Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[ElizaDoesDisney]

Disney Vacation Day #4 - EPCOT

Worked from the room for the morning. Was sad to be checking out of the Hyatt Grand Cypress, but glad to be moving to the Dolphin. Dropped my rental car off and worked from the airport for a few hours until Aunt and Uncle arrived.

We went immediately to Phins bar for a welcome drink - a cosmo for me. It's a great lobby bar - and lots of TVs so a good place to catch a game. Dropped bags off in the room and over to EPCOT for a ramble around world showcase. First stop at Rose and Crown for a round of beers - Cider Blackcurrent for me was delicious - and a scotch egg. Then over to La Cava de Tequila for a margaritas - black magic for me - and chips w/ guac and queso. Nom nom nom. Meandered the rest of the way around the world and then back to the Dolphin for dinner at Shula's. EPCOT was weird tonight - the walkways around world showcase were PACKED and yet there really weren't lines at any of the festival booths or at La Cava or really anywhere except a couple of places right by American pavilion during the Garden Rocks concert.

I've never eaten at Shula's before - but I would definitely come back. Excellent service and excellent food. I wasn't feeling a steak - so made a meal out of a few starters - french onion soup (really good), tuna tartare (fabulous) and a crabcake (meh). Along with a blueberry martini (so GOOD) and a glass of wine. I love that they have a nice bar and lounge area and it was easy to grab a seat as a walk-in.

Tomorrow's plans: No idea. Aunt and Uncle are going to DHS. I might meet them over there after work. It's all a game time decision.

 

[ElizaDoesDisney]

Disney Vacation Day #5 - Resort Day & Celebration

Worked all day - glad that it is officially the weekend. I grabbed lunch down at Cabana - the pool bar/restaurant at Swan and Dolphin. This is actually one of my favorite bars on property - excellent drinks, good food, TVs with sports on. They used to have the NFL Sunday Ticket (no idea if they still do) and I spent plenty of Sunday afternoons watching a game. Lunch today was chicken fingers and fries with a hibiscus cooler.

Aunt and uncle did the morning at DHS and then hopped over to EPCOT. I had to work a bit later than I had hoped so decided to make it a resort day and headed down to the pool once I logged off. A cabana in the shade with my kindle was paradise. Aunt and uncle joined and we had a nice late afternoon/early evening lounging around with a round of drinks from the bar.

Uncle and I ubered over to Celebration for dinner; aunt wasn't feeling great and relaxed in the room. We didn't realize it, but Celebration was having a little arts festival - it was fun to walk around. We were lucky to grab a couple seats at the bar at Celebration Town Tavern - it was packed! I really enjoy this restaurant - large menu with good seafood, a nice bar menu, and reasonable price to boot. I had a raspberry lemonade cocktail, a bowl of lobster chowder (v. good with lots of lobster, but I think their clam chowder is even better), a side of fried scallops, and a glass of wine. Uncle had the clam strip dinner and a couple of glasses of wine. And then he decided he liked the scallops so much he got another order of them. It was a fabulous meal and less than $100 for everything.

Ended the night out on the balcony with a glass of wine. There was live music coming from somewhere - seemed like maybe a private event at Swan Reserve. Life really doesn't get much better than this.

Tomorrow's plans: AK day, dinner at Flying Fish

 

[jillinastoria]

We’re on the last day of a seven night trip (six park days) and we had a great vacation! We are Disney Resort guests and pre-paid for Genie + every day. And for us, it worked really well—between Early Entry (which we only used for MK), Genie +, and ILLs, we saw everything we wanted. And I didn’t think crowds were worse than we’ve seen in previous years during the mid-to-late April week when we usually visit. Overall, we never waited in line for more than 15 minutes.

I had no particular strategy, other than spreading out the headliners over several days, prepping to see when thing usually booked up on the Touring Plans blog, and, again, spreading things out so that 3 or 4 (on average) Genie + reservations each day were enough for us.

I understand the expense of Genie +, and also know it doesn’t work well for everybody—but just wanted to share our positive experience for anyone nervous about traveling soon!

 

[AussieFan8]

Worked from the room for the morning. Was sad to be checking out of the Hyatt Grand Cypress, but glad to be moving to the Dolphin.

