Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[scrappinginontario]

I totally agree-coffee should be available at 6 a.m.!!

I’m guessing it’s closed as all rooms now have coffee makers in them.

 

[mickeymom629]

I’m guessing it’s closed as all rooms now have coffee makers in them.

That is probably the reason but the coffee maker only makes two cups at a time and 4 people can stay in the room. Also, for people who get the refillable mug, coffee in the a.m. should be available so they can get and go. Obviously my opinion, not Disney's, lol.

 

[DisneyByMarriage]

On Hollywood studios days I rope drop Starbucks with two while my husband and one child rope Rise.

 

[Shughart]

I’m guessing it’s closed as all rooms now have coffee makers in them.

Our room had sugar/sweet n low but no Splenda option coffee at least should open early since we've all gotta be up early for RD/ETPE.

 

[jimim]

Ok we are down here again. I had to share our Hollywood morning with you all cause we hit it hard quick but today was off the charts good.

No cheating with genie. Lol

830 rope drop
slinky
Mania x2! I was on a rip with mania first go. Had one of my best runs ever on mania only to get a blank scene at the plates. My brother in law was helping me unlock each scene so I could gather the most points vs both of us playing. I was crushing it until the plates totally got me off my game. I had 80 grand on the aliens. Got myself up to 5 grand on the mine cars and bulls eye along with hitting the 5 grand bats. Second run I was sore and bombed out at 230,000 but got high for the day but I’m sure that got crushed soon after.
Mickey Minnie train
Falcon
Grabbed Joffrey and snack
Tower. 3 of us. Other 4 went to frozen. Sweated it out for tower cause 1 elevator went down.
Star tours
Muppets
Olaf meet
Minnie meet
1:10 pm out.

Flying fish tonight then back in for rise and I want to try the wookie hack for falcon cause we messed it up this morning.

And this was with 7 of us. Not just my family. We were leading my sister in law with husband and my nephew around cause they haven’t been there in a bunch of years.

Saw the drone show last night. I liked it. Was well done I think. I like the song at the end.

 

[TXDisneyFan1]

Our family was at WDW from 6/26 - 7/2. My husband and I and our three kids and our oldest daughter and her husband (stayed at a different resort), but toured with us.

The good:

First, we stayed at the Grand Floridian in a DVC room in the Big Pine Key building. We do love this resort! The slide pool is less crowded than other deluxe resorts and these rooms are nice and a little bigger than most. We didn't get close to our room request at first, but when I asked the front desk, they found the perfect room location for us. Yay! We did kill 2 giant cockroaches in our room, but hey...I guess it's Florida. Still, they may want to spray.

Tron was awesome! We loved this ride. Maybe it was because our expectations weren't as high, but it was so much fun! We also got to ride Tiana's on opening night. Big shout out to son-in-law who got our lightning lanes that morning. We rode during HEA and it was a memorable experience. I like the Tiana ride, but I hope they replace some of those screens at the end with animatronics.

Restaurants: Tried Sci Fi for the first time and was really pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Didn't care for most of the film clips, but the atmosphere was still cool. California Grill was as good as always..it's a must do for me and my husband. I have been a defender of 'Ohana for years, but this time...it was a big let down. Our server was terrible. I felt like we were begging her for dumplings. I also felt like she was hiding in the back. It's a lot of money for sub par service and so so food. We liked Roundup Rodeo BBQ...the cheddar, bacon biscuits were delicious! Lastly, Hoop De Doo...you can never disappoint! The performers were just as good or better than before covid. So worth the money!

The bad:

I know people have been saying the park crowds have been low, but not for our week. I was watching wait times for all of June and saw how low they were; you could get Tron for the next 5 minutes for most of the day. When we were there, Tron return times got up to 4-5 hours out. We spent an extra $1,500 on Genie plus and paid lightning lanes. It's frustrating to spend all the extra money and is honestly going to make us put off our next trip for awhile.

The cast members...wow, what has happened? Y'all used to be our favorite part of the magic, but so many seem unhappy and downright miserable. We encountered a few outstanding CMs and thank you for keeping your Disney magic, but the majority could have been working at Walmart for as much effort and attitude that they put into their role.

