Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[heathsf]

Here for a week if anyone has anything they’d like me to check on!

Have a wonderful trip! Where are you staying?

 

[set88]

Hi all,

Im a newbie and hadnt been to the parks for about 7 years until 2 weeks ago. This was my first foray with Genie plus, lightning lanes, etc. I wanted to write what I thought worked and what Id do differently.

THESE ARE JUST THE PLANS THAT WORKED FOR ME AND MY 7 YEAR OLD. Some of this was luck related. Also, everyone is different. Some kids cant make it 5 hours without a meltdown. We have always been very active and GO GO GO so I knew she could hang through the 4 days, but even so, I wouldve changed a few things. I also know that the outline here worked for 2 but may not work for 4 people or more. This post isnt meant to be "DO IT THIS WAY OR FAIL" type of post. Just my experience.

I took my daughter to WDW for a 4 day trip July 10-13 2022.

Because we were only there for 4 days and were not going to park hop, my plan was 1 park a day and to try and leave mid day so she could nap, then return and do more rides. That part failed miserably as we never left a park. More to follow on that. My plan was to rope drop (be at the park before opening as close to he front of the line as possible) each park as well as use Genie Plus and Individual Lightning Lanes. I figured, though its more money to do this, when you go to Disney you know your going to spend money, so I wasnt going to try and save money when it came to one of the most important aspects of the trip, the rides!

We had a rental car and drove in from St Augustine FL. They charge you to park at the hotel but then if you choose to drive to the parks you dont pay to park at each park.

We stayed at All Star Sports.
That said, remember this whole post is based off of early theme park entry at each park.
Resort was great and she loved it, even though she doesnt care for sports other than gymnastics! The bus waits for no problem....10 minutes at max. We never had to wait for more than 1 bus as we were out there an hour before ETPE. In hindsight, I wouldve stayed at Art Of Animation to have skyliner access. Wouldve been great for Epcot as Ill write about below.

The itinerary was Day 1, Epcot, Day 2 MK, Day 3 HS, day 4 AK. We bussed to MK and HS. AK was the last day and we were leaving town for a 2 hour drive after, so we drove to AK.

The following park tactics allowed us to ride all the popular rides while never waiting more than 30 minutes during a peak summer week. Ill admit, some luck was involved!

Day 1 - Epcot:

Epcot was a different strategy. Epcot has two entrances. A main entrance and a back entrance called the International Gateway. There are only a few ways to get to the IG. By skyliner, boat, or walk. This is where it wouldve been nice to be at Art of Animation (there are other hotels also that you can do this, but AOA is closes in price and quality to where we were at) because they have skyliner access which wouldve brought us to the IG. Because we were at All Star Sports, we took a Uber in the morning to the Swan and Dolphin and did a 10 minute walk to the IG. When we got there we were 2nd in line. Now why is this important? Remys Ratatouille ride is right near the IG and is one of the most popular rides at Epcot, along with Frozen, Test Track, and Guardians. As soon as we were allowed in the park we went to Remys. Meanwhile I had secured a virtual queue for Guardians and ALSO purchased a Lightning Lane for Guardians. Because these two LL options dont count toward my regular genie plus LL, I also got a LL for Frozen. We got off of Remys, hiked to Test track, went over to our sched LL at Frozen, and went to wait for our 10am ILL for Guardians. By 10 AM we rode the 4 most popular rides at Epcot! We used the remainder of the day to ride Soarin, Figment, Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, etc. The plan WAS to leave mid day and return to watch the night time show, but as the day kept flying by we found that it was already 1pm and started to rain, so we ducked out and ate there. By the time that was done we knew if we left we werent coming back, so we stayed a little longer and missed out on the night time show. My other fear was watching this show late at night and ropedropping MK the next day with a 7yo didnt seem wise, as we would have to be waiting for the bus by 7am. We ended up leaving Epcot about 4, ate supper and used the resort pool till bedtime.

