Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[AussieFan8]

Probably not super helpful, but I got group 6 and was given an estimated return time of 10:45, so we decided to head up front and do early entry Soarin’, and while on Soarin’, I got the push notification at 9:50 that it was time to head to Remy. We did Living with the Land first before heading back to France. They had called another group by the time we got back there, and it was still a complete walk on.

Were the holiday lights on at Living with the Land yet? I saw they were going up but I wonder if they wait until the day after Thanksgiving to turn them on.

 

[SkyGuy]

Were the holiday lights on at Living with the Land yet? I saw they were going up but I wonder if they wait until the day after Thanksgiving to turn them on.

They were not turned on at 10:15 am.

 

[Biggen]

Full day at HS. It’s impossible to buy ILL for Rise if you are offsite. At 9am, it wasn’t available for purchase and then continually checking for any time throughout the day it wasn’t never available.

I don’t know if this is by design but it seems the flagship ride of the park should have some availability for non resort guests save for waiting in a 140 minute standby.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Full day at HS. It’s impossible to buy ILL for Rise if you are offsite. At 9am, it wasn’t available for purchase and then continually checking for any time throughout the day it wasn’t never available.

I don’t know if this is by design but it seems the flagship ride of the park should have some availability for non resort guests save for waiting in a 140 minute standby.

On the first few days of Genie, they saved some ILL$ for offsite guests, but changed it a few days later. Seems like regardless of the day, those are selling out before park opening Guess it's good there's now a standby option.

 

[bsmcneil]

Full day at HS. It’s impossible to buy ILL for Rise if you are offsite. At 9am, it wasn’t available for purchase and then continually checking for any time throughout the day it wasn’t never available.

I don’t know if this is by design but it seems the flagship ride of the park should have some availability for non resort guests save for waiting in a 140 minute standby.

IDK, to me, 140 for the flagship ride (particularly ROTR, vs Space Mountain or something) seems really reasonable. Everyone's experience is relative, for sure.

 

[scrappinginontario]

There has been a lot of discussion asking if there really is a reason to stay onsite with so many of the previous perks gone. I wonder if they’re trying to find reasons for guests to choose to stay onsite?

 

[MomOTwins]

IDK, to me, 140 for the flagship ride (particularly ROTR, vs Space Mountain or something) seems really reasonable. Everyone's experience is relative, for sure.

I remember back in the old fastpass days when there were 300 minute standby waits posted for FOP.

 

[bsmcneil]

I remember back in the old fastpass days when there were 300 minute standby waits posted for FOP.

(probably likely figured it out already - but that's not an actual "like" for those days - but I remember 'em, too)

 

[Meglen]

IDK, to me, 140 for the flagship ride (particularly ROTR, vs Space Mountain or something) seems really reasonable. Everyone's experience is relative, for sure.

If you think about it in minutes. Spending over 2 hours in line for one ride is just not a good way to spend the day if you already payed 150+ on a ticket. That's alot of time standing still trying to convince yourself that it's worth the 5 min ride.

We struggled this last trip with the popular rides. We rode pretty much everything but ssd,rotr. I just couldn't get myself to wait 90+ min for one ride. My choice of course but we had a good time without the rides. But I can't put my son through that long a line when we could go ride 3+ other rides again in the same time.

 

[Carol_]

If you think about it in minutes. Spending over 2 hours in line for one ride is just not a good way to spend the day if you already payed 150+ on a ticket. That's alot of time standing still trying to convince yourself that it's worth the 5 min ride.

We struggled this last trip with the popular rides. We rode pretty much everything but ssd,rotr. I just couldn't get myself to wait 90+ min for one ride. My choice of course but we had a good time without the rides. But I can't put my son through that long a line when we could go ride 3+ other rides again in the same time.

I get that. It’s too long for that ride. 40 minutes is my top for even the best rides. Rise is cool, but not worth 90+ minutes to me and I like Star Wars enough to have watched and loved the Mandalorian. I also own at least three Star Wars toothbrushes, and I aspire to get myself a reloadable galaxy’s edge gift card.

