Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[ellbell]

Looks like APs should be getting an email "soon" for Remy previews.

https://blogmickey.com/2021/08/remy...nnual-passholder-preview-details-coming-soon/

So excited. I have trips from Aug 27 to Sept 11 and another from the 26 to the 3rd. As long as the previews aren't in between I should be able to preview.

 

[Disneylover99]

Could someone suggest what time to leave AK (rental car) for a ressie at Frontera Cocina at 615?

I'd be getting into my car at about 5:30pm. Maybe a bit earlier if it's a Saturday night. I'd park at the Lime Garage. It's a close walk to Frontera.

 

[Disneylover99]

I think that's the rule of thumb, if using Disney transportation, no? I can't imagine any reason someone would need to factor in 90 mins. to drive from AK to a meal on property in their own car...unless I'm missing something?

It looks like it's 6.6 miles away and under a 15 min. drive. I'd probably give myself 30-40 mins at most.

Definitely agree. Park to resort or DS with your own car, I'd say roughly 45 minutes. And that's me wanting to be early. lol.

 

[fivikse]

Just left the Swan to head to Universal. I’ll write more later, but here is some random info for now.

TP lines app was far more accurate. We just totally ignored the posted times. (Example - Disney listed pirates at 55, TP said 20, we waited 12).

We usually go in August (every three years or so) but we did not find crowds larger than usual. The lines definitely stretched out more, but just walking around actually felt less crowded to us. (Not including DHS)

I have teens so we were able to talk about how long the waits were and whether it was worth it. For the most part we got everything done (*except Rise) that we wanted to do.

Skipper and Via Napoli were great. Neither restaurant felt crowded to us.

Tried for Rise this morning. I had read the posts and practiced but we failed. We weren’t staying long enough to try at 1:00. We have always skipped DHS because we just weren’t interested. We tried a half day today. Definitely the hottest and most crowded and longest waits. We were able to do RnR, ToT, MFSR, Star Tours, TSMM between 9-3 (including eating lunch and shopping).

 

[LSUmiss]

I hesitate to post this, but ultimately think it may be helpful. I don't want to break the rules of this forum by discussing it, so this is for informational purposes only as people plan their trips.

My husband and I both have Covid and undoubtedly caught it at Disney. We are both fully vaccinated. He started feeling bad on the night we got home. We thought it was colds at first but he lost his smell yesterday and got tested. I'm so thankful we went into isolation as a precaution as soon as we got home so no one else was exposed.

I'm heartbroken because we thought we were being careful. Stay healthy everyone.

Same thing happened to us.

 

[Chaitali]

Just left the Swan to head to Universal. I’ll write more later, but here is some random info for now.

TP lines app was far more accurate. We just totally ignored the posted times. (Example - Disney listed pirates at 55, TP said 20, we waited 12).

We usually go in August (every three years or so) but we did not find crowds larger than usual. The lines definitely stretched out more, but just walking around actually felt less crowded to us. (Not including DHS)

I have teens so we were able to talk about how long the waits were and whether it was worth it. For the most part we got everything done (*except Rise) that we wanted to do.

Skipper and Via Napoli were great. Neither restaurant felt crowded to us.

Tried for Rise this morning. I had read the posts and practiced but we failed. We weren’t staying long enough to try at 1:00. We have always skipped DHS because we just weren’t interested. We tried a half day today. Definitely the hottest and most crowded and longest waits. We were able to do RnR, ToT, MFSR, Star Tours, TSMM between 9-3 (including eating lunch and shopping).

We are also at the Swan now and heading to Universal Thursday . agreed that touring plans was generally more accurate than the Disney posted wait times. And also agreed that it didn’t feel too crowded walking around. The only places we felt crowded on the walkways was fantasy land in magic kingdom and toy story land studios. There were lots of people in Galaxy’s Edge but with all the alternate routes and wide walkways, it didn’t feel as crowded. Epcot tonight was delightful with how much space we had .

today we did breakfast at Ale and Compass and then Disney springs in the morning. We had lunch in our room and napped. We went to Epcot in the evening. We rode soarin in 15 minutes, spaceship earth was a walk on, and then figment and three caballeros with very short waits. After that, sampled some food and wine offerings and watched the fireworks. I’m glad this thread warned me of what a mess the front of Epcot was! But world showcase was still nice

 

[fivikse]

More details-
We arrived early Saturday July 31 (southwest decided we needed a VERY early flight) and made it to Rainforest Cafe at AK at 11:30. My kids used to like it. Now that they are teens they are starting to realize they’ve outgrown a lot of the things they loved last time! (Now 15, they were 12 our last trip).