This strategy worked from park to park. We would rope drop a popular ride, pay for a ILL for another, and Genie Plus a third.

Day 2 - Magic Kingdom:

We took the first bus over to MK and purchased a ILL for Mine Train and rope dropped Space Mountain. This allowed us to then immediately do Buzz Lightyear and squeeze in a teacup ride before our mine train run, all before the park opened to general admission. Many people rope drop snow white, but honestly, the point of rope drop is to ride as many as you can BEFORE the place gets overcrowded and it seemed like we would get more done starting at Space. At 7 AM I had also Genie+ Splash Mountain. My theory on Splash, which has always held true, is ride it early because you know it WILL go down, PLUS, you have weather to contend with. If you think, Ill wait till its really hot at 1pm and ride it then, you may find its not running due to thunderstorms which usually strike late in the day vs early morning. Ironically, this was the day that Splash got shut down later in the day because one of the ride vehicles flooded with people in it so we were happy we did this at 10am. We ended up staying there all day till the nightime show Enchantment. This was where my trip planning needs a overhaul next time. We went for 4 parks, 4 consecutive days. In hindsight, next time I would plan a break day mid way in between, and also place the "night time shows" prior to a rest day. For instance, I wouldve done AK day 1, maybe Epcot day 2, day off to rest and relax, day 4 AK, Day 5 MK. This way we can see the night shows at MK and Epcot and not worry about waking early the next day. Next time!

Day 3 - Hollywood Studios:

Again, we bussed in early and were about 15 people from the front. I paid for ILL on Rise of the Resistance and got a LL for Tower of Terror with the pan to rope drop Slinky Dog Dash. Why LL Tower? Well, I didnt want it shut down later in the day due to weather AND I figd if we did it early we could probably walk on to Rock N Roller Coaster right nearby without a long wait early. When we got to slinky dog it was not running and the cast members told us they advised us going somewhere else but we could wait if we wanted. That said, we ran over to Smugglers Run and were so early for it my daughter and I had our OWN SHIP. After this we walked by Slinky which was still down so hit Mickey and Minnie Railroad. After that it was time for our Tower LL. Did that and hit Rock N Roller with a 5 minute wait. Within the first hour we rode 4 of the most popular attractions and had a ILL for Rise later on. Here is where luck played in. By 2pm we had rode on every ride we wanted and did most shows. I wanted to leave and come back before closing to try slinky again BUT I did something Ill never do again. I had made reservations at the Sci Fi Drive Diner for 3:30, so now we were stuck having to wait or forfeit a fee for cancelling. Whats worse was the service was soooo slow for food you couldve gotten at Woodys Lunch Box we didnt get out of there till 5:30. We rode all the rides and saw a bunch of shows etc and were about to leave at 5:30 when my daughter asked if we could check Toy Story Land 1 more time for a Sox the cat plush. I said ok. As we were walking I saw that the short line at Slinky of people waiting for it to open all started to stand up and move. We ran over and the Cast Member said they are now opening the ride! We walked right on! Amazing!


Day 4 - Animal Kingdom:

Here things were a little weird. Everest was out of service at 7am when I went to do genie plus, so I got a LL for the rapids and we rope dropped Flight Of Passage. After that was the Navi River, and we went to the safari. Post Safari we did the rapids and got a LL for Dinosaur. I saw there were ILL for Flight available so bout them because with Everest down we were gonna have more time. Anyway, we did Bugs Life, watched the kite show, ate, etc. I looked at the app and saw Everest was open with a 5 minute wait! We ran over and got on it. As we did I had a LL spot open so I booked it for Everest again. By the time we got to Everest it was a 30 minute wait (at 1pm!). We rode it, killed 20 minutes, and rode it again with the LL. After that we hit Flight for the 2nd time with the ILL.


To recap, I had 4 days, with a 7 year old, and I hadnt been to the parks in ages, but we were able to do ALL of the major rides and most of the base lvl rides and shows. I learned and here is a recap of DOs and DONTs. Again, luck was also on our side!

