We are just back and had a great time! We are from small Missouri town where masks aren’t required and “social distancing” is usually joked about. (I am not saying that to be rude, snarky, etc just giving perspective as to where I’m coming from to get acclimated to a place like Disney where it’s the norm.) As far as Disney travels, we come once a year and use FP+, rider swap, rope drop, park close, etc to our advantage as much as possible...here are my thoughts. Just DH and I this trip, left the kids at home to feel it out for a future trip.
Travel Dates: Aug 28-31 at POP
Pros: Friday at Epcot was fantastic. Everything was walkon, we were the only people in our China show, the only line we encountered was at park close at Test Track. 55 min (although I’m pretty sure that was inflated) but after getting up at 3:30am we skipped it as we had already ridden it. World Showcase got noticeably more crowded as locals showed up after work. Not crazy, but there weren’t 6 feet between parties in many areas. Im not sure how they could do it, but making WS one way after 4-5pm night could help. As previous posters mentioned, there was no social distancing in Mouse Gear at park close, except at the checkouts. 2-3 minute wait for Skyliner back to PoP.
Saturday-HS day we knew it would be the most crowded so decided to put it on Saturday in hopes that the crowds on the other days would pay off and it did, but Saturday there was nuts! I’m not talking Precovid nuts, but just a generally busy day. We just felt there wasn’t anywhere to turn to really get away from the crowds. We arrived at 9:15 and were able to walk on MMRR, Slinky, Aliens and had a 20 min wait for Smugglers Run. But after we got off that, it was like a light switch. I was never uncomfortable, but all the stores were full of people in Galaxy’s edge, you couldn’t find an empty table at quick service. RotR was having a rough day and that wasn’t helping the crowds as people kept hanging around. We even did Muppets and the theater was at capacity limits. All in, we spent about 2 1/2 hours attempting to ride and finally did, about 3pm. Our initial boarding time was around 12:30 but it broke down at group 31 (we were 35). A huge storm rolled in while we were in line, and by the time we got off about 4pm, crowds had dissipated to what I would have considered manageable, realistic crowds for distancing. We walked past many of the stores and half the people were in them than had been before. We Were able to accomplish all the rides between 4-7pm again. Short wait again for the Skyliner. Like I said, we knew that day would be crowded but if parks are like that all the time, I would not be interested in bringing my kids. I really missed FP when we tried ToT and RnRC at 1:30 And both lines said 45 min and were snaked out outside the buildings and CMs were putting more rope up. Normally I would have FP those back to back and been on my way. They might have been closer to 20 min in reality but our Rise started working again so we hightailed it back.
Sun at MK was great. We were on the first Pop bus and were able to ride 7DMT 2x, Pan, HM, BTMRR, Splash 2x, Pirates, Carpets, and Jungle by about 11ish?There were people milling about but MKs walkways seem a lot bigger or we were just able to avoid people better than at HS. We did Tiki, Country Bears and Presidents before heading back to Fanstasyland and starting at LM, Dumbo, Teacups, Speedway, Buzz, Space and CoP before a 4pm dinner at the Plaza. It could not have gone more perfect. The longest wait we had was 25 for Space but we walked the whole time. After dinner at 5pm we finished with Small world, Philharmagic, Pooh, and was able to make it to BTMRR and Splash right before close. We couldn’t have asked for a better day and had wished we had the kids! That being said, although we walked on everything, I still felt like we had to have a game plan to get the headliners done and a good rope drop strategy is still important. Splash and BTMRR stayed at 40-50 min during the day. But since we had done them early we didn’t check to see how accurate they were till the end of the night.
AK on Monday was heaven. Walk on everything as many times as you wanted. No touring strategy needed. We actually waited longer for FoP at rope drop than we did mid day.
Social distancing was fine in the lines. Everyone messed up every now and then, but would quickly correct. No one got snippy or upset that we saw. Just appreciative and courteous to others. Getting off rides/leaving shows is a different story. It was a blob every time. If you are a strict social distance person, you will definitely want to take it upon yourself to hang back for a minute. The thing we found the hardest, are we are quick walkers and it was tricky to get around people while still giving them space.
I am prone to motion sickness but it usually doesn’t bother me at WDW. I found with the mask, I wasn’t Getting enough air on some of the rides and even got a little queasy on Pandora. A wet towel behind the neck helped considerably!
All around we had a great time! I felt safe the whole time. I did miss FP plus on the most crowded days but as long as you go mid-week/non holiday there is no need for it!