One really negative experience was with a character. Rey, in Galaxy's Edge, was really rude. Look, I get that she's in character and it takes a lot to offend me, but we were at the millennium falcon and she walked out and started meeting families behind a small metal fence. We were next and she pointed to the gate that she was going to walk around and head our way. My 7 year old and son-in-law really like her character and I was excited for them to meet her. As we walked to meet her halfway, she said "are you queuing up for me? Ha Ha Ha, I don't do that!" and then she stopped to talk to the family right behind us. Wow, what a jerk! Her condescending laugh was the worst part. Really disappointing.

Anyway, we love WDW as that is where our best family memories live, but it's just gotten too expensive for us and it will be awhile before we go back (we obviously don't like to travel on the cheap when we go places).

Hope you all have wonderful trips!

 

[Ricguz]

Our family was at WDW from 6/26 - 7/2. My husband and I and our three kids and our oldest daughter and her husband (stayed at a different resort), but toured with us.

The good:

First, we stayed at the Grand Floridian in a DVC room in the Big Pine Key building. We do love this resort! The slide pool is less crowded than other deluxe resorts and these rooms are nice and a little bigger than most. We didn't get close to our room request at first, but when I asked the front desk, they found the perfect room location for us. Yay! We did kill 2 giant cockroaches in our room, but hey...I guess it's Florida. Still, they may want to spray.

Tron was awesome! We loved this ride. Maybe it was because our expectations weren't as high, but it was so much fun! We also got to ride Tiana's on opening night. Big shout out to son-in-law who got our lightning lanes that morning. We rode during HEA and it was a memorable experience. I like the Tiana ride, but I hope they replace some of those screens at the end with animatronics.

Restaurants: Tried Sci Fi for the first time and was really pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Didn't care for most of the film clips, but the atmosphere was still cool. California Grill was as good as always..it's a must do for me and my husband. I have been a defender of 'Ohana for years, but this time...it was a big let down. Our server was terrible. I felt like we were begging her for dumplings. I also felt like she was hiding in the back. It's a lot of money for sub par service and so so food. We liked Roundup Rodeo BBQ...the cheddar, bacon biscuits were delicious! Lastly, Hoop De Doo...you can never disappoint! The performers were just as good or better than before covid. So worth the money!

The bad:

I know people have been saying the park crowds have been low, but not for our week. I was watching wait times for all of June and saw how low they were; you could get Tron for the next 5 minutes for most of the day. When we were there, Tron return times got up to 4-5 hours out. We spent an extra $1,500 on Genie plus and paid lightning lanes. It's frustrating to spend all the extra money and is honestly going to make us put off our next trip for awhile.

The cast members...wow, what has happened? Y'all used to be our favorite part of the magic, but so many seem unhappy and downright miserable. We encountered a few outstanding CMs and thank you for keeping your Disney magic, but the majority could have been working at Walmart for as much effort and attitude that they put into their role.

One really negative experience was with a character. Rey, in Galaxy's Edge, was really rude. Look, I get that she's in character and it takes a lot to offend me, but we were at the millennium falcon and she walked out and started meeting families behind a small metal fence. We were next and she pointed to the gate that she was going to walk around and head our way. My 7 year old and son-in-law really like her character and I was excited for them to meet her. As we walked to meet her halfway, she said "are you queuing up for me? Ha Ha Ha, I don't do that!" and then she stopped to talk to the family right behind us. Wow, what a jerk! Her condescending laugh was the worst part. Really disappointing.

Anyway, we love WDW as that is where our best family memories live, but it's just gotten too expensive for us and it will be awhile before we go back (we obviously don't like to travel on the cheap when we go places).

Hope you all have wonderful trips!

I definitely hear you. I am a Disney nut however the last three trips (three years in a row) have been extremely disappointing. Broken down rides, price gouging with genie+, quality of the food, raising resort pricing especially CL. No trouble with CM’s especially helpful at the resorts but to me the whole concept is looking tired. I definitely believe I had food poisoning at the CL last year. Food was warm but never hot. Told the CM’s but nothing changed. I need a few years off.

 

[UpstateMick]

I definitely hear you. I am a Disney nut however the last three trips (three years in a row) have been extremely disappointing. Broken down rides, price gouging with genie+, quality of the food, raising resort pricing especially CL. No trouble with CM’s especially helpful at the resorts but to me the whole concept is looking tired. I definitely believe I had food poisoning at the CL last year. Food was warm but never hot. Told the CM’s but nothing changed. I need a few years off.

