Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[Crescent_Lake]

Much to report as I fly away....and will when i can collect my thoughts and recover some brain cells.. however I will start off by saying the typo in this ad which is in every disney bus bothered me the whole trip...ugh.
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It is often steaming hot at WDW so...

 

[Gary Stocker]

It is often steaming hot at WDW so...

..and it was..all week....not one drop of rain!

 

[gottalovepluto]

..and it was..all week....not one drop of rain!

That is because all of it dropped in a 90 minute period the previous week when I was trying to take the Skyliner from IG to RIV

 

[gottalovepluto]

Was at the parks 4/10 - 4/18. First couple days days parks were dead, it was glorious. 10/10 would do the week after the week after Easter again, wish we’d started the trip a bit earlier! Crowds surged somewhat over the weekend and dropped down some the following week- although it wasn’t as quiet as those first couple days. Didn’t feel crowds hit crazy level at anytime- but I took Sun 4/14 off as a resort day.

Pretty good weather with just one downpour for maybe 2 hours one day and the temps weren’t quite as hot as forecasted before we left home. …Of course that downpour was spent waiting at IG Skyliner station for them to send buses which we then were walked back to in a torrential downpour with a ponding area so bad the stick/twig filled water was up to my ankles.

The procedure at IG station was of interest. The Skyliner was not moving as we exited the park in the storm. There was a sign it wasn’t running and to take a bus from the front of Epcot. There was a person at the exit holding a sign saying the Skyliner was down. I asked him if they were running the buses and he said “you could see” in a way that screamed “I can’t actually answer that”. We walked past the station to go get a car from BC when we saw a bus and people loading. We raced over but were turned away and told to go to the station. There we saw people lined up and were told they were calling for another bus. They then said we’re running the Skyliner to charge it so don’t get excited.( Turns out “are the buckets running?” is NOT how one determines if the Skyliner is operational.) After almost an hour a bus finally showed and we were escorted down in groups with 2 ECVs first and then the first part of the line. The bus drivers stuffed that bus to the point they were yelling we have more and people were yelling back at them there was no more room. RIV was the first drop point. The bus did the entire route to DHS (Pop & AoA were mentioned as separate drops but I got off at RIV so can’t confirm).
If you try this route do NOT walk to where the buses load- the line is at the Skyliner station where it is then walked down to the bus. The entire experience was a mess. The forecast that day was for bad storms in the afternoon, Disney should have had extra drivers and buses ready to deploy as soon as it started for the front of the park and the back.

 

[kylenne]

The procedure at IG station was of interest. The Skyliner was not moving as we exited the park in the storm. There was a sign it wasn’t running and to take a bus from the front of Epcot. There was a person at the exit holding a sign saying the Skyliner was down. I asked him if they were running the buses and he said “you could see” in a way that screamed “I can’t actually answer that”. We walked past the station to go get a car from BC when we saw a bus and people loading. We raced over but were turned away and told to go to the station. There we saw people lined up and were told they were calling for another bus. They then said we’re running the Skyliner to charge it so don’t get excited.( Turns out “are the buckets running?” is NOT how one determines if the Skyliner is operational.) After almost an hour a bus finally showed and we were escorted down in groups with 2 ECVs first and then the first part of the line. The bus drivers stuffed that bus to the point they were yelling we have more and people were yelling back at them there was no more room. RIV was the first drop point. The bus did the entire route to DHS (Pop & AoA were mentioned as separate drops but I got off at RIV so can’t confirm).
If you try this route do NOT walk to where the buses load- the line is at the Skyliner station where it is then walked down to the bus. The entire experience was a mess. The forecast that day was for bad storms in the afternoon, Disney should have had extra drivers and buses ready to deploy as soon as it started for the front of the park and the back.

This right here is why Skyliner resorts are a no sell for me. Every single time I've been to Epcot in the Skyliner era I have witnessed a cluster like this at least once. I have no idea why they can't get it together at Epcot with their contingency procedures.

 

[PrincessJasmine88]

How are crowds today? Wait times seem pretty low

 

[emmabelle]

I was in Epcot the last 3 nights since we’re staying at BC and it was really crowded through World Showcase. The other lands seemed much better.

Animal Kingdom yesterday morning was good at resort guest rope drop. Got Navi, Safari, Everest and Dinosaur all done by 10am.

Going to MK this morning.

 

[emmabelle]

Today we had Genie+ so we were able to do a bunch of rides. We went to MK until 11am and then I switched focus to Epcot and was able to get Frozen, TT and Soarin for the night. It was a good day for Genie+

 

[mickey916]

Was at the parks 4/10 - 4/18. First couple days days parks were dead, it was glorious. 10/10 would do the week after the week after Easter again, wish we’d started the trip a bit earlier! Crowds surged somewhat over the weekend and dropped down some the following week- although it wasn’t as quiet as those first couple days. Didn’t feel crowds hit crazy level at anytime- but I took Sun 4/14 off as a resort day.