DO's:

Buy Genie Plus
Buy Individual Lightning lanes if you can afford to. I understand that a party of 2 vs a party of 5 over 4 days is a huge difference in cost.
Rope Drop. We were able to do so much in that first hour allowing us to take our time, look for hidden mickeys, etc.
Use International Gateway
Stay at a hotel with Skyliner access (its like a ride in itself!)
Plan out your LL and ETPE Rope Drop rides so that you can get to another ride nearby quickly and not have to run across the park
Book an extra day of rest mid vacation to refuel

DONT'S:

Make dining reservations. Quick service is the way to go!
Wait to ride weather sensitive rides for later in the day
Plan on a night show a day before rope dropping.

Just wanted to say thank you sooo much for sharing your detailed experience! I found it very helpful. I've been wondering about driving vs buses from the All Star Resorts... I've heard horror stories about the bus service, but it sounds like it's not too bad if you get there really early. The Uber tip to walk to IG EPCOT entrance is really interesting.

Also glad to read feedback about Sci Fi... I had been planning on it because it sounds cool, but I definitely don't walk to be stuck there for 2 hours, especially for mediocre food. As much as the TS restaurants sound awesome, I think we might be like you and feel they are unnecessarily restrictive a lot of the time (not to mention they're crazy expensive and maybe that money would be better spent on ILL).

So thanks again for sharing! Gave me lots to think about.

 

[harleyquinn]

Have a wonderful trip! Where are you staying?

We’re at French Quarter. It seems quieter than normal, but FQ is usually much lower key than the other moderates.

 

[buyerbrad]

Just wanted to say thank you sooo much for sharing your detailed experience! I found it very helpful. I've been wondering about driving vs buses from the All Star Resorts... I've heard horror stories about the bus service, but it sounds like it's not too bad if you get there really early. The Uber tip to walk to IG EPCOT entrance is really interesting.

Also glad to read feedback about Sci Fi... I had been planning on it because it sounds cool, but I definitely don't walk to be stuck there for 2 hours, especially for mediocre food. As much as the TS restaurants sound awesome, I think we might be like you and feel they are unnecessarily restrictive a lot of the time (not to mention they're crazy expensive and maybe that money would be better spent on ILL).

So thanks again for sharing! Gave me lots to think about.

We took the busses from All Star Movies last week and they were fantastic. On the two occasions we took the earliest bus to leave the resort (MK and Epcot), our bus was one of the first 3 to arrive. Also, because we were staying in the Mighty Ducks section, we could also take the All-Star Music busses.

 

[wabbott]

Here for a week if anyone has anything they’d like me to check on!

Seems to be several attractions down in MK this afternoon. aWhat do u see on the ground?

 

[scrappinginontario]

Seems to be several attractions down in MK this afternoon. aWhat do u see on the ground?

Very common this time of year and for about the next 8 weeks. Heavy rain in the area. FL in the summer/early fall.

 

[harleyquinn]

Seems to be several attractions down in MK this afternoon. aWhat do u see on the ground?

Things only seem to be going down when the storms roll through. I havent seen much of any random closures beyond that.

 

[MamaJJ2018]

This may be old news, but my family was in magic kingdom today and Belle had an unmarked meet and greet at the Enchanted Tales cottage! It wasn’t posted in the app but we stumbled across a cast member ushering others into the line. No wait! She was in the cottage and hugged talked for a few minutes with each kid.

 

[mom2rtk]

This may be old news, but my family was in magic kingdom today and Belle had an unmarked meet and greet at the Enchanted Tales cottage! It wasn’t posted in the app but we stumbled across a cast member ushering others into the line. No wait! She was in the cottage and hugged talked for a few minutes with each kid.

Sounds cool, but I really do wish they'd get the attraction up and going again.