Wow! These last two posts echo our experience in so many ways...we just returned from a 7-night stay. We are a family of three, and we too experienced the broken down rides, price gouging with genie+, quality of the food, etc. A shout out to our servers at Cape May, Sci-Fi, Beaches and Cream, and Ale and Compass...all were extraordinary! However, our experience with cast members was meh at best. The Wal-Mart analogy hit it on the head. It was a "job" for them....nothing more...no magic! July 4th and 5th at MK was DEAD! And you wouldn't have known it was 4th of July as the decorations were nowhere to be seen! We are 20-yr veterans and have no plans on a return trip. There were so many times where we just stopped and said "What happened?" Oh well...we had a good run

 

[bluezy]

Our family was at WDW from 6/26 - 7/2. My husband and I and our three kids and our oldest daughter and her husband (stayed at a different resort), but toured with us.

The good:

First, we stayed at the Grand Floridian in a DVC room in the Big Pine Key building. We do love this resort! The slide pool is less crowded than other deluxe resorts and these rooms are nice and a little bigger than most. We didn't get close to our room request at first, but when I asked the front desk, they found the perfect room location for us. Yay! We did kill 2 giant cockroaches in our room, but hey...I guess it's Florida. Still, they may want to spray.

Tron was awesome! We loved this ride. Maybe it was because our expectations weren't as high, but it was so much fun! We also got to ride Tiana's on opening night. Big shout out to son-in-law who got our lightning lanes that morning. We rode during HEA and it was a memorable experience. I like the Tiana ride, but I hope they replace some of those screens at the end with animatronics.

Restaurants: Tried Sci Fi for the first time and was really pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Didn't care for most of the film clips, but the atmosphere was still cool. California Grill was as good as always..it's a must do for me and my husband. I have been a defender of 'Ohana for years, but this time...it was a big let down. Our server was terrible. I felt like we were begging her for dumplings. I also felt like she was hiding in the back. It's a lot of money for sub par service and so so food. We liked Roundup Rodeo BBQ...the cheddar, bacon biscuits were delicious! Lastly, Hoop De Doo...you can never disappoint! The performers were just as good or better than before covid. So worth the money!

The bad:

I know people have been saying the park crowds have been low, but not for our week. I was watching wait times for all of June and saw how low they were; you could get Tron for the next 5 minutes for most of the day. When we were there, Tron return times got up to 4-5 hours out. We spent an extra $1,500 on Genie plus and paid lightning lanes. It's frustrating to spend all the extra money and is honestly going to make us put off our next trip for awhile.

The cast members...wow, what has happened? Y'all used to be our favorite part of the magic, but so many seem unhappy and downright miserable. We encountered a few outstanding CMs and thank you for keeping your Disney magic, but the majority could have been working at Walmart for as much effort and attitude that they put into their role.

One really negative experience was with a character. Rey, in Galaxy's Edge, was really rude. Look, I get that she's in character and it takes a lot to offend me, but we were at the millennium falcon and she walked out and started meeting families behind a small metal fence. We were next and she pointed to the gate that she was going to walk around and head our way. My 7 year old and son-in-law really like her character and I was excited for them to meet her. As we walked to meet her halfway, she said "are you queuing up for me? Ha Ha Ha, I don't do that!" and then she stopped to talk to the family right behind us. Wow, what a jerk! Her condescending laugh was the worst part. Really disappointing.

Anyway, we love WDW as that is where our best family memories live, but it's just gotten too expensive for us and it will be awhile before we go back (we obviously don't like to travel on the cheap when we go places).

Hope you all have wonderful trips!

Interesting. We were there June 16-23. Tron was never a 5 minute-out thing. The ILLs were always a few hours out (we were at MK 3 different days during our stay and rode Tron 2 out of 3 of those days. The 3rd day the return times were just too far out and we didn't feel like waiting around for it.). The VQ was even worse.

I'm sorry you didn't have good interactions with CMs -- our experience was the exact opposite. We had awesome interactions and even commented amongst our group that the CMs seemed so much friendlier than our last trip (2022). We even sent several Cast Compliments during the week.

