NorthernCalMom
Compulsive Touring Planner
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2012
YEAH!!! It was of course the 15-year old with the olden timey iPhone 7, who beat all of us adults with our fancy, newer phones.
Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping
NorthernCalMom
Compulsive Touring Planner
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2012
We got on the bus to HS by 7:58 (4th bus, so if anybody wants to get in the first one, they need to get to the bus stop earlier than we did; we were in line for the bus 7:35, and there was a good amount of people in front of us). First bus left 7:40. Front desk told us last night that there wouldn’t be a bus before 8:15 (and she also insisted that the park wouldn’t open before 9) but it’s obvious that there are (A) an “official” bus schedule/park opening and (B) an unofficial one, giving the loaders and park staff discretion to get things going before then to avoid bunching/inappropriately distanced lines of impatient, excited people. My guess is that (B) is mostly happening on busy days.
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MomOTwins
The Mommy Fairy
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2018
No--we arrived early for Blizzard beach and were let into the area with the stores/food, but were held at the bridge until about 10 minutes before park open.
MomOTwins
The Mommy Fairy
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2018
Just back from a mixed Disney/Universal trip. I did do some "here now" posts earlier in this thread at the start of the trip, but then got too tired in the evenings to post, so I'll avoid repeating myself.
Wait Times
It was bad. No sugar coating it. Yes, wait times were "only" an hour that might have been 2 hours at spring break pre-Covid, but unless you really didn't understand how to use fastpass properly, you never had to wait in those longer lines pre-Covid. Plus we found our feet were KILLING us this trip and looked to see our step count was twice what it used to be, which I suspect is because of all the longer queues and standing when before, we were taking more breaks to sit and watch a show or a parade. The other thing that made wait times feel worse it is used to be there were a fair number of rides that always had a pretty short wait that you could just do standby between fastpasses when the park was crowded, but now due to distanced seating, those rides now have long waits too--e.g., small word, three caballeros. We did arrive early/come back in the evening, but the secret is out on mornings and I would say evening are much better now. Also, that startegy does make you TIRED. All in all, we won't be back until fastpasses return.
Crowds/Masks
I know this is something there are such different perceptions of, but if you are at all concerned about Covid, this is not the time to go. Mask wearing was pretty good, but there were enough nose peekers and snackers in line and on transportation that I wouldn't say it was safe. Distancing was the biggest issue. We didn't mind crowds outdoors in the walkways (and there were crowds/chokepoints) because you move past people pretty quick. But indoors, whenever a line had switchbacks, there would be a party waiting between a marker in the switchback next you, just a foot or two away from you. And the creep-up-behinders were everywhere. I had to repeatedly ask people to go back to their marker, not because I was worried about covid (we have immunity), but because I was tired of them bumping into me and/or breathing down my neck because they weren't paying attention to when they needed to stop. I would say about 30% of the rides, we had someone walking right up behind us ignoring their marker.
Dining
We MUCH preferred table service to quick service this trip. Mobile order was good for breakfast, but lunch was another experience. We did order on the app at 7am for QS lunch and had no trouble getting the order placed since we ordered early, but once we got to the restaurant at lunchtime there were long waits out in the hot usn after hitting the "I'm here, prepare my food" button, and once we were allowed in, finding a table was near impossible, with dozens of people all hanging around and rushing to the nearest table once it opened. People also moved the tables and chairs a lot so the tables were not properly spread out any more.
Transportation
Morning buses were consistently available 75 minutes before park open and were very efficient. However, if you like midday breaks, we found bus times were very sketchy midday, with long waits and arrival times on the resort board that would mysteriously disappear and be replaced with another time 30 minutes later. Evenings at park close, there were also a lot of long waits at the park bus stop to get back to the resort, but that was just because the lines were really long. We opted to use Uber a lot more than we an expected and in hindsight wished we had rented a car when you added up all the uber cost over the trip.
