UO has "recently" added things that require planning because they do not take EPs (Hagrids, Bourne, VelociCoaster). Covid changed the game a bit because social distancing, making rides less efficient because of skipped seats and fewer tables at restaurants (so reservations started to become more important).
As the Covid restrictions lift, I expect the latter to eventually go back to "normal". But there will be a period time, where UO is extra crowded because people just want to go on vacation again. We didn't really get to see how opening both ESS/ESD was going to impact the parks pre-covid, but there are a lot of rooms in those hotels to add the the other 6...
