Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[lchuck]

We're in a third camp.

We knew how to use FP+ to maximize our experience, used it all the time, and hated it.

We hated the spontaneity that FP+ destroyed, having to be at a certain place at a certain time.

FP+ is a zero-sum game. For every FP+ you got, it meant waiting even longer in other lines.

If I got a FP+ for Frozen Ever After, it meant longer waits at Test Track and Soarin'.

So far, we've enjoyed no FP+ much more than the old way, watching hundreds of people walk past us on our non-FP+ rides.

And we love being able to change our plans without having to worry how it's going to impact our FP+ selections.

Seriously, I wish they never bring back FP+.

You could always just pretend it doesn't exist and not use it, right? For those who actually knew how to use the system, you could pull 10+ FP+ in a day and not wait more than 15-20 minutes in any line. If the current experience averages out to the same number of rides per day with the same amount of time spent in line, then I'm all for it. However, based on wait time charts that are skyrocketing as the crowds return, I doubt that will be the case. I'm really looking forward to going this summer because of the craptastic past year, but I'm definitely not looking forward to standing in lines all day long. I hope I'm wrong, perhaps nobody will show up this summer?

 

[lchuck]

@brockash Because specifics (proof) aren't helpful

Two people exact same line standing by each other:

Person A- The wait was awful the line was so long for Space Mountain. I hate not having FP+

Person B- Got in line for Space Mountain it said 55 took us 40

This is an "experiences" thread, so you'll always get opinions tossed in. What you're looking for are charts/graphs containing numbers with wait times and can be located on other sites. Those will give you the hard data you want, without relying on any opinions or people who misremembered the length of time they waited.

I recommend taking a look at this post on EasyWDW by Josh. It's roughly 4400 words breaking down Magic Kingdom wait times post pandemic:

https://www.easywdw.com/easy/blog/w...nce-reopening-and-the-best-day-to-visit-each/

 

[olafgypsy]

Here now, Tuesday 03/30 with my son, age 7, and husband. Got here 03/28 with our first park day (EPCOT) on Monday, 03/29 and today was Magic Kingdom. We're staying at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress on points -- great resort! -- and doing rideshare to/from the parks and Disney Springs, but will move to CSR Friday since Grand Cypress was totally booked for the weekend.

First Day - 03/29 - EPCOT
Got to the park about 1pm because I had to do a meeting I couldn't get out of from 11-12, so hubby and son hung by the pool in the morning and then we headed out after lunch. Crowds were light to moderate at EPCOT when we got there, gradually picking up into the evening hours as expected. From 1-5:30 or so we toured World Showcase. Had a bit of a disappointment because they were completely sold out of both the scavenger hunt and the egg hunt park-wide, which my son had really been looking forward to doing. Fingers crossed they're back in stock on Thursday when we return to EPCOT.

For lunch we grazed the food booths and F&G. My husband had the verlasso salmon at the healthy booth (can't remember the name! of the booth) which he really enjoyed and I sipped on a violet lemonade. Then we hit up Cava del Tequila in Mexico. It was about a 25 minute wait to get in to the Mexico pavilion, but then Gran Fiesta Tour was a walk-on, which my son and I did while my husband picked up the margs. This ride is underrated IMHO. I love the street scenes and the fireworks! Then off to Germany, where my son had a cheese pretzel bread and I had a potato pancake with ham, also from Germany. Next funnel cake with lemon cheesecake ice cream at the America pavilion (SO GOOD) and a beignet and vodka slushie from France before heading back across the lagoon on a Friendship boat.

From 5:30 - 8 we did some attractions in Future World with lots of leisurely stopping in between to let my son rest as it's his first time walking in the parks -- we always had a stroller before -- and at this point he was getting REALLY tired. We toured Living with the Land and took in Awesome Planet, which we all really enjoyed, as much for the carpeted wall (!) and air con as the movie itself, although the movie was really pretty and I enjoyed the "bonus moon" joke Then we ventured Under the Seas with Nemo and Friends and journeyed through time on Spaceship Earth before heading out of the park to grab some dinner.