 

[GBRforWDW]

If you think about it in minutes. Spending over 2 hours in line for one ride is just not a good way to spend the day if you already payed 150+ on a ticket. That's alot of time standing still trying to convince yourself that it's worth the 5 min ride.

We struggled this last trip with the popular rides. We rode pretty much everything but ssd,rotr. I just couldn't get myself to wait 90+ min for one ride. My choice of course but we had a good time without the rides. But I can't put my son through that long a line when we could go ride 3+ other rides again in the same time.

That was always the struggle with boarding groups before, at least for RotR. Those that got one were happy they got one and only had a short wait while those that didn't were upset that there was no standby line. So now, the boarding group is paid and if you choose not to pay, you have the option to wait. Of course all rides are now pay for short line or wait for long line. Of course, with boarding groups, you weren't discriminated against for staying offsite

 

[Revan]

If you think about it in minutes. Spending over 2 hours in line for one ride is just not a good way to spend the day if you already payed 150+ on a ticket. That's alot of time standing still trying to convince yourself that it's worth the 5 min ride.

We struggled this last trip with the popular rides. We rode pretty much everything but ssd,rotr. I just couldn't get myself to wait 90+ min for one ride. My choice of course but we had a good time without the rides. But I can't put my son through that long a line when we could go ride 3+ other rides again in the same time.

We added a 6th day for ~$20 per person and decided we would wait for RoTR up to 2 hours. We lucked out and the ride was closed and opened as soon as we entered the land. We saw peak waits of 240 minutes this past week

 

[Revan]

There has been a lot of discussion asking if there really is a reason to stay onsite with so many of the previous perks gone. I wonder if they’re trying to find reasons for guests to choose to stay onsite?

I kept thinking about on-site/off-site this past week. We stayed at Margaritaville since we had 6 adults and wanted separate bedrooms. We got a 3 bedroom cottage for $450 a night, the equivalent cost on property would have been 2-3x that, easily. The resort is new, the cottage was clean and spacious. Is 30 minutes early access, bus transport and early ILL worth $450-900 a day? Absolutely not, we are rope drop to park close commandos and can sacrifice a ride or two until our next visit. Having said that, we rode everything but Mine Train and Peter Pan on our 11/4-11/11 trip with 6 park days.

 

[bsmcneil]

If you think about it in minutes. Spending over 2 hours in line for one ride is just not a good way to spend the day if you already payed 150+ on a ticket. That's alot of time standing still trying to convince yourself that it's worth the 5 min ride.

We struggled this last trip with the popular rides. We rode pretty much everything but ssd,rotr. I just couldn't get myself to wait 90+ min for one ride. My choice of course but we had a good time without the rides. But I can't put my son through that long a line when we could go ride 3+ other rides again in the same time.

lol. Yeah I mean - I don't think the conversion from minutes to hours is what will magically make it feel terrible for me - but I get that it does for you (it seems?). I definitely knew when I posted that 140 minutes is 2 hours and 20 min. I'm not saying I would wait that long for ROTR (because I don't really care about Star Wars) - but in terms of waiting for a ride at a theme park (especially one that's new/novel or representative of a IP/fandom you really enjoy) - it doesn't seem crazy. I get that for you it wouldn't be worth it - but to me, it doesn't really matter what you spent, etc on the ticket (I mean - if you really liked SW/ROTR, would you really rather enjoy 5 rides on Alien Swirling Saucers-esque rides in the same amount of time? Sure, you get to ride five things but if they're not your things, why does it matter that you did it?). For some people, Disney World and/or theme/amusement parks are about going and doing all of the things or it's not worth the price of a ticket. For others, the satisfaction is in being entertained/amused/enjoying your time.