Your comments about the Dolphin make me excited for our first stay there later this year! We are Wilderness Lodge devotees so nervous about trying a new resort, but Dolphin sounds great! Is Phins serving food again yet?

 

[ElizaDoesDisney]

Your comments about the Dolphin make me excited for our first stay there later this year! We are Wilderness Lodge devotees so nervous about trying a new resort, but Dolphin sounds great! Is Phins serving food again yet?

Phins is not not serving food yet - drinks only. And doesn't open until 3PM as we learned when we tried to get a cocktail at 2:30 one day.

 

[ElizaDoesDisney]

Disney Vacation Day 6 - Animal Kingdom / DHS

We slept in a bit and ubered over to Animal Kingdom around 10AM. Used LL for Kilimanjaro Safari - was a particularly interesting ride as we got stuck for a while due to a giraffic jam - that giraffe was directly in front of our vehicle and wasn't going anywhere. Then over to Kali River Rapids. Then grabbed lunch from Yak'n'Yeti Local Foods Cafe - their chicken fried rice is very good and filling and surprisingly reasonably priced. Next up was Expedition Everest - I'm glad that this is back up and running. We did some shopping but still had some time to kill before our LL reservation for Dinosaur so we ended up at Restaurantosaurus Lounge having excellent cocktails. The Crave the Wave, the special earth day cocktail with grey goose, blue curacao, and lemonade, was fabulous and the bartender said he has all the ingredients in stock so it can be ordered even once it is officially off the menu. Rode Dinosaur and decided to hop over to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon.

At DHS we rode Toy Story Mania via LL - I'm still bitter that aunt crushed me, I must need to practice more. While in line for Toy Story, I was able to snag LL for MMRR which had been sold out for hours - never hurts to do a little fiddle faddling while stuck in a line. After we were able to get a table at the Hollywood Brown Derby Lounge with no wait for a late afternoon snack. They don't really seem to have a lounge menu anymore, just the regular restaurant menu. I had a pomegranate martini and the scallop and pork belly appetizer. It was fabulous, as always. I think I've liked everything I've ever had there - and it's a wonderful spot for people watching. Finished up in time to ride MMRR and then scored a LL for Millennium Falcon so headed straight there. Did a little shopping around Galaxy's Edge after crashing the Millennium Falcon approximately a dozen times (maybe they shouldn't let me be a pilot). Rode Star Tours - which is always one of my favorites even though it's now overshadowed by all the amazing new Star Wars things. Then took the boat back to Dolphin to relax a bit.

We had late dinner reservations at Flying Fish, but we sauntered over to Boardwalk early and ended up grabbing a table outside at BelleVue Bar for a pre-dinner cocktail - a Moscow Mule for me was nice and refreshing. Dinner at Flying Fish was fabulous - we shared an order of mussels to start and a bottle of chardonnay, I had the seafood pearl pasta which was excellent. I meant to leave room for dessert, but I totally failed - next time. They also have a nice bar area that is first-come, first-served so a nice option for future solo trips for me.

 

[dnguyen8]

We’re on the last day of a seven night trip (six park days) and we had a great vacation! We are Disney Resort guests and pre-paid for Genie + every day. And for us, it worked really well—between Early Entry (which we only used for MK), Genie +, and ILLs, we saw everything we wanted. And I didn’t think crowds were worse than we’ve seen in previous years during the mid-to-late April week when we usually visit. Overall, we never waited in line for more than 15 minutes.

I had no particular strategy, other than spreading out the headliners over several days, prepping to see when thing usually booked up on the Touring Plans blog, and, again, spreading things out so that 3 or 4 (on average) Genie + reservations each day were enough for us.

I understand the expense of Genie +, and also know it doesn’t work well for everybody—but just wanted to share our positive experience for anyone nervous about traveling soon!

Thanks for sharing. We have two kids under five and have a similar strategy. Glad to hear it wasnt a nightmare like everyone makes it seem. For genie plus and individual lightning lane were you able to get morning/early afternoon times? Our kids still nap so we’re trying to get back to hotel by mid afternoon.

