I know a lot are legit, but guess they don’t feel they can do something for all?

It's so funny you say that - I was there for my birthday in May and only wore my Birthday Button on my actual birthday...until one of the friends I was with insisted I needed to wear a new pin the next day.

 

[jbrinkm]

Did Lion King add a few more shows? TP is showing me 8 different possible show times for my August visit, and I feel like there were only 4-5 time options before...

 

[kylenne]

One thing I forgot to mention about my visit last week: it's soup-to-nuts when it comes to seating multiple parties per row. I was a party of 1...

• ROTR I was seated with a separate party of 3, so no space between parties
• Safari, I was seated in a row with another party of 1 and we kept some space between us
• MMRR I was seated in my own row
• ST, I was seated right next to another party, but another party was seated to my left and kept an open seat between us
• TOT seated right next to another party - no seats left open
• SE I was in my own row, but with another party in the seats behind me in the same car
• LWTL I was placed in my own row

This tracks with both my trips this summer. On RotR I was asked if I was comfortable being seated with another group in May. Not so in July, they just stuck me with a family.

When rides break down or you need to evacuate do they give recovery fast passes, or is that not happening right now?

This is case by case. When I was evacuated from Splash at the end of May, I was given a recovery FP. Nothing for Dinosaur in July though.

DAS, VIP, Club 33 and a few other groups can use the line.

They are also still using FP for guest recovery and rarely pixie dust. When I was there in June I was going to jump onto SDD towards the end of the night and the CM at the entrance to the queue asked me how many, when I said 1 he gave me a FP on the spot. I don't say that to brag or to have people expect it but just to say it's happening.

Is MFSR boarding the ride fully (ie strangers in the same "flight") or keeping it to same party per flight? I felt like I read it was reduced at one point for COVID and I was curious if that has changed

MFSR is boarding full cockpits, so yes, you may sit with strangers.

FWIW when I requested to be pilot back in June because I'd never gotten to be it (solos typically get stuck as engineers), they straight up gave me my own vehicle with teh other roles in AI mode. I was shocked.

Disney is now sending Guests to Beach Club Bus Depot instead of Boardwalk Inn Bus Depot for transport from Epcot to Hollywood Studios and the Skyliner Resorts when Skyliner is down.

Hopefully Buses are plentiful now,a good while back when we we were directed to BWI Bus Depot,it took A LONG time for a Skyliner Resort Bus to come-Guests were on their phones calling Disney and everything.

View attachment 590452

This was what I saw on 7/4 as well when I walked to BC just to get an MK bus from the IG. Ended up just taking a Lyft because of the sheer number of Skyliner guests at the stops, and it seemed like every bus coming was for one of those resorts. If I were a BC guest I would not have been happy.

It seems to me from these posts that rides being down, either for mechanics or weather, are almost a bigger problem at this point towards line waits than the lack of people eaters or staff. When headliners are down almost every day for sometimes a large chunk of the day, it has a disastrous effect on both the overall wait times for that line when it does finally open and also the other rides when it is closed.

I absolutely agree with this. I was still able to manage fine on July 4th weekend with judicious use of rope drop and smart touring but it was much more challenging than the end of May/June. It really was night and day wrt ride up time.

It's so funny you say that - I was there for my birthday in May and only wore my Birthday Button on my actual birthday...until one of the friends I was with insisted I needed to wear a new pin the next day.

Then you have the totally extra people like me who wear birthday buttons the whole trip. I'm shameless lol (in fairness I hadn't been anywhere but work and teh store for a year).

 

[armerida]

FWIW when I requested to be pilot back in June because I'd never gotten to be it (solos typically get stuck as engineers), they straight up gave me my own vehicle with teh other roles in AI mode. I was shocked.

Nice! Was this from the single rider line, or the regular queue? I did single rider a few times 2 weeks ago and got stuck with engineer each time.

 

[kylenne]

Nice! Was this from the single rider line, or the regular queue? I did single rider a few times 2 weeks ago and got stuck with engineer each time.

The regular line. I never do SR there for that reason but at the time it wasn't even open.