 

[melking23]

This may be old news, but my family was in magic kingdom today and Belle had an unmarked meet and greet at the Enchanted Tales cottage! It wasn’t posted in the app but we stumbled across a cast member ushering others into the line. No wait! She was in the cottage and hugged talked for a few minutes with each kid.

I loved Enchanted Tales so much. I hope they bring it back soon although my next trip is sans kids. I hope I get to take mine back and watch again soon. The pictures they took of my daughter playing beast are some of my absolute favorites (minus the pacifier ). She was last pick and right before assigning her as a dish the older child chosen for beast asked to be a dish. She was adamant and excited for that role. lol

 

[Karst]

So I'm no good at those trip report things, I'm just gonna give a quick breakdown of what worked strategy wise for us.

To start my family includes: my husband (disabled veteran with bad back, muscle degeneration, twisted ankles, no cartilage in one knee, refuses wheelchairs because he's too proud), myself, my 9 year old (tall enough to ride everything), my 7 year old (tall enough, but scaredy cat), and my 4 year old (about 41", daredevil). We are early morning roper droppers btw so if you're not into that, our plan is probably not for you.

Dining: Story Book was AMAZING. Snow White took my daughter to dance with her, the food was cooked to perfection, my husband didn't have to choose just one entree, they let him get two, kids who have a more adult palette can enjoy fish as an offering. Be Our Guest was a HUGE let down compared to this. Price was similar, but food was subpar with the filet mignon being very dry and lobster bisque tasting fishy and very little (think nonexistent) character interaction. I rate that one a skip and say go for Story Book instead! Spending $300+ for Be Our Guest left us on a bit of a sour note, although my husband and I did laugh and crack jokes about it the rest of the night.

Now! Genie+ stuff:

Hollywood Studios:

We woke up our crew at 0530, did the very short walk to Riverside West Depot- the first stop on route- and hopped on the ~0625 bus. After arriving I made my selections right at 0700: Smuggler's run @1140-1240 and RotR @13:45-14:45. We were one of the first to enter HS when they let us in at roughly 0720 to main front actual park entrance was allowed ~0745 if I remember right because we had to wait for Slinky to open at 0800.

We immediately headed to Slinky Dog, managing to be the second train out the station. Then hit toy Story mania and Mickey and Minnie's runaway railroad. My 4 year old being a Darth Vader fan, dragged us to be first in line to meet him by 0900 where she was made his apprentice and attempted to blow him a kiss, to which he smacked the kiss down with a "NO" She pouted but insisted she still loved him as we went on to meet BB8 and Chewie.

We then rode Star Tours (20 minute wait) before heading to Batuu. Our res for Olga's was 1140, same as Smuggler's, so I checked us in early and was given a table to share at the entrance by 1115. Had a blast meeting new people and had a stormtrooper try to barge in and they wouldn't let him which was funny. Btw controversial opinion but... Blue milk was gross, we preferred the carbon freezes. Ran over the smugglers run and a poor single rider was subjected to my 9 and 7 year old's pilot skills which I apologized for. **Important** 4 year old was too short to reach engineering buttons!! The sweet single rider with us reached back to flick them for her but keep in mind for small children.

By then we had over an hour before RotR, so I parked us in the shade, past the Millennium falcon there is a ledge that provides adequate shade and troopers come out of there and other characters so it's a nice waiting area, and the 4 year old and 7 year old slept while 9 year old ran off with dad to bounty hunt. When it came time we headed to RotR where 4 year old took delight in telling everyone she was Vader's apprentice and to respect her, which they did lol.

By then it was time to eat at Sci-Fi. I snagged a LL for rockin' Rollercoaster since ToT was out and we headed that direction. ToT's line was 45 minutes and ended up actually only being about 20. 4 year old LOVED it and put her hands up, 7 year old did not and was shaking like a leaf after. Then dad rode RR with 9 year old and we left at roughly 1730 or so.

Magic Kingdom:

Now understanding Genie+, I did waaaaay better this time lmao.

