Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[NJlauren]

It's a great week to go to see the parks.
Some years the days fell when we saw the last day or two of Halloween and then woke up and it was Christmas in the parks, that was pretty cool.

Totally! It’s a good week, crowded sometimes but good!

Also wondering if people are shifting plans with raining coming so doing a park today instead of later on the week.

 

[2vets]

Sorry this happened. As a rule of thumb, for those going in the future, to take the best advantage of Early Theme Park Entry hours, arrive at transportation 90 minutes prior to the start of ETPE. For those at resorts close to IG, I would recommend arriving at the IG approx 45 mins prior to ETPE beginning to allow for crowds to enter and get to the attractions, which may open prior to the official 30 mins early.

Yep, this was definitely on me a bit, I normally get going earlier if I’m planning for ETPE, but to be clear, I have never seen such a backup there before. There was a group in front of me (the CMs were trying to corral everyone from a mob into lines) who arrived 30 min prior to ETPE who also missed the entire 30 min - and we were waaaaaay back in the crowd. In contrast, I arrived 10 min prior to ETPE on Saturday and it was nothing like this.

For me, no big deal - but for someone who visits less and was relying on ETPE to access Remy, for instance, not good. Hopefully a one-off, but it has been extremely crowded, so it’s best to be aware.

 

[Boardwalk III]

That happened to us in both June and September.
I thought in June it was our Magic Bands since we used 2019 and 2020 ones (different people), but in September I brought bands from 2021, and still nothing.

Seriously, not OK. Ugh.

 

[Leigh L]

Seriously, not OK. Ugh.

Honestly, I thought it was a me thing until I saw your post. I'm sorry to hear it's not just our bands. (I thought maybe the ones we bought in 2021 were maybe old stock since so many leftovers from COVID closures and lower attendance.)
But a June purchase should have definitely worked I'd think

 

[Toad_Passenger]

Seriously, not OK. Ugh.

Just experienced the same thing in September. We did a "re-create" the photo moment on Dinosaur (from a 20 year old photo!), and they never showed up in our account. Very disappointing. We made sure to tap for our photos as much as possible the rest of the trip.

 

[Boardwalk III]

Honestly, I thought it was a me thing until I saw your post. I'm sorry to hear it's not just our bands. (I thought maybe the ones we bought in 2021 were maybe old stock since so many leftovers from COVID closures and lower attendance.)
But a June purchase should have definitely worked I'd think

I’m told people have had good luck in emailing the photo pass group when they get home (I don’t have that email address). Sometimes it takes them weeks but if you can give them enough information of when and where they can pull the photos. I’m just not sure I have the time or motivation to do so, and seem so unnecessary

 

[Cat0727]

Has anyone received their ride pictures this week?
My phone has Bluetooth turned on, my magic band is recent (June) but yet we have not received any ride pictures that didn’t have a tap at the end (no guardians, tower of terror, slinky or frozen)
Am I the only one?

I got tower but not slinky or guardians.

 

[VAtink]

Re: missing photopass pictures. We had a bunch missing from our September trip, and I had emailed them twice a few weeks apart, but got nothing. Finally when our pictures were about to expire I called them and within about 5 minutes the CM had found all the missing photos and linked them to my account. So I recommend calling instead of emailing, it seems to work a lot better!

 

[Betty Rohrer]

Re: missing photopass pictures. We had a bunch missing from our September trip, and I had emailed them twice a few weeks apart, but got nothing. Finally when our pictures were about to expire I called them and within about 5 minutes the CM had found all the missing photos and linked them to my account. So I recommend calling instead of emailing, it seems to work a lot better!

agree have had better luck calling for missing photos. a couple of trips back even found a few I didnt know were missing

 

[Isabelle12345]

Re: missing photopass pictures. We had a bunch missing from our September trip, and I had emailed them twice a few weeks apart, but got nothing. Finally when our pictures were about to expire I called them and within about 5 minutes the CM had found all the missing photos and linked them to my account. So I recommend calling instead of emailing, it seems to work a lot better!