 

[To the honeypots]

Here now. Overall, we are having fun but definitely noticeable difference in CM attitude and cuts in service and guest experience. Still pretty peeved about the CM who told us “you chose to come to Disney during a pandemic” when we expressed concern about having to wait amongst all the indoor playing kids at the big top. We did not ask to skip the line just asked to wait off to the side by the line until our buzzer buzzed.

 

[BellaBaby]

Here now. Epcot tomorrow. Are they still letting people enter Epcot early? We are driving.

 

[Nice Work Pal]

Just got back from a 7 day stay at SSR. We’ve visited 3-4 times a year since 2013 (last trip was late April at the Poly). Been an AP since 2015. This was by far our worst trip.

The lines at HS and MK were horrible. 70-140 minute wait for any decent ride.

There’s a LOT more line cutting. Saw a conflict daily and was involved in one with some guy at space mountain. . Every person behind me said thanks because they knew what he was doing.

The parks are a crowded mess

They’re severely understaffed

Why are a bunch of shows still closed? Makes zero sense unless they just can’t find staff. Maybe something they should have considered before laying off 28k employees

Trash cans are all overflowing. Trash is on the ground and in random spaces everywhere. If Walt could see the current state of the parks he’d be rolling over in his grave. He was super crazy about park cleanliness

Heat was relentless. I get it it’s Florida in July but when they had fast passes you wouldn’t be standing in line all day for every single ride. At least put more shade and fans out if you’re not doing fp.

Love mobile order but every QS was a mess of people.

Disney Springs is a zoo

Ran out of toilet paper at SSR. Called the front desk/housekeeping and even maintenance over 10 times but kept getting a voicemail. Had to run to the Artist Pallet to use the bathroom. Wound up balling up a bunch of toilet paper and shoving it in my pockets so my family could use the bathroom at our hotel. I told the bartender at the Turf Club (she was awesome) and she called the manager. A relative went to the front desk to complain, she waited in line for 30 minutes for the desk person to tell her “service has been lackluster because of the pandemic” (no lie). Took them 3 hours to actually bring toilet paper to our room. I emailed Disney last night to complain about the current park situation and the lack of toilet paper and towels at the hotel. To their credit when I landed today they had called, left a vm and emailed me. Going to call them back tomorrow. The food at SSR is really lacking. At least DS is close by. Overall it’s a very nice

I make it a point every trip to take down cm’s names who were great. After every trip I email disney to let them know they went above and beyond. They always contact me thanking me for doing so and tell me they’re letting their supervisors know. This was the first trip ever I complained about anything.

The good

50’s prime time was great. Food, atmosphere and staff were amazing.

It was great seeing HEA live again.

Great time and food at Raglan Road, Boathouse and Paddlefish

Unless they bring fp back, hire more cm’s and clean up the parks I’m done. I’d rather sit on a beach in Aruba then wait in line all day in that heat for every single ride. I’m sure they’ll still draw a crowd but from talking to other guests in line and the miserable look on peoples faces Disney reputation is falling fast. It’s been on a slow decline but I feel like it’s fallen faster than the drop on the tower of terror.

 

[AlternateID]

Rope dropped Hollywood Studios today from offsite at Bonnet Creek. Scored a boarding pass for ROTR, group 14!! Using LTE, had atomic clock counting down on my laptop. Clicked join at 6:59 and 30 seconds and refreshed till the 2nd join button showed up. Then clicked as fast as possible. It is over in a second.

Left resort at 7:50, parked by 8:06. Bonnet Creek is basically right next to Riviera and very convenient to Epcot and HS. Kids wanted to do RnR and ToT instead of SDD so we headed that way. Lined up about halfway down the street by Anaheim Produce at 8:20. At 8:30 they started walking everyone down into the queues. Skipped the pre-show at 8:48 and we were off by 9.

ToT listed as 30 min wait at 9:05, we were off by 9:40.

Our RoR boarding pass was called by the time we got off ToT, so we headed over there. It was our first time and it was AMAZING!

Next we went to MMRR, in line by 10:25, listed as 50 min wait. We were in the pre show in 25 mins and off the ride by 11:03. After we went and watched the little Mickey short cartoon and had lunch at ABC commissary. Free refills on drinks were much appreciated.

