Disneyland officially reopening April 30th

DCBaker

Premium Member
Original Poster
"Orange County is now eligible to advance into the yellow tier, the least restrictive in California's reopening framework, according to state data released Tuesday.

The move will allow many businesses to expand capacity and also allows bars to reopen indoors. Theme parks, including Disneyland, will be able to expand capacity from 25% to 35%."

 

George Lucas on a Bench

Well-Known Member
Here is a quick trip report

- Get there very early if you want to claim parking spots at Harbor hotels. They were all filled up an hour before park opening and we ended up biting the bullet and forking over the 25 bucks to use the ripoff DLR parking deck. I will say that once you got through the mess of the ticket booths where you pay (Where all of them seemed to be open, to their credit), parking was efficient and we were on our way in.

- Get there very early if you want to be anywhere near the park before opening time. They hold back the crowds outside the esplanade until it clears out. It sets the tone for the day because what seems like massive crowds and a huge disaster becomes very efficient and empty once they let you proceed.

- We couldn't figure out dining in the parks. All day we noticed the big outdoor dining locations at DL were empty and presumably closed. I guess they don't want people eating there. We opted for the Black Tap at DTD which offers indoor dining, an enormous vegan sandwich and more importantly a very boozy drink called The Old Fashioned for 16 USD.

- For the most part, attraction lines do not begin anywhere near the actual rides. Look out for cast members holding big sticks that read "Line Starts Here", some of which are labeled and some of which aren't. These absolutely enormous lines can be extremely offputting but almost all of them move very quickly. We did the FL rides at peak hours and it was unbelievable how fast they moved, with the exception of Snow White.

This can cause a lot of confusion until you learn the trick of looking for the big stick. But we saw a few times where families attempted to insert themselves on to markers and cut a lengthy line, then be corrected by other guests and more or less told the line starts way back there. You should probably stay vigilant until the crap ends.

- If you like the indoor lines, you're basically screwed. By the time you are let in there, you move so fast it's impossible to take anything in. They don't even use the indoor parts of Rise Before Dawn until you're in the Imperial ship, and that is also much faster. The line for that one began past the Hungry Bear, also closes, and went through the outdoor line, then straight on the ship. No indoor line for Roger Rabbit.

- Peter Pan and Alice line started near the bathrooms on the walkway with Matterhorn. Peter Pan wraps around to the hub, next to the castle, past the Snow White wishing well, through the castle and then into the actual line. It is enormously long but moves very fast, as most do. We were on in 20 minutes.

- The train closed in the afternoon and never reopened which was a massive disappointment since we put it off and were never able to ride it. If this is one of your goals, do it early or you may never get to.

- The rides all looked great! I wish that stuff like Lincoln and the Railroad were open, but overall the park was looking and sounding great. Main Street was still playing period tunes until closing and despite the massive lines of people everywhere standing on markers and cluttering up walkways, lines moved fast and you definitely got the sense the capacity was indeed fairly low. Also, you could still smell all the old smells through your mask.

There was a lot of bad merchandise and nothing I'd ever want, but I found a nice shot glass:

20210518_065958.jpg
 
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mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Here is a quick trip report

- Get there very early if you want to claim parking spots at Harbor hotels. They were all filled up an hour before park opening and we ended up biting the bullet and forking over the 25 bucks to use the ripoff DLR parking deck. I will say that once you got through the mess of the ticket booths where you pay (Where all of them seemed to be open, to their credit), parking was efficient and we were on our way in.

- Get there very early if you want to be anywhere near the park before opening time. They hold back the crowds outside the esplanade until it clears out. It sets the tone for the day because what seems like massive crowds and a huge disaster becomes very efficient and empty once they let you proceed.

- We couldn't figure out dining in the parks. All day we noticed the big outdoor dining locations at DL were empty and presumably closed. I guess they don't want people eating there. We opted for the Black Tap at DTD which offers indoor dining, an enormous vegan sandwich and more importantly a very boozy drink called The Old Fashioned for 16 USD.

- For the most part, attraction lines do not begin anywhere near the actual rides. Look out for cast members holding big sticks that read "Line Starts Here", some of which are labeled and some of which aren't. These absolutely enormous lines can be extremely offputting but almost all of them move very quickly. We did the FL rides at peak hours and it was unbelievable how fast they moved, with the exception of Snow White.

This can cause a lot of confusion until you learn the trick of looking for the big stick. But we saw a few times where families attempted to insert themselves on to markers and cut a lengthy line, then be corrected by other guests and more or less told the line starts way back there. You should probably stay vigilant until the crap ends.