May I ask what number you called?
And did you have to give specific times for rides or were they connected to your account?

 

[Boardwalk III]

May I ask what number you called?
And did you have to give specific times for rides or were they connected to your account?

Re: missing photopass pictures. We had a bunch missing from our September trip, and I had emailed them twice a few weeks apart, but got nothing. Finally when our pictures were about to expire I called them and within about 5 minutes the CM had found all the missing photos and linked them to my account. So I recommend calling instead of emailing, it seems to work a lot better!

I’d love the number as well. I was just going to give up but now I’m intrigued

 

[rlk]

May I ask what number you called?
And did you have to give specific times for rides or were they connected to your account?

Not the poster you asked but I too had to call to get a bunch of missing pictures. This is the number -- 407-560-4300.

 

[VAtink]

May I ask what number you called?
And did you have to give specific times for rides or were they connected to your account?

I’d love the number as well. I was just going to give up but now I’m intrigued

I used (407) 560-4300. It was only about a 5 minute wait to get through too which was a nice surprise! I did have the date and approximate times ready to give them for the missing photos, not sure if they could have found them without that info, but I figured I had it I might as well give it to them!

 

[mdguy429]

Heads up: LL for MMRR is all kinds of messed up (likely to ROTR being down for a length of time today and ILLs being converted).

 

[pixiedust2u]

Seriously, not OK. Ugh.

We have had luck with them finding our photos! I was super bummed when photos from a memorable ride on 7DMT didn’t show up. I told them the approximate time we rode, and what we were wearing and they located them and added them to the app! It’s worth a shot! Good luck.

 

[butterscotchcollins]

Reflecting on the weekend we just had, I don’t think I’d ever choose to come this week on my vacation (we were here for the race). The crowds felt INSANE compared to other times of year (incl. Spring Break) - maybe it felt worse because so many rides went down, maybe we just had bad luck, but it wasn’t really very fun to be in the parks. I had a woman elbow me in the side to get ahead of me to enter a ride queue. We had more fun chilling at our resort, shopping at Disney Springs, sitting down for dinner. I felt bad bc we had First Timers with us and we couldn’t do more. Also bad for Disney’s bottom line because they are super wealthy but after their experience have absolutely no desire to become repeat visitors.

 

[Boardwalk III]

Reflecting on the weekend we just had, I don’t think I’d ever choose to come this week on my vacation (we were here for the race). The crowds felt INSANE compared to other times of year (incl. Spring Break) - maybe it felt worse because so many rides went down, maybe we just had bad luck, but it wasn’t really very fun to be in the parks. I had a woman elbow me in the side to get ahead of me to enter a ride queue. We had more fun chilling at our resort, shopping at Disney Springs, sitting down for dinner. I felt bad bc we had First Timers with us and we couldn’t do more. Also bad for Disney’s bottom line because they are super wealthy but after their experience have absolutely no desire to become repeat visitors.

I was there last year during this same week. I think we arrived the 6th - it was race weekend but don’t think it was Jersey week (I had planned to avoid that) , so that helped. I was there for 10 days and the first five or six days were fine.

Veterans Day was crazy however! We actually did a once in a lifetime VIP tour that day and thank goodness we did as we didn’t have to wait for rides. At one point our group got separated and the VIP Tour guide couldn’t even get us back together quickly because the walkways were so full at AK they were impassable. It was crazy, and I’ll be careful about booking then again. Just got back from a trip which ran from Wed 10/19- Sun 10/23 and the weekdays were really manageable that week!

 

[butterscotchcollins]

I was there last year during this same week. I think we arrived the 6th - it was race weekend but don’t think it was Jersey week (I had planned to avoid that) , so that helped. I was there for 10 days and the first five or six days were fine.

