Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[HollyMD]

Has anyone else had any trouble signing in to their MDE app today? Mine just keeps spinning…..

 

[burberryplaid]

Has anyone else had any trouble signing in to their MDE app today? Mine just keeps spinning…..

I’ve had issues off and on. If I close and re-open it usually resets

 

[cakebaker]

i cant imagine at this point they will send anyone home. they need to get people trained and ramped up with experience before oct 1st

They will definitely cut hours when the crowds aren't there. They "need" to get people trained, but these days money rules all and they'll cut whenever they can possibly do it. Low crowds are fun for guests short term, but long term it just means more delays in ramping back up and more cuts.

 

[HollyMD]

I’ve had issues off and on. If I close and re-open it usually resets

It lets me in fine for everything except making park reservations I canceled one for Nov 20th to change parks, and now it won’t let me in to make a new one

 

[Carol_]

Don’t forget all the locals waiting for the AP to drop.

 

[hildarumpole]

Hahaha. If it weren't you posting it, I would have assumed that was a joke. Incredibly confused why someone would think that would have anything to do with it.

We have an early October trip scheduled, but will cancel if masks are still required and switch to Universal/SeaWorld.

 

[burberryplaid]

Day 4 - Went to AK around 10:15. Rode Everest (x2) Safari, Navi River..lunch at Satu’li then FOP. We’re hot and tired so we went back to the room for a swim and got caught in a downpour on the way back to our room.

Dinner was lovely at Le Cellier. We were exhausted so we just went back to the room and relaxed.

Still enjoying light crowds and doing everything we want.

 

[Dentam]

Don’t forget all the locals waiting for the AP to drop.

Shouldn't increase the crowds that much this month until maybe the last week before the 50th starts. At least that's what we're hoping since we arrive the day the AP's go on sale next week!

 

[asumom]

Shouldn't increase the crowds that much this month until maybe the last week before the 50th starts. At least that's what we're hoping since we arrive the day the AP's go on sale next week!

That's what I am hoping/thinking. It's still hot, kids are in school, and there are a lot of current pass holders who were able to renew previously already in the parks so it's really just the new passholders. The most affordable pass blocks out weekends so between work and school, not many will be able to go during the week right away.

 

[scrapshappen]

We are headed south on 95 on our way from Virginia right now and will be there tomorrow. We’re one of those that almost cancelled due to Covid but decided to keep our plans due to the low crowds. Hoping it holds through the next week. Although I expect a slight bump at least over the holiday weekend,

 

[coolbrook]

At the airport now heading home after a 5 DVC resorts in 5 nights stay. Loved the low crowds and low lines; MK fireworks from the plaza gardens area in front of Casey’s; dinner at rose and crown for Epcot Forever; good food at resort restaurants; seeing Turtle Talk, Laugh Floor and Hall of presidents again; the new scenes in Jungle Cruise; and much more!

Did not love …Well I can’t think of anything right now.

 

[slyster]

i cant imagine at this point they will send anyone home. they need to get people trained and ramped up with experience before oct 1st

I wish that were the case. Two of the CMs I chatted with told me they were sent home early due to budget cuts and because it was so incredibly slow thIs week.

I never waited more than 15-20 min on any ride including Flight of Passage, Seven Dwarfs Mine, Smugglers Run. I got a boarding pass for Rise of the Resitance easily at 6pm and rode it an hour later. It was a perfect time to visit.

 

[slyster]

We are headed south on 95 on our way from Virginia right now and will be there tomorrow. We’re one of those that almost cancelled due to Covid but decided to keep our plans due to the low crowds. Hoping it holds through the next week. Although I expect a slight bump at least over the holiday weekend,

They expect slow crowds for another 2 or 3 more weeks easily. I felt masks were enforced and folks wore them when they were supposed to. Most waited until they were required to. We wore our masks any time we were in line regardless of whether we were indoors, but keep in mind lines were super short! So it was never for long.

 

[Corinne]

At the airport now heading home after a 5 DVC resorts in 5 nights stay. Loved the low crowds and low lines; MK fireworks from the plaza gardens area in front of Casey’s; dinner at rose and crown for Epcot Forever; good food at resort restaurants; seeing Turtle Talk, Laugh Floor and Hall of presidents again; the new scenes in Jungle Cruise; and much more!