Into AK around 1:30. Rode Dinosaur (15 minute wait), then Everest (waited 25 minutes, then went through single rider for second ride. Single Rider was a walk on). Tried Kali but it was down. Then Safari (30 minutes). After this the heat plus super early flight were wearing us down. Stopped for ice cream. Decided we didn’t need to ride FOP (we did our last trip) so we waited for Kali (~40 minutes) then left the park around 6:10. Overall it did not feel crowded at all. To be fair we skipped all of Pandora.

Sunday Aug 1. MK. Everyone was so tired from yesterday we didn’t try for rope drop. Entered around 11:30. Decided to do favorites and deal with line. 7DMT first (WDW said 85, TP said 55, TP was correct). Then Splash (WDW said 75, TP said 45, TP was right.) rain started right as our ride ended so we were glad we went. Haunted mansion next -maybe 25 minute wait. Shopped our way to Space. This line was chaos and we were happy about the cloud cover. TP underestimated this one by about 10 minutes but WDW overestimated about the same amount. Probably 55 minutes. Shopped our way to Skipper for early dinner. We all loved it. They accommodated my picky eaters. Pirates next -WDW over inflated this wait by a crazy amount. Then I think Big Thunder. I know we did both Haunted Mansion and Space a second time but I don’t remember waits.

Monday Aug 2 - Epcot. Didn’t feel crowded and the rain kept it cooler than usual. We mostly wandered World Showcase but rode Soarin and Land with very short waits. Did test track with long wait.

I already wrote about DHS. It was our least enjoyable day but we still got a lot done. Overall we had a great time. But it would have been harder with younger kids or if it was our first time.

 

[petunia]

Sorry in advance if this is not the right thread for this..
We are in Canada, so never get our magic bands sent to us, always have them at the resort at check in, but this is what its says in MDE, and I purchased ours a couple months ago and got the email confirming? Should I do something or does this just mean they will not be sent but will be at the resort?

 

[andied]

Our dining experiences having been pretty good. We do a lot of table service because my kid has a lot of weird allergies so we don’t eat out a lot at home.
Raglan Road on Sat at 5:30 was very crowded and not distanced at all. No different from pre-pandemic.
Cali Grill on Sun at 5 was great. Half full. Tables very spaced out.
Ale and Compass on Mon at 9:45 also great. Nicely spaced and, again, not overly full.
Toppolino’s Terrace on Mon at 5:20 was great. Not busy and well spaced.
Mama Melrose today (Tuesday) at 11:30 was well spaced and not busy. First restaurant we. We’re expressly asked to keep our masks on unless we were actively eating or drinking.
Toppolino’s Terrace tonight, Tuesday, (again!) was busier than yesterday but still very well spaced.

 

[SimonSez]

I went August 2019 and when I rode Kali there was a lady on my raft in these really heavy looking boot cut jeans. She got absolutely drenched on the ride and made a comment about how now at least she would be cool. I commented that she should wear shorts, she was like "people don't need to see my pale, chunky legs!" and I was like "you don't need to care what people think, it's too hot for jeans, wear what is comfortable!" I don't know how people survive. I still wonder how she survived walking around the rest of the day in heavy, wet jeans. I'm an athletic wear girl all the way (helps it makes up half my wardrobe anyway lol)

I swear denim never dries. Several years ago, I wore these nice chino type shorts and bronzer, then rode KRR Huge mistake, I wrecked my new shorts with the bronzer and I think it took them the rest of the trip to dry. I wore them only once and that was it because they were so stained up from the stupid bronzer. Now when we go to AK, we know to wear clothes that will dry quickly. I can't fathom how people can wear black jeans and black t-shirts in August at Disney, and yet I see it quite a bit there

 

[123SA]

For those of you who have been there since the masks came back -- do any of you have memory maker? Are your ride photos showing up? I'm wondering if photos are being deleted again if someone in the photo is not wearing a mask.