But this was all about access to ROTR/onsite vs. off. And I think that's hard because it is feeling a little bit (with this in particular) like an all or nothing. If you're on-site, you get early entry and earlier access to ILL and ROTR has been selling out. If you're off-site, it's limited to (primarily) stand-by with relatively long waits. When I first started writing, I thought I'd end up saying that it doesn't really seem fair - but compared to other places, etc - maybe it's not so bad, actually. It would really stink if you were just completely blocked from getting to do it - but isn't Hagrid's at Universal in a similar position right now (I've never been - just going off of what I had read a few weeks ago)? And it's mostly at DHS that there's this issue. It's not ideal but I get it.

We're all different. I know what I'm about to say will seem contradictory (and maybe it is - but I don't think so). If it were me, I wouldn't choose to stay on-site because of early entry and access to ILLS. The higher cost of accommodations doesn't seem to make up for the relatively small perks related to riding a couple of rides. All of that said, I am choosing to stay on-site :-D (for transportation ease, bubble, wanting to stay at AKL which is become my default place when I visit WDW, and so on). Early Entry isn't weighing into it for me (even though I prefer to RD, I don't think my kids and I will be up and ready - and 30 minutes feels so negligible to me) and earlier access to the ILLS doesn't really matter to me (I might buy it for ROTR because the kids would enjoy it but given that when I started planning the trip, it was VQ only and there was a chance we couldn't get in anyway - I've been okay with the fact that it just might happen, especially since I don't really care for it/SW). I also recognize that me taking two kids (9/5) who've never been - our style isn't going to be the style of many folks (we're just not going to do commando this trip and that feels perfectly fine for me).

 

[ssgtravel]

Yesterday we returned from a combined Universal/Disney trip - here's what we did on the Disney portion.

A few notes about us - my husband and I are both in our 60s, DVC, have been to Disney a zillion times. Our priorities on our Disney vacations are sleeping in (no rope drop for us), riding all our favorite attractions, and eating better food than we can find in the college town in which we live.

On this trip we made use of both Genie+ (LL) and Individual Lightning Lane (ILL) purchases, which for all days except Animal Kingdom worked well for us. As we don't rope drop, being able to reserve attractions for later in the day is great. By the end of the trip I was a master at stacking, although a few overlapping reservations were a little bit harrowing. I didn't keep track of times for every LL, but the schedule below should give you some idea of what we accomplished and our strategy, The numbers in brackets indicate the order in which I reserved each day.

Sunday 11/7, EPCOT - transfer day with late arrival so did not bother with Genie+.
9:47, leave Portofino Bay/Universal for Disney Springs
11:00, walk in Frontera Cocina lunch, seated right away
12:17, arrive Fort Wilderness, get golf cart, explore resort, cabin ready 3:14
3:57 arrive EPCOT
Test Track Standby (SB) (47 minutes)
Soaring SB (33 minutes)
Karamel Kuche (shortest line ever - 6 people ahead of us even though World Showcase was packed!)
5:48 arrive walk in Tokyo Dining (seated at 6:04)
Done for the day at 7:11
In park appr 3 hours 15 minutes; 2 rides SB, caramel corn, table service dinner
14,750 steps

Monday 11/8 Magic Kingdom
10:42, purchase Seven Dwarves
10:49, purchase Genie+
12:18 arrival at park
12:35 Haunted Mansion LL [2]
Liberty Square Riverboat SB (next boat)
1:30 lunch Liberty Tree Tavern (seated 1:52)
Big Thunder LL [3]
4:15 7 Dwarves ILL [1]
Pirates of the Caribbean LL [4]
Buzz Lightyear LL [5]
People Mover SB (12 minute wait)
6:27 Done for day
In park approx 6 hrs 15 minutes, 7 rides (4 LL, 1ILL, 2 SB), table service lunch
11,860 steps
Was just getting used to Genie+; if I had to do it again I would have booked Jungle Cruise first as it was gone for the day by the time I figured out what I was doing. Splash was available for most of the day, but we didn't want to get wet.

