Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[Donna feetham]

We arrived on had a grand villa at OKW 7/9/22-7/16/22. Our room was ready at 4:00 pm.

Villa was very clean, but needs some furniture update. They don't have any UBS ports in the villa, that was a pain.

Next day we did MK early entry and had to go to quest services to activate our annual passes.

We arrived at 7:30 and had major issues with the pass activation. Cast member did't knowhow to activate the passes.
So now almost an hour passed and when we thought we where all set we found out that she canceled the park reservation, so more time to fix that error.
Now it's 9:30 so much for early entry.

Going through the turn style 2 brand new magic bands did not work. More time.

The park reservation is awful. We bought park hoppers and found out that if we didn't go into our the park we reserved we could't park hop.
What a rip off.

Again we had to go to quest services as 2 people were not listed on my Disney experience as hotel guest and could't do extra hours. Another hour to fix it.

Ate at Chef Mickeys no buffet served food at the table it was not great, I guess you paid for the characters dancing around the room. They did stop at the tables.

The best was moonlight magic. It was awesome very short wait times did get on many rides.

We did't get genie+ and glad we didn't the lighting lanes had some very long waits. people who bought said they found it inconvenient as it had them runny all over the parks at late times.

Well I won't be rushing back until they make some changes. Paid a lot of money and and did't get close to what we expected in return.

Universal here we come.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

So OKW has needed new furniture.....since it opened... j/k but kind of not. It's always looked dated to me but I think it's even more obvious it needs some updating since so many of the other resorts are newer or have been refurbed.

So, the whole park reservation/hopper thing has been in place since hoppers returned. I get that it's annoying for guests who've not been and need to relearn everything. However, when you buy hoppers, this is clearly outlined. I don't know what sort of tix/passes you had but it's been a policy for quite some time now. It's totally lame and needs to go along with park reservations!

Curious about your MB not working and guests not on the reservation, did you book them? It sounds like all the things that could go wrong, did go wrong for you.

As far as Chef Mickey's most of the buffets have not been buffets since COVID, they're almost all table service and I think only a few are actually a buffet now. Chef Mickey's has never had very good food but we did breakfast there and I think it's probably the most palatable of their meals. I prefer not getting up to get food and not have half of creation breathing on my food and having everyone's hands all over the utensils. I'm not a germaphobe but I've always thought buffets were gross.

All in all, I think WDW just takes guests who don't go often more time to plan and in turn, is a downgrade for many guests.

 

[OKWFan88]

I was at Disney last week for a few days and going back in a few more days... but had a similar issue with my MB not working. I had renewed my annual pass and went to guest service to activate it. Then anytime I scanned my MB into a park it didn't work. Someone had to come over and take my picture and then let me enter. Happened at each park I went to, which was two parks a day for three days. Never could get an answer as to why it wasn't working. I am DVC and was staying at OKW on points. I used the correct finger to scan and it was a new MB so who knows. Hoping I don't have the same issue when I go back to Disney on Sunday.

 

[TXDisneyFan1]

We were there at the end of June and there always seemed to be problems with people entering the parks. One time it was our family...magic band didn't work for whatever reason. The person closest to us with an iPad was no help at all; another girl came over and fixed it right away. It was either more common this trip or I always picked the line that had the problems.

 

[SmileEar2Ear]

Thanks for sharing. We want to stack Remy and Frozen on our arrival day, but I was getting nervous about availability. Did you do your second pull right at 2 hours after open? Thrill data shows availability disappearping right at 10:30, which makes me nervous.

Yeah, my second pull was pretty much right at 10:30 because we were boarding the plane and I was anxious to book before I had to switch to airplane mode. My third one was a little after time because we landed about 15 minutes later. Definitely set alarms for a 3-5 minute warning so you can reassess your day depending on how the last two hours went and make sure you know what you really want for your next pull. I would double check return times because sometimes for your third or fourth pull, return times wouldn’t be what I expected for a certain ride and we would change our strategy.

 

[DisneyFive]

OK y’all, today is the first of eight days. I’ll try to report each day. Up at 4:30 am. We had an early flight out of Detroit and arrived to MCO at 9:30 AM. We grabbed our bags and were at the Polynesian by 10:30 thanks to Sunshine Flyer. Reconfirmed our room request with the front desk and were off to AK ~11:30.

