Walt Disney World has been re-opened since July of this year so there already are a lot of great resources out there with great tips on what to expect for your next visit. Since we just recently visited WDW (week before Thanksgiving) I thought I would share our experience and point of view.
We definitely did Disney differently this year, only going to 2 out of the 4 parks. And we added the 2nd park last minute 😊 During our normal visits we usually go to Magic Kingdom more than once and visit every other park once as well. We personally did not feel comfortable visiting all parks right now, especially with the traffic that is coming through at Hollywood Studios. For our trip this year we decided to visit Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom and did a fair amount of dining at the resorts. We had a lot more down time this trip which was great because we spent a lot of time by the pool and had more free time to do things we've always wished we had more time to do.
Below are 10 things to consider before planning your trip to Disney World during this pandemic.
1. You must wear masks everywhere on Disney property.
This includes the parks, Disney Springs and the resorts. I say this because I know our nation is evenly split on mask policies. If you do have issues wearing a mask for an extended period of time, I would say plan on a trip after we are able to be mask-free. Wearing a mask all day in the heat and humidity is one of the biggest obstacles you are going to have to get through. If you have a young one masks are also required for children ages 2 and up.
There are some minor exceptions to this policy. Of course if you are dining or actively eating/drinking while stationary you can take your mask off. You cannot walk around with your mask off with a drink in your hand however.
While you are dining at the restaurants, every other table is marked off to ensure you are more than 6 ft away from your neighbor. (For quick service, I would recommend having someone in your party make sure there is a table available while the other person orders.) Also, for every Disney restaurant we ate at (we ate at a lot) all servers had face masks and shields on for your protection and theirs.
There are cast members around the park doing the best they can to make sure everyone is abiding by the mask policy. I saw a few folks thinking they could take their mask off to get a good castle selfie, but a cast member wasn't too far away to quickly shut that operation down. Disney is taking it very seriously, and there are signs posted everywhere and audio that loops throughout the day stating that anyone not abiding by these rules will be asked to leave. And who wants to be asked to leave Disney World?
Entrance to Magic Kingdom at park opening. I've never been able to get a photo with no one in front of this iconic spot!
2. Make sure to have a park reservation in addition to your purchased tickets.
The old days of just having your tickets all ready to go and loaded up on your magic band are a thing of the past. In addition to having a valid ticket you must also have a park reservation for a specific day and park. This helps Disney keep their capacity at 25%. There is a calendar you can check on Disney's website of each park's availability prior to purchasing your tickets. Prior to our trip every park was available for the week we were visiting. However, we were visiting at an off season time, so keep that into consideration. As our trip got closer Hollywood Studios started getting more and more booked up and then ended up being unavailable, so if you know you are definitely going to want to visit that park I would suggest booking as soon as you can. Also be sure to snag a spot early in the morning for the virtual queue for Rise of the Resistance!
3. Disney has additional safety measures in place. This includes taking your temperature before you enter any Disney restaurant (even at the resorts), along with taking your temperature before you enter any park and Disney Springs. While you are in line for rides, Disney has markers down on the ground to ensure everyone is keeping 6 ft+ distance. Some rides also have plexiglass barriers up to help protect guests. I will speak more specifically to the lines for rides below. For rides that have guests pile into a room, that portion of the queue is skipped over. (For example, Haunted Mansion and the stretching room.) Once you are actually on the rides Disney is seating parties every other row. There were some instances when we had an entire boat to ourselves like on Na'vi River Journey. We did have plexiglass dividers on Jungle Cruise, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and I heard that they were installing more plexiglass on rides to allow wait times for rides to go down. The parks are currently capping out at about 25% capacity, but still plan extra time to get inside of the parks. When we visited there were no trams going back and forth from your parking spot to the park entrance. (Side note, what was really interesting is that they were having us park every other spot to avoid close contact once we got out of our vehicles.) The ferry from the Ticket and Transportation Center to the Magic Kingdom has limited capacity as well, with green markers for your party to stand on to ensure everyone is socially distanced. On the monorail there is a fabric barrier from one car to the other and they prefer only one party to sit on each side. Once you have scanned your ticket/magic band you are allowed to enter and stand in line for attractions. They aren't doing rope drop right now to avoid the gathering of crowds. To tie into the mask policy that I already mentioned above, Disney is limiting guests from eating and drinking once you enter a line for a ride. I know this used to be the best way to spend your down time in line when you didn't have a fast pass, but think about if everyone in line were taking their masks off and eating and drinking at once. There are also hand sanitizing and hand washing stations set up everywhere throughout the park so if you lose your personal stash of sanitizer or it's inconvenient to get it out of a bag once you exit a ride, you're covered. Disney is also encouraging contactless payment if available. I believe they are still allowing cash as payment, but they are really trying to limit contact that is unnecessary. We did mobile ordering a few times at some of the quick service restaurants and concessions and it was so fast and easy. All of this being said, the safety measures only work as well as you actually implementing them. You are after all visiting a theme park in the middle of a pandemic. 😷 A Disney vacation definitely brought a little normalcy back for me, but please don't let your guard down.