Also...if it's not your party that is the offender, can you call photopass and have the photo added? Thank you!

 

[stiirfry]

Hello guys! I'm back again with day 2 of my trip, we went to Epcot My sister and I aren't ones for rope dropping so we took the Skyliner at 11 and was in the world showcase at 11:20. It was pretty empty in the park for the first hour or so, we got some pretty sweet pics throughout the world showcase. We got Joffrey's coffee and dole whips. This might be controversial but I think the watermelon dolewhip is better than the pineapple

Then we stumbled on test track at a 95-minute wait. We were in line for about 10 minutes until we saw the people behind us say they're going to single rider because there's no wait. So we did that and there was about a 10-minute wait tops. SO much better than waiting 90 minutes. However, note that the CMs are very strict about splitting apart single riders! We saw a lady make a bit of a scene trying to stay with her daughter even though they took the single rider line...My sister and I didn't care for riding together anyways lol. Then we did Mission space orange, which was about a 25-minute wait. Then spaceship earth, which was a 30-minute wait.

We got lunch at a few different booths but after a while lines were getting pretty long (~3:30 pm) for just about every Epcot booth, we decided to go back to the hotel for an hour and mentally prepare for a lot of drinks and food. Returned to Epcot around 5. When we returned lines were....pretty rough. Pretty much every booth in the world showcase had a line that was at least 20-30 minutes. Which is rough when a lot of the booths are food and wine so you don't particularly get a large portion. We still managed to have a few drinks and food but the lines were just so long for a lot of booths it was pretty disheartening. Crowds were also pretty large, I mean shoulder to shoulder in some places. However, we got a lot of amazing food. I never thought I'd have so many margaritas in my life (my sister and I split them so I swear we're not getting completely blasted at Epcot).

Honestly, lines for rides were a lot shorter than lines for food. We managed to ride the figment ride, Nemo, Soarin, and living with the land in a little over an hour. The longest line we stood in of the day was Frozen which would not budge from above a 40-minute wait. So we just decided to ride and it did take about 40 minutes but honestly Frozen might've been my favorite ride of the day! Overall it was a really fun day, however, the crowds seemed very large. If you're worried about that I'd tell you that yes they are just as bad as the look in people's pictures lol. However, my sister and I have a running saying that it is what you make of it. So even if things seem bad we'll just perform self-affirmations lol. "We ARE having fun. This IS a good time. We are ENJOYING this experience" even after our legs hurt or we stand in line for an hour.

Tomorrow is Animal Kingdom I actually have 2 reservations tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Sorry in advance if this is not the right thread for this..
We are in Canada, so never get our magic bands sent to us, always have them at the resort at check in, but this is what its says in MDE, and I purchased ours a couple months ago and got the email confirming? Should I do something or does this just mean they will not be sent but will be at the resort?

View attachment 594551

I would recommend calling just to be on the safe side.

 

[luv2cheer92]

Hello guys! I'm back again with day 2 of my trip, we went to Epcot My sister and I aren't ones for rope dropping so we took the Skyliner at 11 and was in the world showcase at 11:20. It was pretty empty in the park for the first hour or so, we got some pretty sweet pics throughout the world showcase. We got Joffrey's coffee and dole whips. This might be controversial but I think the watermelon dolewhip is better than the pineapple

Then we stumbled on test track at a 95-minute wait. We were in line for about 10 minutes until we saw the people behind us say they're going to single rider because there's no wait. So we did that and there was about a 10-minute wait tops. SO much better than waiting 90 minutes. However, note that the CMs are very strict about splitting apart single riders! We saw a lady make a bit of a scene trying to stay with her daughter even though they took the single rider line...My sister and I didn't care for riding together anyways lol. Then we did Mission space orange, which was about a 25-minute wait. Then spaceship earth, which was a 30-minute wait.