At 7am I booked Na’vi G+ for 11:05-12:05
At 10am I booked Expedition Everest for 12:30-1:30
While on Sunshine Flyer we mobile ordered sa’tuli for 12:05-12:30. Love those protein bowls, didn’t disappoint.

Got to AK at 11:40. So we did those three things above back to back to back. G+ waits were 5 minutes each. Pretty slick. We even did EE a second time single rider with about a 10 minute wait.


At 12pm I booked a 2:20-3:20 G+ for Dinosaur.

Then we got in line for the 2:30 showing of new Nemo show. LOVE the new version. The beautiful huge screen and the shortened time really make it pack a punch.

After the show we did our G+ for Dinosaur

By this time it was about 3:30 and we were feeling pretty accomplished. Also none of the G+ made sense anymore. (Safari G+ was immediate for instance)
The two must do’s yet were the anamation class and FOP. We huffed it over to the train back to Rafikis planet watch and JUST made it to the 4pm class. We drew Tigger and had a great CM instructing.

We’re feeling pretty tired but decided to grab some Starbucks and wait in line for FOP with all the other poor schmucks who didn’t purchase an $ILL. We are in line now. At 5:30 the standby said 95 minutes but our line seems to be moving about as fast as last year when it was standby only. By the way, we found out that you cannot have drinks in line for flight of passage, despite the 90+ minute wait?, at least not very far into the queue. Only about five minutes in and then you need to dump or toss them.. The Starbucks we bought had to be pretty much guzzled at the first part of the queue unfortunately.

My only regret so far might be not purchasing the $ILL for FOP. We’ll see.

Edit: so we ended up waiting in line for two hours for FOP. Was it worth it? Yes. Did I like waiting that long? No. This idea of paying for one particular ride in each park really didn’t hit home until today. It just feels like a money grab, which it is. I get why they are doing it but it doesn’t feel like a Disney I know. Would I rather have paid $55 for my family of five? Maybe. I just don’t like the idea of doing that out of principle.

After this we’re heading back to the Poly for some Captain Cook’s and to check into our room (northern end of Tukalau)

So far, G+ is saving us a lot of time but I really do not like the lack of ability to choose a return time window. It really makes for a lot of unnecessary scrambling of how to book your G+ most effectively.

Good night animal kingdom. Until next trip!

Stay tuned!

 

[DisneyFive]

Magic Kingdom today! I will edit this post throughout the day. With such a long day yesterday we decided to sleep in a bit.

Magic Kingdom hours today are 9 AM until 11 PM and we also get the benefit of the EEH until 1 AM. We will be making use of that so I will report back on how that goes with the late extra two hours

We plan to be at the monorail stop around 9 AM. ish….

At 7 AM I booked our first G+ for Space Mountain from 9 AM to 10 AM. Then, fortunately I was able to fall back asleep

So we got to Space Mountain at 9:45 and were on a ride in five minutes. Posted wait was 50 min. After the second tap I booked us a haunted mansion for 10:05.

Tapped into HM at 10:05, waited 6 minutes. posted wait 50 min, then snagged an 11am G+ for Pirates. (Splash and BTMRR times are currently conflicting with our lunch ADR so I’ll probably stack those when we take our afternoon break.

10:30 now and off HM . Heading to its a small world standby. Posted 20 min. Edit: calling an audible. IASW just jumped to 40 minute standby so we are heading to Arial.posted 5 min. On in 7 min.

11:10 AM In line for Pirates G+. Posted 65 min. On in 9 minutes.

Note, at 10:47 AM it looks like there was a pretty significant drop of G+ for BTMR and Splash for starting at 11 AM and it lasted for about five minutes for the 11 to 11:30 timeframe. If I hadn’t already booked Pirates for that timeframe I would have snagged one.

At 11:15 booked a G+ for Splash at 4:30-5:30 pm since we are heading to lunch and then back to the resort to rest. At 1:15 PM I will stack another ride as well as at 3:15PM.

