Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[GADisneyDad14]

Me leaving DAK.

 

[monica9]

For those that are there, are you comfortable? Do you feel less safe as far as contracting the virus than you would at a grocery store or store in your town?
Are you pleased with what Disney is doing? Happy you made the decision to go?

 

[Doingitagain]

I saw some people doing this - taking them off once the ride vehicle started moving and then putting back on before ride ended - but I don’t think it’s “allowed”

And hopefully no screaming except in your head....

 

[MomOTwins]

I saw some people doing this - taking them off once the ride vehicle started moving and then putting back on before ride ended - but I don’t think it’s “allowed”

It is not allowed, and there is a good reason for the rule. Covid infected droplets can remain suspended indoors in the air for a considerable period of time after you leave the room. So if you take off your mask on Splash Mountain and are a carrier, you'll be breathing, singing and occasionally screaming out micro-droplets throughout the indoor portions of the ride, potentially infecting the people in the boat behind you (and probably several other boats).

*soap box rant* Drives me nuts the disconnect between safety measures and how much the virus spreads. People feel all comforted by Disney spraying stuff with disinfectant and requiring pointless temperature checks, when really the ONLY rule they actually need is to enforce masks. Then enforce them some more. Please if you see someone taking off their mask impermissibly, say something so others don't see it too and follow suit.

 

[dorospin]

It is not allowed, and there is a good reason for the rule. Covid infected droplets can remain suspended indoors in the air for a considerable period of time after you leave the room. So if you take off your mask on Splash Mountain and are a carrier, you'll be breathing, singing and occasionally screaming out micro-droplets throughout the indoor portions of the ride, potentially infecting the people in the boat behind you (and probably several other boats).

*soap box rant* Drives me nuts the disconnect between safety measures and how much the virus spreads. People feel all comforted by Disney spraying stuff with disinfectant and requiring pointless temperature checks, when really the ONLY rule they actually need is to enforce masks. Then enforce them some more. Please if you see someone taking off their mask impermissibly, say something so others don't see it too and follow suit.

For those that are there, are you comfortable? Do you feel less safe as far as contracting the virus than you would at a grocery store or store in your town?
Are you pleased with what Disney is doing? Happy you made the decision to go?

yes to all. I definitely feel safer than at the local grocery store.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

For those that are there, are you comfortable? Do you feel less safe as far as contracting the virus than you would at a grocery store or store in your town?
Are you pleased with what Disney is doing? Happy you made the decision to go?

The answer will vary by the person of course, but overall it feels much safer than my local grocery store, in my opinion.

I am pleased with what Disney is doing and (perhaps more importantly) I am pleased that guests seem to be taking things seriously. I was by no means in the “I’m going no matter what camp” and had some serious misgivings, but I’m content with our decision.

I could nitpick situations here and there, take ‘scandalous’ photos and post them, etc, but that doesn’t represent the overwhelming majority of situations we’ve encountered.

Not that I know how theme park revenue works, but to me it seems the crowd level at DAK today was unsustainably low, so I wonder how my feelings may change with more bodies around.

But on the whole, I’m frankly surprised/impressed/content. DAK today was pretty much as Chapek described on that interview many weeks ago that got so much scrutiny.

 

[WorldOfPooh]

I don't understand how FoP can ever be five minutes -- seems like waits like that would cause everyone on the park to head other there.

How do crowds at MK feel? 7 Dwarfs at 30 minutes and Space at 15 also seem incredible.

Well if you can't park hop and nobody knew that AK would be open then I could see why it would be so empty since everyone sigend up for MK

 

[DisneyMommy77]

And it was amazing!!!
Great day! Didn’t feel like we were missing out on anything. I felt safe and observed just about everyone following the rules. I have never seen so much hand sanitizer in my life. It is everywhere!

Wearing a mask didn’t take away from my experience at all!

Cast Members all seemed so happy and happy to be back.

To top it all off, we have Theme Park View Room at The Contemporary!

Feeling so thankful that we get to have this experience!