We left at roughly the same time in the morning and I made a LL for jungle cruise at 0925-1025 and ILL for dwarves 1325-1425. We then proceeded to Adventureland, not realizing that it wasn't open for early entry. So we shrugged it off, got comfy and dad went to Starbucks for cinnamon rolls and coffee while the kids giggled at ducks and bunnies and I chatted with a super fan and cast member. When the rope dropped we headed for Splash, presenting the 'return when taller' pass for the 4 year old and were allowed in the LL. We then rode Big Thunder, Pirates, Jungle Cruise, and Haunted Mansion before returning to our lunch res at Skipper's Canteen for 1140.

Here is where it got fun and a little complicated: I actually scooped up a Haunted mansion LL once boarded on Jungle Cruise that began as we were riding so we were able to head straight to it. I then booked Peter Pan for 1530 while at Haunted Mansion and headed to our lunch.

After lunch we headed towards mine train with thunder booming. We made it on just in time before thunder closed it and I snagged a res for little mermaid since two hours had passed from booking PPF. We then hopped immediately onto LM where I booked another res for Small World. At Small World I was finally barred from booking a second LL and we rode SW and PPF before I could book Winnie the Pooh for immediately after PPF. Then I booked Buzz Lightyear. We had 30 minutes or so before our buzz lightyear start time, so my 9 year old and I jumped in the 45 minute wait Space Mountain and got hubby a child swap. The line actually took about 30 minutes and after hubby rode it with 9 year old we had 20 minutes before our Buzz LL expired. We hopped on quick with dinner time BoG @1805 closing in. I then snapped up a Splash res for 2030 since lightening was making people too nervous to book outdoor LL's amd I LOVE riding it at night. After dinner we headed to Splash, where the kids played on the little playground until our res time. After, we walked on to pirates and ended our day watching fireworks from Aladdin's carpet ride (GREAT spot by the way if you have crowd sensitive children/adults)

I have never felt so GOOD after a Disney trip. Normally I'm sore and achey and tired, but we didn't wait in hardly ANY lines which allowed for a lot of rest.

I'll include some MB+ stuff in post below that I had already shared in another thread but will share here as well.

 

[Karst]

Bounty Hunting: really cool! Son played for about an hour while little sister and brother napped and we waited for our rise of resistance ILL. **Glitch maybe** make sure you CANCEL your bounty at the board prior to leaving area. Theine was long and our rise time was ready so we left and I attempted to cancel it via the app. Ended up with a buzzing and glowing MB+ the whole rise wait and ride because I could only cancel it from the board (which had a line and why we skipped past it). I reported it to guest services so hopefully there will be a fix for that soon.

Charge: with a full overnight charge on all phones and bands, Bluetooth and apps running our whole visit the charges lasted as follows- still full after being at HS from 0700-1730 except for Mando band, it was used for bounties so had a half charge. Phones lasted all day. Another night of full charging and off to MK we went 0700-0000. Bands outlasted my phone which died 30 minutes before park close, all other phones lasted. We did do statue interactions throughout the day.

Statues: hit or miss. Sometimes they triggered with a wave, sometimes when we turned the puck towards them, sometimes just because we walked by. I find that adults who are taller/have longer reach, triggered them easier than small children.

Fireworks: I couldn't say for sure, but I *believe* you need to be close to the main hub for this to work. We rode Aladdin's carpet ride to watch the fireworks and our bands did not light up/vibrate for the show. So if that's something important to you you may want to double check on it.