My husband had requested somewhere we could sit down for a while because he didn't want to do the "eat and walk" thing at the food booths and I didn't relish the thought of braving the crowds that were now pouring into WS. I thought Disney Springs would be our best bet and placed a mobile order for DLuxe Burger. But we were met with an unpleasant surprise when we exited the parks and realized that the buses aren't running from the parks to Disney Springs anymore - when did that happen?!? The sign said to "transfer at resort," but knowing Disney transit I was sure that would add at least an hour to our trip, so we did rideshare instead, an extra $15 I hadn't planned on, but them's the breaks.

This was my second time trying DLuxe Burger and again it was a big letdown for me. Maybe their "premium" beef blend is actually premium but I sure hope not, because when they cook it to within an inch of its life like that it's a desecration of a good piece of meat! The truffle aioli dipping sauce is awesome, though. Disney Springs was pretty packed, even on a Monday night at 10pm, so we headed out pretty quickly after eating and crashed at the resort in preparation for an early start at Magic Kingdom the next day.

Overall, crowds were as expected on this day, mostly moderate with the exception of Disney Springs. Most people are doing a good job of following the COVID rules, although you always run into those line crowders and people who don't seem to realize that a mask worn over the mouth and not the nose is pretty pointless (or maybe they just don't care). I really like the spacing out in line: it's nice to have personal space! Partitions on the monorail, on rides, and in lines don't go floor to ceiling so I doubt we're accomplishing much there if basic chemistry is anything to go by

Ride share to/from hotel is working pretty well and we're saving a lot of money when you consider what we'd pay for a rental car and parking. Sometimes we have had to wait quite a while (20-30 minutes) to get a ride, particularly at busy times of day, but still nowhere near what we'd wait for Disney Transit all told, and you just can't beat door-to-door service!

 

[PrincessV]

We're in a third camp.

We knew how to use FP+ to maximize our experience, used it all the time, and hated it.

We hated the spontaneity that FP+ destroyed, having to be at a certain place at a certain time.

FP+ is a zero-sum game. For every FP+ you got, it meant waiting even longer in other lines.

If I got a FP+ for Frozen Ever After, it meant longer waits at Test Track and Soarin'.

So far, we've enjoyed no FP+ much more than the old way, watching hundreds of people walk past us on our non-FP+ rides.

And we love being able to change our plans without having to worry how it's going to impact our FP+ selections.

Seriously, I wish they never bring back FP+.

I could not agree more, and can't say it any better than you did! I've been visiting WDW regularly as a local for 30 years, so I've seen it all, and no FP in play is by far my preference.

You could always just pretend it doesn't exist and not use it, right?

Nope. Not reasonably, anyway. Because when FP is in play, it inflates the standby wait times enormously. With no FP, Standby actually moves. It's an entirely different experience.

 

[KdKyA]

3/30 EPCOT and AK
Park official opening 11:00 actual-somewhere between 10:00 and 10:15
We were going to take the first bus, but we drove the golf cart to the Outpost and there was a huge line so we drove instead. Left at 9:45 and arrived around 10:05. Walked back to Test Track where the posted sign said 45 min wait and TP had posted a 45 minute wait. Both were wrong. They kept making an announcement that the official opening wasn't until 11:00 and they would not be running the attractions until then. Except the attraction WAS running. We waited about 25 minutes and headed to Soarin'. Posted wait time was 25 minutes and we waited about that. We then walked over to Frozen. Posted wait time was 45 on both TP and MDE and Bothe were wrong again. We waited about 55 minutes. From there we did the Festival Foods. After that we headed to the Seas and the posted wait was 10 minutes but we pretty much walked right on. DH and 2 kiddos then went and did Mission Space, posted time was 25 minutes and they waited that. Other DD wanted to do Figment so we walked over to that. Posted wait was 20 minutes, but we maybe waited 5 minutes for that.
Family decided to go see if Kali River Rapids was indeed open and not a mix up on the TP app. So we drove over to AK and headed to Kali. Posted time on TP was 8 minutes, MDE didn't even show it open. I confirmed with the CMs that they were running a soft open and they opened it yesterday. Water level was lower than we have seen before so we didn't get as wet. Wait time was about 15 minutes. Kids wanted to go again so we got in line again, this time we Waited about 5 minutes. TP and MDE both showed EE was only a 10 minute wait, so we rode that on the way out.