11:50 and on the monorail to Steakhouse’71 in the Contemporary. Fantastic day so far.





Everything was excellent! We’ll be back!

1pm now and heading back to the Polynesian to rest up for this evening.

1:15pm and just booked a G+ for BTMRR at 4:55-5:55 so that will overlap perfectly with our 4:30-5:30 Splash especially since they are next door neighbors.

3:14 now and trying for Peter Pan but it’s hanging around 8:50. Hoping for something earlier. I’ll refresh and see what happens and maybe wait to see if earlier times drop at 3:47.
3:42 now and boom! nailed a 4:45-5:45 Peter Pan! Now we have three overlapping stacked G+‘s. A blessing and a curse. I think we can squeeze them all in though.

So I think we’ll try to get to Splash at around 4:45, then BTMRR at about 5:10 then walk to PP before the window closes at 5:45. At least that’s the plan for now lol

4:50 PM now and just tapped into splash mountain. Posted 95 minute wait. Waited 7 minutes! Our BTMRR G+ just turned into an any time experience which actually helps us out. We will hit PP G+ after Splash.

5:21 and tapped into Peter Pan. Posted 75 minutes. On in 7 minutes. After tapping into PP at 5:25 booked G+ for IASW for 5:45 since it is right across the walkway and we know you can get in up to 5 minutes early.

5:40 PM now and tapped into a IASW. Posted 25 minutes. On in 7 minutes

At 5:45 PM I booked a G+ for Jungle cruise! It had been sold out for quite some time but with refreshing it popped up for 7:30.

6:25 and mobile ordered Columbia Harbour House.

7 PM and all outdoor attractions are temporarily closed due to the weather in the area. (Had some light rain but it’s gone). We are heading to people mover to fill in time hoping that Jungle Cruise opens up within the 7:30 to 8:30 time slot that we got. We also have an anytime G+ from BTMRR that closed during our timeslot

7:07 and in line standby for People Mover. Posted 20. On in 12 minutes. With so many things temporarily closed, everything that is open is pretty busy right now. While on People mover all the outdoor attractions opened back up.

7:44 PM now. In line for BTMRR. Posted 55 minutes. On in 16 minutes.

7:50pm (2 hour rule) and booked a 8:45pm G+ for Buzz

8:15 and in line for our Jungle Cruise G+. Posted 65 minutes. On in 8 minutes.

8:45 PM. By popular request couldn’t pass up some Dole whips! Yummmmmm

9:00 and in line for Buzz G+. Posted 35 minutes. On in 10 minutes

9:17pm and booked a 9:20pm G+ for Dumbo. Why? Because we can. Lol. We are victims of our own success. There are not many G+ attractions left to choose from

9:23 in line for Dumbo G+. The 9:20 fireworks show is going. Posted 15 minutes. On in 10 minutes

9:40 and doing Barnstormer standby. Posted 15 minutes. On in 5 minutes

10 o’clock now and slowing down our pace; shopping then staking out a spot for the 11 PM Enchantment fireworks.

Immediately after the fireworks, around 11:20pm, we headed over to BTMRR and the line already stretched all the way across the bridge with deluxe resort guests. By our experience last year that was at least a 30 minute wait. So instead we walked over to Pirates and the line stretched all the way back to the tiki room. Hmm…. I think the fact that the fireworks went twice today, with a second showing at 11 PM, made for a huge push of people at the headliners for EEH right after the second firework show.

We don’t feel like taking the time for these people to flush through those lines to the point where we could have very short waits. It feels like it would be midnight or 12:30 AM before ridies will be short again . We accomplished so much today that believe it or not we are heading back to the resort and not going to make use of EEH.

We will get more rest for Hollywood Studios tomorrow. I think we’ll need to sleep in a tad. I’ll wake for a bit at 7am to book out first G+ for sometime in the 9-10:15 range if possible.

Signing off…. Thanks for joining us on our amazing day today.

-Dan

 

[tup1830]

Magic Kingdom today! I will edit this post throughout the day. With such a long day yesterday we decided to sleep in a bit.

Magic Kingdom hours today are 9 AM until 11 PM and we also get the benefit of the EEH until 1 AM. We will be making use of that so I will report back on how that goes with the late extra two hours

We plan to be at the monorail stop around 9 AM. ish….