Ride Breakdowns
This was enough of a recurring issue that I feel it warrants its own section of the post. In the past, when a ride went down, it was not a big deal. If I had a fastpass for it, I'd get an anytime FP automatically to use when it reopened. Without FP, when a ride went down, it was very disruptive. Maybe we had bad luck, but this affected us pretty much every day. For example, we tried to do TOT pre-park opening and the ride started out only running one side, and then went down entirely just as we were about to board. At that point, it was too late to rope drop anything else as wait times had climbed all across the park, so we stuck it out. Ended up waiting upwards of 90 minutes and it felt like the morning was wasted. Similar thing happened when we tried to do Space Mountain at park opening, and the ride went down while in line. There, they made everyone exit the queue as it was clear it was going to be a prolonged outage, but again, we missed our chance to get in line for other rides first thing. It also meant that because it was down almost all of the day, when it did reopen in the evening, we had an hour-long in the last hour of park open even though everything else in the park was a pretty short wait. Then AGAIN we had an issue on Animal Kingdom day where we decided to wait to do EE until the last few hours to allow the wait time to die down, and mid-afternoon, it went down. Finally at around 7:30pm on an 8pm park close day it reopened and we had to RUN to get to the other end of the park and ride it before our in-park dinner reservation. So that may be more info than needed, but it was one of the things that contributed to our decision that it is simply not worth it to visit again without fastpass.
Blizzard Beach
We went to Blizzard Beach on Wednesday 3/24. The transportation situation is annoying, as you had to take a bus to animal kingdom and then transfer to a blizzard beach bus. We opted to uber back to the hotel at the end of the day. The first couple of hours were really quiet with lines only 4-5 parties deep. As the day went on, it definitely started picking up. The wave pool was pretty much full at 3pm, and at 4pm, we waited around 45 minutes for teamboat springs. We were also a bit surprised that the park started to shut down a bit earlier than the official 6pm closing time. Tried to get a drink/snack at 5:30 everything was shuttered. We had a polar patio, and at around $230 for the day, very much felt it was worth it. It includes a locker and towels, spa-style water dispenser with cucumber/citrus infusion, and it gave us a nice comfy shaded spot to eat our lunch, re-apply sunscreen, and relax between activities
DAS
We had DAS, but my DS who needs the pass only has one or two rides in each park he likes to do over and over and they are not headliners (e.g. "Alien Swirling Saucers" "Magic Carpets") so we also ended up taking turns with the older kids doing most things standby while the other parent did DAS with our youngest. We generally found DAS worked really well. I was surprised that return times were often shorter than the official standby wait time by about 20-30 minutes a lot of times, which made it easy to grab an ice cream or popcorn and wait for the return time (and yes, in case you're putting two and two together, that does mean that waits for AS2 and Magic Carpets were upwards of 45 mins to an hour at some points).
Wait Times
It was bad. No sugar coating it. Yes, wait times were "only" an hour that might have been 2 hours at spring break pre-Covid, but unless you really didn't understand how to use fastpass properly, you never had to wait in those longer lines pre-Covid. Plus we found our feet were KILLING us this trip and looked to see our step count was twice what it used to be, which I suspect is because of all the longer queues and standing when before, we were taking more breaks to sit and watch a show or a parade. The other thing that made wait times feel worse it is used to be there were a fair number of rides that always had a pretty short wait that you could just do standby between fastpasses when the park was crowded, but now due to distanced seating, those rides now have long waits too--e.g., small word, three caballeros. We did arrive early/come back in the evening, but the secret is out on mornings and I would say evening are much better now. Also, that startegy does make you TIRED. All in all, we won't be back until fastpasses return.
Crowds/Masks
I know this is something there are such different perceptions of, but if you are at all concerned about Covid, this is not the time to go. Mask wearing was pretty good, but there were enough nose peekers and snackers in line and on transportation that I wouldn't say it was safe. Distancing was the biggest issue. We didn't mind crowds outdoors in the walkways (and there were crowds/chokepoints) because you move past people pretty quick. But indoors, whenever a line had switchbacks, there would be a party waiting between a marker in the switchback next you, just a foot or two away from you. And the creep-up-behinders were everywhere. I had to repeatedly ask people to go back to their marker, not because I was worried about covid (we have immunity), but because I was tired of them bumping into me and/or breathing down my neck because they weren't paying attention to when they needed to stop. I would say about 30% of the rides, we had someone walking right up behind us ignoring their marker.
Dining
We MUCH preferred table service to quick service this trip. Mobile order was good for breakfast, but lunch was another experience. We did order on the app at 7am for QS lunch and had no trouble getting the order placed since we ordered early, but once we got to the restaurant at lunchtime there were long waits out in the hot usn after hitting the "I'm here, prepare my food" button, and once we were allowed in, finding a table was near impossible, with dozens of people all hanging around and rushing to the nearest table once it opened. People also moved the tables and chairs a lot so the tables were not properly spread out any more.