 

[tom1944]

Our family was at WDW from 6/26 - 7/2. My husband and I and our three kids and our oldest daughter and her husband (stayed at a different resort), but toured with us.

The good:

First, we stayed at the Grand Floridian in a DVC room in the Big Pine Key building. We do love this resort! The slide pool is less crowded than other deluxe resorts and these rooms are nice and a little bigger than most. We didn't get close to our room request at first, but when I asked the front desk, they found the perfect room location for us. Yay! We did kill 2 giant cockroaches in our room, but hey...I guess it's Florida. Still, they may want to spray.

Tron was awesome! We loved this ride. Maybe it was because our expectations weren't as high, but it was so much fun! We also got to ride Tiana's on opening night. Big shout out to son-in-law who got our lightning lanes that morning. We rode during HEA and it was a memorable experience. I like the Tiana ride, but I hope they replace some of those screens at the end with animatronics.

Restaurants: Tried Sci Fi for the first time and was really pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Didn't care for most of the film clips, but the atmosphere was still cool. California Grill was as good as always..it's a must do for me and my husband. I have been a defender of 'Ohana for years, but this time...it was a big let down. Our server was terrible. I felt like we were begging her for dumplings. I also felt like she was hiding in the back. It's a lot of money for sub par service and so so food. We liked Roundup Rodeo BBQ...the cheddar, bacon biscuits were delicious! Lastly, Hoop De Doo...you can never disappoint! The performers were just as good or better than before covid. So worth the money!

The bad:

I know people have been saying the park crowds have been low, but not for our week. I was watching wait times for all of June and saw how low they were; you could get Tron for the next 5 minutes for most of the day. When we were there, Tron return times got up to 4-5 hours out. We spent an extra $1,500 on Genie plus and paid lightning lanes. It's frustrating to spend all the extra money and is honestly going to make us put off our next trip for awhile.

The cast members...wow, what has happened? Y'all used to be our favorite part of the magic, but so many seem unhappy and downright miserable. We encountered a few outstanding CMs and thank you for keeping your Disney magic, but the majority could have been working at Walmart for as much effort and attitude that they put into their role.

One really negative experience was with a character. Rey, in Galaxy's Edge, was really rude. Look, I get that she's in character and it takes a lot to offend me, but we were at the millennium falcon and she walked out and started meeting families behind a small metal fence. We were next and she pointed to the gate that she was going to walk around and head our way. My 7 year old and son-in-law really like her character and I was excited for them to meet her. As we walked to meet her halfway, she said "are you queuing up for me? Ha Ha Ha, I don't do that!" and then she stopped to talk to the family right behind us. Wow, what a jerk! Her condescending laugh was the worst part. Really disappointing.

Anyway, we love WDW as that is where our best family memories live, but it's just gotten too expensive for us and it will be awhile before we go back (we obviously don't like to travel on the cheap when we go places).

Hope you all have wonderful trips!

How many days did you purchase Genie+ and how many ILL did you buy? I assume all the purchases were for 7 people.

I am trying to see what I can expect to pay. We will be 4 people but certain ILLs will only be for 2 of us.

 

[DeeBee3]

@TXDisneyFan1
We were there similar dates and through the 4th. Very similar experience. Also got to experience Tiana on opening day. We got in just before the wicked downpour in the afternoon. Our log stopped JUST before the drop so we were staring at the ceiling for a minute or 2 before the big splash. Wasn't terrible but didn't add to my experience (hard on the neck). Ha.

Also enjoyed Sci-Fi for the first time.

Not sure if we just picked parks at the wrong times, but the waits for us were moderate/long. Occasional walk-ons for the Small World types, but all the bigger rides were 60 mins or so. Remy hit 100 mins one day. The only day it was empty was 7/5 when we went to Epcot. Remy was 30 mins and seemed less than that. Also immediately after fireworks on 7/3 in MK, but those times added up once people got out of the bottleneck.

We attempted to rope drop Epcot on 6/27, but there was a technical error because they held people well past the 8:30 early entry time (International Gateway). It backed up so people had to wait quite a while to go through security. The finger print reader was down so we then realized that was part of the issue. They ended up having people just use the magic band without finger. The France CMs were playing games with the crowd from afar. Like doing the wave and rock paper scissors. I believe it was closer to 8:45 before they actually scanned our bands again to let us in the early entry, which was now a wash. The people from the front of the park were running through us as we were trying to go over the bridge toward Remy. It was just poorly managed.