Did not love …Well I can’t think of anything right now.

glad you had a great trip! Are you saying you moved resorts each day? How was THAT!!?? Would love to hear about it! Haha

 

[igrsod]

Dang, I keep hoping they wait until October 1st to roll it out so that we miss it during our trip at the end of the month.

It's funny... this is one of the first times I've ever seen something new coming to WDW where everyone isn't hoping it will be there when their trip comes.... says something.
I agree... I wouldn't want to be there when it rolls out.

 

[OhBother1984]

It's funny... this is one of the first times I've ever seen something new coming to WDW where everyone isn't hoping it will be there when their trip comes.... says something.
I agree... I wouldn't want to be there when it rolls out.

I am so indifferent on all of it, I don't think its going to be that bad and its gonna be better than the old fastpass system especially for standby lines. Now I do agree it will be a mess when it launches like everything is.

 

[DisneyOma]

At the airport now heading home after a 5 DVC resorts in 5 nights stay. Loved the low crowds and low lines; MK fireworks from the plaza gardens area in front of Casey’s; dinner at rose and crown for Epcot Forever; good food at resort restaurants; seeing Turtle Talk, Laugh Floor and Hall of presidents again; the new scenes in Jungle Cruise; and much more!

Did not love …Well I can’t think of anything right now.

How about the construction walls all over a gutted EPCOT? And the huge, ugly barges blocking views across the lake? Those were two things I didn't love when we were there 2 weeks ago.

 

[Kafertal]

I just wanted to pop back on here and write a quick trip report. We were at WDW from 8/21 - 8/26 and stayed at The Yacht Club. This was our 2nd stay at YC and it was great. We're a family of 5 (mom, dad, 3 kids - 17, 16, & 10) and we went our friends this time, another family of 5 (mom, dad, 3 kids - 16, 10, & 8). They gave us connecting rooms which was convenient - a nice surprise since we didn't request it. I wish I was cool enough to post a minute by minute breakdown but I'm too lazy so I'll just do a summary.

This was our first time back since 2015 and the other family's first time ever so we wanted to make sure we got as much done as possible since our trip was relatively short. Guerrilla style touring in the mornings and then totally chill with no set plan in the evenings. Pretty much Epcot at Night, rode rides leisurely and ate. Day one we met at the resort and walked into World Showcase around 1pm, ate at the Japan booth, took some memory maker pics, rode Frozen Ever After, then went back to the hotel to swim and relax since we'd both driven in that day. Epcot again that night. We rope dropped the next three mornings (HS, MK, AK).

HS (Sun, 8/22) - Arrived by boat probably around 8:30am MFSR (off by 9), Star Tours, M&M, TOT, ROTR (BG 51 - 12:10), & TSMM stopped for a snack done by 2, then Epcot at night.

MK (Mon, 8/23) - Arrived by bus around 8:20am. They held us at the entrance to Adventureland until exactly 9am. Splash wasn't open yet so we did BTMR, then Splash, Jungle Cruise (Pirates was closed until about 10:40am), Magic Carpets, snack, then Pirates finally opened, HM (while my husband and 17 yr old son did Hall of Presidents), shopped a bit, then philharmagic, memory maker photos, took the boat to WL for a mobile ordered lunch at Geyser Point (nice place to relax & eat away from the park but they don't let you sit under the covered section if you mobile order which makes zero sense), boat back to MK, then bus back to YC around 3:!5pm, Epcot that night.

AK (Tues, 8/24) - Drove to AK, parked around 7:20am, Walked right to FOP, probably 15 min total b/c walking through the queue takes a little while, then Navi, Safari, Gorilla falls, Everest, Kali, Lunch at Satuli Canteen, Dinosaur, snack, memory maker pics, watched a quick bird show at the tree of life on the way out, gone before 2pm.

HS (Wed, 8/25) - This was supposed to be our day to sleep in but we got BG 5 for Rise and had to scramble to make it to HS. The three teens stayed behind at the hotel. Walked to HS b/c the boat wasn't at the dock and our BG time got moved up about 25 min. Shopped around Galaxy's Edge, grabbed a Ronto Wrap, TOT, Slinky, and then had a treat and took off. Disney Springs - had a late lunch at Homecomin' (so good), pretty much walked into Gideon's Bake House (my 90's goth heart was so happy in that fabulously dark & creepy store & the cookies were amazing),chilled at the pool that night and watched fireworks from there.