Transportation
Morning buses were consistently available 75 minutes before park open and were very efficient. However, if you like midday breaks, we found bus times were very sketchy midday, with long waits and arrival times on the resort board that would mysteriously disappear and be replaced with another time 30 minutes later. Evenings at park close, there were also a lot of long waits at the park bus stop to get back to the resort, but that was just because the lines were really long. We opted to use Uber a lot more than we an expected and in hindsight wished we had rented a car when you added up all the uber cost over the trip.
Ride Breakdowns
This was enough of a recurring issue that I feel it warrants its own section of the post. In the past, when a ride went down, it was not a big deal. If I had a fastpass for it, I'd get an anytime FP automatically to use when it reopened. Without FP, when a ride went down, it was very disruptive. Maybe we had bad luck, but this affected us pretty much every day. For example, we tried to do TOT pre-park opening and the ride started out only running one side, and then went down entirely just as we were about to board. At that point, it was too late to rope drop anything else as wait times had climbed all across the park, so we stuck it out. Ended up waiting upwards of 90 minutes and it felt like the morning was wasted. Similar thing happened when we tried to do Space Mountain at park opening, and the ride went down while in line. There, they made everyone exit the queue as it was clear it was going to be a prolonged outage, but again, we missed our chance to get in line for other rides first thing. It also meant that because it was down almost all of the day, when it did reopen in the evening, we had an hour-long in the last hour of park open even though everything else in the park was a pretty short wait. Then AGAIN we had an issue on Animal Kingdom day where we decided to wait to do EE until the last few hours to allow the wait time to die down, and mid-afternoon, it went down. Finally at around 7:30pm on an 8pm park close day it reopened and we had to RUN to get to the other end of the park and ride it before our in-park dinner reservation. So that may be more info than needed, but it was one of the things that contributed to our decision that it is simply not worth it to visit again without fastpass.
Blizzard Beach
We went to Blizzard Beach on Wednesday 3/24. The transportation situation is annoying, as you had to take a bus to animal kingdom and then transfer to a blizzard beach bus. We opted to uber back to the hotel at the end of the day. The first couple of hours were really quiet with lines only 4-5 parties deep. As the day went on, it definitely started picking up. The wave pool was pretty much full at 3pm, and at 4pm, we waited around 45 minutes for teamboat springs. We were also a bit surprised that the park started to shut down a bit earlier than the official 6pm closing time. Tried to get a drink/snack at 5:30 everything was shuttered. We had a polar patio, and at around $230 for the day, very much felt it was worth it. It includes a locker and towels, spa-style water dispenser with cucumber/citrus infusion, and it gave us a nice comfy shaded spot to eat our lunch, re-apply sunscreen, and relax between activities
DAS
We had DAS, but my DS who needs the pass only has one or two rides in each park he likes to do over and over and they are not headliners (e.g. "Alien Swirling Saucers" "Magic Carpets") so we also ended up taking turns with the older kids doing most things standby while the other parent did DAS with our youngest. We generally found DAS worked really well. I was surprised that return times were often shorter than the official standby wait time by about 20-30 minutes a lot of times, which made it easy to grab an ice cream or popcorn and wait for the return time (and yes, in case you're putting two and two together, that does mean that waits for AS2 and Magic Carpets were upwards of 45 mins to an hour at some points).
For anyone that has used the Skyline to hop between HS and Epcot these last couple weeks...has there been long lines for transfers to Epcot at CBR mid-day? Safe to say we can get from park to park in less than 30mins using the Skyline, mid-afternoon on a weekday?
Naomeri
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2019
Shouldn’t be a problem, I did a lot of midday skyliner travel and never saw lines at CBR. It might still take less time to walk between the 2 parks than ride the skyliner though
FastPasser.
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 13, 2017
Used it mid afternoon yesterday from Epcot and there were no lines.
wilkydelts
Be Realistic, Be Happy
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2017
Has anyone else noticed that there are two distinct camps about wait times? Either they were great or it was awful and everything was way to long. There is no comments on middle ground.
More importantly ever noticed that the people who report great times list their detailed experience and include exact wait times compared to posted wait times where as those who say everything was awful and too long always speak in generalization with no times reported?
More importantly ever noticed that the people who report great times list their detailed experience and include exact wait times compared to posted wait times where as those who say everything was awful and too long always speak in generalization with no times reported?
loves to dive
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2011
I think that may be because there are two camps for lines. Those that love FP, always used it and think it's the best thing ever invented. Those that didn't use FP a lot or didn't know how to use FP to their advantage so tended to wait in lines. If you were in the FP camp, you probably didn't wait in lines and were a type of person that wanted to do a lot of rides. If you didn't use FP you were probably used to waiting in lines so a line that is now 45 min to a hour as opposed to a hour to 90 min. in the past would seem like a short wait.