Crowds: EPCOT crowds/mentality was MUCH worse than the other parks. Several peopler refusing to wear masks or not fixing them even after CMs told them too. A LOT of creepers in the lines today as well. More so than we have experienced thus far. One CM saw one family that was basically riding out tail and they told them to give 6 feet between groups. They backed off at that point. I'm not sure if it's a language barrier as I did notice many of the people that creeped were non English speaking. I have noticed that the crowd mentality overall is much better in the morning. People wearing masks properly, social distancing, etc. Usually around 12:00 we start seeing things fall apart. I heard many people tell the CMs and other people that they were vaccinated so the rule didn't apply to them. The hotter it got, the worse people adhered to the rules. Also, a lot more eating/drinking while walking.

We still had an amazing day, but today was definitely worse as far as Covid precautions go.

 

[Marissa227]

Just back from a mixed Disney/Universal trip. I did do some "here now" posts earlier in this thread at the start of the trip, but then got too tired in the evenings to post, so I'll avoid repeating myself.

Wait Times
It was bad. No sugar coating it. Yes, wait times were "only" an hour that might have been 2 hours at spring break pre-Covid, but unless you really didn't understand how to use fastpass properly, you never had to wait in those longer lines pre-Covid. Plus we found our feet were KILLING us this trip and looked to see our step count was twice what it used to be, which I suspect is because of all the longer queues and standing when before, we were taking more breaks to sit and watch a show or a parade. The other thing that made wait times feel worse it is used to be there were a fair number of rides that always had a pretty short wait that you could just do standby between fastpasses when the park was crowded, but now due to distanced seating, those rides now have long waits too--e.g., small word, three caballeros. We did arrive early/come back in the evening, but the secret is out on mornings and I would say evening are much better now. Also, that startegy does make you TIRED. All in all, we won't be back until fastpasses return.

Crowds/Masks
I know this is something there are such different perceptions of, but if you are at all concerned about Covid, this is not the time to go. Mask wearing was pretty good, but there were enough nose peekers and snackers in line and on transportation that I wouldn't say it was safe. Distancing was the biggest issue. We didn't mind crowds outdoors in the walkways (and there were crowds/chokepoints) because you move past people pretty quick. But indoors, whenever a line had switchbacks, there would be a party waiting between a marker in the switchback next you, just a foot or two away from you. And the creep-up-behinders were everywhere. I had to repeatedly ask people to go back to their marker, not because I was worried about covid (we have immunity), but because I was tired of them bumping into me and/or breathing down my neck because they weren't paying attention to when they needed to stop. I would say about 30% of the rides, we had someone walking right up behind us ignoring their marker.

Dining
We MUCH preferred table service to quick service this trip. Mobile order was good for breakfast, but lunch was another experience. We did order on the app at 7am for QS lunch and had no trouble getting the order placed since we ordered early, but once we got to the restaurant at lunchtime there were long waits out in the hot usn after hitting the "I'm here, prepare my food" button, and once we were allowed in, finding a table was near impossible, with dozens of people all hanging around and rushing to the nearest table once it opened. People also moved the tables and chairs a lot so the tables were not properly spread out any more.

Transportation
Morning buses were consistently available 75 minutes before park open and were very efficient. However, if you like midday breaks, we found bus times were very sketchy midday, with long waits and arrival times on the resort board that would mysteriously disappear and be replaced with another time 30 minutes later. Evenings at park close, there were also a lot of long waits at the park bus stop to get back to the resort, but that was just because the lines were really long. We opted to use Uber a lot more than we an expected and in hindsight wished we had rented a car when you added up all the uber cost over the trip.

