My FAVORITE time to visit Disney World is during Christmas. There’s nothing better than walking into Magic Kingdom and seeing all of the Christmas lights and decor. Bradley and I decided to visit December 14th – 18th. We were there for 5 days, but only went into the park 3 of those days (the 1 day on each end were travel days). Honestly, it was pretty great. I think we both needed to get away and feel somewhat normal again.
I’m here to share lots of different things about the trip. What it’s like going to Disney during Covid, how to get on the new Star Wars ride, where the skyliner takes you, and so much more. Hopefully this helps you if you are looking to visit Disney World any time soon!
How Coronavirus Impacted our Experience
DISNEY COVID POLICIES
wear a mask AT ALL TIMES except when you are stationary eating or drinking OR when you are in a restaurant eating or drinking
make a park reservation to enter the park (you only get to visit 1 park per day in 2020)
follow the “stop here” stickers on the ground when you are in line for rides to ensure you are an appropriate distance from the party in front of you
go through temperature screening before entry
Overall, we felt very safe while at Disney. It felt very clean, and it seemed like Disney really put in a lot of thought and effort in making sure they were complying with the rules and doing their part to keep everyone safe.
Honestly, Bradley and I almost didn’t go on this trip because we didn’t want to have to wear our masks in the heat the whole day. Thankfully the weather was cooler, and it wasn’t bad at all! I had a couple different masks that I rotated throughout the day and I would definitely recommend doing that.
Other than obviously having to wear a mask the whole time you’re there, the other biggest impact was the shorter wait times. The park is only at 35% capacity, but even though there isn’t as many people in the park, it still can take a while to get on the rides because of the spacing in line and on the actual ride. With that being said, the longest wait time we waited in was 75 minutes. If you’ve ever been to Disney before, you know that really isn’t bad. Some of the rides we were able to get on in 30 minutes have had wait times for over 120 minutes in the past. We were able to ride a lot more this trip than we ever have before. We were even able to ride some rides we NEVER get to ride because the lines are usually TOO LONG to justify waiting.
This only really affected us in Magic Kingdom, but we found a lot of the restaurants weren’t open, and MOST weren’t open for breakfast. I would definitely recommend eating breakfast before you head into the park because the restaurants that were open WERE PACKED. You also had to wait in lines to get into the shops. They typically weren’t very long, but it did get annoying not being able to walk freely into the shops.
the new Star Wars ride : Rise of the Resistance
Hollywood Studios has a new Star Wars section with 2 new rides : Smuggler’s Run and Rise of the Resistance. Smuggler’s Run is a motion simulator ride where you actually get to fly the Millennium Flacon with your family. Rise of the Resistance is my new FAVORITE ride. To say it’s just a ride isn’t doing it justice. It is an EXPERIENCE. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone but let me tell you… IT IS AMAZING!!!
HOW TO GET INTO THE ONLINE QUEUE
For the Rise of the Resistance you have to get into a virtual queue to ride. You can find this queue on the Disney World app. It opens at 7:00 am and 1:00 pm everyday and you have to get in during one of these times to be able to go on it. If you are able to get in you will receive a boarding group, and when your boarding group is called, you have about an hour to get there and ride it. I woke up an hour early to try to get into the 7:00 group and although I tried right when it turned 7:00, I didn’t get in. If you have to try the 1:00 opening you may get put into a “backup group”. They call the backup groups once all of the other groups have already been called. Whether you get on or not with a backup group depends on how many times the ride gets shut down.
When we got to Hollywood Studios, one of the workers told us a couple of tips that he said would help us get a boarding group at 1:00 and it did!
TIPS :
don’t use the Disney wifi when trying to get into the queue
if multiple people have the Disney app, make sure only one is logged in to try to get in the queue
start refreshing the feed a couple minutes before it “opens”
if you get a “backup group” don’t worry! the backup groups are able to ride 90% of the time
We did all of these things when the queue reopened at 1:00, and we ended up getting a boarding group and we were able to ride! We were in a backup boarding group 126 and we got on right before the park closed.
Our Hotel / Transportation
So we stayed at the Pop Century resort. We really liked it for the cost, but because it is one of the few cheaper hotel options currently open it was PACKED. Our bus line was always the only line that was full… literally every time we had to take the bus AND because of Covid, they don’t fill up the buses. You get assigned a seat number and you go sit in that number with no one near you and plexiglass everywhere. We ended up taking the Art of Animation bus and just walked over via a connecting bridge to our hotel a couple of times.
We also had the option to use the Skyliner to go to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. I really loved going on that. You got on on the connecting bridge between Pop Century and Art of Animation and it took you to the Caribbean Beach resort. Once you got there, you got off and went to the line for whichever park you wanted to go to. I thought this method was faster than taking a bus.
Overall, we had a great time while we were there! I know they are constantly making changes, and the situation is fluid, but I hope this helps one of you in your future Disney World vacay planning!! If you have any questions, ask away in the comments below!
Watch our VLOGMAS DAY 4… Christmas at Disney World YouTube video here!
As always, all opinions and text are my own.
Stay Sweet! ♡
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