First and foremost, I’m not suggesting anyone travel or take vacation or go to Disney in the time of Covid. Everyone should do what they feel comfortable with. I will say, however, if Disney is going to do it, they’re going to do it right. Disney cut absolutely no corners when it came to safety and cleanliness.
Parking
The park is only at 35 percent capacity, so it isn’t as crazy as it’s been in the past. Just to give you an idea: Magic Kingdom is 107 acres and at 100 percent capacity can hold 86,000 people. So at 35 percent capacity, you’re not looking and bumping into as near as many people as before. Parking attendants are there to direct people to park every other spot to allow social distancing while exiting your car. Expect to wear a mask the minute you step out of your car. Everyone 2 and older has to wear a mask. There were no transit buses to take you from the parking lot to the monorail so you have to hoof it. Since they’re not at full capacity, parking is super close and is just a few minutes to walk to the monorail. Once you get to the monorail, they group you by your family so you don’t get on with anyone outside your group. Each group is separated while on the monorail. In other words, they’ve blocked off different sections to create little cabs for each family. Where you used to be able to sit and see other people while riding to Disney, you now see a wall. It’s clear that they clean the cabs well and often.
Rides
First and foremost, you now need the Disney app to do anything. If you managed without it before, you no longer can. Your Disney app is going to guide you with rides and food. Fast passes are no longer available and you can’t get into the park with out a reservation. Since the park is only at 35 percent capacity, the reservations fill up fast. Your park reservation allows you to buy TICKETS INTO the park. Make sure you have both and make sure you have both for the same day. We had a situation where our tickets were for one day and the reservation was for another. Disney always pulls through and fixes it!
With that being said, we went on more rides this year without a fast pass than when we had the fast pass before Covid. You open your Disney app and check the wait time, decide how long you want to wait and pick a ride. The classics (It’s a Small World, Peter Pan, etc.) were still about an hour wait. The lines for most of the rides look super long, but it’s only because they’ve marked the lines with tape to allow 6 feet of social distancing. In addition, some of the rides (like Pirates of the Caribbean) had plexiglass walls to divide the rows of people. We arrived as soon as the gates opened and rode Pirates of the Caribbean within 20-25 minutes. Drake fell asleep and Grady went to ride the Haunted Mansion and the Little Mermaid. All had wait times of about 20-25 minutes. After lunch, Grady and his dad did Tomorrowland Speedway race and we all went on Buzz Lightyear. That one took the longest at about 40 minutes. We took the boys back to our condo for rest and went back later that afternoon. Upon arriving back, the parking lot had cleared out and the wait times for the rides were even shorter! We hopped on The Little Mermaid again (which had absolutely no wait time) because Drake didn’t get to ride it earlier in the day. We also rode Dumbo (10 minute wait) and Grady did Barnstormer (about 15 minutes). Some of the rides do have height restrictions. I was able to take Drake (the baby) on many of them; he just had to sit securely on my lap. Masks had to be worn on all rides at all times. If the mask is not pulled up all the way over your nose, they will literally stop the ride and make an announcement. I would know. They stopped a ride because of me.
Food
Get out your app again! If you want to sit down and get something to eat, you pick out your location/restaurant on your app. After you place your order, the app will ping and notify you when your order is ready. You walk in and pay and walk out with your order. No standing in line forever for a meal. We ate at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe. Tables were spaced out and families could sit every other table. They removed chairs and had signs on the tables not available for sitting.
As for ice creams and special treats: those little stands were still available but they were few and far between. Those stations weren’t on the app and we had to just ask where the nearest stand was to get ice cream. Many of the gift shops were closed. Most of the gift shops that were open were more towards the front entrance of Disney. One line would take you into multiple stores because they had other entrances closed to prevent an influx of too many guests in a store at once. We waited in line to get the boys their Mickey ears but the line took us straight through the candy store. Coincidence???
If you snagged a little treat or ice cream, you could find a designated place to sit and take off your mask. Once you got up, the mask had to go back on.
Currently, there is no fireworks display. From what we understand, they are trying to prevent large crowds of people from gathering to watch the show. They do, however, have small parades throughout the day. They are quick and attendants go through and ask everyone to move over to socially distance for the characters not wearing masks.
I’ve always said that Disney with your children will change your life. There’s just something about it. Disney was very different this year but it was still so magical. I don’t think Grady will ever know the difference or understand what was going on. I’m okay with him not knowing or understanding. I want Disney to be a place for him to be a kid and not worry about the world around him. It helped me not worry about the world for the time we were there.
~Ashley