I also think there are just people who like it the way they like it and when it's different it throws their experience out of whack. So they speak in generalities, it was horrible couldn't find anywhere to eat (meaning couldn't eat at the place they always eat at and didn't want to try something new) the lines were long (meaning they used FP and liked to ride x ride with a 10 min wait and now x ride has a 30 min wait and that's just too long). Then there are people who embrace or at least try different/new things. For them there were plenty of places to eat because they had never tried x and surprise it was pretty good. The lines were not bad because they had never even thought to ride x because they wanted to ride z and aren't these wait times from this time to that time great?
wilkydelts
Be Realistic, Be Happy
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2017
@loves to dive I agree but I guess I am just someone that wants proof to back up a complaint.
I want to draw my own conclusions from someone else's information, I really do not want much subjectivity from them. When I do trip reports I try to have minimal subjectivity, so people can just look at the details and decide if "they" think that experience would work for them.
I want to draw my own conclusions from someone else's information, I really do not want much subjectivity from them. When I do trip reports I try to have minimal subjectivity, so people can just look at the details and decide if "they" think that experience would work for them.
snow_white725
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2008
Does anyone know what the current specialty burger is at the Sci-Fi Dine In Theater?
Thank you!
Thank you!
only hope
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2014
Lightening within a few miles shuts down everything outside til it’s been clear for 20 or maybe it’s 30mn. Rain shuts down Test Track, and in the old days, outdoor entertainment. Test Track takes a long time to reopen. Rain doesn’t usually shut down other attractions, unless it is extremely heavy or prolonged- sometimes pools of water form at entrances/exits and they have to clear that.
Thank you for the report. i am worried about wait times as well. We were a family who used FP for everything—I think one day we had 15 FP at MK. so rides like Little Mermaid, Dumbo, Small World, Carpets, Pirates, etc we would never wait 20 min because you could get a FP so easy. Waiting 45 minutes for Carpets is crazy! I hope they bring FP or something back soon, but I know it’s not going to happen for awhile.
Sarahslay
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2017
We were at YC weekend before last and used the skyliner to hop back and for a couple of times midday between HS & Epcot. On one instance no line at all, hopped right on at CBR without issue, next day it was a pretty long line around 2 due to a lot of people park hopping from HS to Epcot. The first day was earlier in the day so that is probably why it wasn't crowded, but it is obvious most people are hopping over to Epcot at pretty much the same time so it gets a bit congested. That being said, the line moved pretty quickly, and I felt bad for a few families forced to exit the line because someone in the group would go "this is nuts, the boat to Epcot will be faster" and jump over to go back to HS and we're on gondala in less than 5 minutes and on our way.
Probably best to just find your proof in your own experience if you're that specific about it, as just because it might be 1 thing one day doesn't mean it will be that way when you go.
wilkydelts
Be Realistic, Be Happy
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2017
Nabas
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
We're in a third camp.
We knew how to use FP+ to maximize our experience, used it all the time, and hated it.
We hated the spontaneity that FP+ destroyed, having to be at a certain place at a certain time.
FP+ is a zero-sum game. For every FP+ you got, it meant waiting even longer in other lines.
If I got a FP+ for Frozen Ever After, it meant longer waits at Test Track and Soarin'.
So far, we've enjoyed no FP+ much more than the old way, watching hundreds of people walk past us on our non-FP+ rides.
And we love being able to change our plans without having to worry how it's going to impact our FP+ selections.
Seriously, I wish they never bring back FP+.
DoryGirl1963
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2016
!
MomOTwins
The Mommy Fairy
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2018
Ironically, that’s a bit of a generalization since I complained and did post actual wait times for several rides in my post today and I think some of my posts last week. I think this reply really hits the nail on the head though:
I had almost word for word the same exchange with a couple in line behind us on Slinky Dog. We got in line at the end of the park day with a posted wait time of 60 mins (lower than it had been all day). Toward the end of the line, we had waited 45 mins and were pretty close to the boarding area, and was saying how I missed fastpass, since that was a long time to wait for such a short ride. They laughed and said they were thrilled it was looking like it’d be 10–15 mins less than the posted wait time! Of course, probably helped they were a young, physically fit couple in their 20s, and had mentioned they were locals just visiting for the day. I am a bit older and in less gread shape, and was dog tired from pushing around a heavy stroller and carrying tired kids for several days on a weeklong parks trip. So maybe that helps give an idea of why it is so subjective.
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