Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[Claire&TheBoys]

So Enchanted Tales with Belle is running again? When did it reopen?

It's been within the past couple of weeks. My sister and I both only have sons (teens and twenties) so it's not something that we've ever done on family trips. We decided to go - figured a girls' trip was our only chance to see it.

 

[Mango7100]

So Enchanted Tales with Belle is running again? When did it reopen?

Yes, we went 2 weeks ago. It is exactly the same as it was before, even down to the bookmark the kids get.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Yes, we went 2 weeks ago. It is exactly the same as it was before, even down to the bookmark the kids get.

It reopened recently - Feb 19, 2023.

 

[Mango7100]

It reopened recently - Feb 19, 2023.

Yes, we went Feb 20th

 

[woody64]

We just returned (3/5) from a quick 3 day trip to WDW. We had a great time with what we thought were low wait times. We did not purchase any LL or G+ passes. Only once did we wait close to an hour with most waits 35-40 minutes-ish. On Thurs. 3/2 at DHS we hit all the big rides in the back of the park including walking on Toy Story Mania and Smugglers Run close to closing time. Friday 3/3 we did EPCOT but just enjoyed F&G Festival, didn't ride anything. Saturday 3/4 at Magic Kingdom we arrive about 9, we rode Seven Dwarfs, TRON (DVC preview), Small World, Philharmagic, Haunted Mansion, and BTMR all by noon. Great trip!

 

[Davey Jones II]

Yes, we went 2 weeks ago. It is exactly the same as it was before, even down to the bookmark the kids get.

That's good news. We skipped it during our Family Reunion Trip 2019. In part two, in October, I'm going to make it a priority. They have to see those amazing animatronics!

 

[Boardwalk III]

We just returned (3/5) from a quick 3 day trip to WDW. We had a great time with what we thought were low wait times. We did not purchase any LL or G+ passes. Only once did we wait close to an hour with most waits 35-40 minutes-ish. On Thurs. 3/2 at DHS we hit all the big rides in the back of the park including walking on Toy Story Mania and Smugglers Run close to closing time. Friday 3/3 we did EPCOT but just enjoyed F&G Festival, didn't ride anything. Saturday 3/4 at Magic Kingdom we arrive about 9, we rode Seven Dwarfs, TRON (DVC preview), Small World, Philharmagic, Haunted Mansion, and BTMR all by noon. Great trip!

Agreed! Here now, but arrived on Wed, March 1st. The first 3 days were amazing in terms of low crowds. Getting busier now though

 

[Lady Hiss]

We’re finishing up an 8 day stay at BCV with park hopper tickets each day. While we enjoyed ourselves a lot, our one takeaway is: if you want to ride but don’t want to rope drop, bite the bullet and buy Genie+ and maybe an iLL for the “fancy” rides. Our tolerance for waiting in lines (in 88 degree heat) is very low. YVMV. The breakdown of rides only adds to the frustration.

 

[Davey Jones II]

There's a YouTube channel called Ear Scouts. His videos make it look easy to waltz through the parks booking LL left and right, and mostly cruise through a park day. Is this realistic at all?

 

[NJlauren]

There's a YouTube channel called Ear Scouts. His videos make it look easy to waltz through the parks booking LL left and right, and mostly cruise through a park day. Is this realistic at all?

Yes and no, I have had days where I can get tons of LLs at MK, other parks not so much.
Also the less crowded it is more LLs you can get, but its an art, you need to know all the ins and outs.

 

[scrappinginontario]

There's a YouTube channel called Ear Scouts. His videos make it look easy to waltz through the parks booking LL left and right, and mostly cruise through a park day. Is this realistic at all?

Honestly depends on how busy the parks are. As with everything, the busier the parks, the harder it is to book the desirable LL attractions.

 

[holyrita]

There's a YouTube channel called Ear Scouts. His videos make it look easy to waltz through the parks booking LL left and right, and mostly cruise through a park day. Is this realistic at all?

Also very much depends how much darting around the parks you want to do. In his most recent video he was going from one end of AK to another, then back again. Then he hopped to Epcot, entered at the front of the park, and had to walk all the way to the back to France for Remy!

 

[Davey Jones II]

Thanks for the responses. I don't mind darting around to avoid wait times.

 

[kylenne]

Thanks for the responses. I don't mind darting around to avoid wait times.

He actually talks about this often in videos and also gives suggestions for minimizing bouncing around.

 

[emilyann704]

Thanks for the responses. I don't mind darting around to avoid wait times.

I'll caveat this with I was solo which helps speed up and streamline decision making but a year ago I went over a weekend and was able to hit everything I wanted in every park by just using Genie+. I left MK on a Friday at 5pm (after wandering for a bit to hit my Jungle Cruise G+ time) feeling like I hit everything I wanted (Peter Pan, Small World, Splash, Thunder Mountain, Pirates, Philharmonic, Haunted Mansion, Hall of Presidents, Carousel, Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise) and sat down for lunch. I didn't pay for any LL's.

I did move around the park a lot but it was never very dramatic (the above rides are in the order I remember them to be) except for the SM to JC at the end of the day.

 

[lovethattink]

Polk County spring break is this week. Expect crowds to increase. Red tide at the gulf is an issue. Many people we know are hitting the parks this week instead of the beach. Plus with cooler weather coming, the parks look even more attractive for spring breakers.