 

[yulilin3]

Please stay on topic, warning points will be given. There are other threads where the virus numbers are being discussed

 

[DL1WDW2]

This morn walking to bus stop expecting no line for MK Bus cause it did not feel like very many people were staying here last night At POP ... the line goes entire length of all the bus stops and worse for MK
And just one bus loading 25 people at a time and resort manager frantically logging on his phone. I assume he is asking for more busses pronto.
Anyway, I noticed an empty AK Bus and decided to check APP for availabilty updates. Got lucky and had a wonderful day at AK cause I already had a wonderful castmember day at MK.
Plus The storms have been powerful which I enjoy too

 

[vinotinto]

It is not allowed, and there is a good reason for the rule. Covid infected droplets can remain suspended indoors in the air for a considerable period of time after you leave the room. So if you take off your mask on Splash Mountain and are a carrier, you'll be breathing, singing and occasionally screaming out micro-droplets throughout the indoor portions of the ride, potentially infecting the people in the boat behind you (and probably several other boats).

*soap box rant* Drives me nuts the disconnect between safety measures and how much the virus spreads. People feel all comforted by Disney spraying stuff with disinfectant and requiring pointless temperature checks, when really the ONLY rule they actually need is to enforce masks. Then enforce them some more. Please if you see someone taking off their mask impermissibly, say something so others don't see it too and follow suit.

Louder please for those in the back. All the sanitizing is great, and all, but the virus s
spread through droplets. If everyone wears masks, we’ll prevent the spread. if guests are allowed to be in attractions without a mask, or without proper mask coverage,, all the cleaning of the surfaces won’t help the droplets and particles from being breathed in. It seems to me they need to redistribute the CMs to have more of them ensuring mask compliance and fewer doing surface cleaning.

 

[Randywatson79]

So if you take off your mask on Splash Mountain and are a carrier, you'll be breathing, singing and occasionally screaming out micro-droplets...

People feel all comforted by Disney spraying stuff with disinfectant and requiring pointless temperature checks, when really the ONLY rule they actually need is to enforce masks. Then enforce them some more. Please if you see someone taking off their mask impermissibly, say something so others don't see it too and follow suit.

Singing? If I'm singing on a ride, the least of the other guests worries will be covid.

In all seriousness, strict mask enforcement by CMs is what I want to see/hear about before our September trip, and will make or break our decision to go. Everything else is just safety theater. I hope they do it.

 

[yulilin3]

I would love to leave this thread open for reports if people that are actually at the parks.
Please stay on topic, post your experience if you're here or your questions for people that are here now.
No judging who's coming, no discussion of the virus, no telling people how to spend their money

 

[gatordude99]

Update: edited a few parts for clarity, and typos especially regarding the snafu with the annual pass renewal.

We just got back from 2 days at MK (passholder preview) and AK (opening day).

We stayed at B Hotel the night before the 7/10 AP preview and attempted to rope drop MK. There was no point. As of the way things are right now, there is no rope dropping it, and no reason to try. Right now they don’t even let cars into the parking lot until like 45 minutes before opening, and the monorails don’t start running until a few minutes before official opening time.

If you do try to rope drop and arrive before the parking lot opens, they wave you through and make you circle back down World Drive. It's random luck if you happen to arrive at just the perfect instant to be allowed to stay at the parking lot toll booth. Per the CM at the booth, the opening time is not at the same time every day and they are not allowed to tell guests precisely when it will open so that guests can't try to time it. Our day, they stopped waving people through at 8:13AM and started allowing people to line up at the tollbooth. If you get up to the parking lot entrance later than the parking lot opening time and are at the back of the line at the toll booth, but still before park opening time, you might think you can get to the front of the lines into the monorails/ferry by springing for preferred parking. It won’t work. The parking staff separately hold up the preferred and handicap parking lines longer than the initial influx to regular parking so that preferred/handicapped arrive at the monorail and ferry stations either at the same time as, or slightly after most of the guests who use regular parking. When we tried it, we didn't get to park until hundreds of other cars (including many who arrived after us) had already parked and unloaded. Basically they have set this up so that the first trainload of guests is guaranteed to arrive at the gate right at opening time, but no earlier.

There ended up being no point to rope dropping anyway. The lines for in-demand rides were less than 30 minutes all day, unless they were down due to mechanical issues or periodic deep cleanings. Much of the time, the waits were much much less than the posted wait times. We rode 7DMT with like 4 or 5 brief 20 second pauses in otherwise uninterrupted marches right up to the train... four times scattered throughout the day. We rode Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain several times with no wait at all in mid afternoon, etc etc. Even with the reduced hours, even if we hadn’t repeated rides or stopped for a long lunch at Be Our Guest, we could easily have hit every attraction in the park by 7PM if we had wanted to, without really trying (walking leisurely, just walking up to rides in order of proximity, etc).