Ride Breakdowns
This was enough of a recurring issue that I feel it warrants its own section of the post. In the past, when a ride went down, it was not a big deal. If I had a fastpass for it, I'd get an anytime FP automatically to use when it reopened. Without FP, when a ride went down, it was very disruptive. Maybe we had bad luck, but this affected us pretty much every day. For example, we tried to do TOT pre-park opening and the ride started out only running one side, and then went down entirely just as we were about to board. At that point, it was too late to rope drop anything else as wait times had climbed all across the park, so we stuck it out. Ended up waiting upwards of 90 minutes and it felt like the morning was wasted. Similar thing happened when we tried to do Space Mountain at park opening, and the ride went down while in line. There, they made everyone exit the queue as it was clear it was going to be a prolonged outage, but again, we missed our chance to get in line for other rides first thing. It also meant that because it was down almost all of the day, when it did reopen in the evening, we had an hour-long in the last hour of park open even though everything else in the park was a pretty short wait. Then AGAIN we had an issue on Animal Kingdom day where we decided to wait to do EE until the last few hours to allow the wait time to die down, and mid-afternoon, it went down. Finally at around 7:30pm on an 8pm park close day it reopened and we had to RUN to get to the other end of the park and ride it before our in-park dinner reservation. So that may be more info than needed, but it was one of the things that contributed to our decision that it is simply not worth it to visit again without fastpass.

Blizzard Beach
We went to Blizzard Beach on Wednesday 3/24. The transportation situation is annoying, as you had to take a bus to animal kingdom and then transfer to a blizzard beach bus. We opted to uber back to the hotel at the end of the day. The first couple of hours were really quiet with lines only 4-5 parties deep. As the day went on, it definitely started picking up. The wave pool was pretty much full at 3pm, and at 4pm, we waited around 45 minutes for teamboat springs. We were also a bit surprised that the park started to shut down a bit earlier than the official 6pm closing time. Tried to get a drink/snack at 5:30 everything was shuttered. We had a polar patio, and at around $230 for the day, very much felt it was worth it. It includes a locker and towels, spa-style water dispenser with cucumber/citrus infusion, and it gave us a nice comfy shaded spot to eat our lunch, re-apply sunscreen, and relax between activities

DAS
We had DAS, but my DS who needs the pass only has one or two rides in each park he likes to do over and over and they are not headliners (e.g. "Alien Swirling Saucers" "Magic Carpets") so we also ended up taking turns with the older kids doing most things standby while the other parent did DAS with our youngest. We generally found DAS worked really well. I was surprised that return times were often shorter than the official standby wait time by about 20-30 minutes a lot of times, which made it easy to grab an ice cream or popcorn and wait for the return time (and yes, in case you're putting two and two together, that does mean that waits for AS2 and Magic Carpets were upwards of 45 mins to an hour at some points).

This is so helpful, thank you for sharing. We leave Thursday. I was thinking of doing rope drop, afternoon break return, but based on reviews lately I think we will change our strategy and do pool mornings and head to the parks for the afternoon/evening.

 

[#1hoosierfan]

I posted about the the first part of 3/29 yesterday. We decided to go to MK at the end of the day. Caught a bus to MK from Movies (10 minutes) and walked into MK at 7;00. We did HM ( no wait) BTMR, SM, and Buzz. Exited at 8:45. Rode the boat to wilderness for adr at Whispering Canyon.

Tuesday 3/30

No real plan for today. Got to bus stop later than we wanted.... at 7:00 for MK. Waited about 20 minutes for a bus. Got to MK and headed straight to Pirates. Rode with no wait. Then JC with no wait. Boys rode BTMR with a 10 minute wait while dh and I got coffee. Wanted to ride Splash but wait was 45 at this point. We will be back this week so skipped it. Got in line for PP and waited 25 minutes. Walked on Philharmagic. Then left park for ADR at the wave at 10:25. Decided at breakfast we would head to Epcot.

ROOKIE mistake. I’m totally embarrassed about. Totally forgot we can’t hop until 2:00. So we found ourselves at Epcot at 12 with no plans. Decided to head to DS and go to Jock Lindsays. It’s been on my bucket list. Grabbed an Uber and headed to DS. Visited JL and then Goofy Candy Company. DS was not crowded at all.

We had an ADR for Ogas, and I wanted to ride the sky liner, so grabbed a bus to Rivera (5 minute wait) and then sky liner to HS. Boys rode RnR (30 minute wait) and the ADR at Ogas at 5;25. We really enjoyed that. Headed to Baseline for drinks and a couple of charcuterie boards. Exited park at 7:45. Waited about 10 minutes for bus.

