I'm betting that by now, a lot of you with upcoming trips have read the latest announcements from WDW, which include:
- cancellation of any ADRs made 180 days ahead of time
- no ADRs available for booking until 60 days before hand
- cancellation of all FP+
- no EMH at any park even if you're staying on site
You might be thinking, "Why bother? Without FP+ or 180 day ADRs, I don't even want to go!" You might also be thinking, "No EMH? Then forget it! I'm not going back until they go back to how it was before!"
Consider this...perhaps all is not lost.
But but! But what about the dessert parties that your family always does every trip? But what about fireworks? And Fantasmic! And the Epcot night time show?! No character meet & greets?! NO FP+?!
All is not lost. Here's why...
- Maybe you've felt frustrated over the past few years about how much more pre-planning and strategizing you have to do before your WDW trip.
- 6 months before you even get there, you have to know what park you are going to be in each day so you can pick THE right restaurants.
- And 2 months before you even show up, you need to actually SCHEDULE rides.
- And maybe you were getting a little tired of that, but you continued on with it anyway because, well, it's a Disney vacation so it's worth it.
- Maybe you've felt frustrated with the crowds of people, with every ride at MK being an hour long just 2 hours after the park opens.
You know what I thought of when I read today's announcements? "This feels more like a
Disneyland trip." I know, I know. They're completely different flavors of ice cream and it's not fair to compare them.
But maybe...just maybe...if you're feeling ready to not have to plan the heck out of your Disney trip in order to squeeze every drop of magic out of running the WDW gauntlet, consider that you'll now have opportunities that were hard to take advantage of before. For example:
- your family changes its mind and you want to go on It's A Small World next instead of Splash Mtn (which you have a FP+ for and the 1-hr return window ends in 5 min and you're all the way over in Tomorrowland).
- because there's no FP+ and because park capacity is lower, lines are shorter. Shorter wait times.
- this, in turn, makes it easier to shift and change course during your day.
- you no longer have to have a strict itinerary.
- Have you ever experienced going on 5 Fantasyland rides in the 1st hour? That's achievable at Disneyland. Maybe something like that just might be possible at MK with hardly anybody there and no FP+.
- Remember the days of regular FP before FP+? Go on the Disneyland board and read some people's reports on using Fast Pass with Max Pass (which has an extra cost). All the benefits of FP but you do it all from your phone. No FPs available to you until you've had your tickets scanned in the park that day. Just think of the flexibility available if they do that at WDW when they start FP up again.
- Have all of your Disney vacations lately felt frantic, busy, etc., like you need a couple extra days off in order to recuperate from your vacation just from navigating the crowds? Well, now you won't have to do that.
You can basically alter course a little bit. Take a little more time to smell the roses like you've always wanted to. Ok, so you won't be able to eat at Chef Mickey's and take photos with characters at meet & greets. But the money you would have spent on that...instead, you could take your entire family horse back riding at Fort Wilderness.
Or do a carriage ride at FQ or Fort Wilderness.
Or rent a boat for an hour and take it out on one of the lakes.
Or have that fancy dinner at California Grill like you've always talked about.
Or rent a kayak.
Or spend a couple of hours exploring Tom Sawyer's Island.
Ride the train all around the park and marvel at how great it is.
Do a day trip to Cape Canaveral.
Spend a day just at your resort. Play in the pool and make tie-dye Mickey t-shirts to take home with you.
After a long day all day at the park, watch a movie outside with other families at your resort.
You might find that you'll still have a lovely time. There's something pretty special about walking through a Disney park either really early in the day or late at night after closing and walking through the empty thoroughfares. Riding on Dumbo and looking out over the park before you and not seeing throngs of people 'walking with purpose' in a giant human stampede. It's lovely and magical, so wonderful and relaxing with the Disney music playing in the background.
When your child says to you, "Can we do that again?" and you're able to say "YES! How about we do it again RIGHT NOW?!" THAT is a pretty magical thing. That's hard to do in pre-corona virus WDW. It's achievable at Disneyland early in the day...yes, you totally could go on Dumbo 3 times in a row easily in under an hour in the first hour the park is open and not have to wait more than 10 min each time.
Everything's going to work out. Everything will be ok. Look at the glass as half full instead of half empty.