Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[Raven01]

Planned for magic kingdom next Monday and AK on Sunday, guessing MK would be busier on a weekend.

AK is not available Sunday, but there is still availability in MK.

should I switch them? Go to MK Sunday and AK Monday instead?

 

[Greta]

We were at EPCOT today. Arrived right at Noon, because we wanted our kids to do a half-day of online school. The crowd felt light coming in, so much so that we immediately did Spaceship Earth because it was only a 7 min wait. Next, my son (10) was insistent that we do Test Track, and my 6 year old daughter wanted to go ride Frozen ("Let's go see Anna & Elsa!"). So we headed in that direction. I need to mention that my daughter has been to WDW before, but she was very little. The best part of this trip - hands down - has been watching her experience the Disney magic for the "first time" with absolute wonder and amazement. Anywho...right as we approached Test Track the announcement was made that the ride was down. Bummer! I assured my son that it would likely open again soon, and we kept walking.

As we approached World Showcase the park started to feel more crowded, but that was understandable to me, seeing as it was lunchtime and we were entering the Mexico pavilion. A short distance over in Norway, Frozen was posted at 40 min, and we ended up getting on the ride just shy of that (even with a stop for a mandatory full ride cleaning). By the time we were off and exiting through the gift shop, we were ready for food and drinks. We walked back over to Mexico to get tacos al pastor, empanadas, esquites, margaritas, and a beer. They truly hit the spot! We wanted to walk in and check out Gran Fiesta, but it was posted as a 20 min wait. No, thank you. We decided to try that later.

Test Track was still down, so we headed over to their next favorite ride, which is Figment. On the way we saw a horse-drawn carriage featuring Anna & Elsa (we saw 'em!). Journey into Imagination was a total walk-on, so we rode it twice. Then we walked into The Land and waited 15 min for Soarin'. This totally blew my daughter's mind. As we were flying over the Sydney harbor, she turned to me and asked with astonishment, "Are we really here?!?" Her eyes were huge, and she could not believe that we were not really flying! She wanted to ride again right away, but we convinced her to check out Living w/ the Land (5 min wait). She didn't appreciate that near as much as the rest of us did, as she literally could not wait to fly again. A quick 10 min later, we were above the mountain peaks once more.

By now Test Track was back up and running, so that was our next major goal. But, being so close to Nemo, we walked over and walked on that quickly. TT was listed at 40 min, so we got in line prepared to wait it out. Thankfully things moved relatively swiftly and we boarded in just over 20 min. The ride was everything that my son remembered, and was hoping for. So much so that we did it again immediately afterward with the same wait time. Then we made it back to Mexico to ride Gran Fiesta. It was listed as 20 min, but took only 5. This one was special to us, as we recently spent 2 years living in Mexico City for my wife's job, and have not been back since our return to the U.S. in Feb. Even this slight little taste of Mexico made our hearts happy. And to top it off, we grabbed some mezcal drinks before leaving the pavilion, which made us even happier!

It was already 6:30, so we had to head to our ADR at Spice Road Table (6:45). I should also say that it was thanks to this board that I had the foresight to book a late dinner so that we could milk a little extra time in the park (so...thanks!). On the way we stopped in China to get a jasmine beer and a mongolian beef bao bun. Not the best I've ever had, but far from the worst. Then we walked past Germany, Italy, USA, and Japan en route to our reservation in Morocco. We picked Spice Road Table because it is open air, and offers a full bar. Check and check. We kept things light and ordered a couple of appetizers (calamari and lamb sausage), chicken nuggets & fries for the kids to split, and some beer and wine for me and my wife. This was great, as the weather was good, and we were ready to sit down and chill for a bit. And again it was a great tip in the sense that we were able to get some really amazing shots of Spaceship Earth all lit-up as we walked out almost completely alone at 8p.

Overall it was a great day! It was definitely more crowded than I expected. It's clear to me that there is a lot of pent-up desire to travel, and the word has clearly gotten out that WDW is relatively safe and clean. But the low capacities that we heard about in July and August (which lured us down here) are certainly behind us. The capacities have been increased in all of the parks, and they are all fairly busy. But we got on everything we wanted to ride (sorry, Mission: Space) and several things twice. Mask compliance was absolutely terrific. Barely even saw any nose-peekers. And we loved the socially distant spacing in the queues. Can that stick around forever?