At 7 AM I booked our first G+ for Space Mountain from 9 AM to 10 AM. Then, fortunately I was able to fall back asleep

So we got to Space Mountain at 9:45 and were on a ride in five minutes. after the second tap I booked us a haunted mansion for 10:05.

Tapped into HM at 10:05 and snagged an 11am G+ for Pirates. (Splash and BTMRR times are currently conflicting with our lunch ADR so I’ll probably stack those when we take our afternoon break.

Lunch today is at Steakhouse 71. Later in the week we will be doing Jungle Skipper Canteen and Kona Café on our Magic Kingdom days

Here we go…

It would be helpful to know what the normal stand-by wait times are for the times you use G+, just because if the normal wait is only 10 min more, then it may not be worth it.

 

[DisneyFive]

It would be helpful to know what the normal stand-by wait times are for the times you use G+, just because if the normal wait is only 10 min more, then it may not be worth it.

You got it. I got it in my previous post now so you can see the standby posted times.
So far we have saved an hour and a half between the first two G+ rides

 

[Karalee402]

Magic Kingdom today! I will edit this post throughout the day. With such a long day yesterday we decided to sleep in a bit.

Magic Kingdom hours today are 9 AM until 11 PM and we also get the benefit of the EEH until 1 AM. We will be making use of that so I will report back on how that goes with the late extra two hours

We plan to be at the monorail stop around 9 AM. ish….

At 7 AM I booked our first G+ for Space Mountain from 9 AM to 10 AM. Then, fortunately I was able to fall back asleep

So we got to Space Mountain at 9:45 and were on a ride in five minutes. Posted wait was 50 min. After the second tap I booked us a haunted mansion for 10:05.

Tapped into HM at 10:05, waited 6 minutes. posted wait 50 min, then snagged an 11am G+ for Pirates. (Splash and BTMRR times are currently conflicting with our lunch ADR so I’ll probably stack those when we take our afternoon break.
View attachment 686428
10:30 now and off HM . Heading to its a small world standby. Posted 20 min. Edit: calling an audible. IASW just jumped to 40 minute standby so we are heading to Arial.posted 5 min. On in 7 min.
View attachment 686437
Lunch today is at Steakhouse 71. Later in the week we will be doing Jungle Skipper Canteen and Kona Café on our Magic Kingdom days

Here we go…

I just have to tell you how much I appreciate this reporting! As a fellow family of five, it's really helped so much to see your days play out in real time. I find myself here refreshing for your updates! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this during your vacation! Hope you have the best, most magical day!

 

[Leigh L]

@DisneyFive Have a great day! Also hope you enjoy Steakhouse71, we loved our lunch there last month!

We found the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. hours to be awesome, hope you have a blast

 

[scrappinginontario]

Magic Kingdom today! I will edit this post throughout the day. With such a long day yesterday we decided to sleep in a bit.

Magic Kingdom hours today are 9 AM until 11 PM and we also get the benefit of the EEH until 1 AM. We will be making use of that so I will report back on how that goes with the late extra two hours

We plan to be at the monorail stop around 9 AM. ish….

At 7 AM I booked our first G+ for Space Mountain from 9 AM to 10 AM. Then, fortunately I was able to fall back asleep

So we got to Space Mountain at 9:45 and were on a ride in five minutes. Posted wait was 50 min. After the second tap I booked us a haunted mansion for 10:05.

Tapped into HM at 10:05, waited 6 minutes. posted wait 50 min, then snagged an 11am G+ for Pirates. (Splash and BTMRR times are currently conflicting with our lunch ADR so I’ll probably stack those when we take our afternoon break.
View attachment 686428
10:30 now and off HM . Heading to its a small world standby. Posted 20 min. Edit: calling an audible. IASW just jumped to 40 minute standby so we are heading to Arial.posted 5 min. On in 7 min.
View attachment 686437
11:10 AM In line G+ for pirates. Posted 65 min. On in 9 minutes.