Tuesday, 11/9, Hollywood Studios
7:02 purchased Rise of the Resistance
7:04 purchased MMRR
7:09 purchased Genie+
11:30 Steakhouse 71 lunch (seated 11:34)
1:16 arrive Hollywood Studios
Skyliner to/from CBR just for fun as we had time
Toy Story LL [4]
Star Tours LL [5]
Slinky Dog LL [3]
3:40 Rise of the Resistance - down [1]
Muppets LL (unnecessary LL) [6]
Vacation Fun SB (next show)
4:40 MMRR ILL [2]
Rise of the Resistance ILL [1]
Star Tours SB 16 minutes
7:15 dinner Mama Melrose (seated 7:20)
8:13 done for the day
In park approx 7 hours, 8 rides (4LL, 2 ILL, 2 SB), skyliner, table service dinner
18,263 steps
Did better with stacking this day; the only thing we missed was Millennium Falcon - this one runs out fast as well, but I think Slinky is the priority.

Wednesday, 11/10 Animal Kingdom
8th day in a row in the parks and we were tired. It was rainy, cold, and we bailed after a couple of hours, so Genie+ was a definite fail on this day.
7:58 purchase FOP
10:50 arrival, line up for Nomad Lounge, table available 11:12
11:02 purchase Genie+ (was super undecided about this)
Safari LL [2]
Rainy walk through gorilla trail
2:05 FOP ILL [1]
3:40 Navi River, [3] bailed instead - went back to cabin took a nap
In park approx 3 hours, 2 rides (1 LL, 1 ILL) plus 1 trail and lounge lunch.
6:30 Dinner at Boma (seated 6:22)
9,072 steps
I'm thinking there are not enough actual rides that we enjoy at this park (we love the trails and exploring the park in general), so perhaps starting here and hopping to EPCOT would make Genie+ worth it (see Thursday for a similar strategy).

Thursday, 11/11, Hollywood Studios and EPCOT - a really crowded day but Genie+ worked well.
8:07 purchased MMRR
8:08 purchased Remy
8:14 purchased Genie+
11:02 arrival
11:15 Woody’s Lunchbox Mobile Order
Star Tours 2X SB (34 minutes, 12 minutes)
Toy Story LL [4]
1:30 MMRR ILL [1]
Skyliner to EPCOT, sit at international entrance 20ish minutes until break in rain
Try to ride test track SB but not yet reopened from rain
Earth Eats and Noodle Exchange Early dinner
4:05 Spaceship Earth LL [6]
4:35 Soaring LL [5]
5:24 Remy ILL [2] (only 11 minutes left in window)
Skyliner back to HS
6:28 Millennium Falcon LL [3] (only 12 minutes left in window)
Alien Saucers LL [7]
Churro and pretzel
7:16 Done for day
In parks approx 8 hours 15 minutes - 2 parks, 9 rides (5 LL, 2 ILL, 2 SB), skyliner 2 directions, QS Lunch, booth dinner and snacks
Best day ever, 22,261 steps
Stacked well on this day - maybe a little too well as we ended up near the end of our windows for both Remy and Millennium and if Soaring had taken much longer or if the skyliner lines on the way back to HS had been longer, we may have missed a ride. And I think if I had been up at 7:00 am rather than 8:00, I may have snagged Slinky Dog before it disappeared for the day.

Friday, 11/12
11:15 Boathouse (seated at 11:00)
Drive home

We found Genie+ and ILL to be useful for us for both HS and MK. We'll likely combine AK with EP (or either one with another park) to pick up the few rides we enjoy at those two parks. We really enjoyed being able to reserve late in the day; not thrilled that its not free, but happier with the whole Genie thing than we thought we would be.

 

[ssgtravel]

How did you keep track of all of your stacks? It seems it would be really confusing. Was your strategy to book a LL return, wait until it "times out", book your second LL, tap into the first one during the grace period, then book another one right after that, etc.?

 

[MamaJJ2018]

What is everyone’s recent experience with mobile ordering at magic kingdom?

