Trip Report Livin' La Vida Local

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

For those of you that have been following my adventures for awhile now, welcome back! For those of you that are just joining my adventures, I'll do some quick introductions before we jump on in!

I'm Brittany and this is my prince, Dylan. We are from Pennsylvania and got engaged at MK a little over a year ago. We took a page from Walt's book shortly thereafter and chased our dreams, leading us to central Florida. I teach 1st grade and Dylan works at the Magnolia/Palm (Disney) golf courses located across from the Poly and Grand Floridian. After living in FL for a full year now, we are 100% certain that we won't be moving back to PA. We are Floridians through and through and can't imagine living our crazy life together anywhere else.

You'll see lots of faces in my report (including some of yours!), but this is the one you'll see most often. This is my very best Disney friend, Brooke (@wishes2013)! We met through this site and were brought together when we realized that we would both be teaching 1st grade at the same school. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you can either find us at school or Disney... we're together more often than we're not.

You can find the ongoing trip report that chronicles our first year living in FL and being passholders here. This report will serve as more of a "highlight reel," rather than detailing every moment of every trip we take to the parks. But fear not, there will still be lots of report to read! If you're looking for your Disney fix or a way to chase those Disney blues away, you can most certainly find it here.

To all who come to this happy place, welcome!

 

[blreinsel]

Thursday, July 9

We started to make our way toward the front of the park to take a few more pictures and walk through the Emporium.

*Disclaimer - this picture has a filter on it... the colors are not actually that muted.

We stood and watched the characters on the train station for the few minutes left before the park closed for the day. It was sweet to have them "send us off." We made our way out just after 7pm and took the monorail back to the TTC. The CMs did a good job of guiding guests to the appropriate numbered dots on the ground at the monorail station, and there were dividers inside the cars to help with social distancing.

And one more random picture that I forgot to include earlier.

Some thoughts to summarize the day:

1. Crowd levels were LOW. I've heard that "regular capacity" is slightly higher than what it was for AP previews, but I've been watching wait times and they've been the same as what they were on Thursday. I've also had some friends that have gone since official reopening and they've had the same experience that I had at the AP preview.

2. We rode every single ride in the park, including Space Mountain and 7 Dwarfs two times each. The only thing we didn't get to ride was the People Mover because it was closed.

3. We more or less walked on to everything, including the E-ticket rides. We found that the posted wait times were almost never actually that long. For the majority of the rides, the wait was mostly just the amount of time it took us to walk through the queue.

4. The character entertainment was sweet and a fun touch of magic. But, I cannot wait for the day that I can finally hug Mickey again!

5. I felt safer at MK than I've felt anywhere else in the last 4 months. The cleaning/sanitizing was top notch all day. There wasn't a single moment throughout the day that I felt worried about my safety.

6. Guests were compliant and respectful. They maintained their distance for the most part and I didn't see anybody pushing the limits with the mask rules. I heard several CMs tell guests to pull their mask up over their noses, so they're definitely enforcing it. I was also told that guests are not permitted to walk around the park with their mask off just because they have food or a drink in their hand. Guests are permitted to pull the mask down to take a bite or a drink, but the mask must go right back on. I can't confirm this because I didn't have any experiences with it, but I'm hopeful that this is true. I worry about guests using this as an excuse to not wear their mask, particularly in Epcot.

7. It was HOT and extremely humid, but I felt completely fine in my mask. We were in the park for 10 hours straight and the only time I took it off were the three times that we stopped to eat. Florida is hot in July... the mask didn't make it any worse than it is on its own.


So that's it! It was an absolutely perfect and magical first day back in the parks. My heart is so happy and a full day at MK was exactly what I needed. Life is scary and uncertain these days, but Disney remains consistent.

Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have and I'll do my best to answer them. I'll be at Animal Kingdom tomorrow, so feel free to join me on Instagram (@enchantedtaleswithbrittany) for live updates! I'll be sure to share everything here in the next few days as well!

 

[Swissmiss]

Thanks for such detailed descriptions along with the photos. I’ll be going to DLP in two weeks with my teen - it will be interesting to compare/contrast the two.

 

[PacNWTigger]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I will definitely be telling my guys to read this part of your TR to help alleviate some of their trepidation with our upcoming trip in September. We are still teetering back and forth on whether or not to cancel, so I'm hoping that these TR's will help my guys feel more comfortable with how Disney is handling things.