 

[twodogs]

I wonder if locals feel happier about no FP than those that come once a year? I don’t know if this is true. But I do wonder if it is more acceptable to locals that if a line is long in the non-FP universe that we are currently in, that locals just shrug and say they will ride it next time, whereas the once a year visitor doesn’t have the “come back next time” opportunity to bypass a long standby line (no FP)? Just a thought....

 

[whiporee]

We just got back from an open-to-close day at MK. We got in 13 rides, with a couple of walk-ons. But it was a hard day. The length of the lines was a killer — for example, the PP line started outside the Columbia, went inside, up the stairs, around a bunch of tables, then down the stairs, then another route through the restaurant, then alongside the building, the back into the ride, then through the original queue, then a switchback and then the ride. That’s a lot of extra walking.

For those tracking, Space was 55 minutes at 8:05, Astro was 45, speed track was 45, PP was 60, BTM was nearly a midday walk-in at 7, alladin was 40, Splash was 65, pirates was 55, mine train 55, buzz a walk-in, and small world 45 at closing. We also walked into CoP, and Country Bears.

We don’t think we’ll be back until the distancing is done. Just an hour of kids playing with the chains over and over and over in the tight, echo-y space of Pirates is enough for us to say we’re done until FPs return. The waiting in line just sucked a lot of the fun away. It’s one thing for waiting to be interspersed with non-waiting, but going from one long line to another long line to another long line was a drag.

 

[Jonfw2]

We just got back from an open-to-close day at MK. We got in 13 rides, with a couple of walk-ons. But it was a hard day. The length of the lines was a killer — for example, the PP line started outside the Columbia, went inside, up the stairs, around a bunch of tables, then down the stairs, then another route through the restaurant, then alongside the building, the back into the ride, then through the original queue, then a switchback and then the ride. That’s a lot of extra walking.

For those tracking, Space was 55 minutes at 8:05, Astro was 45, speed track was 45, PP was 60, BTM was nearly a midday walk-in at 7, alladin was 40, Splash was 65, pirates was 55, mine train 55, buzz a walk-in, and small world 45 at closing. We also walked into CoP, and Country Bears.

we don’t think we’ll be back until the distancing is done. Just an hour of kids playing with the chains over and over and over in a i tight, echo-y space is enough for us to say we’re done until FPs return. The waiting in line just sucked a lot oh the fun away.

Good points. I'm not as concerned about the lengths, but I will say that walking through the Columbia, for example, or backstage for Smuggler's Run, was kind of depressing. Talk about killing the magic- if I want to see dead fish in a pond while I'm in a queue, I'll go to Cedar Point.

 

[NorthernCalMom]

Our Hollywood Studios trip turned out great. Disboards came through for us yet again! We rode everything we wanted to ride, and wait times were totally doable (for us at least—we’re DLand regulars and spoiled by Fastpasses/Maxpass, but we did take the GREAT advice we got, to, by any means, not compare the CA and FL parks but to just enjoy WDW for what it is).

We did forego Slinky, which we all were ok with, since the line stayed long throughout the day. We didn’t manage opening to closing as we had planned, since the heat and humidity really got to us toward the end. If there’s one thing I missed, compared with our DLand trips, it’s to have a hotel in walking distance and be able to take a midday nap.

Park closed at 8, but we left around 6:45. We had been going strong since 7:15. Instead of busing straight back to the hotel, we took the Skyliner to Epcot, then the Friendship boat back to HS, then the bus back to the hotel—a wonderful, sedate way of closing a wonderful park day.

Interesting analysis further above about the “two kinds of visitors.” We’re definitely the “oh, that wait really wasn’t all that bad kind.”

I am writing this in our hotel room, in the early morning. Today is our Epcot day! Yeah!!

 

[whiporee]

Good points. I'm not as concerned about the lengths, but I will say that walking through the Columbia, for example, or backstage for Smuggler's Run, was kind of depressing. Talk about killing the magic- if I want to see dead fish in a pond while I'm in a queue, I'll go to Cedar Point.

