Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[EpcotPhoenician]

Changing them to what?

It's now a blank arrow without the "6ft" text.

 

[Anne Scaffo]

It is confusing because even the cast members aren’t clear of the rules. My sister and I had slushees in our hand as we got into line for MMRR and the cast member smiled and said, “You can drink those as long as you aren’t moving. As soon as you start moving again, you have to replace your mask”. I was actually quite shocked to hear that. So that may explain a little bit why people are eating/drinking in line as well as sitting on random benches without a mask.

In recent months it has been my understanding that you are allowed to take sips while in line- as long as you are not moving.

 

[Anne Scaffo]

IMO,the return of the CP is HUGE.

I agree. There are so many who have been waiting, and eager to participate. I just hope that their anticipation and excitement will be stronger than the daily stresses. My one concern for them is the number of guests who will become cranky having to wear their masks in the heat day after day. The heat bothers me, and tends to make me cranky. But, I am prepared for what to expect. I also know that I would never treat a CM with anything but kindness.

 

[loves to dive]

Now we had a car & decided the buses were better. (Last week) We were getting there before opening & noticed the buses get in before the cars waiting in line.

I was there mid-April and had a car but used Disney transportation or walked the entire time I was there. The longest bus wait I had was maybe 15 min. mid-day waiting to go back to a resort and there were only 4 or 5 people in line. I noticed this pre-Covid as well. I had no problems with people taking masks off on the buses, I did see a couple of times people pull them down to sip a drink but they put them right back up. The only bus driver I had that didn't seem to do as well as he should was a Mears driver at the Dolphin. He seemed to wait a little too long to see if anyone else was coming for the bus and had some strange music videos playing on his video player next to him. I was the only one on the bus so he may have thought it was o.k.

 

[loves to dive]

I few posts up I noticed someone mentioned they got a cin. roll at Kusafiri in AK. I thought that was still closed, when did it open and is it open only at certain times?

 

[poppins2008]

Thank you for this report as we are staying at POP in a little over a week!

ME TOO!!!! Also interested in answers to your questions

 

[Sirenitas]

Thank you for this report as we are staying at POP in a little over a week! Two questions for you if you don't mind: 1) For getting you ROTR boarding pass were you on resort wi-fi and did you do it from your room or somewhere on property? 2) Also how early are people lining up to rope drop parks for Skyliner/buses there? Your reports of it being crazy busy are making me wonder if we need to line up more that an 1.5 hours before opening time if we want to rope drop? TIA for any advice you can give!

I was not using the Wifi since I had read it is pretty slow. I was in our room - we were in the 50's, 2nd floor.

We made it to official park opening most days by getting to the Skyliner (which we loved!) about 40 minutes early. One day the Epcot line was down and we had to go to AoA to catch a bus - we still made it before the park officially opened. The worst day was May 4th going to DHS, but it must have been the date - waited at CBR, in the sun, for a good 30 minutes (on top of getting to the Pop station early) and we had to rush to make our BG. The 2nd day we waited maybe 10 minutes and walking the whole time.

Buses were not bad at all and in the morning they had several buses waiting one behind the other for both AK and MK. We never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus from Pop.

My best advice is bring a small travel umbrella, fans (I had small battery ones for the kids and I used a handheld fan I got at the Japan store ages ago), and cooling towels. Disney was making a mint from their cooling towels - you see everyone with them and they really work! I'll add this to the original post since I was so glad I had packed all of these items.

 

[Sirenitas]

I few posts up I noticed someone mentioned they got a cin. roll at Kusafiri in AK. I thought that was still closed, when did it open and is it open only at certain times?

Sorry it was at Tamu Tamu

 

[SeiterClan]

I was not using the Wifi since I had read it is pretty slow. I was in our room - we were in the 50's, 2nd floor.

We made it to official park opening most days by getting to the Skyliner (which we loved!) about 40 minutes early. One day the Epcot line was down and we had to go to AoA to catch a bus - we still made it before the park officially opened. The worst day was May 4th going to DHS, but it must have been the date - waited at CBR, in the sun, for a good 30 minutes (on top of getting to the Pop station early) and we had to rush to make our BG. The 2nd day we waited maybe 10 minutes and walking the whole time.