 

[scrappinginontario]

March Break week for many places in Canada too. I have many friends heading south this week.

The spring break park influx has officially begun and parks will be busier for approx the next 6 weeks.

 

[NJlauren]

Editing to add dates instead of today and yesterday.

Back from a quick trip for Tron preview! The crowds for spring break seem to have arrived. However I will say yesterday (Saturday 3/11) only Epcot seemed crowded to me (I did all 4 parks), and today (Sunday 3/12) MK seemed very busy!

However today (Sunday 3/12) we were able to do a ton with genie +. I wanted to test this genie + can do it all theory/blogger mentioned above.

We arrived into the park at 9:08. I had booked Big Thunder for 9:10-10:10 and mine train for 11:30-12:30. We did the following Pirates, (big thunder went down), booked LL for imitate return at magic carpets, booked small world LL, did that right after, then booked Barnstromer, did carousel on the way, used barnstromer LL, booked dumbo, at tap in for dumbo booked tea cups, tea cups LL was backed up, so we grabbed a snack, and circled back, at tea cups tap in we booked space for 2:25-3:35 (could have booked Pooh for quicker return but we wanted to do space), watched Phillharmagic, used ILL for mine train, stoped to pick up a map for the pirate adventure, then did Big Thunder using converted anytime LL. Then it was lunch time. It was 12:30 and we did 9 rides, and a show. So in just about 3 and a half hours we did a ton imo.

Lunch was till 130ish during lunch our 2 hours since booking space was up and we booked enchanted tales with Belle for 4-5, we had a Tron preview so we shopped a bit till our 2pm time, then did Tron, then our Space LL, now our 2 hours booking window was up again, we could have booked a few things for the 5ish time (Pooh, Ariel, meet Mickey), we went with 530-630 meet Mickey, we grabbed ice cream before we headed to Hall of Presidents, we just missed a show so we relaxed a bit. Then enchanted tales with Belle was down so we went to Gaston’s for coffee and snack. Enchanted tales was back up after that so we did that, then criss crossed to do people mover, then headed to the confectionery for fudge then to Mickey and out of the park.

I think we did a lot, 12 rides, 3 shows, 1 character meet, sit down lunch and 4 snacks.

It was crowded today, but weather was perfect, hope this helps someone and happy to answer any questions.

 

[Honeypot]

We are back from our MDAS cruise and then a quick 2 day trip to WDW after. We were there Fri Mar 10 and Sat Mar 11. Because we wanted to hit all 4 parks in 2 days and had a big wish list, we did purchase Genie + and ILLs. Stayed at the Riviera, loved the skyliner!

Fri Mar 10 - EE for Epcot, hopping to HS.
VQ 69 for Guardians and purchsed an ILL for 10am as well (family's favourite ride). Also booked LL for SDD and ILL for Rise later that day.
Rope dropped Remy (took about 20 min). Walked to test track but it was down.
Did the following standby so I could stack rides for HS.
Soarin
LWTL
Guardians ILL
Three Caballaros
Guardians VQ
mobile ordered lunch from connections eatery while waiting for GOTG, clicked I'm here while walking over and had lunch.
Then we walked world showcase on the way back to the skyliner.
Took about an hour break in the room.
Headed to HS with a bunch of rides stacked. Did the following with LL's -
Rise
MMRR
TOT
Met Darth Vader (stand by only)
Quick dinner at Backlot express
MFSR
SDD
TSMM
Aliens
Then did TOT twice standby at the end of the night - first time waited about 30 min, second time walked right on at 9:28pm.

 

[Honeypot]

Saturday Mar 11

AK, hopping to MK.

We did not do early entry, which was my original plan, but since we did 30,000 steps the day before, let the family "sleep in" a bit. I woke up to get genie + and ILL's.

Booked ILL for FOP and SDMT, and LL for EE. We used LL's at animal kingdom, as the return times stayed pretty early for MK so couldn't stack for the afternoon the same way I did with HS.

Arrived at AK just before 10AM.
EE LL
FOP ILL
Safari LL
Dinosaur LL
I wanted to give the family more downtime this day, so we skipped the shows and trails this time (we were in AK and did all of that in August)
back to Riviera for lunch and pool time
Got to MK around 4pm. Wow, shift in crowds! This was definitely the busiest the parks had felt. Unfortunately BTMR was down all night, so not only did we not get to ride it, but it kind of messed with our flow of LL's. But we still managed to get a lot done.
Started with COP
HM LL which was an anytime from BTMRR going down
SM LL
People mover
Buzz LL
Pirates standby was almost a walk on
mobile ordered peco's bills for dinner
SDMT ILL
at this point I was still holding a LL for BTMRR, but not much hope in it coming back up - this was just after fireworks. Crowds had thinned so we just did some standby rides
Jungle cruise (waited 20 min)
Aladdin walk on
Pirates walk on
HM which we used again as an anytime LL from the second BTMRR
Pooh LL
10:45 we hopped into the line for SDMT to end the night. Took 20 min to wait and ride.

This day ended with slightly less steps, around 29,000 haha, and we fell into our beds around midnight.

We got a lot accomplished in 2 days, but it was a whirlwind! In this case, even though I didn't want to pay for genie+ and ILL's, it really allowed us to get on almost everything we wanted. This would not have been possible waiting in lines, parks were busy and lines were long most of the day.