We did HS on Sunday, and the backstage at Smugglers was the worst. That and the wierd switchback round and round at MMRR.

 

[mds88]

Thank you for the report. i am worried about wait times as well. We were a family who used FP for everything—I think one day we had 15 FP at MK. so rides like Little Mermaid, Dumbo, Small World, Carpets, Pirates, etc we would never wait 20 min because you could get a FP so easy. Waiting 45 minutes for Carpets is crazy! I hope they bring FP or something back soon, but I know it’s not going to happen for awhile.

My husband and I always maximized our fastpasses and rope drop so we never had to wait in a line longer than 20 minutes. That is impossible now. "Rope drop" isn't even worth it. You can possibly ride a lower tier ride or 2 with a shorter wait time, but headliners seem to be extremely high even before posted park opening. And by less than an hour after opening every ride has a high wait time (45-60min). Its something we told ourselves we just had to accept, but personally I wouldn't go back until something is done to lower wait times. Also a huge issue with the lines I have is that you can't drink water. It is extremely hot now and it's only March. To wait in a 90 minute line in this weather without being able to hydrate is really not healthy.

 

[kathi]

Wait Times
It was bad. No sugar coating it. Yes, wait times were "only" an hour that might have been 2 hours at spring break pre-Covid, but unless you really didn't understand how to use fastpass properly, you never had to wait in those longer lines pre-Covid. Plus we found our feet were KILLING us this trip and looked to see our step count was twice what it used to be, which I suspect is because of all the longer queues and standing when before, we were taking more breaks to sit and watch a show or a parade. The other thing that made wait times feel worse it is used to be there were a fair number of rides that always had a pretty short wait that you could just do standby between fastpasses when the park was crowded, but now due to distanced seating, those rides now have long waits too--e.g., small word, three caballeros. We did arrive early/come back in the evening, but the secret is out on mornings and I would say evening are much better now. Also, that startegy does make you TIRED. All in all, we won't be back until fastpasses return.

Crowds/Masks
I know this is something there are such different perceptions of, but if you are at all concerned about Covid, this is not the time to go. Mask wearing was pretty good, but there were enough nose peekers and snackers in line and on transportation that I wouldn't say it was safe. Distancing was the biggest issue. We didn't mind crowds outdoors in the walkways (and there were crowds/chokepoints) because you move past people pretty quick. But indoors, whenever a line had switchbacks, there would be a party waiting between a marker in the switchback next you, just a foot or two away from you. And the creep-up-behinders were everywhere. I had to repeatedly ask people to go back to their marker, not because I was worried about covid (we have immunity), but because I was tired of them bumping into me and/or breathing down my neck because they weren't paying attention to when they needed to stop. I would say about 30% of the rides, we had someone walking right up behind us ignoring their marker.
Ride Breakdowns
This was enough of a recurring issue that I feel it warrants its own section of the post. In the past, when a ride went down, it was not a big deal. If I had a fastpass for it, I'd get an anytime FP automatically to use when it reopened. Without FP, when a ride went down, it was very disruptive. Maybe we had bad luck, but this affected us pretty much every day. For example, we tried to do TOT pre-park opening and the ride started out only running one side, and then went down entirely just as we were about to board. At that point, it was too late to rope drop anything else as wait times had climbed all across the park, so we stuck it out. Ended up waiting upwards of 90 minutes and it felt like the morning was wasted. Similar thing happened when we tried to do Space Mountain at park opening, and the ride went down while in line. There, they made everyone exit the queue as it was clear it was going to be a prolonged outage, but again, we missed our chance to get in line for other rides first thing. It also meant that because it was down almost all of the day, when it did reopen in the evening, we had an hour-long in the last hour of park open even though everything else in the park was a pretty short wait. Then AGAIN we had an issue on Animal Kingdom day where we decided to wait to do EE until the last few hours to allow the wait time to die down, and mid-afternoon, it went down. Finally at around 7:30pm on an 8pm park close day it reopened and we had to RUN to get to the other end of the park and ride it before our in-park dinner reservation. So that may be more info than needed, but it was one of the things that contributed to our decision that it is simply not worth it to visit again without fastpass.