MK (Thurs, 8/26) - just hit MK quickly on our way out. Took our time that morning, packed up, checked out, drove to the TTC with the car packed, got to MK just before 11, took a zoom shot, did SDMT, Peter Pan, Space Mountain, and Buzz. Mobile ordered some Pot stickers from SST and grabbed some spring rolls from the cart and left. Drove to my cousin's house in Sewall's Point, FL and then stayed with them for four nights then started the drive back to NJ.

It was a really fun trip. Thank you to everyone on these boards for your trip posts and great advice. Your tips for Rise of the Resistance, plus park gear advice like fans and uv umbrellas, etc really helped so much. I loved reading about your experiences. Overall we had a great time. **It only really rained twice, it was hot but manageable - except for the HS days, heat was oppressive in the afternoon. *As far as covid, we almost canceled since our 10 year old isn't vaccinated (all of us were with the exception of the 3 youngest kids), but I'm glad that we went. Indoor mask compliance was pretty good and cast members would remind people to cover their faces or noses. We only ate outdoors, we wore Kn95 masks indoors, on transportation, and in outdoor queues and crowds. We drove to avoid airports. Hand sanitizing stations were everywhere and always full. We've been back from WDW for 9 days & not even a sniffle - hoping that we stay well. **Everything was clean in the parks and at the hotel. A few guests left a bag of garbage outside of their doors but it wasn't there for long. Mousekeeping came twice, once to do towels & garbage, and once to do that again plus a wipe down of the bathroom. **Ordered groceries from Amazon now, which is no longer a available - I think it's only Amazon Fresh as of 8/30. They couldn't deliver on our arrival day for whatever reason, came the next morning around 6:15am, then somehow delivered again the same day but we didn't know until Wed bc I didn't notice the message light on the hotel phone. So double groceries but not double charged **All of our meals were great & I enjoyed booking them on the fly - we sat outdoors for all: Geyser Point, Homecomin', Spice Road Table, Rose & Crown, Regal Eagle, Satuli Canteen. **Enjoyed F&W Festival but didn't enjoy all of the obnoxious drunk people. **Didn't get our dinosaur photo b/c someone had their mask off. **Got to ride all of the headliners except RNRC (no one wanted to) and enjoyed all of the parks. EP & AK were the easiest to navigate, HS & MK seemed more crowded. **It's tough to travel with a group of 10 - we all got along fine but didn't factor in the times someone would need a bathroom - which was so frequent - omg!!!!! **The Touring Plans lines app was pretty much spot on with wait times

Sorry for the novel. Hope it's not too all over the place. Thanks again to all of you who took the time to post your experiences and advice. It really helped so much more than you can ever know. Wishing all of you with future trips happy and safe travels, Enjoy the holiday weekend!

 

[coolbrook]

How about the construction walls all over a gutted EPCOT? And the huge, ugly barges blocking views across the lake? Those were two things I didn't love when we were there 2 weeks ago.

Yes, I am quite ready for the Epcot mess/ construction to be done; I did enjoy riding the Epcot monorail again and seeing what was behind the walls. I will reserve my opinion on the barges until I see what they look like in the daytime with the fountains on.

 

[coolbrook]

glad you had a great trip! Are you saying you moved resorts each day? How was THAT!!?? Would love to hear about it! Haha

Yes, we moved resorts every day. I planned ahead to not really unpack like we usually do, have a park bag with swimsuits, phone chargers, sunscreen, and resort mugs to be able to hang out at the pool if our next room wasn't ready when we arrived. On the days my local cm daughter with a car had to work we just took our one bag and my C-pap machine to bell services on our way to breakfast to be transferred to our next resort. We then had a table service breakfast at the resort before heading to the closest park. On our Beach Club Villa and Epcot morning we swam after breakfast, because I love that deep lazy river. We didn't try to rope-drop this trip, so we could enjoy our breakfasts at a leisurely pace. After we were done in our morning park we took Disney transportation to our next resort. Sometimes the room was ready and sometimes we had to wait a bit. I think it helped with being able to get in a bit early some days that the crowds were pretty low everywhere. I actually thought the resort switching was easier when we didn't have to figure out when to get my daughter's car moved.

We loved having a perfectly clean room and made bed every afternoon! Our five resorts were BLT, BCV, BWV, OKW, and CCV. Favorite room if you don't consider location was CCV with walk-in shower, with BCV coming in second.