Tip for light eaters: at skipper's Canteen the 7 year old and 4 year old were allowed to share Mac and cheese and got two sides of volcano cakes so they both got desert for the price of one. We found them to be the best value for those little ones that can split meals

 

[ghtx]

Day 1 - Epcot:

Epcot was a different strategy. Epcot has two entrances. A main entrance and a back entrance called the International Gateway. There are only a few ways to get to the IG. By skyliner, boat, or walk. This is where it wouldve been nice to be at Art of Animation (there are other hotels also that you can do this, but AOA is closes in price and quality to where we were at) because they have skyliner access which wouldve brought us to the IG. Because we were at All Star Sports, we took a Uber in the morning to the Swan and Dolphin and did a 10 minute walk to the IG. When we got there we were 2nd in line. Now why is this important? Remys Ratatouille ride is right near the IG and is one of the most popular rides at Epcot, along with Frozen, Test Track, and Guardians. As soon as we were allowed in the park we went to Remys. Meanwhile I had secured a virtual queue for Guardians and ALSO purchased a Lightning Lane for Guardians. Because these two LL options dont count toward my regular genie plus LL, I also got a LL for Frozen. We got off of Remys, hiked to Test track, went over to our sched LL at Frozen, and went to wait for our 10am ILL for Guardians. By 10 AM we rode the 4 most popular rides at Epcot! We used the remainder of the day to ride Soarin, Figment, Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, etc. The plan WAS to leave mid day and return to watch the night time show, but as the day kept flying by we found that it was already 1pm and started to rain, so we ducked out and ate there. By the time that was done we knew if we left we werent coming back, so we stayed a little longer and missed out on the night time show. My other fear was watching this show late at night and ropedropping MK the next day with a 7yo didnt seem wise, as we would have to be waiting for the bus by 7am. We ended up leaving Epcot about 4, ate supper and used the resort pool till bedtime.

This strategy worked from park to park. We would rope drop a popular ride, pay for a ILL for another, and Genie Plus a third.

Thanks this was all super-helpful!

Your Epcot day sounds just like our plan - except we aren't going to bother trying to get to the IG entrance. Instead we will aim to get a G+ LL for Remy and rope drop Test Track. If we could get those same four rides done by 10am (or at least have LL reservations for them), that would be amazing!

 

[heathsf]

My 4 year old being a Darth Vader fan, dragged us to be first in line to meet him by 0900 where she was made his apprentice and attempted to blow him a kiss, to which he smacked the kiss down with a "NO" She pouted but insisted she still loved him as we went on to meet BB8 and Chewie.

Thank you for sharing all the details of your trip. It sounds like it was a great time.

Was becoming Vader's apprentice something special because you were the first in line to meet him for the day?

 

[Karst]

Thank you for sharing all the details of your trip. It sounds like it was a great time.

Was becoming Vader's apprentice something special because you were the first in line to meet him for the day?

I'm not sure, it was our first time meeting him

I have a cute video of my daughter jumping up and down and him just looming over her. Think of the scene where Lottie gets all excited to dance with the "prince" in princess and the frog and that was my kiddo when Vader asked if she wanted ultimate power as his apprentice

The look of admiration on her face after two months of waiting to meet him is just precious.

 

[heathsf]

I'm not sure, it was our first time meeting him

I have a cute video of my daughter jumping up and down and him just looming over her. Think of the scene where Lottie gets all excited to dance with the "prince" in princess and the frog and that was my kiddo when Vader asked if she wanted ultimate power as his apprentice

The look of admiration on her face after two months of waiting to meet him is just precious.

LOVE this picture!!!

 

[DSLRuser]

Just had a great long weekend.....thursday night to Monday morning 6:25 am flight...yay us. I thought the parks were not that crowded.

Genie+ and ILL made for a great three days.....

we walked 14.8, 14.1, and 12.7 miles in 3 days of park hopping.

best meal...Teppan Edo

Guardians of the Galaxy was way above my expectations. Best new attraction since Expedition Everest in 2006. So great, we did ILL for it each day we were there.

negatives......The contemporary hotel shows it's 50 year age......new Coates of paint and IP can't cover up all the mold and mildew....and it has to have the worst pool on property....but as they say....LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.

Next trip is in December at Animal Kingdom Lodge.

 

[harleyquinn]

Man the difference in today’s crowd at MK compared to last week is crazy. The wait times don’t seem much different, but you can actually walk without being on top of someone else. I wish we could go later into August. Stupid teacher husband!