I agree with momoftwins completely on the things we also experienced (we didn’t go to Blizzard beach eat QS or take a bus). We had fun the first few days. We did commando touring early in the morning and late at night and totally rocked magic kingdom and Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. But by the middle of the third day (out of 6) we were EXHAUSTED and I had used more than 1/2 of my band aid stash on blisters (and we were not wearing new shoes). The lines are just too long and there are not enough rides open (MK being the exception). Mask and social distance compliance was good but I honestly not good enough in lines (where I expect people to follow the rules). I personally only saw a cast member say something once. We are vaccinated but for those who are not, give this some serious thought.

Last Day today at Epcot. Still need to ride Test Track and Soarin. So we will schlep over soon to try to knock those out before they turn into hour plus waits for the whole day. We are booked to return between Christmas and New Years and will not if Fast Pass and shows are not back. Also APs. The tickets were so expensive for the amount of lines we had to wait in with so few attractions available. I’m glad we came. We needed the break but it’s definitely worse than I was expecting. (And I’ve researched the heck out of it.).

 

[NorthernCalMom]

We’re in a (relatively short) line for the Epcot bus. The husband’s fanny pack reminds me of Mary Poppins’s carpet bag—inexhaustible and full of anything needed for a great Epcot trip: moleskin, sunscreen, ibuprofen, neosporin, bandaids, ace wraps, lactaid, pepsid, and tums! I‘m carrying the sunscreen, sugarless gum for cleaning our palates between festival snacks and, in case that Mission Space Orange ends up getting the better of our stomachs, ginger chews. We are ready!

 

[Toad_Passenger]

However, based on wait time charts that are skyrocketing as the crowds return, I doubt that will be the case.

Crowd levels are certainly affecting the non-FP+ experience. When we were there 1st week of Feb., the crowds were non-existent. We rode just as many rides as we do with FP+ (and we are usually the ones pulling double digit FP per day). If crowds had even been marginally higher this may have not been the case.

If our experience was guaranteed once the parks fully reopen I'd say dropping FP+ would be a no brainer, but there is no way crowd levels won't return to normal and, at that point, FP+ will be necessary again.

 

[Dakota731]

We’re in a (relatively short) line for the Epcot bus. The husband’s fanny pack reminds me of Mary Poppins’s carpet bag—inexhaustible and full of anything needed for a great Epcot trip: moleskin, sunscreen, ibuprofen, neosporin, bandaids, ace wraps, lactaid, pepsid, and tums! I‘m carrying the sunscreen, sugarless gum for cleaning our palates between festival snacks and, in case that Mission Orange ends up getting the better of our stomachs, ginger chews. We are ready!

Off topic alert! Where do you get ginger chews? I had some for a cruise years ago and they were great but can’t find them nowadays

 

[NorthernCalMom]

Off topic alert! Where do you get ginger chews? I had some for a cruise years ago and they were great but can’t find them nowadays

We‘re from SF and buy them in Chinatown. If you’re comfortable sending me your postal address via PM, I‘ll be happy to mail you some after we’re back home. It‘s the least I can do, given all the fantastic help I‘ve gotten here over the years!

eBay is of course always an option:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=ginger+chews&_trksid=p2380057.m4084.l1313
Also, the above search revealed some Trader Joe‘s brand ones. Could be a local thing, though...

 

[NorthernCalMom]

Epcot bus finally came at 10. The line for it had grown very long rather fast since about 9:35. Phew, I‘m hot!

 

[MMSM]

I’m at HS right now. It’s so busy here. We got boarding group 15 and we were lucky. We rope dropped slinky and was on in 25 min. Got off ride and it was by little mermaid at 75 min at 8:30. Went to Toy Story Mania for 5 min. Headed to our Boarding Group. Now in line for smugglers run for 75 min. It’s so awful that I feel bad that my kids don’t even want to go and stand in line anywhere. Everything is 60 minutes plus. And unlike MK I believe these waits are accurate. MK was inflated by about 20 min. EXCEPT for dwarf train, splash mountain; and space mountain. Those were pretty accurate.