After lunch we did TSMM, 60 min wait listed at 12:45, actual wait was 30.

At this point SDD and MFSR were 100 and 120 minutes respectively and my youngest was melting in the intense heat so we left and went back to our hotel for a break.

I asked nicely yesterday and today at GS if I could pretty please buy a DVC gold annual pass and was told they are not being sold right now. So instead I cried into my wallet as I paid to add parking hopping to the 2nd day of our 2 day tickets so we could spend the evening a. Was hoping for a little pixie dust, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Arrived at Epcot about 5:30, didn’t do such a great time of keeping track of time, but we did Figment (10 min wait, grabbed a soda from the DVC lounge, Living with the Land (5 min wait), ate our way around the World Showcase and rode the Three Caballeros (35 min listed wait, but was maybe 10 mins shorter?),went back to the land to ride Soarin (30 min wait, maybe a few mins shorter). At this point it was 9:15 and I thought we had plenty of time to ride Spaceship Earth and get in line for TT before close. Then we broke down on SE near the end! A CM went down the steps with a flashlight and I thought it was all over. But miracle of miracles, we got off SE at 9:53, ran to TT and got in line at 9:57. We totally missed the fireworks, but we have been watching them from our balcony all week. Turned out to be a great evening and worth every dime, but If I could wake up tomorrow and buy a DVC gold pass I’d do it in a heartbeat. Come on Disney!

 

[cdurham1]

Just got back from a 7 day stay at SSR. We’ve visited 3-4 times a year since 2013 (last trip was late April at the Poly). Been an AP since 2015. This was by far our worst trip.

The lines at HS and MK were horrible. 70-140 minute wait for any decent ride.

There’s a LOT more line cutting. Saw a conflict daily and was involved in one with some guy at space mountain. . Every person behind me said thanks because they knew what he was doing.

The parks are a crowded mess

They’re severely understaffed

Why are a bunch of shows still closed? Makes zero sense unless they just can’t find staff. Maybe something they should have considered before laying off 28k employees

Trash cans are all overflowing. Trash is on the ground and in random spaces everywhere. If Walt could see the current state of the parks he’d be rolling over in his grave. He was super crazy about park cleanliness

Heat was relentless. I get it it’s Florida in July but when they had fast passes you wouldn’t be standing in line all day for every single ride. At least put more shade and fans out if you’re not doing fp.

Love mobile order but every QS was a mess of people.

Disney Springs is a zoo

Ran out of toilet paper at SSR. Called the front desk/housekeeping and even maintenance over 10 times but kept getting a voicemail. Had to run to the Artist Pallet to use the bathroom. Wound up balling up a bunch of toilet paper and shoving it in my pockets so my family could use the bathroom at our hotel. I told the bartender at the Turf Club (she was awesome) and she called the manager. A relative went to the front desk to complain, she waited in line for 30 minutes for the desk person to tell her “service has been lackluster because of the pandemic” (no lie). Took them 3 hours to actually bring toilet paper to our room. I emailed Disney last night to complain about the current park situation and the lack of toilet paper and towels at the hotel. To their credit when I landed today they had called, left a vm and emailed me. Going to call them back tomorrow. The food at SSR is really lacking. At least DS is close by. Overall it’s a very nice

I make it a point every trip to take down cm’s names who were great. After every trip I email disney to let them know they went above and beyond. They always contact me thanking me for doing so and tell me they’re letting their supervisors know. This was the first trip ever I complained about anything.

The good

50’s prime time was great. Food, atmosphere and staff were amazing.

It was great seeing HEA live again.

Great time and food at Raglan Road, Boathouse and Paddlefish

Unless they bring fp back, hire more cm’s and clean up the parks I’m done. I’d rather sit on a beach in Aruba then wait in line all day in that heat for every single ride. I’m sure they’ll still draw a crowd but from talking to other guests in line and the miserable look on peoples faces Disney reputation is falling fast. It’s been on a slow decline but I feel like it’s fallen faster than the drop on the tower of terror.