We got lunch at a few different booths but after a while lines were getting pretty long (~3:30 pm) for just about every Epcot booth, we decided to go back to the hotel for an hour and mentally prepare for a lot of drinks and food. Returned to Epcot around 5. When we returned lines were....pretty rough. Pretty much every booth in the world showcase had a line that was at least 20-30 minutes. Which is rough when a lot of the booths are food and wine so you don't particularly get a large portion. We still managed to have a few drinks and food but the lines were just so long for a lot of booths it was pretty disheartening. Crowds were also pretty large, I mean shoulder to shoulder in some places. However, we got a lot of amazing food. I never thought I'd have so many margaritas in my life (my sister and I split them so I swear we're not getting completely blasted at Epcot).

Honestly, lines for rides were a lot shorter than lines for food. We managed to ride the figment ride, Nemo, Soarin, and living with the land in a little over an hour. The longest line we stood in of the day was Frozen which would not budge from above a 40-minute wait. So we just decided to ride and it did take about 40 minutes but honestly Frozen might've been my favorite ride of the day! Overall it was a really fun day, however, the crowds seemed very large. If you're worried about that I'd tell you that yes they are just as bad as the look in people's pictures lol. However, my sister and I have a running saying that it is what you make of it. So even if things seem bad we'll just perform self-affirmations lol. "We ARE having fun. This IS a good time. We are ENJOYING this experience" even after our legs hurt or we stand in line for an hour.

Tomorrow is Animal Kingdom I actually have 2 reservations tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.

Why would anyone ever expect to ride together in a single rider line? That is the whole point of the line.

 

[Eastern]

I'd be getting into my car at about 5:30pm. Maybe a bit earlier if it's a Saturday night. I'd park at the Lime Garage. It's a close walk to Frontera.

I would be worried about Lime Garage being 'full', and then redirecting me to orange, especially at night or on a weekend. It just always takes longer than you think when you are trying to get somewhere at WDW. I'd go an hour early with a car (instead of 1 and 1/2 hours for Disney transpo) and plan on shopping a little if I was early.

For Disney transportation, definitely hour and a half. There have been times when I've just made it using that rule. (If you are (for ex) at a monorail hotel going to another monorail hotel or MK you can adjust the time accordingly.) If a bus is involved there are no guarantees.

 

[SkyGuy]

Didn’t mean to respond - sorry!

For those of you who have been there since the masks came back -- do any of you have memory maker? Are your ride photos showing up? I'm wondering if photos are being deleted again if someone in the photo is not wearing a mask.


Also...if it's not your party that is the offender, can you call photopass and have the photo added? Thank you!
Yes, they are deleting no-mask pics once again. At least they did on Everest. This wasn’t me, but a good friend who goes a bit, so she wasn’t going to bother calling, so I can’t answer that part.

 

[Makmak]

we decided to go back to the hotel for an hour and mentally prepare for a lot of drinks and food.

This is my favorite thing I read on the boards from yesterday. Excellent pre-game advice! Lol

 

[Chaitali]

For those of you who have been there since the masks came back -- do any of you have memory maker? Are your ride photos showing up? I'm wondering if photos are being deleted again if someone in the photo is not wearing a mask.


Also...if it's not your party that is the offender, can you call photopass and have the photo added? Thank you!

There was someone on our splash mountain log without a mask and we still got the photo. That was Sunday so it’s been a couple days.

 

[kevtlas]

Tried for Rise this morning. I had read the posts and practiced but we failed. We weren’t staying long enough to try at 1:00. We have always skipped DHS because we just weren’t interested. We tried a half day today. Definitely the hottest and most crowded and longest waits. We were able to do RnR, ToT, MFSR, Star Tours, TSMM between 9-3 (including eating lunch and shopping).

You definitely had better luck than our DHS visits in mid-July. We were able to do the 6 attractions you mentioned over two visits, each from about 9-6ish. We did get on RotR both days, so a total of 4 each day. And totally agree that DHS was the hottest/busiest of all parks during our visit as well.

 

[kevtlas]

For those of you who have been there since the masks came back -- do any of you have memory maker? Are your ride photos showing up? I'm wondering if photos are being deleted again if someone in the photo is not wearing a mask.


Also...if it's not your party that is the offender, can you call photopass and have the photo added? Thank you!

You should contact photopass if you have missing photos. We were there in mid-July, during the time of no masks required, and had a bunch of ride photos missing from our memory maker. My sister called and probably 10 or so days after she got home was able to get all the missing photos added.