Buses were not bad at all and in the morning they had several buses waiting one behind the other for both AK and MK. We never waited more than 10 minutes for a bus from Pop.

My best advice is bring a small travel umbrella, fans, and cooling towels. Disney was making a mint from their cooling towels - you see everyone with them and they really work! I'll add this to the original post since I was so glad I had packed all of these items.

Thank you for taking time to respond as this is super helpful I'm relieved to hear that the Skyliner/buses were not too crazy busy & that lines moved fast! I have already bought neck fans & cooling towels for everyone in our group as well as a few small travel umbrellas so hopefully we can handle the humidity. We are from AZ so we know HOT but know that the humidity there takes it to whole other level but hope we will survive!

 

[lovethattink]

I created a thread in the theme park community subforum to discuss your thoughts on the new CDC mask guidelines. Please use that thread and keep this one to Here now, just back posts.

Click Here


https://www.disboards.com/threads/t...ct-your-disney-vacation.3837053/post-62972476

 

[Akck]

Thank you for this report as we are staying at POP in a little over a week! Two questions for you if you don't mind: 1) For getting you ROTR boarding pass were you on resort wi-fi and did you do it from your room or somewhere on property? 2) Also how early are people lining up to rope drop parks for Skyliner/buses there? Your reports of it being crazy busy are making me wonder if we need to line up more that an 1.5 hours before opening time if we want to rope drop? TIA for any advice you can give!

We were at CBR for another data point. WiFi was slow the night before, so I was planning on using data. That morning though, it was faster than data so I used WiFi. Managed to get BG 27. I suggest checking both the night before and morning of. If both are slow that night, you can go out to find a better data location.

 

[EpcotPhoenician]

Here for nearly a week, and thus far the only situation where I felt incredibly uncomfortable was whenever an afternoon shower comes around, everybody runs for cover, and the concept of social distancing goes out the window. People will cram right up next to you to avoid getting wet.

If you're coming to WDW and don't want to have others cram right up next to you in a rain storm, bring a poncho and carry on.

Also, the queue for Big Thunder Mountain (the part where you descend down to the loading platform), nobody was distancing.

Other than that, I would say mask compliance is around 75%. From what I've observed, the largest offenders are those drinking in EPCOT. Zero compliance with those people.

 

[wdwrule]

Thank you for this report as we are staying at POP in a little over a week! Two questions for you if you don't mind: 1) For getting you ROTR boarding pass were you on resort wi-fi and did you do it from your room or somewhere on property? 2) Also how early are people lining up to rope drop parks for Skyliner/buses there? Your reports of it being crazy busy are making me wonder if we need to line up more that an 1.5 hours before opening time if we want to rope drop? TIA for any advice you can give!

Pop resort WiFi was successful for us 3 out of 3 times when we recently tried there. (1 of us always tried data at same time but WiFi won)


Also, someone else asked if guests ever wore shields with their masks... we saw a young couple wearing both last month in the Soarin que. That was the only time we saw this though.

 

[Princess Katelet]