After MK, we ate at Morimoto Asia in Disney Springs. Their rare cuts of sashimi were as good as ever, and contrary to reports we had heard previously, they still have their delicious spare-ribs on their limited coronavirus-era menu. Our dessert, however, was weak - they took a really nice matcha-flavored panna cotta and covered it in some cafeteria-style strawberries, chocolate crumble and crushed hazelnut flakes or something like that. Apparently, they are limited to only having 8 chefs at the moment instead of their usual 20, so they don't have a pastry chef. Prior to the lockdown, Morimoto's had said they were about to start accepting Tables in Wonderland, but our card had expired in April, so we didn't have the gall to try and ask if they would honor it anyway. Later in our trip, we tried to renew our Tables access, and we were told that all renewals had been put on hold by Disney. Sounds like they are ending the program, if you ask me - which kind of makes sense being that almost all of the fine dining restaurants at the Disney Resorts and in Epcot remain closed, as well as several of the top restaurants in Disney Springs, and also that you require a park reservation to dine in any of the parks.

Our second night, we stayed at the newly reopened Pop Century. The only surprise here was that the pools do not currently open until 11AM and capacity is limited, so a CM is going to be checking you in. Since standard room checkout time is 11AM, we were guessing that this might mean that they are trying to cutdown on demand for the pool by preventing guests from using it on checkout day. It's always been a bit nebulous about whether you are permitted to use amenities such as the pools that require MagicBand to access, after your official checkout time. In the past, at least when we have stayed club level, several manager-types at individual resorts have told us that we could have access to the pool, club lounge, etc until midnight on the day we checked out even if our band didn't work, but I have a feeling this has never been official policy. Now that a CM is keeping track of pool occupancy, and they have to actively let you into the pool, I'm guessing that they won't allow anyone in whose band shows that their checkout time has passed.

We had planned to hit up the pool in the morning and head to AK later, but when we found out about the pool opening time we headed right to the park. We got there around 9:30AM - 90 minutes after opening. Entrance was easy, but we did have a problem with one of our tickets (see below) that ate up nearly an hour of our already short day. FOP line was listed as 5 minutes. It was only that long because it takes about that long to walk the winding path up to the ride. Seriously, two parties were ahead of me in line when I got up to the area where they send you to the viewing rooms. Each party got their own room. I was solo so I was alone in my room. Dinosaur we walked right onto. Same with Navi, same with Safari, same with Everest. Kali River Rapids looked like a short line, but then we caught it right as their manager apparently decided to clean the rafts. We got almost up to the front, then had to wait while CMs brought in the rafts 4 at a time (the boarding area holds 5, but apparently the CMs are only allowed to board and clean 4 of them per round) and sprayed them all down with some kind of disinfectant. The whole process took around 30 minutes, but standing still in the hot sun, it seemed a lot longer than that. When we got off the first raft run, they let anyone who wanted to go again just loop right back around at the boarding area and board another raft, which was nice of them.

We did encounter one problem, that I think more people may experience as time goes on. Our son’s annual pass had been due to expire in mid-March, just a few days after the lockdown started. When the reopening dates were announced, his pass was extended to July 22nd. Since this put us into the window where we could renew his pass, we renewed it at the end of June. The renewal covered July 22, 2020 to 2021. Unfortunately, the Disney ticket system essentially forgot that it had extended his 2019-2020 pass from March 2020 to July 22nd. It treated him like his pass had expired in March, so when we showed up at AK, the system didn’t have him as an active passholder. It took around 45 minutes to get this sorted out with Guest Services (in the very hot sun). Anyone who renews their pass after the lockdown extension, but who plans to visit the parks during the dates covered by the extended dates on the original pass should probably call ahead to sort this out ahead of time.

As for cleanliness, people seemed to have near 100% mask compliance from what we saw. People also seemed to do very well with following the minimum distancing markings in the lines. Hand sanitizer was available, and we used it compulsively - though to be fair that should not matter a whole ton when it comes to this kind of virus. Cast members reminded us politely when our mask fell off our son, or when one of us was standing too close. We spent much of both days over 6 yards away from the closest other people, let alone 6 feet. With these crowd levels (and there is no guarantee that levels will remain this restricted as more guests take advantage of hotel reservations as a means of getting into the parks) we felt signficantly safer in the parks than at a supermarket in South Florida right now.