Similar feelings about the CM attitude. Wasn't everyone but much less friendly overall than in previous trips. It was also incredibly hot and humid with heat advisories for 2 days, so I don't blame them for all of that. I wouldn't want to wear a costume in that weather. Definitely not AS magical, but things still did make us smile. Characters in the hotel, Piglet and Tigger waving to us through the windows of Crystal Palace, giving us a voucher for the magicband that dropped in the water. All of those things were wonderful.

I have read a lot of reports about parks being dead for July 4 - not our experience at all. Only day was July 5. I wasn't in the park from open to close so I'm sure there could have been slow times. It was over 100 degrees many of those days.

 

[TXDisneyFan1]

How many days did you purchase Genie+ and how many ILL did you buy? I assume all the purchases were for 7 people.

I am trying to see what I can expect to pay. We will be 4 people but certain ILLs will only be for 2 of us.

We purchased Genie+ for all but 1 day (Epcot). And, we park hopped, so we had to buy the most expensive one each day. We also bought the paid LLs for every day. If I'm going to spend thousands on a family vacation, I'm not gonna cheap out on Genie+ and wait in long lines if I don't have to. Just my philosophy...I know not everyone agrees. Our best day was our first day. We flew in and went to MK at 5:30 pm. We stacked LLs all day and paid for 7DMT and Tron and had 7 rides ready to go when we walked in the gates. Awesome!

However, I will say that the LLs moved faster this time. I believe that is because of the new DAS rules that have gone into effect where fewer people have access to those LLs. Also, when trying for Tiana, definitely go for the LL and not VQ. We went right to the front with our LL and the VQ people waited in a super long line. And, this LL was included in regular Genie+! You are still going to wait for awhile for any ride if you go VQ instead of LL.

Hope this helps!

 

[Duck143]

Interesting. We were there June 16-23. Tron was never a 5 minute-out thing. The ILLs were always a few hours out (we were at MK 3 different days during our stay and rode Tron 2 out of 3 of those days. The 3rd day the return times were just too far out and we didn't feel like waiting around for it.). The VQ was even worse.

I'm sorry you didn't have good interactions with CMs -- our experience was the exact opposite. We had awesome interactions and even commented amongst our group that the CMs seemed so much friendlier than our last trip (2022). We even sent several Cast Compliments during the week.

We were there this exact time and definitely agree that it was not a slow time and the waits were well over 5 minutes. We got the VQ for Tron 2x and waited about 45 minutes each time. SDD was almost 2 hour wait time. We had to buy G+ if we wanted to get anything accomplished. We also wanted to spend some time in the new Moana attraction, but that was overwhelmed with people. Disney Springs wasn't any better with the crowds.
This being said, we had a great time and didn't have much trouble with CMs, most were super nice and friendly. We had 2 small incidents, one was checking into Toppolino's for dinner. I was told that we were 3 minutes past the 20 minutes they would hold our reservation for, so we would have to wait for a table. The other was a photopass photographer who was standing to the side chatting with a girl, the two of them exchanging phone numbers. My boys thought it would be really amusing to interrupt the 'lovebirds' and ask him to take their photo, since he was supposed to be working. He did take a few photos, but then right back to flirting.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

It’s so hot at AK right now Kali River is a solid 20 minutes longer a wait than FOP. Never thought I’d see that

 

[itf]

Remy down for an extended period this morning. Got evacuated from living with the land!

 

[tom1944]

We purchased Genie+ for all but 1 day (Epcot). And, we park hopped, so we had to buy the most expensive one each day. We also bought the paid LLs for every day. If I'm going to spend thousands on a family vacation, I'm not gonna cheap out on Genie+ and wait in long lines if I don't have to. Just my philosophy...I know not everyone agrees. Our best day was our first day. We flew in and went to MK at 5:30 pm. We stacked LLs all day and paid for 7DMT and Tron and had 7 rides ready to go when we walked in the gates. Awesome!