I have a Be Our Guest reservation for lunch that day. It is pricier than I’d like to spend, and we’ve done it before, but I also don’t want to be stuck without food options/a place to sit in the park. I have a 4 year old and 1 year old. Thanks!

 

[itf]

There has been a lot of discussion asking if there really is a reason to stay onsite with so many of the previous perks gone. I wonder if they’re trying to find reasons for guests to choose to stay onsite?

My prediction is that there'll soon be availability at for offsite guests again, when they find the sweet spot of how much more they can charge the onsite guests to leave a few over for offsite.

 

[BioInfoLib]

How did you keep track of all of your stacks? It seems it would be really confusing. Was your strategy to book a LL return, wait until it "times out", book your second LL, tap into the first one during the grace period, then book another one right after that, etc.?

We never did the grace period thing because I thought it would be too confusing, and I was afraid I’d mess up and miss my window thereby forfeiting that ride. Everything you have a reservation for shows up directly in your day plans, so you can easily see what you have and the windows. One thing I did notice, the ILLs would show up in my plans immediately after they were purchased. The Genie+ LLs took their sweet time to get into my plans - often many minutes and refreshes later.

In terms of keeping track it was not that hard; bought my 2 ILLs at 8:00ish for afternoon return, and they don’t help you get more LLs so you don’t have to worry about them. I got the first genie around 8:00 for a 5:40 Millennium Falcon return time; it was a priority since we missed this ride the Tuesday before. Grabbed second Genie + (toy Story 12:20 return) at 11:00. Since our first window (Toy Story) closed at 1:20, I was able to pick up our 3rd Genie + at 1:00, for a 4:30 Soaring (We knew were were hopping for 4:35 Remy and figured that could work). Once I tapped into Toy Story I was able to get our 4th Genie+ for a 6:30 Aliens.

Note that now, because all of our LL returns were later in the day, we had the 2 hour cool down, and could not book anything again until 3:27, when we snagged Spaceship Earth. That was fine with us as we needed to hop to EPCOT and we had time for dinner.

This strategy worked great for us as we like to sleep in and tour later. And I did not feel like I spent too much time on my phone, just at 8:00, 11:00, 1:00, immediately after Toy Story, and at 3:27 when eligible again. If I had to do it again would have started at 7:00 (maybe would have been able to get Slinky) but this was day 9 of parks between Universal and Disney and we were tired!

 

[kappyfamily]

We never did the grace period thing because I thought it would be too confusing, and I was afraid I’d mess up and miss my window thereby forfeiting that ride. Everything you have a reservation for shows up directly in your day plans, so you can easily see what you have and the windows. One thing I did notice, the ILLs would show up in my plans immediately after they were purchased. The Genie+ LLs took their sweet time to get into my plans - often many minutes and refreshes later.

In terms of keeping track it was not that hard; bought my 2 ILLs at 8:00ish for afternoon return, and they don’t help you get more LLs so you don’t have to worry about them. I got the first genie around 8:00 for a 5:40 Millennium Falcon return time; it was a priority since we missed this ride the Tuesday before. Grabbed second Genie + (toy Story 12:20 return) at 11:00. Since our first window (Toy Story) closed at 1:20, I was able to pick up our 3rd Genie + at 1:00, for a 4:30 Soaring (We knew were were hopping for 4:35 Remy and figured that could work). Once I tapped into Toy Story I was able to get our 4th Genie+ for a 6:30 Aliens.

Note that now, because all of our LL returns were later in the day, we had the 2 hour cool down, and could not book anything again until 3:27, when we snagged Spaceship Earth. That was fine with us as we needed to hop to EPCOT and we had time for dinner.

This strategy worked great for us as we like to sleep in and tour later. And I did not feel like I spent too much time on my phone, just at 8:00, 11:00, 1:00, immediately after Toy Story, and at 3:27 when eligible again. If I had to do it again would have started at 7:00 (maybe would have been able to get Slinky) but this was day 9 of parks between Universal and Disney and we were tired!

Can i ask where you stayed? thank you