Wow, sorry to hear that the trip went so poorly. Sounds similar to what others are saying, too. Was AK and EP better experiences than MK and HS? What time of day were you in the parks? Did you rope drop?

 

[tinkerhon]

Just got back from a 7 day stay at SSR. We’ve visited 3-4 times a year since 2013 (last trip was late April at the Poly). Been an AP since 2015. This was by far our worst trip.

The lines at HS and MK were horrible. 70-140 minute wait for any decent ride.

There’s a LOT more line cutting. Saw a conflict daily and was involved in one with some guy at space mountain. . Every person behind me said thanks because they knew what he was doing.

The parks are a crowded mess

They’re severely understaffed

Why are a bunch of shows still closed? Makes zero sense unless they just can’t find staff. Maybe something they should have considered before laying off 28k employees

Trash cans are all overflowing. Trash is on the ground and in random spaces everywhere. If Walt could see the current state of the parks he’d be rolling over in his grave. He was super crazy about park cleanliness

Heat was relentless. I get it it’s Florida in July but when they had fast passes you wouldn’t be standing in line all day for every single ride. At least put more shade and fans out if you’re not doing fp.

Love mobile order but every QS was a mess of people.

Disney Springs is a zoo

Ran out of toilet paper at SSR. Called the front desk/housekeeping and even maintenance over 10 times but kept getting a voicemail. Had to run to the Artist Pallet to use the bathroom. Wound up balling up a bunch of toilet paper and shoving it in my pockets so my family could use the bathroom at our hotel. I told the bartender at the Turf Club (she was awesome) and she called the manager. A relative went to the front desk to complain, she waited in line for 30 minutes for the desk person to tell her “service has been lackluster because of the pandemic” (no lie). Took them 3 hours to actually bring toilet paper to our room. I emailed Disney last night to complain about the current park situation and the lack of toilet paper and towels at the hotel. To their credit when I landed today they had called, left a vm and emailed me. Going to call them back tomorrow. The food at SSR is really lacking. At least DS is close by. Overall it’s a very nice

I make it a point every trip to take down cm’s names who were great. After every trip I email disney to let them know they went above and beyond. They always contact me thanking me for doing so and tell me they’re letting their supervisors know. This was the first trip ever I complained about anything.

The good

50’s prime time was great. Food, atmosphere and staff were amazing.

It was great seeing HEA live again.

Great time and food at Raglan Road, Boathouse and Paddlefish

Unless they bring fp back, hire more cm’s and clean up the parks I’m done. I’d rather sit on a beach in Aruba then wait in line all day in that heat for every single ride. I’m sure they’ll still draw a crowd but from talking to other guests in line and the miserable look on peoples faces Disney reputation is falling fast. It’s been on a slow decline but I feel like it’s fallen faster than the drop on the tower of terror.

Here now too, and having a great time.... BUT..... other than our ADRs, avoiding the parks like the plague !!! MK was a disaster--- Epcot was nice tonight--- park was empty--- MK and HS are a disaster--- Spent a great night yesterday at Citywalk--- excellent dinner @ Margaritaville and the movie theatre is beautiful--- !!

 

[Nice Work Pal]

Wow, sorry to hear that the trip went so poorly. Sounds similar to what others are saying, too. Was AK and EP better experiences than MK and HS? What time of day were you in the parks? Did you rope drop?

AK was slightly higher wait times but definitely manageable. Epcot fluctuated but was fine for the most part. Most of the crowd was at f&w which was again awesome.

I get up around 5am every morning and have a very structured day. For that reason when I’m on vacation I don’t get up early for stuff like rope drop. On our DHS days I hope we get a higher BG number for ROTR so we don’t have to rush out to the park immediately. Generally we arrive to the parks around 11am. We usually do a quick breakfast at our hotel.

Disney could easily alleviate the wait time issue by bringing back fp. Not sure why they had to stop it for covid in the first place.

 

[kylenne]

Disney could easily alleviate the wait time issue by bringing back fp. Not sure why they had to stop it for covid in the first place.

FP+ was stopped because of social distancing. Lines would have wrapped around entire parks if it was still operating. They also cannibalized the infrastructure for the Park Reservation system.