Pretty good weather with just one downpour for maybe 2 hours one day and the temps weren’t quite as hot as forecasted before we left home. …Of course that downpour was spent waiting at IG Skyliner station for them to send buses which we then were walked back to in a torrential downpour with a ponding area so bad the stick/twig filled water was up to my ankles.

The procedure at IG station was of interest. The Skyliner was not moving as we exited the park in the storm. There was a sign it wasn’t running and to take a bus from the front of Epcot. There was a person at the exit holding a sign saying the Skyliner was down. I asked him if they were running the buses and he said “you could see” in a way that screamed “I can’t actually answer that”. We walked past the station to go get a car from BC when we saw a bus and people loading. We raced over but were turned away and told to go to the station. There we saw people lined up and were told they were calling for another bus. They then said we’re running the Skyliner to charge it so don’t get excited.( Turns out “are the buckets running?” is NOT how one determines if the Skyliner is operational.) After almost an hour a bus finally showed and we were escorted down in groups with 2 ECVs first and then the first part of the line. The bus drivers stuffed that bus to the point they were yelling we have more and people were yelling back at them there was no more room. RIV was the first drop point. The bus did the entire route to DHS (Pop & AoA were mentioned as separate drops but I got off at RIV so can’t confirm).
If you try this route do NOT walk to where the buses load- the line is at the Skyliner station where it is then walked down to the bus. The entire experience was a mess. The forecast that day was for bad storms in the afternoon, Disney should have had extra drivers and buses ready to deploy as soon as it started for the front of the park and the back.

We were there 4/8-4/15 and I agree completely the week after the week after Easter is a great time to go. We were in Epcot too during that downpour (the only rain we saw) and took refuge in the American Adventure. Other than that the weather and the wait-times were perfect!

 

[jrsharp21]

Just got back from a four day trip to WDW for work/play. The crowds at MK were awesome all through the trip. On Saturday, 5/18, we started off at Epcot. We had early morning entry and went to to Remy's to knock that out. It took us about an hour between lining up and actually getting done with the ride. The only other thing we had planned for Epcot was LL for Guardians and also a spot in the VQ. So we walked around the park waiting for our turns for Guardians. Epcot definitely seemed crowded that day. We went to eat in the Land Pavilion and Living with the Land was like a 40 minute wait. You know it's crowded when you see that. After we got done at Epcot, we went over to MK around 4pm. Wow, what a difference. No crowds at all. Very low wait times on rides and hardly any lines for food. At 9pm, MK was a ghost town. I took a picture of us walking through Frontierland and there was maybe one other group in the area.

We went over to DHS and AK on Sunday and knocked out all we wanted to do very quickly. So we headed over to Disney Springs for dinner that evening. We got a last minute reservation for Wolfgang Puck's restaurant. Loved it!!!! My wife and I split one of the woodfire pizzas and the mac n cheese with bacon crumbles. Fantastic!!!! And if you are a beer fan, the Orange Crush was delicious! Our waiter, Georgie, was awesome. Now that is what I call top notch service. When we go back, we will definitely be asking for him again.

Monday we back to Epcot after I got out of my conference. We got there around 5pm. It felt like the crowds were definitely at Epcot again, but it wasn't too bad. We got on Frozen and then had dinner at La Hacienda de San Angel. This was our first time eating here. Fantastic food!!! The Alambre de Res was so good. I need to find a replica recipe. After that, we hit up Guardians again and then called it a night. Stopped by Beaches N Cream for a milkshake before heading back to our room at Yacht Club.

Tuesday was our last park day. After I got done with the work conference, we headed over to MK. We arrived around 4pm. Once again, MK felt very empty. I had bought G+ that morning, and Tron LL+. I was stacking LL all day long while at the conference. So we got to the park with about 4 rides stacked up. We whipped through all the rides within the first 2 hours. But after that, G+ was not even needed. The wait times for most rides was less than 15 minutes, except 7 Dwarfs and Space Mountain. As we got closer to the time for fireworks, we decided to go wait in line for 7 Dwarfs. The wait time said 40 minutes. Okay, not bad. So we start walking through the queue and there is no one in line. We ended up walking almost to the front of the line before stopping. Got on the ride in less than 5 minutes. When we got off, we went back in line. The wait time showed 15 minutes at that time. Nope, walked all the way to the front this time around. It was awesome! We headed over to HM next. No one in line at all. In fact, when we got to the entrance doors and stopped at the yellow line, we turned around and there was no one behind us. Empty! When the finally let us in, there were 6 of us. When we got out of the stretching room, there was absolutely no one in the room to get on the doom buggy. Pretty cool. After that we went over to Pirates and pretty much walked all the way to our boat. We did so many other rides this evening because of the lines. Definitely got our money's worth by the time we left at 10pm.

All in all a great trip. Now we countdown until Marathon Weekend in January!