Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

All four parks, waterparks, and other magic in Central Florida

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horizons1
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by horizons1 » Aug Tue 25, 2020 10:22 am

Would love to see a trip report from that October or November trip if you take it.
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by Amy » Aug Wed 26, 2020 5:46 am

I was thinking the same, I always love your photos Alacrity!

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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by Metalfan » Oct Wed 07, 2020 11:42 am

Our plans aren't to go back until fall 2021

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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by Cyberlyn » Oct Sun 11, 2020 1:44 pm

We’ve canceled trips in March and September.
Our next moving target is January. Sure hope Florida behaves so we can throw money at their economy.

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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by horizons1 » Oct Tue 13, 2020 12:07 pm

Cyberlyn wrote:
Oct Sun 11, 2020 1:44 pm
We’ve canceled trips in March and September.
Our next moving target is January. Sure hope Florida behaves so we can throw money at their economy.
Welcome to the forums, Cyberlyn. Yeah, watching the crowds increasing in Florida it's hard to tell if it's reckless or if everything will be fine.
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by T!nkNCognito » Nov Tue 03, 2020 11:52 am

We are heading to the World on Saturday. I think they are doing all the right things. And we need a getaway and this is about the only place we can find to getaway too. We have been dozens of times so this isn't the trip of a lifetime and we have pretty realistic expectations thanks to AllEars and Molly and Disney Food Blog and AJ. We will do what we can and just enjoy being anywhere but home!
Hakuna Matata

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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by subdudehaha » Nov Tue 03, 2020 2:20 pm

Ooh, be sure to share your thoughts after your visit, T!nkNCognito! Also, where are you staying, how many days, etc.? I'm trying to live vicariously through other people until I get out there in a couple months, haha.

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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by horizons1 » Nov Thu 05, 2020 12:02 pm

Looking forward to a complete trip report with pics please!
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by Len90 » May Tue 18, 2021 9:31 pm

So I finally was allowed to travel by my work after them canceling vacations last spring and having us on Travel Bans for the longest time. Of course once the ban was lifted I immediately went back to Disney World. I was fortunate (I guess) to be able to say I was down before the mask mandate was lifted so I could experience the nearly full COVID experience.

Masks:
Outdoors in the heat was pretty brutal. There was plenty of time when walking outdoors in the park where you were distant from others and there was no scientific reason to be in a mask. As for what worked best; I found disposable masks were best and you needed a few throughout the day. Cloth once they got wet from a water ride or sweating were more annoying and either way you need changing of masks. Cloth will also need frequent washing in Disney.

Attractions:
Wait times: for 99% of the time they were under posted times. A large part of the time they were 10+ minutes less than the posted wait times. Lines seemed very long for attractions but they moved very quickly. The standby line really moved very similar to the fast pass lines; just some times you were waiting longer than the fastpass 15 minutes to be on the ride.

Attraction people spacing: there is really no standard explanation for this. At the end of my stay things were transitioning to more "100% occupancy". Roller Coasters filled every row; just didn't put separate families side by side. TOT was initially leaving the middle row empty but is now filling all seats. Frozen filled every row with annoying plexiglass between rows while Pirates fills every other row in the boat and no plexiglass. Mexico pavilion was giving a lot of families their own boat or only loading first and last row. Splash mountain was filling only first and last row. leaving the middle rows empty. Ultimately it really just varied by the ride and there was no optimal reason why one ride did one thing and another ride did another. Physical barriers on some rides definitely impacted guest experience and enjoyment of attractions. Most evident was smugglers run where the back two seats (Engineers) have to look through multiple pieces of plexiglass to see the front screen. Star Tours loaded only the odd number rows with seats blocked to hold dividers.

Attraction Experience: Pre-shows are no longer existent and a lot of the story line for attractions can easily be lost without the pre-show.
- Test Track: No building cars
- TOT no preshow so you don't know why you are using the service elevator
- RnR no preshow to understand why you are taking this "fast limo"
- Rise of the Resistance: walking through the queue skip the hologram and then back hallway through to see the storm troopers
- HM no stretching room
- Dinosaur no preshow room but did have the preshow playing as you walk through it

Six foot markers throughout all queues and cast members on some rides stationed in strategic spots to ensure order is maintained

Entertainment:
EPCOT has now stopped all cavalcades (saw the last day of the VIP motorcade) and they are trying to incorporate socially distanced meet and greets more into the parks. Fab four at the front of the park, Elsa/Anna in front of the building where they would normally meet guests

MK cavalcades all follow the main parade route: Mickey/Minnie/Pluto/Donald on main Move It Shake it Float with music of move it shake it mousekedance it, Goofy cavalcade using a prize box Move it Shake it float with move it shake it dance and play it music, Princess cavalcade using mirror castle float and gazebo with some royal music, Fantasyland characters with grand marshall music, Tinkerbell on the float from Boo to you. Pooh and friends will hop the trolley and ride up and down Main Street along with the dapper dans. Character pop ups as well as Dapper Dan performances on the train station. Other character pop up spots: Buzz Lightyear on Tomorrowland Stage, Country bears on top of their attraction along with Chip and Dale nearby at he cross over to Adventure land. Step sisters will interact in front of the princess meet and greet in fantasyland.