All in all, though it seems unpopular to say right now, we felt like our added risk of getting COVID as a result of this trip was minimal, in exchange for the opportunity to experience once-in-a-generation crowd levels at our beloved Disney Parks. There was some risk here, but also some reward. If you haven’t ever gone through the effort and expense of booking and planning a complete weeklong Disney vacation at club level over 3 months out, or have never paid hundreds or thousands for a guide, you may not realize how much it *usually* costs to have a wait-free Disney park experience.

 

[WEDWDW]

For everybody there now,is there EVER a "Heavy feeling" "in the air" because of the Virus situation or is it ALWAYS a "Good Time Rock And Roll Feeling" just like always at WDW?

Thanks.

 

[mamaofsix]

This morn walking to bus stop expecting no line for MK Bus cause it did not feel like very many people were staying here last night At POP ... the line goes entire length of all the bus stops and worse for MK
And just one bus loading 25 people at a time and resort manager frantically logging on his phone. I assume he is asking for more busses pronto.
Anyway, I noticed an empty AK Bus and decided to check APP for availabilty updates. Got lucky and had a wonderful day at AK cause I already had a wonderful castmember day at MK.
Plus The storms have been powerful which I enjoy too

Wow, good quick thinking there on your part to switch parks.

It seems so strange that they wouldn't have anticipated how many buses they would need. I mean, they would know in advance how many guests at their hotel were registered for MK that day. And with the limited hours, chances are most guests would want to get there first thing in the morning. Hopefully they fix the problem soon!

 

[yulilin3]

For everybody there now,is there EVER a "Heavy feeling" "in the air" because of the Virus situation or is it ALWAYS a "Good Time Rock And Roll Feeling" just like always at WDW?

Thanks.

No heavy feeling, more of an aware feeling. The crowds are so low that you can have fun but still the constant safety spiel every 15 minutes brings you back and you're aware. The cm are making the magic with their attitudes and positivity

 

[gatordude99]

I was torn about the crowds. My wife is pretty introverted, so she was in hog heaven with so few people. If you had a park reservation for today, either you were a DVC member, an AP who woke up early on just the right day a few days ago, a diehard who kept previously purchased tickets throughout the initial lockdown, or else you were a member of the general-admission-paying public slick enough to have made a quick reservation at one of the Disney Springs or Bonnet Creek neighbor resorts and patient enough to get it linked in MDE for your entire family in time to make a reservation. I guess technically, you also had a few hours to snap up an on-site reservation at Pop Century or something for the 10th or 11th immediately after the reservation system opened up, but I digress. Bottom line, the people who were here today by and large were experienced Disney guests who knew what they were doing. And in some ways, I agree with my wife that that's very nice.

Me? I like the undercurrent of absolute joy that is evident on the faces of the children, and the people who come here from far away who have never been to Disney before. There weren't very many of those people here today, either because they stayed home due to the virus, or just had no idea how to go about scoring access to admission. So to me, the atmosphere here seemed lacking.

Also, it was a bit weird seeing so many shops and carts shuttered around the park. There was always someplace nearby to get whatever you wanted or needed not too far away, but quite a few times I recall thinking, "hmm, I'm thirsty, or I'd like an ice cream" and looking where I knew a snack cart usually was, only to find it was closed. It was just a bit jarring.

The best part about the atmosphere today was seeing the CMs back to work. Whether it's because they needed the paycheck badly (all of them) or just that they truly like their jobs (most of them), I think almost all of them were happy being back to work today, and it showed.

 

[cygnusx1jg]

We'll find out about the dhs attractions on Monday, but so far no preshow for hm, fop

Monday?

 

[vinotinto]

We did encounter one problem, that I think more people may experience as time goes on. Our son’s annual pass had been due to expire just a few days after the lockdown started. So when the parks reopened, his pass was due to expire on July 22nd. Since this put us into the window where we could renew his pass, we renewed it a week or so before this trip. Following the renewal covering July 22, 2020 to 2021, the Disney ticket system essentially forgot that it had extended his 2019-2020 pass from March 2020 to July 22nd. So when we showed up at AK, the system didn’t have him as an active passholder. It took around 45 minutes to get this sorted out with Guest Services (in the very hot sun). Anyone who renews their pass after the lockdown extension, but who plans to use their pass during the dates covered by the original pass should probably call ahead to sort this out ahead of time.

Wow, interesting. Thanks for reporting.