 

[ElizaDoesDisney]

Disney Vacation Day 7 - Magic Kingdom and Resort Time / Plus Day 8 - Departure

Lazy morning - once again made it into the park around 10AM. We knew parks were going to be busy so we just wanted to hit a few favorites and have a nice lunch plus do some shopping. Started out doing Buzz Lightyear - I avenged my loss at Toy Story the day before. Then rode the peoplemover. Headed over to Adventure land where we did the Swiss Family Treehouse, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Tiki Room. Lunch at Jungle Skipper's Canteen - I had the soup (a carrot ginger that was excellent) and the veranda fried rice with a Kungaloosh. This is officially my favorite restaurant in MK by far. Good, interesting food, entertaining waitstaff, beer/wine, and a nice place to sit in the air conditioning on a hot day. After lunch we hit up It's a Small World and then decided to head back to the resort for an afternoon at the pool.

There was a conference that had bought out part of the pool complex for the early afternoon - but we were able to find a couple seats together back by the baby pool. As a bonus, got to listen to the band that was playing for the group event. Spent time back and forth between the hot tub and a lounge chair while having a couple rounds of Hibisus Coolers.

Debated a lot of potential dinner plans before deciding to do the bar at Shula's (again). This time aunt and I split several courses - the bacon appetizer (amazing, but very heavy), wedge salad, and a lobster tail (fantastic). Plus a blueberry martini and a glass of wine.

The next day was checkout day (boo). We were able to get a 1PM checkout which let me work from the room for the morning while aunt and uncle went back to EPCOT. After getting out of the room we ended up grabbing lunch at the Fountain - I had a chicken BLT which was perfectly acceptable. I wouldn't rush back, but if I was looking for a sit-down lunch in the immediate area and didn't want to be outside at Cabana I would do Fountain again. Note to self: try one of their alcoholic ice cream concoctions soon. Then it was off to the airport - it's amazing how quickly a week at Disney can fly by.

 

[jillinastoria]

Thanks for sharing. We have two kids under five and have a similar strategy. Glad to hear it wasnt a nightmare like everyone makes it seem. For genie plus and individual lightning lane were you able to get morning/early afternoon times? Our kids still nap so we’re trying to get back to hotel by mid afternoon.

We were able to get the ILLs for almost any time we wanted, that was almost never an issue. We'd schedule late morning or early evening, just whatever worked for us that day.

For Genie plus, we had pretty much the same plan every day--one late morning reservation, then we'd stack anywhere from two to four throughout the late afternoon and evening. I do think we could have gotten more morning reservations if we tried, but we preferred the afternoon stacking strategy, since we did a second park visit from about 4 to 8ish every day and really wanted to avoid lines then.

Hope that's helpful!

 

[val1234]

So we are just back from our first on-site stay at Hard Rock Hotel club level. We stayed 5 nights. We visited both parks and Volcano bay. We had a 5 day park to park ticket with unlimited express pass. To be honest it was nice but it was very very hard not to make constant comparisons to Disney. The only thing that Universal does better is express pass but we all know this already so I will move on. First off is the rides themselves. Too many of the rides are motion simulators uugghh. Never knew how much I would miss Disneys boat rides and animatronics lol. Second that Hogwartz train to take you park to park is extremely claustrophobic and overrated but the overall Harry Potter theme is really amazing. The parks are also very small to Disney in comparison. You could really do both parks in one day if you go at a slower time and have express passes. Universal is all about the rollercoasters, Velocicoaster and Hagrids are the best ever according to my kids if that is your thing( I didn’t ride…getting up at 7am on my vacation wasn’t in the cards for me lol). Also there was not one thing we ate in the parks that was good except for Auntie Anne’s pretzels lol. Everything to me was edible at best, but maybe we just picked the wrong places? The Mardi Gras food festival was going on and there was no comparison in taste and food quality as compared to Epcot food and wine. As far as the resorts go we also visited Cabana Bay, Sapphire Bay, Royal Pacific and Portofino Bay. If we ever go again based on the looks of things we may try Portofino. So the reason I posted this on the Disney board is because I didn’t want to offend any on the Universal addicts. My biggest takeaway from this trip is that for me and my family Universal is not a replacement for Disneyworld. Yes we had a great time but we were all ready to leave at the end. At Disney we can never get enough and the last night is a sad time. Universal is a very nicely themed amusement park, but Disney is an experience that we can’t get enough of and that makes us return year after year. I hope things improve with the mouse. This 5 day trip was to test the waters on the dark side but all we are doing now is counting down to our trip in August back at the Yacht club.