Tomorrow is Hollywood Studios. We get to finally see if these weeks of RotR practice have paid off. Wish me luck! I'm a bit freaked out by the huge wait times that I saw reported over there today, but it seems to just be par for the course these days. What can you do when you jam a park full immediately at opening?!? Just hoping for the best.

View attachment 527462

Your daughter’s reaction to Soarin’ made my heart smile!

 

[dachsie]

Yes but I guessed at the dates of purchase, because I couldn’t remember.

I got assigned the founders status within an hour of doing it. I was pretty specific on when I got it though because I bought it at IAH on the way to a conference April 18 or 19, 2018

 

[melissa723]

We were at MK today. My crew were foot dragged this am and we did not get in parking lot till 9 am. We were behind the curve all day and did not get to do everything. . Had fun, ate at Gramd Floridian for lunch and LTT after park close. Both were magical.

a tip for hand washing. Pull down paper towels first, then wash hands !
The CMs are all fabulous.

We have late dining reservations at LTT when we go as well, and wanted to know how long the buses were running after the park closed?

 

[Calee]

We have late dining reservations at LTT when we go as well, and wanted to know how long the buses were running after the park closed?

If you have an in the park reservation, they will not leave you stranded. The bus will run you back when you are finished.

 

[robinstrip]

We were at MK today. My crew were foot dragged this am and we did not get in parking lot till 9 am. We were behind the curve all day and did not get to do everything. . Had fun, ate at Gramd Floridian for lunch and LTT after park close. Both were magical.

a tip for hand washing. Pull down paper towels first, then wash hands !
The CMs are all fabulous.

We have LTT at 5:30 one day. I am excited to see the park after closing. I know it won't be empty, but excited none the less.

 

[maryj11]

I guessed as well and i got founder status, Good luck

I got it yay!

 

[MaryKatesMom]

In Hollywood today 9/22 with 10 second rise of the resistance filled. Mickey’s Railway closed because of overcrowding and it has a 105 minute wait. Tower of terror is 60 minutes. Smugglers is 70 Slinky dog is 80minutes. Star tours is 55. Toy Story is 55.

The Standby line for slinky dog is byArial

 

[MaryKatesMom]

I tried to change my park reservation on Sat 9/26 and all parks were full to AP’s and resort guests.

Last weekend Epcot was as busy as any F&W weekend but with fewer booths and slower lines. ALL the Kiosks including Worldshowplace, Canada and France had only ONE cashier. The line moved super slow but as soon as you got your food it got handed to you immediately. The CMs passing out food were standing there waiting for tickets. Frozen SB line was in China.

 

[only hope]

Where do the Dapper Dans perform at nowadays? Same place as before?

 

[Tormania]

So fuller and fuller parks, but not added capacity to rides or restaraunts, that doesn't sound promising. So more people standing in lines for longer and longer, hmmm.

 

[smelton521]

Have CMs been letting people into Epcot early or just MK and HS? We will be at Epcot Dec 1 and it says it opens at noon. What time would you all suggest arriving?

 

[AllieBoo]

I am seriously rethinking my trip in a couple of weeks. I was only interested in going if there were still going to be super short waits for everything.

 

[rwdavis2]

The wait times may be due to running the rides at half capacity. Or taking longer to load due to distancing, etc.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

Attraction are loading as fast as usual BUT they are there are only two rows used in IASW and only one on MickeyRailroad. The rides are running at severely reduced capacity

 

[yulilin3]

@MaryKatesMom merged you to the existing thread

 

[KaityB]

Hey all! I've got a trip in about 2 weeks and everyday for awhile now, I have been checking wait times on MDE. I've slowly watched the wait times go up everywhere and while I know it's nothing compared to the past, it still makes me nervous that we'll be wasting a lot of time waiting with reduced park hours.

So, for people that have recently been...are the wait times on point or do they seem to be inflated?

 

[wilkydelts]

there are 163 pages of information relating to that topic here:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/here-now-just-back-wdw-reopening-experiences.3807247/

 

[Darcy03231]

From reading these boards, people are reporting that wait times have increased since the July/August reported low waits. In some instances the posted times have not been correct and people have reported much lower wait times, and others have reported that they were accurate. The general consensus has been that wait times are definitely higher than they were in July/August and weekends are busier than weekdays.

 

[KaityB]

there are 163 pages of information relating to that topic here:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/here-now-just-back-wdw-reopening-experiences.3807247/

been there, it's 163 pages of people jumping all over the place, not specific to my topic