- If you like the indoor lines, you're basically screwed. By the time you are let in there, you move so fast it's impossible to take anything in. They don't even use the indoor parts of Rise Before Dawn until you're in the Imperial ship, and that is also much faster. The line for that one began past the Hungry Bear, also closes, and went through the outdoor line, then straight on the ship. No indoor line for Roger Rabbit.

- Peter Pan and Alice line started near the bathrooms on the walkway with Matterhorn. Peter Pan wraps around to the hub, next to the castle, past the Snow White wishing well, through the castle and then into the actual line. It is enormously long but moves very fast, as most do. We were on in 20 minutes.

- The train closed in the afternoon and never reopened which was a massive disappointment since we put it off and were never able to ride it. If this is one of your goals, do it early or you may never get to.

- The rides all looked great! I wish that stuff like Lincoln and the Railroad were open, but overall the park was looking and sounding great. Main Street was still playing period tunes until closing and despite the massive lines of people everywhere standing on markers and cluttering up walkways, lines moved fast and you definitely got the sense the capacity was indeed fairly low. Also, you could still smell all the old smells through your mask.

There was a lot of bad merchandise and nothing I'd ever want, but I found a nice shot glass:

View attachment 558684


Cool shot glass. What magnet did you get?
 

Stevek

Well-Known Member
Disney releasing even more availability today. Speculation is that they are already increasing attendance given the announcement that OC has moved into the yellow tier. My only concern is that if they don't increase ride capacity at the same time (which they should/could I believe), the parks will suddenly get less enjoyable.

1621377968803.png
 
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fctiger

Well-Known Member
Disney releasing even more availability today. Speculation is that they are already increasing attendance given the announcement that OC has moved into the yellow tier.

View attachment 558732

I literally came here to say this. I was shocked to go to the calendar and suddenly see pretty much all the days now available, at least for PH tickets. So yeah, I think they increased it to 35% now. Great news for a lot of people now who might've been blocked out before.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Sweet! Missed the 25% capacity by 3 days! 😩

Wow they didn’t waste a second adding capacity. Do they even have the staff to accommodate 10% more people? So excited to be the guinea pig on the first weekend of 35% capacity. Seriously considering rescheduling my trip now. Might as well wait for the mask requirement to be lifted and Avengers Campus to open if I’m going to be dealing with crowds anyway.
 

AJFireman

Well-Known Member
Disney releasing even more availability today. Speculation is that they are already increasing attendance given the announcement that OC has moved into the yellow tier. My only concern is that if they don't increase ride capacity at the same time (which they should/could I believe), the parks will suddenly get less enjoyable.
I can definitely say it was not like that prior to the announcement.. I check about an hour before the announcement was made by Orange County and so much was full or only DCA was available. I hope they increase ridership and allow inside queuing otherwise walkways will be mess.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Not sure what the max capacity is at DCA but at DL it’s apparently 85k so with a 10% bump that’s another 9,000 people at DL only add another 5-6000 and you have potentially another 15,000 people walking around the resort with no more rides being opened this weekend and half of the restaurants still closed. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Of course, just because they re adding reservations doesn’t mean they re going with the full 35% immediately but I wouldn’t put it passed them.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
I can definitely say it was not like that prior to the announcement.. I check about an hour before the announcement was made by Orange County and so much was full or only DCA was available. I hope they increase ridership and allow inside queuing otherwise walkways will be mess.

That’s a good point. Does ride capacity increase with the move to 35% ? Can they board more people per vehicle now? That would negate the negative impacts of raising the capacity to 35%

EDIT: just googled the California guidelines for yellow tier and the only thing that changes really is that indoor dining capacity is moved to 50%. There is no guidance on how vehicles need to be loaded . I assume that part is decided by Disney. But if they are still basing that off the 6 feet of social distancing then well that would make any time from now through June 15th the worst time to visit the parks. Basically, a lot more people are going to be allowed into the parks but ride capacity stays as it was with 25% capacity. Sweet deal.
 
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mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Even at 25% capacity, they were maxing out the length of some of the lines for rides. Don't know how they'll handle even longer lines.

The only way is of the load or at least more rows per ride vehicle when possible but I’m not sure they re even able to do that in Yellow
 

George Lucas on a Bench

Well-Known Member
I think you'll be fine. I was worried entering the place because the crowds just looked like a normal day. But even if walkways are crowded (mainly with absurdly spaced-out lines), once you're in there, it's Disneyland after all this time, maybe a little better in some regards.

As for the distancing, I know we had our own log on Splash Mt, we were spaced in the back of the POTC boat with two people in the front row, HM had no noticeable guests around us, and as for Thunder, it's similar to this:

20210517_210830.jpg


Look how far away they are!
 

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