 

[georgina]

OK. Universal addicts read this forum as well, we don't limit ourselves to Disney World. I'm not offended by your opinion, obviously mine differs, but we are all different!

 

[dez1978]

I have yet to eat anything I was really impressed with at Disney so I’d say they are even there.

 

[martikus]

Thanks for sharing. I do wish there were more ET like rides. But on most other things We disagree but it’s helpful for others to hear all sides.

Our favorite thing about universal is how easy it is. No planning months in advance. We can wake up and decide what to do. My son wants to ride gringotts over and over - absolutely with EP.

We’ve never found food we love at either place so that’s a wash for us.

For us we won’t be going back to Disney anytime soon but glad there are parks for everyone.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So we are just back from our first on-site stay at Hard Rock Hotel club level. We stayed 5 nights. We visited both parks and Volcano bay. We had a 5 day park to park ticket with unlimited express pass. To be honest it was nice but it was very very hard not to make constant comparisons to Disney. The only thing that Universal does better is express pass but we all know this already so I will move on. First off is the rides themselves. Too many of the rides are motion simulators uugghh. Never knew how much I would miss Disneys boat rides and animatronics lol. Second that Hogwartz train to take you park to park is extremely claustrophobic and overrated but the overall Harry Potter theme is really amazing. The parks are also very small to Disney in comparison. You could really do both parks in one day if you go at a slower time and have express passes. Universal is all about the rollercoasters, Velocicoaster and Hagrids are the best ever according to my kids if that is your thing( I didn’t ride…getting up at 7am on my vacation wasn’t in the cards for me lol). Also there was not one thing we ate in the parks that was good except for Auntie Anne’s pretzels lol. Everything to me was edible at best, but maybe we just picked the wrong places? The Mardi Gras food festival was going on and there was no comparison in taste and food quality as compared to Epcot food and wine. As far as the resorts go we also visited Cabana Bay, Sapphire Bay, Royal Pacific and Portofino Bay. If we ever go again based on the looks of things we may try Portofino. So the reason I posted this on the Disney board is because I didn’t want to offend any on the Universal addicts. My biggest takeaway from this trip is that for me and my family Universal is not a replacement for Disneyworld. Yes we had a great time but we were all ready to leave at the end. At Disney we can never get enough and the last night is a sad time. Universal is a very nicely themed amusement park, but Disney is an experience that we can’t get enough of and that makes us return year after year. I hope things improve with the mouse. This 5 day trip was to test the waters on the dark side but all we are doing now is counting down to our trip in August back at the Yacht club.

The best thing you can do is to not compare them to each other. Each company has their thing. Universal has never devoted themselves to food, it's not their thing but it is understandable looking as the hundreds of choices Disney has, but yeah not Universal's thing.

As far as size well I mean WDW has 4 parks, Universal 2 of course it's going to be smaller. This is excluding the water parks. Islands of Adventure is 101 acres and Studios is 108 acres. But did you know that in comparison Magic Kingdom is 107? DHS is 135 acres, Epcot is 305 acres and AK is 580 acres. So you're absolutely right it is small but only if you're looking at Epcot and AK. It's right at the same amount of acreage as MK and just a bit shy relatively speaking as DHS. Put MK and DHS together and bam you've got pretty darn close to Studios and Islands of Adventure. It may just seem small because WDW has two other parks to tour and those two other parks are quite a bit larger.

Universal is building a 3rd theme park called Epic Universe to be completed at this point by summer 2025. They haven't said exactly how big the actual theme park will be but they bought 750 acres of land where Epic Universe will eventually sit. Assume though that they will build hotels and other things there to share the space.

Lot of people love Universal for it's relaxation and ease of pace. The lack of planning, etc. I myself don't ride a lot of the rides as I get motion sickness (and that is a common and completely understandable complaint) and I don't do big roller coasters but Universal just has it's own magic for me. I get this feeling walking through CityWalk knowing I'm about to be in the parks and I get that feeling at WDW too.

When it comes to people who are diehards with Disney my personal observation is they really have a hard time soaking up what Universal is. If you're constantly comparing tit for tat you're bound to be disappointed. Your heart is Disney, that's okay, no need to force Universal in there

 

[PrincessJasmine88]

How are the early May crowds? Looking at wait times today they seem better than they have been for weeks.