 

[Rista1313]

I just keep telling myself the paint on the castle will fade in the Florida sun.

 

[riverside]

I am NOT a fan of the new paint job... I absolutely hated it when pictures first appeared online, but I tried to reserve full judgement until I got to see it for myself

I think it looks awful & kept telling myself that I should decide when I see it for myself also. But.....

I was super bummed that Columbia Harbor House and Casey's were both closed... both of my favorites.

Mine too

Thanks for sharing your experience!! It was very informative & looks like you had a blast!!
Also, congrats on your 1 year anniversary & the house!!

 

[BuckyMom]

Thank you so much for the detailed post. Beautiful pictures...and I'm with you on the pink castle.

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 13

I arrived to AK around 12:30pm and was parked in the first row! I made my way to the entrance and started with the temperature screening.

The new security area looks great and there were no lines.

None of the security guards said to take anything out of my bag, so I just went straight through the scanner. I ended up setting it off and had to have my bag checked, but the security guard barely touched my bag. He asked if I had an umbrella, metal water bottle, or aerosol can in my bag. When I said that I had an umbrella, he just asked that I take it out and then she squeezed the outside of my bag before sending me on my way.

Continuing on!

Ground markings at the tapstiles, but they obviously weren't needed at this point!

Hello beautiful!

It was @Doc Disney's birthday, so I was celebrating in her honor!

I spent some time just hanging out and enjoying the lack of crowds before moving on to find some lunch.

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 13

I placed a mobile order and then headed over to pick up my food from Flame Tree Barbecue! I had been craving this food for months, so I will so excited to finally be back. The CMs were directing guests to the appropriate window to pick up their orders, making it a very quick and efficient process.

I walked down by the water to find a table, and caught the tail end of one of the character boats floating by. I saw several of them float by as I sat and enjoyed my lunch.

Hi Chip and Dale!

After lunch, I headed over to take advantage of the 10 MINUTE WAIT for Flight of Passage. I've seen it as low as 5 minutes in the past week and I can't get over it! There were markers on the ground all the way back on the bridge... I'm not entirely sure if these are for the PhotoPass that's typically here, or if it's for the Flight of Passage queue when it gets backed up.

They had this "thing" roped off so you can't touch it anymore.

The wait was literally just the amount of time it took to walk through the queue. We skipped the first preshow and were sent right into the second room, where we watched the second preshow. This is a terrible picture, but I was attempting to show the barriers that are between the lines right before you enter the laboratory. This was the only part of the queue that had the barriers.

No barriers again once you get here.

And then the barriers returned here. The CM asked if I wanted to go up or down, which was a sure sign that crowds were non existent!

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 13

The numbers on the ground are no longer relevant... there are just large dots (seen here) and each party is directed to stand on one of these socially distanced dots. The CM tells you what number bike you're to sit on when you get inside the room and there are several bikes placed between each party.

I rode Navi River Journey next, which was also a walk on. No barriers here, just the ground markers.

But there were some barriers deeper into the queue. It's kind of random where they utilize the barriers and where they don't.

I had an entire boat to myself!

Next, I walked across the park and rode Dinosaur, which was another walk on. I was kind of surprised that there weren't barriers here, but I think they might actually be skipping every other row of the queue, so I guess the barriers wouldn't be needed.

No preshow, but the video was playing on a loop so you can still catch parts of it as you pass through this room.

Barriers in the ride vehicles and only one party seated per row. They also seated every other row, at least in the vehicle that I was in.

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 13

Definitely not our dino!

This typically chaotic area was completely dead. I'm interested to see what they're going to do with this area now that they've announced the Primeval Whirl is closed permanently.

Ground markers on the bridge, presumably to accommodate the Everest line.

This area NEVER looks like this. I gauge crowd levels by looking at the areas that are typically super congested, like this one and the space between it's a small world and Peter Pan lol.

The Everest queue only had markers on the ground... most of the queue is separated by these shelves/cabinets anyway.

Barriers in between rows. Parties were seated with a few rows in between them here as well.

I thought it was interesting that they were only doing these two showings of the Up show. I'm also bitter that this is the only show happening right now. Lol.

I love this view so much.

 

[MickeyCB]

The rows of horses on the carousel were numbered and CMs were directing parties to assigned rows. There weren't many people on the ride, so it was easy to put a few rows in between us.