However, I will say that the LLs moved faster this time. I believe that is because of the new DAS rules that have gone into effect where fewer people have access to those LLs. Also, when trying for Tiana, definitely go for the LL and not VQ. We went right to the front with our LL and the VQ people waited in a super long line. And, this LL was included in regular Genie+! You are still going to wait for awhile for any ride if you go VQ instead of LL.

Hope this helps!

It does. I agree with you on about not cutting costs on Genie+ or ILL.

If I have to cut costs it will be on having meals at the more expensive restaurants since my wife really does not eat enough food to make those worth the expense.
Most likely I won’t cut those either.

I will not cut out character meals and things like HDDR since those are for my granddaughter.

 

[bluezy]

We were there this exact time and definitely agree that it was not a slow time and the waits were well over 5 minutes. We got the VQ for Tron 2x and waited about 45 minutes each time. SDD was almost 2 hour wait time. We had to buy G+ if we wanted to get anything accomplished. We also wanted to spend some time in the new Moana attraction, but that was overwhelmed with people. Disney Springs wasn't any better with the crowds.
This being said, we had a great time and didn't much trouble with CMs. We had 2 small incidents, one was checking into Toppolino's for dinner. I was told that we were 3 minutes past the 20 minutes they would hold our reservation for, so we would have to wait for a table. The other was a photopass photographer who was standing to the side chatting with a girl, the two of them exchanging phone numbers. My boys thought it would be really amusing to interrupt the 'lovebirds' and ask him to take their photo, since he was supposed to be working. He did take a few photos, but then right back to flirting.

Our full MK day (Tuesday) was nutso (though it was much better the 2 days later in the week that we hopped over there for a few rides). MK was a madhouse (probably due to AP previews for Tiana *and* Tiana constantly breaking down). We would have gotten nothing accomplished without G+/ILL. We did very few things standby because the lines were so long. We waited about 25 minutes for Peoplemover and for the first time ever, we had to wait several minutes for CoP *and* our theater was almost full! That was really the only day that the park we were at was noticeably packed. Overall, the parks felt less busy than when we were there the same week in 2022, but still not what I would call "low crowds".

It does. I agree with you on about not cutting costs on Genie+ or ILL.

If I have to cut costs it will be on having meals at the more expensive restaurants since my wife really does not eat enough food to make those worth the expense.
Most likely I won’t cut those either.

I will not cut out character meals and things like HDDR since those are for my granddaughter.

I also agree with not cutting costs on G+/ILL. If I'm spending that much money on a vacation, I'm not going to be standing in lines all day. On our last 2 trips, G+/ILL cost about 8% of the total cost of our trip. Well worth the money. Ironically, those were our 2 most relaxing trips as well. We had far more down time than usual because we were able to stack rides for the morning or evening and take nice long afternoon breaks. I understand not everyone can include G+/ILL in their vacation budget, but I will give up things at Disney (like TS meals because we have better restaurants/food at home and we eat at those restaurants frequently) or at home so that I can include G+/ILL in our vacation budget. It's a non-negotiable item for us.

 

[bastraker]

It’s so hot at AK right now Kali River is a solid 20 minutes longer a wait than FOP. Never thought I’d see that

We did AK this morning too. We walked on to dinosaur around 9am. However, I did notice that only 1 side was open.

Then we rode kali river Rapids, again only half the boats were being filled. This made the wait a lot longer than it needed to be. This is Disney cutting staff. Our wait could have/should have been half of what it was. But why should they bother. Instead of improving wait times during slower times - they cut staff so you wait anyway! Frustrating!

 

[itf]

We basically had a good time at Epcot earlier. We had early entry and did frozen which was slightly delayed opening but basically a walk on. We’d genie’d ratatouille which was good as it was closed and became an anytime redemption. Paid for an ILL for Guardians, and was able to get near immediate LLs for everything as we passed it. When living with the land broke down and we got evacuated we had done most of what we wanted to do so headed back to the pool and will go for the evening show another day.

AK tomorrow although I can’t see us making early entry given how crazy early it is.

Crowds seemed manageable, the heat however…

 

[kylenne]

Crowds seemed manageable, the heat however…

We were just talking about this in another thread but I don't know what it is about Epcot that makes the heat feel so much worse; all the concrete and lack of shade, all the walking? The only times I've ever succumbed to heat and had to tap out at the parks it was at Epcot. I hope y'all stay safe and hydrated.