 

[Gentry2004]

How are the early May crowds? Looking at wait times today they seem better than they have been for weeks.

I was watching wait times/Genie+ times today while bored at work and noticed the same thing! Low waits and lots of Genie+ availability. I'm guessing its a good week to be there.

 

[OhhBother]

I was watching wait times/Genie+ times today while bored at work and noticed the same thing! Low waits and lots of Genie+ availability. I'm guessing its a good week to be there.

We get there Saturday, and I've been noticing the improved wait times, as well. I hope they hold into next week!

 

[boothbay]

Returned on Saturday from a 1 week trip. Random thoughts that might be helpful for others:

We stayed at the Boardwalk Villas. I could not have asked for a better location for our trip and our needs. We had space to spread out and have some down time. I know it is not possible for everyone but for my family's needs it was perfect. I loved the room we requested too - they gave us the floor above our requested room which actually was better as we had a Boardwalk view and it can get noisy at night but being on the 5th floor helped keep the noise down. We got to see the fireworks each night at both MK and Epcot - so cool.

I found the bus situation to be great - the only time we waited for a bus for longer than a few mins was going to AK on our last day - we hopped there and must have just missed a bus because it was almost 25 mins until another came by. But that was the only time. I loved being able to take the boat or walk to HS and EP.

We used Genie + each day and overall were happy with it. My parents were with us for a few days and they are not the quickest on their feet so I liked being able to avoid waiting in long lines with them. It is very true that we did not need it at Animal Kingdom. We arrived right at 7am with Early Entry and walked on to Navi then Expedition Everest. We could have then waited for Safari to open but we had purchased Genie so we made a 9:30 res for that and walked on Kali River Rapids around 8:30. Did the Safari and then walked onto It's Tough to be a Bug. Ate lunch then used our ILL for FOP and were done for the day about 12:15. It was ideal and truly didn't need Genie + but it allowed my kids to ride Everest one more time at the end of our time there and we hopped to MK after dinner to ride Splash in the dark so we tried to get our money's worth that day.

I found the CMs to be very pleasant. We went to Universal in 2018 and had a negative interaction with a cashier there and it made me realize how Disney is truly the leader in hospitality and everyone is so nice. My daughter overheard a CM on the phone on the Boardwalk venting to a friend about how she is not enjoying her job in food service at the moment but we did not experience any one as outwardly unhappy as she seemed to be.
It has been said a million times but getting to the park early is a great way to get a lot done in little time. It helps that I'm a morning person but I love how peaceful (relatively) the parks are at that hour. We liked getting in and out early and gearing up to pop back into the park of our choosing for one or two rides at night. My kids are 12 and almost 15 so had some stamina to go the distance.

We had so many rides break down either while we were on them or as we were about to ride them. I'm sure I'm forgetting some but in no particular order: ROTR (once while we were in the preshow and one time when we were about to ride it), Haunted Mansion, Toy Story Mania, RNRC, Frozen, Remy, Spaceship Earth, SDD. It was comical after a while. But we didn't let it ruin our time - just laughed at how we got stuck on Mansion as we were going backwards and were tipped back like we were in a dentist chair.

We don't go to Disney very often so for us we wanted to ride as much as we could ride and enjoy ourselves which I think we accomplished. I got lots of good tips from this board. I was nervous about Genie + but we typically followed the advice of which headliner to go for first as early as possible and it worked out pretty well. I also got Slinky and ROTR on the same day without using a second phone. Not sure when we'll be back - maybe with grandkids but it was a nice trip that was worth waiting for!

 

[NavyDad]

Just returned from a 5 day trip. We really lowered our expectations coming in because it was our first post-pandemic trip but honestly had a fantastic time.

The parks were pretty crowded but the staff handled everything great. Every CM we interacted with was wonderful. Everything was clean and nice like in the past except one MK bathroom close to midnight on an extra hours evening.

We had 4 day park hoppers with the Genie Plus already on the tickets. We hopped every day after lunch and that worked out great. A couple of days we went back to our resort in the middle of the day for a rest but the other two days we just went directly to our next park.