First pandemic visit today (Thursday, May 13).
Magical Express line was miles long yesterday and took 50 minutes to reach check in where there were only TWO CMs checking people in. Another half hour line in the SSR line. The dad of the family behind us would NOT stay away from us. We didn’t say anything but we had our rolling suitcases tilted behind us to create distance but instead he just stood practically next to us. Rude and inconsiderate.
People did pros and cons of SSR and one con of Congress Park was distance to lobby/food. It’s a four minute walk. Congress Park is perfect. I am, however, ASTOUNDED at the number of lizards that are ALL over the sidewalks and practically run over your feet as you walk.
This morning it took half an hour for a bus that wasn’t full to take us to MK so we ended up getting there at the official 8 opening, however Space, Buzz, Mansion, and People Mover were walk ons. Peter Pan was 25 and Pirates 15. Philharmagic made me angry. It took about 45 minutes and the amount of wasted space in the theatre is NUTS because before people get to that scarcely populated theatre they are crammed in an indoor queue for 45 minutes!!! So dumb!
Park hopped to Studios after lunch at The Wave—didn’t enjoy and was uncomfortable with eating indoors. Probably won’t attempt that again. Studios was frustrating as everything had a huge line and I can’t rope drop this park as I wasn’t able to get a reservation for it the whole week. We did Star Tours and Alien Swirling Saucers. Wow was Saucers BUMPY and SHORT. I’d not be happy if I had waited in any kind of line for it. We then attempted M&M Railway cause it dropped to 30. What the app failed to mention was that it was down. We got in line anyway cause they said it’s usually down for 45 and they were nearing that. We waited at least half an hour if not longer before bailing. Big mistake to attempt it. Rode Smuggler’s Run for the first time and LOVED it! Do the guests truly control the ride or the directions in any way? As pilots in our own pod my daughter and I just tried for the most fun ride so we went up and down and left and right and seemed to be crashing into things regularly which was fun. We just didn’t know if we were actually controlling anything.
Jumped in line for Tower at close and when the very nice CM said PLEASE keep your masks on during the ride a middle aged couple promptly took their masks off the moment the elevator doors closed and promptly put them back just before the doors opened. People like that infuriate me with their rudeness and disrespect.
Overall mask compliance has been fairly good. Distancing hasn’t been terrible but not stellar, either.
Yesterday was POURING rain so we were glad it was a travel day and not a park day. Today was cloudy and low 70s.

 

[LMO429]

We were at Disney for two weeks just got back. We cabbed or Uber to contemporary and walked over we went to mk six times and not once was the driver questioned by security, no asking for a dining reservation none of that which I read so many times about before we went of course your mileage may vary but that was our experience we had a car but cabbed it to contemporary for mk and walked over

 

[hereforthechurros]

We were at Disney for two weeks just got back. We cabbed or Uber to contemporary and walked over we went to mk six times and not once was the driver questioned by security, no asking for a dining reservation none of that which I read so many times about before we went of course your mileage may vary but that was our experience we had a car but cabbed it to contemporary for mk and walked over

That’s odd. What did the driver say when he pulled up to the guest shack to gain entry? Where were you dropped off?

 

[sdeut]

We were at Disney for two weeks just got back. We cabbed or Uber to contemporary and walked over we went to mk six times and not once was the driver questioned by security, no asking for a dining reservation none of that which I read so many times about before we went of course your mileage may vary but that was our experience we had a car but cabbed it to contemporary for mk and walked over

Crossing fingers this has changed. Would love to be able to be dropped off at a resort again.

 

[Sirenitas]

As far as distancing - we did not feel like people were on top of us (like before covid) but there was not much distance between parties. It only rained once and people were trying to cram into shops (we were at Epcot) but CMs were turning them away. There was a manage at the entrance keeping people away. They just huddled at the front of the store. We actually enjoyed the rain and it did not last very long.

The one time we took an Uber (from WL to Pop) I had my MB scanned at the Pop gate. We had dinner at WC and I was checking availability and fares and literally saw it jump from no wait & $12 to no availability and $25 in a matter of minutes. It was right when MK closed at 9PM. We did get a ride (actually 2 since there were 6 of us), one came within 10 minutes but for the other one my mom and I waited almost 30 minutes. The buses would have been worse.

 

[LMO429]

That’s odd. What did the driver say when he pulled up to the guest shack to gain entry? Where were you dropped off?

Honestly not sure what was said I was in the back of the van and couldn’t hear maybe because if was a van and not a car it wasn’t questioned and we got dropped off at the front of contemporary each time.

 

[EpcotPhoenician]

Crossing fingers this has changed. Would love to be able to be dropped off at a resort again.

Don't count on it. When I took an Uber from Wilderness Lodge to Old Key West this week, the guard at Old Key West immediately told us to turn around. I had to "convince" him that I had a resort stay booked... which I did... it was very strange.