Veterans Day was crazy however! We actually did a once in a lifetime VIP tour that day and thank goodness we did as we didn’t have to wait for rides. At one point our group got separated and the VIP Tour guide couldn’t even get us back together quickly because the walkways were so full at AK they were impassable. It was crazy, and I’ll be careful about booking then again. Just got back from a trip which ran from Wed 10/19- Sun 10/23 and the weekdays were really manageable that week!

Yeah we were there last year too for race weekend and then the following weekend for the Christmas After Hours and I did not recall it being this crowded and slow. Last year’s trip was a blast, this year’s was a struggle.

 

[scrappinginontario]

For those at WDW now, latest operational information and closures are being updated here due to Tropical Storm Nicole.

Many updates and changes. All parks closing early tonight. Phased closure. Parks opening late tomorrow but times not announced yet.

Storm discussion can be found in the, 'Preparing for Nicole...' thread. Thanks for discussing storm related matters there.

 

[mouserrificmom]

We just got home last night....gosh I felt so badly for the people just coming in who will have their plans disrupted by the hurricane.

We arrived late Wednesday evening.....Thursday and Friday were awesome with very light crowds and terrific weather. The crowds picked up on Saturday and by Sunday it was crazy crowded! We left in the afternoon yesterday, but spent the morning at Epcot and it was busier than I've ever seen it - soarin' was at 90 minutes by 10 am which I don't think I've ever seen- maybe before they built the additional theatre, but I don't think so. I even noticed that there was a single rider lane to the left of the Lightning Lane entrance.

Overall, the crowds were not problematic for us and we did not use Genie + or ILL. We go often enough that we didn't think it was necessary or worth the added expense for our plans. We rope dropped Hollywood Studios on Friday taking advantage of early entry staying at a Skyliner resort. We arrived at the queue for Rise and they were not quite letting guests in line yet.....once they let us in line we just kept on moving never stopping once. As we got to the preshow room, everything was wide open and they were directing guests to the exit because the ride was down. It was still before park opening - they had no anticipated time for the ride to open up so we did not wait but moved along. Some guests were hovering by the queue waiting for it to open up again. About an hour later we checked and the line was at 100+ minutes - we did everyhing else we wanted to get done at Studios at a leisurely pace and rearranged one of our days to have another early entry morning at studios. That was on Sunday morning. We arrived about 30 minutes prior to Early Entry opening and walked on to Rise after the uphill rush to the queue so all was well.

The trip was manageable, despite the heavier crowds Sunday forward - we took advantage of Early Entry at Animal Kingdom on Monday and waited about 35 minutes for Flights of Passage. After another safari and run on EE we had time to kill before planning to hop to the MK at 1:30 and decided to get on line for Flights of Passage again as the wait (at that time) was posted as 50 minutes. While I wouldn't usually wait that long, one member of our party does not get to visit as often and really wanted to ride so we did. Just as we were passing under the entrance, the time jumped from 50 minutes to 80 minutes. We shrugged it off and said "well. we have time to kill..." about 45 minutes into the wait, the ride was having some sort of difficulty and they began making announcements that the ride was operating at reduced capacity and that wait times would increase beyond original expectations.......we got on line around 10:35 and we exited the ride at 1:29. THAT was the only real downer of our 6 park days....but, luckily it was the tail end of our trip and all is well that ends well.

I think that the combination of the marathon, Jersey Week, and the impending hurricane each contributed to the perfect storm of a crowd swell in the parks on Monday and Tuesday with everyone planning to spend the week at the parks trying to squeeze it all in on Monday and Tuesday expecting closures and wash outs the remainder of the week. When we arrived at MCO it was a madhouse with people trying to get out of Florida before the storm arrives. As we were leaving Epcot on Tuesday morning to head to lunch at Beaches and Cream before leaving, we noticed characters (Daisy, Prince Charming . . . ) on the bridge by the international gateway greeting guests which seemed to be an intentional effort on Disney's part to divert crowds from rides and provide a lot of character experience opportunities to guests who may be stuck in their rooms over the coming days.

We still had a great time! Stay safe and dry for all of you who are there right now!