Wait times do not improve for anyone except the people with FPs. It’s quite the opposite for everyone else in standby. I get that you’re upset because FP+ was better for the way you like to tour, and I’m sorry you had a bad time, but the issue right now with HS specifically isn’t a lack of FP, it’s that currently it’s a park of nothing but headliner attractions with a lack of shows to eat up people besides Frozen. The Indy theater alone accounts for a massive amount of capacity that’s not being used. And if all those shows are sitting empty, the people who would have sat in them have to go somewhere else…meaning the headliners. The impact is extra noticeable because 10am is generally when the shows would start iirc, and it’s not a coincidence that’s when wait times started to get really onerous at the headliners when I was there a couple weekends ago. Hopefully BatB’s return will help the situation a little, that theater is also massive.

 

[tbelle3]

I had posted this on the July thread, but just realized it might be just as helpful here...

We just got back late night 7/16 from 7/9 and here are some thoughts, but remember ymmv!

Parks- Rope drop was always important, but never as much as it is now! MK held us until exactly 9 for SDMT but then we were on and off in 15 min and everything was about the same for the next hour which was awesome before lines started getting long but nowhere near as bad as HS...
they did let us go earlier than MK and by around 11:15 we had done Slinky, Toy Story Mania and Swirling Saucers. Wait times had soared by then for everything like I have never seen. Anything worth riding was over an hour by then and continued throughout the day.

Boarding Group for ROTR- I scored one every time I practiced from home when it didn't matter lol, but didn't get one at 7am not on the wifi from SSR. At 1pm my son and I did it at the same time in the park with his on the wifi go figure and he scored it with that one!
I won't ruin it but it was worth all of the effort!

We hopped to AK in the afternoon on MK day before returning for fireworks and waited only a few min for safari with Lion King show after and then hit Pandora. Navi was posted at 40 and ended up being closer to 55 and then close to 90 for FOP that was posted at 80.

Epcot at night of first day of Food and Wine was crowded but not as much as I expected. Rode Soarin, Test Track and Frozen after hopping from HS. Got to try a few booths but not as many as would have liked since the kids wanted to get the rides done before fireworks. First time seeing Epcot Forever and actually really liked it!

Bus Service was better than ever so not sure why I read so many complaints before leaving and hope you have the same experience.

Weather was beautiful with an occasional shower, but less hot and humid than NY where I am from!

Blizzard Beach was a first and definitely not a last as we all enjoyed it and was a nice break in the middle of the week!

The newly renovated rooms at SSR are really beautiful! First time at that resort as usually stay Yacht/Beach but really loved being so close to Disney Springs for the great rstrnts and resort pools were fun and overall property very relaxing. Cast members were super friendly and always helpful and the kids loved the pool games, community hall and a last day surprise with Pluto and Donald at the pool!

As a final takeaway parks are definitely more crowded than I expected, but there is more pavement to move around than ever which was nice. There are just still too many experiences not back yet to eat up the crowd to reduce lines. If parades, shows and others came back I don't even think it would be as bad without FP. So glad we went and as reluctant as I was for my youngest to not be able to hug the characters or get autographs we all still had a great trip making many memories at our favorite place!

 

[Dakota731]

Concerning the birthday and celebrations, wait staff are so swamped that they hardly have time to get food served much less recognize all the hundreds of people they see wearing buttons. It’s the same in our town where my college nieces who are waitresses are working 12 hour shifts seven days a week. Until we get enough people willing to work then there won’t be time for extras from overworked wait staff.

 

[cakebaker]

Here now. Overall, we are having fun but definitely noticeable difference in CM attitude and cuts in service and guest experience. Still pretty peeved about the CM who told us “you chose to come to Disney during a pandemic” when we expressed concern about having to wait amongst all the indoor playing kids at the big top. We did not ask to skip the line just asked to wait off to the side by the line until our buzzer buzzed.

Please tell me you took that to guest services? She could've declined your request, but the snarky comment is outrageous. Bad enough that I may have asked for her supervisor right then and there. People really have to not continue to put up with this. While I'm sure the vast majority of CM's are wonderful, there are some that just shouldn't be there.