The castle right at park opening. Had this been rope drop, this area would have been so much more congested!
4. At the moment, there are no fast passes. Lines will look atrocious, even for gift shops but they really aren't all that bad.
Visiting Disney World without fast passes doesn't sound very appealing, but waiting in the stand-by line for every ride right now isn't as bad as it sounds. The lines for every ride will look atrocious and will probably have you questioning your judgement on booking your trip, but they move fast. We only visited two parks during our visit so I can only speak to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. We never saw a wait time over 45 minutes and the only ride we actually waited the full posted time was on Jungle Cruise and that was only 35 minutes. And to be fair, that is a pretty good wait time on a normal, non-capped capacity day at Magic Kingdom. I would say that for most rides they buffer in extra time, and there is a very good chance that you won't actually wait that long. One of the best pieces of advice I could give anyone (pandemic or not) is to ride your 'musts' as soon as you enter the park. In Magic Kingdom that is usually Seven Dwarfs Mine Train for us. The line for mine train wrapped all the way over by Storybook Circus, and we entered Main Street right when the park opened at 9:00am. I did see that the ride went down later in the day so I'm super glad that we got it out of the way early on.
5. You cannot park hop....yet.
We don't usually do a lot of park hopping because we (surprisingly) aren't pass holders, but if this is a big one for you, Disney is changing this policy come January.
6. Disney Dining plans are temporarily paused.
We don't usually partake in the dining plan either but I know so many that do, so I thought it was worth mentioning. Not sure if this is because not all restaurants are open at this time?
7. Fireworks and parades are canceled.
This was a big bummer for me since I love attending Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party and the Happily Ever After fireworks are must for me. BUT I will say when I think of these big events, the number one obstacle for all of them are the crowds. I am sure Disney is thinking through crowd control for the future, but sitting on Main Street over an hour before the fireworks start just to get a good viewing spot is a thing of the past, for now. Disney is bringing back smaller parades called cavalcades throughout the day, so you can still get a micro version of characters in the street. They weren't showing any fireworks while we were in Florida this time (minus the testing in Magic Kingdom on Monday night) but they are bringing back smaller glimpses of them in the month of December at MK.
8. Not all restaurants, concessions and attractions are open including meet and greets.
I do think this is a pretty valuable piece of information as well. Disney is not a cheap destination for anyone, and ticket prices are much more expensive right now than it has been in prior years, so you really need to weigh this option out. Is it worth going to Disney right now when you are paying more for less to be open? That depends on how you spend your day at the parks. I will say that all of the big attractions are still open. (Not including shows like Lion King, etc). Although you can't meet the characters right now, they do make random appearances (from a distance) throughout the park.
I noticed that some carts for concessions and snacks were closed during the week but after speaking with a cast member they mentioned that some do open back up during the weekend.
9. If you are staying off property, you must have a reservation to dine at resort restaurants. This wasn't a rule before the pandemic, so I thought it was very important to note. So make sure you get your reservations in if you are looking to dine at any of the resorts. If you are old school and don't have the My Disney Experience App I would highly encourage that you download it to your phone. We were asked almost every time we parked at a resort for confirmation of our reservation and having my app handy made the process a lot faster. There were a couple of times that once we got to the restaurant they wanted verification of our reservation again and the app was really the only way to do that other than holding up the line and going through my emails.
Exploring the Rivera Resort before our dining reservation at Topolino's Terrace.
10. Even though capacity is capped and attendance is down, please still be safe. There are certain areas of the parks that felt like a ghost town and other areas that were bottlenecked. Of course Main Street will always be a hoppin' area in Magic Kingdom and the line for Main Street Bakery and The Emporium are no different. I would allow extra time to visit the Emporium. When we visited the line to get in was backed up past Casey's Corner if you are walking towards the castle. Again, this is because everyone is distanced 6+ ft away from each other, but I really wished I would have allowed more time in our day to shop inside this iconic gift shop. If you plan on going to Disney Springs I would advise you go first thing in the morning. There is definitely a lot less traffic and the wait to get into the World of Disney is a lot shorter. Normally Disney Springs picks up in the evening, and on the weekends from about mid day into evening it starts to get a little uncomfortable (to me) even pre-pandemic. I would say it's a little less crowded now but overall the same would be true during the pandemic.
Enjoying a latte at Joffrey's at Disney Springs
After typing all of this out, I know this now seems more like a list of 10 reasons why not to go to Disney in the near future, but based on our visit I thought that this would be extremely helpful for you all to know if you are considering a trip in the near future.
I will say that with no Christmas Party, snoap, parades or fireworks our visit this time of year did feel a little different, but I am so glad we were able to go.
Those are my 10 tips to consider before going to Disney World in the near future. Are you planning an upcoming trip? Let me know if you have any questions!
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