Loving your report, but just had to say, "Go Steelers"!!

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 13

Next up was the safari! I walked right through the queue and onto a truck. I actually felt like I needed to speed up my walking a bit once I got close to the loading zone because the truck only had one party on it and was ready to go! There were barriers here, but the rest of the queue was normal aside from the ground markings. The space between those barriers is TIGHT. None of the other rides with these barriers have been that tight... I literally felt like I needed to turn sideways to walk through lol.

More barriers between the rows. As with all of the other rides, one party per row with several rows between parties. As I mentioned, there was only one other party on the truck with me.

Baby Gus came out to play! He's getting so big!

And a baby zebra!

Look closely.

Look at the baby flamingos!! Aren't they adorable!?

Another of those areas that is typically PACKED, but today was a complete ghost town.

I had been dreading this moment, but it was time to face the (sad) music.


I miss you so much.

I noticed the little Simba hiding up there for the first time. I'm usually on a high, ready to get inside for the show.

 

[blreinsel]

Loving your report, but just had to say, "Go Steelers"!!

Lol! Born and raised in a Steelers family, and then I married into one. Thank you!

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 13

There was a CM standing there, and since there was nobody around, she was awkwardly staring at me taking pictures of the theater. Otherwise, I would have taken way more. Next time.

I absolutely love the views from this bridge. It's always a peaceful walk, but even more so now.

I had ridden everything at that point, so I decided to head back for another ride on Flight of Passage. Just as I arrived in Pandora, Dylan texted me to let me know that he had made it to the park. We met up and then headed to board some banshees! It was another walk on, but this time we were stopped in the first preshow room. However, we were still placed on one of the large dots and they played the preshow from the second room on the screen there. This was just their way of fitting everybody in while being cognizant of social distancing.

Next up, another ride on Navi in our own boat.

Another ride through the Harambe Reserve? Alright.

Hi Gus!

The lions were out this time, but not very active.

 

[blreinsel]

Monday, July 13

Continuing on...

We decided to stop for an ice cream break, and it really hit the spot!

We took a ride on Everest after we finished our treats and then decided to head out for the day.

I also finally found the Orange Bird pin that @sheriffwoody and I had been looking for, so grabbed one for each of us!

Final thoughts on my day at Animal Kingdom:

1. The main drawback from today was that I noticed a lot of people not wearing their masks as they made their way through the parks. I passed a ton of people eating ice cream or drinking a beverage (or just carrying them) with their mask off, and that made me super uncomfortable. It caught me off guard because this was NOT an issue at Magic Kingdom a few days earlier. Anytime I take a drink, I do it and then immediately put my mask back on. If I'm eating, I find an appropriate spot to sit down, away from other people. I thought that this would be enforced a little better, especially because this is going to be a HUGE problem in Epcot if guests aren't held to the "keep your mask on" rule. A man and his daughter also stood in line behind me for Everest and ate ice cream... which I did not feel was appropriate AT. ALL.

2. Aside from the mask rule breakers, the safety precautions at AK were really good and pretty much the same as the ones at MK.

3. I love mobile ordering being the only option for quick service. It makes things so much more efficient.

4. In my experience so far, the park completely clears out 1-2 hours before closing. This is great news for me because I've always enjoyed closing the parks down more than rope dropping.

5. My mask did not bother me at all, once again. It was HOT outside, but as long as you're going in and out of shops and rides, it's really not unmanageable. I was in the park from 12:30pm-6:00pm.

6. As far as "new Disney" goes, this park is an absolute DELIGHT. I already have 2 more park passes scheduled to return, and foresee this being the park I frequent the most going forward. I mean, I've always gone to AK more often than any of the others, but that'll be even more true now.

 

[LadyBelle]

I passed a ton of people eating ice cream or drinking a beverage (or just carrying them) with their mask off, and that made me super uncomfortable.

I read today that Disney updated their mask policy to where you have to be stationary(?) or sitting to remove your mask when eating or drinking.

 

[MEyeSeeKayEY]

LOVING these mini day-trip reports! Great info and updates!

 

[Notes from Neverland]

As always, great reports!

 

[Katiekitten]

I'm so glad you're back in the parks. It looks like you had a fab time.

 

[fractal]

Let me know if you are in EPCOT tomorrow for a meet up. @coachwnh and his family will also be there.