Genie Plus: worked way better than I expected. It was very helpful at DHS and MK but kind of a waste at AK and Epcot right now. Nobody likes to pay for something that you used to get for "free" but now that I have used it I like this system better than the FP+ system. I think it's especially helpful if you are park hopping and can start to book rides for the second park of the day. We love Epcot festivals so we started at Epcot three different days and then hopped to other parks. This worked really well for us. I got up every morning and booked an ILL for our second park and got a Genie Plus LL for an in demand ride either at our first or second park. Then I would just set an alarm on my phone for my next booking window and take 5 minutes every 2 hours to book a ride. This took a lot of pressure off of us and allowed us to slow down and enjoy the first park more without having to run from ride to ride. The day we hopped to DHS we were able to do all of the major attractions, including Star Wars and Toy Story, back to back to back from 2:30 PM to around 6:30. Doing all of those major attractions that quickly without standing in line at all was amazing. As of last week, stacking is real and can very easily be done with DHS and MK.

I may come back with some extra thoughts but wanted to report my experience with Genie Plus for now.

 

[NavyDad]

Returned on Saturday from a 1 week trip. Random thoughts that might be helpful for others:

We stayed at the Boardwalk Villas. I could not have asked for a better location for our trip and our needs. We had space to spread out and have some down time. I know it is not possible for everyone but for my family's needs it was perfect. I loved the room we requested too - they gave us the floor above our requested room which actually was better as we had a Boardwalk view and it can get noisy at night but being on the 5th floor helped keep the noise down. We got to see the fireworks each night at both MK and Epcot - so cool.

I found the bus situation to be great - the only time we waited for a bus for longer than a few mins was going to AK on our last day - we hopped there and must have just missed a bus because it was almost 25 mins until another came by. But that was the only time. I loved being able to take the boat or walk to HS and EP.

We used Genie + each day and overall were happy with it. My parents were with us for a few days and they are not the quickest on their feet so I liked being able to avoid waiting in long lines with them. It is very true that we did not need it at Animal Kingdom. We arrived right at 7am with Early Entry and walked on to Navi then Expedition Everest. We could have then waited for Safari to open but we had purchased Genie so we made a 9:30 res for that and walked on Kali River Rapids around 8:30. Did the Safari and then walked onto It's Tough to be a Bug. Ate lunch then used our ILL for FOP and were done for the day about 12:15. It was ideal and truly didn't need Genie + but it allowed my kids to ride Everest one more time at the end of our time there and we hopped to MK after dinner to ride Splash in the dark so we tried to get our money's worth that day.

I found the CMs to be very pleasant. We went to Universal in 2018 and had a negative interaction with a cashier there and it made me realize how Disney is truly the leader in hospitality and everyone is so nice. My daughter overheard a CM on the phone on the Boardwalk venting to a friend about how she is not enjoying her job in food service at the moment but we did not experience any one as outwardly unhappy as she seemed to be.
It has been said a million times but getting to the park early is a great way to get a lot done in little time. It helps that I'm a morning person but I love how peaceful (relatively) the parks are at that hour. We liked getting in and out early and gearing up to pop back into the park of our choosing for one or two rides at night. My kids are 12 and almost 15 so had some stamina to go the distance.

We had so many rides break down either while we were on them or as we were about to ride them. I'm sure I'm forgetting some but in no particular order: ROTR (once while we were in the preshow and one time when we were about to ride it), Haunted Mansion, Toy Story Mania, RNRC, Frozen, Remy, Spaceship Earth, SDD. It was comical after a while. But we didn't let it ruin our time - just laughed at how we got stuck on Mansion as we were going backwards and were tipped back like we were in a dentist chair.

We don't go to Disney very often so for us we wanted to ride as much as we could ride and enjoy ourselves which I think we accomplished. I got lots of good tips from this board. I was nervous about Genie + but we typically followed the advice of which headliner to go for first as early as possible and it worked out pretty well. I also got Slinky and ROTR on the same day without using a second phone. Not sure when we'll be back - maybe with grandkids but it was a nice trip that was worth waiting for!

One of our days at Epcot - we had an ILL for Remy and a Genie Plus LL for Frozen. We walked back and forth between them 4 times because as one was broke we would walk to the other and by the time we go there that one broke but the other was back up again. It was a bit nuts and we did laugh it off but it was a bit frustrating.