 

[rockabyemonkey]

We were in the parks 7/29-8/6. We've gone once a year since 2006 minus 2020. The magic is still there, you just have to look a little harder. Our highlights were Voices of Liberty, the Casey's Corner pianist (Grayson was AMAZING!!), Guardians ride, Lion King and Nemo, and Boma (we did breakfast and dinner, but we did have a car which made this easier coming from POP). Not in love with either of the two new fireworks. They just didn't grab my emotions like Happily Ever After or Wishes. But they're worth seeing once. We had 8 day Park Hopper plus tickets with Genie+. My 3 boys (13-19), husband and I are pretty fast walkers so we accomplished quite a bit. Genie+ worked well with Park Hoppers - by the time all the good rides were gone at our first park, we starting booking at our second park. We were spontaneous with the decision for park #2, usually decided day of based on crowd levels.

I highly recommend getting Genie+. It's annoying to pay for something that was free, but I cannot imagine doing all the rides standby as the lines were SO long. We did not buy ILL's and do not regret it. We never waited more than 20-25 minutes for anything except Rise and Flights of Passage and Guardians (keep in mind the virtual queue still has a line). We did both FOP and Rise (Rise on two different nights) in standby lines at park close and wait times were about half the posted times (posted 85, waited 45; posted 60, waited 25). With Genie+, we frequently tapped in for a ride and immediately booked another for less than 2 hours in the future. At AK and EP, there would be LL available with return times within 15 minutes while standby lines were over 60 minutes.

We did end up refreshing to get rides that showed no availability a couple of times. Once we wanted a Kali LL for 6:00 and there were non available at 4:00 - we kept refreshing and snagged a 6:30 (missed a couple of others in the 15 minutes we were refreshing).

One recommendation that I haven't read about too often: we had a lot of success using LL's for shows (partly due to park hopping and also bc our trip was long enough to spend multiple days at each park). The LL seats for Nemo and Lion King were great and you are guaranteed entry without waiting in the long outdoor queue hoping you'll get in. For each of those we arrived about 10 minutes before showtime. Not sure if they'd have turned us away if we were later...the return time on the LL said 2:00-2:20 for a 2:30 LK and 2:00-2:15 for a 2:30 Nemo. Also, watch the showtimes for Nemo. We had planned on seeing the 4:30 show one afternoon right before a Boma dinner (based on the showtimes the previous day) but when we checked that morning, the latest show was 2:30 - previous day had 3:30 and 4:30. Apparently every day is not the same.

One tip regarding water parks: On Friday, we started our day at MK, went to Capt Cooks at 10:45 for Tonga Toast, then back to the POP to change and head to Typhoon Lagoon. When we arrived at TL by car about 12:20 we were turned away - told that the park was at capacity. I understand that happens, but what was irritating was the solution they offered us: go walk around Downtown Disney for 3 hours and then come back and check. (We're all in our swimsuits, btw). I asked if there was a number we could call, or a way to check on the app, or if we could keep circling around, and all they could offer us was "come back later and check". I should add that MDE never indicated that TL was closed. The app can tell me it's time to book a mobile order when I walk past Flame Tree BBQ, but it can't notify me that an entire park is closed? I feel like that's really not respectful of my vacation time....as if I have nothing better to do than drive back and forth to TL all afternoon. I did try calling the # listed for TL and it ports you into the general Guest Svcs queue. Estimated hold was 29 minutes. So if you're planning to do a waterpark, get there early. Not sure what to recommend if you're trying to go midday. There's really no way to know if they're open unless you show up. Kind of disconcerting.

Overall, a great trip...the magic is still there. You just have to look a little harder to find it. (As the fireworks song says, "you are the magic"...sounds like they're putting it back on us!)

 

[Boopuff]

When we arrived at TL by car about 12:20 we were turned away - told that the park was at capacity.

Do you know if they were allowing resort busses in? Or were they turned away as well?