Note, at 10:47 AM it looks like there was a pretty significant drop of G+ for BTMR and Splash for starting at 11 AM and it lasted for about five minutes for the 11 to 11:30 timeframe. If I hadn’t already booked Pirates for that timeframe I would have snagged one.
View attachment 686449
At 11:15 booked a G+ for Splash at 4:30-5:30 pm since we are heading to lunch and then back to the resort to rest. At 1:15 PM I will stack another ride as well as at 3:15PM.

Lunch today is at Steakhouse 71. Later in the week we will be doing Jungle Skipper Canteen and Kona Café on our Magic Kingdom days

Here we go…

Thank you for these posts. I'm pointing some of the 'Is Genie+ worth it?' threads to these posts to help them decide.

 

[SLThomas318]

Magic Kingdom today! I will edit this post throughout the day. With such a long day yesterday we decided to sleep in a bit.

Magic Kingdom hours today are 9 AM until 11 PM and we also get the benefit of the EEH until 1 AM. We will be making use of that so I will report back on how that goes with the late extra two hours

We plan to be at the monorail stop around 9 AM. ish….

At 7 AM I booked our first G+ for Space Mountain from 9 AM to 10 AM. Then, fortunately I was able to fall back asleep

So we got to Space Mountain at 9:45 and were on a ride in five minutes. Posted wait was 50 min. After the second tap I booked us a haunted mansion for 10:05.

Tapped into HM at 10:05, waited 6 minutes. posted wait 50 min, then snagged an 11am G+ for Pirates. (Splash and BTMRR times are currently conflicting with our lunch ADR so I’ll probably stack those when we take our afternoon break.
View attachment 686428
10:30 now and off HM . Heading to its a small world standby. Posted 20 min. Edit: calling an audible. IASW just jumped to 40 minute standby so we are heading to Arial.posted 5 min. On in 7 min.
View attachment 686437
11:10 AM In line G+ for pirates. Posted 65 min. On in 9 minutes.

Note, at 10:47 AM it looks like there was a pretty significant drop of G+ for BTMR and Splash for starting at 11 AM and it lasted for about five minutes for the 11 to 11:30 timeframe. If I hadn’t already booked Pirates for that timeframe I would have snagged one.
View attachment 686449
At 11:15 booked a G+ for Splash at 4:30-5:30 pm since we are heading to lunch and then back to the resort to rest. At 1:15 PM I will stack another ride as well as at 3:15PM.

11:50 and on the monorail to Steakhouse’71 in the Contemporary. Fantastic day so far.

Later in the week we will be doing Jungle Skipper Canteen and Kona Café on our Magic Kingdom days

Here we go…

Great detailed post! I’m glad you are snagging good times. We still have younger ones so the zig zagging would be rough (space to haunted mansion to ariel to pirates right?). If it was just the hubs and I then this would be no problem. Sounds like you are having a magical trip… can’t wait to hear more!

 

[DisneyFive]

I just have to tell you how much I appreciate this reporting! As a fellow family of five, it's really helped so much to see your days play out in real time. I find myself here refreshing for your updates! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this during your vacation! Hope you have the best, most magical day!

@DisneyFive Have a great day! Also hope you enjoy Steakhouse71, we loved our lunch there last month!

We found the 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. hours to be awesome, hope you have a blast

Thank you for these posts. I'm pointing some of the 'Is Genie+ worth it?' threads to these posts to help them decide.

Great detailed post! I’m glad you are snagging good times. We still have younger ones so the zig zagging would be rough (space to haunted mansion to ariel to pirates right?). If it was just the hubs and I then this would be no problem. Sounds like you are having a magical trip… can’t wait to hear more!

Thank you all! G+ is a game changer at MK versus last year when everything was standby only. It’s also saved us a ton of time today already and we were even able to sleep in a tad.

SLThomas318 you are correct on the order so far. Some zigzagging but the first three aren’t toooo far apart. Some zigzagging is the nature of the beast with G+ unfortunately.

 

[Erica Ladd]

Magic Kingdom today! I will edit this post throughout the day. With such a long day yesterday we decided to sleep in a bit.

Magic Kingdom hours today are 9 AM until 11 PM and we also get the benefit of the EEH until 1 AM. We will be making use of that so I will report back on how that goes with the late extra two hours

We plan to be at the monorail stop around 9 AM. ish….

