Just back from a week at WDW, here are some thoughts:
- I was concerned with no Fastpass we'd be waiting in long lines, but honestly between using rope drop, riding hard for a few hours, and then taking a long break and coming back at dinnertime to ride hard before close, we avoided most of the insanity. We rode everything we wanted to at least once, and many things multiple times during the trip. We had 2 days at HS and my son and I rode Minnie/Mickey a total of 5 times... my husband and daughter got through RNR three times and Tower twice... we got Space done three times, Splash twice... we really did get as much done as we used to with Fastpass so that was a huge positive. I couldn't get over some of the waits during the afternoon though, they were nuts!
- COVID safety wise, we would have bypassed many situations if we weren't vaccinated and our kids weren't wearing really great masks. Obviously restaurant dining would have been out, but there were plenty of line situations where my husband and I stood on either end of our kids and lingered to try to get some distance between the kids and people doing dumb things. (Some of our favorites... the lady on a phone call who took her mask off and when her husband chided her she defended herself by saying she couldn't hear the other person on the phone with her face mask on... the parents who not only let their 6-8ish year old kid not wear his mask at all but then gave him chewing gum while in line?.... the macho guy who seemed to think getting away with taking his mask off whenever CMs weren't looking would impress his girlfriend). I would still rate mask compliance as pretty high (97-98%) but its hard not to focus on the noses and people who just think the rules must not apply to them.
- Learn and practice Rise of the Resistance. I prepared with obsession and my husband watched a couple videos, and I got boarding group 10 while he was still trying to click through the first screen after Join. I was able to get RoR boarding groups both mornings at 7 using time.gov to count down the seconds and then flipping to my app and timing my Join click for exactly when the clock struck 7 (and then clicking fast through every screen after). It skipped my son one morning and we got him easily added at a low wait Guest Relations stand later (they have them scattered through the park, so don't wait in a long line). The ride was super cool...totally loved it.
- Wearing masks sucks in the heat, not so much because you're sweating under it (which we did no matter which mask type we tried) but you want to be sipping and drinking and snacking on the go during precious low wait times and its so HARD to pull over and stop just to drink. We did it, but it sucked. Disney's newer cloth masks felt pretty breathable to me and I wore those over the surgical masks I brought, my husband settled on his KF94 because it boxes away from his face and felt cooler to him, and the kids wore KF94s without complaint.
- MK, Epcot, and HS all had rides going as soon as they let us enter in the morning, so imagine our surprise when we got up early and raced to Safari at AK later in the week and were told we had to wait 30 minutes until 8am before the ride would start. ***?? They did start running the truck at exactly 8, but that was very unexpected! None of the rides started early (although we didn't ask about the Pandora rides, maybe those opened, but Everest, Dinosaur and Safari were a no go.
- Our Kidani room was ready at our requested 1pm arrival, which really surprised me... so many anecdotes about rooms not being ready on time I did not expect that. Kidani was fantastic, beautiful, all good things we expected.
- To Go from Table Service places was awesome. We grabbed some Kona at the Poly and enjoyed, Sanaa and enjoyed. I hope they keep that!
- We did not experience any long Mobile Order return window issues some reported (but we usually had reservations at lunch).
We really did have a great time and it was a much needed return to our favorite place. We'll do some COVID tests later this week and maybe the week after (our state does free ship-to-home so they're really convenient) and see if we (especially the kids) picked up anything, but so far so good. Even with all the adjustments, it felt so GOOD to be there.