DHS cavalcades are Disney Junior characters, VIP (Mickey/Minnie) and Pixar. All cavalcades feature themed Chevrolet Camaros for characters to ride on while others walk. Cars follow the parks old parade route from Crossroads to Star Tours.

DAK: Themed character boats will make their way around the park so its tougher to see characters unless you are in the rivers of light seating area or on one of the bridges to a themed land from discovery island. Boats include Mickey/Minnie, Pocahontas/Meeko, Launchpad McQuack/Donald/Daisy, Chip/Dale/Goofy, Rafiki/Timon.


Transportation:
No crowding with no more standing on any buses or monorails.
Monorail cars are sectioned into 4 areas with seating for 2-3 people in each "section". Buses have dividers and seating sections are all numbered. CMs assign you a number.
Didn't take any watercraft.
Bus service for me was really poor during my time there. Limited capacity meant longer waits for buses and at times missing multiple buses.


Dining:
Almost all quick serve locations that were open really force you to mobile order which at times is tough because mobile ordering doesn't always give the customization options for dietary needs that can be obtained when you ordered with a CM.
Tough to get sit down restaurant reservations
Restaurants all were fine with you removing your mask once you sat down at the table. They didn't enforce the "actively dining" rule that was talked about.
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by horizons1 » May Wed 19, 2021 7:03 pm

Great detail. One thing that really stuck out was no pre-shows. It makes sense that HM would skip the stretching room, but I think the DL one is open and they don't have that option.
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by Len90 » May Wed 19, 2021 8:57 pm

horizons1 wrote:
May Wed 19, 2021 7:03 pm
Great detail. One thing that really stuck out was no pre-shows. It makes sense that HM would skip the stretching room, but I think the DL one is open and they don't have that option.
HM in Disneyland is an actual elevator so they really don't have much of an option. However there is that special back door a lot of people have been able to experience which is a really cool way of entering.

For Disney World it is just a rising ceiling so they can completely bypass it. I personally always enjoy that scene. The darkness of the room also allows for your eyes to adjust to the lighting a lot better as I found myself having difficulty seeing after I exited through the stretching room and heading towards the omnimover system. And no I don't have cataracts yet :D

The no pre-shows was a big downer and definitely impacts your first time rider/guest because the pre-shows are a big component for setting the storyline of the attraction. Without the pre-show you just have a ride.

A bug reason why I tried to go into detail is to try and have everything written down as a recollection for how things ended up going during the pandemic in Disney. Am I upset that I didn't get to walk around the park without a mask on; yes. However, I am happy to know that I can say I went to Disney and was there for pretty much the strictest of their covid restrictions.
- Len90
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by horizons1 » May Thu 20, 2021 9:35 am

That's what I meant by DL not having the option for HM. But my point was you can get into an elevator at DL, why not put you into a stretching (but non-moving room) at MK?

Yeah, it's nice you can say you were in MK during a unique time. I was there the January after 9/11 and the parks were sooo empty with the fear of travel still fresh in people's minds. That will always stand out as a unique memory for me.
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by Len90 » May Thu 20, 2021 7:27 pm

horizons1 wrote:
May Thu 20, 2021 9:35 am
That's what I meant by DL not having the option for HM. But my point was you can get into an elevator at DL, why not put you into a stretching (but non-moving room) at MK?

Yeah, it's nice you can say you were in MK during a unique time. I was there the January after 9/11 and the parks were sooo empty with the fear of travel still fresh in people's minds. That will always stand out as a unique memory for me.
I agree that I do think you can do the stretching room, but then you will be looking at a wait time of 45 minutes easily for the attraction as the room would have few people in it at a time and be a big limiting factor for the ability to load the omnimover ride system. Sadly a lot of what is looked at by the parks is the "efficiency" of the attraction and how many guests it is able to safely get through it per hour. A lot of first time guests would not even realize the missing stretching room; its your repeat guests who love the attractions that notice the omission.

In DLR they are giving people the option to bypass the stretching room via this: https://www.ocregister.com/2021/05/12/h ... ter-hurry/ That bypass allows for additional guests to get to the omnimover system and minimize wait times.
- Len90
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by horizons1 » May Fri 21, 2021 4:44 pm

I believe the servant's entrance is really a fire exit, but leave it to Disney to theme the heck out of a utility hallway. The video at that link is worth a watch. Fun!
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Re: Your thoughts on the Reopening and the rules. Will You Attend?

Post by Amy » May Sat 22, 2021 6:51 am

Yeah, I watched the video as well and thought, that's nice they added some props and things to make it feel more immersive

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