At 7 AM I booked our first G+ for Space Mountain from 9 AM to 10 AM. Then, fortunately I was able to fall back asleep

I normally don’t post pictures of us but here we are to put faces with the posts. If you happen to be here and see us, say hi!
View attachment 686460

So we got to Space Mountain at 9:45 and were on a ride in five minutes. Posted wait was 50 min. After the second tap I booked us a haunted mansion for 10:05.

Tapped into HM at 10:05, waited 6 minutes. posted wait 50 min, then snagged an 11am G+ for Pirates. (Splash and BTMRR times are currently conflicting with our lunch ADR so I’ll probably stack those when we take our afternoon break.
View attachment 686428
10:30 now and off HM . Heading to its a small world standby. Posted 20 min. Edit: calling an audible. IASW just jumped to 40 minute standby so we are heading to Arial.posted 5 min. On in 7 min.
View attachment 686437
11:10 AM In line G+ for pirates. Posted 65 min. On in 9 minutes.

Note, at 10:47 AM it looks like there was a pretty significant drop of G+ for BTMR and Splash for starting at 11 AM and it lasted for about five minutes for the 11 to 11:30 timeframe. If I hadn’t already booked Pirates for that timeframe I would have snagged one.
View attachment 686449
At 11:15 booked a G+ for Splash at 4:30-5:30 pm since we are heading to lunch and then back to the resort to rest. At 1:15 PM I will stack another ride as well as at 3:15PM.

11:50 and on the monorail to Steakhouse’71 in the Contemporary. Fantastic day so far.

View attachment 686469
View attachment 686470
View attachment 686471



Everything was excellent! We’ll be back!

1pm now and heading back to the Polynesian to rest up for this evening.

1:15pm and just booked a G+ for BTMRR at 4:55-5:55 so that will overlap perfectly with our 4:30-5:30 Splash especially since they are next door neighbors.

Later in the week we will be doing Jungle Skipper Canteen and Kona Café on our Magic Kingdom days

Here we go…

If there’s nothing great at 3:15 then wait until 3:47

 

[DisneyFive]

If there’s nothing great at 3:15 then wait until 3:47

Is there a drop that I don’t know about?

 

[Erica Ladd]

Is there a drop that I don’t know about?

Could be…

 

[Southwest Minnie]

Thank you all! G+ is a game changer at MK versus last year when everything was standby only. It’s also saved us a ton of time today already and we were even able to sleep in a tad.

SLThomas318 you are correct on the order so far. Some zigzagging but the first three aren’t toooo far apart. Some zigzagging is the nature of the beast with G+ unfortunately.

Thank you for these posts!! We fly tomorrow and head to the first park on our list on Friday (Epcot).

How is the weather?? I'm dreading more than anything the humidity. I caved and bought myself a neck fan. Here's hoping it works!

 

[DisneyFive]

Thank you for these posts!! We fly tomorrow and head to the first park on our list on Friday (Epcot).

How is the weather?? I'm dreading more than anything the humidity. I caved and bought myself a neck fan. Here's hoping it works!

Friday is our first Epcot day too! (Tomorrow is HS). It’s very hot but very doable with the right plan. I’ll take the heat over storms or cold weather any day. Taking the afternoon off really helps if you can manage it. It gets you out of the worst of the heat, let’s you recoup, and it’s also the typical time for showers. We ordered a couple of neck fans too so you’re not alone . I got notified by Amazon that that they delivered to our resort today so we’ll go pick them up in a bit. I’ll have to do a mini review LOL.

 

[NileNellie]

Friday is our first Epcot day too! (Tomorrow is HS). It’s very hot but very doable with the right plan. I’ll take the heat over storms or cold weather any day. Taking the afternoon off really helps if you can manage it. It gets you out of the worst of the heat, let’s you recoup, and it’s also the typical time for showers. We ordered a couple of neck fans too so you’re not alone . I got notified by Amazon that that they delivered to our resort today so we’ll go pick them up in a bit. I’ll have to do a mini review LOL.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. Based off of that photo you posted earlier, may be time for an updated profile pic-your kids have grown!