Disneyland on Reopening Day in the Pandemic

We braved the reopening of Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in the pandemic! THEDHK and Jacque lost their minds and decided to buy last minute tickets. Here’s what Disneyland and California Adventure are like now.

Disneyland has been closed for a whopping 411 days. This is just the third time in the 65 year history of the park. Park Hopper tickets were still available the week of opening. We didn’t bother to do the wait in digital line thing on April 15 when they became available. As the re-opening date drew closer the FOMO started to set in. When it was a mere 3 days before open and we saw that there was still a way to attend, we pounced.

A setting of the stage: we are vaccinated, plus wearing double masks. Even in the before times one of us did not fare well in crowds and of course it only got worse during the pandemic. So why in the world would we subject ourselves to being guinea pigs on the first day of the parks reopening? Because it’s Disneyland. 

Also we thought if there was ever a day where they’d be the most strict about enforcing the rules for fear of having to shut down again, it was going to be opening day. The parks are only allowed to operate at 25% capacity at present so the hope was it wouldn’t be too overwhelming.

I’ve Got a Golden Ticket (to Disneyland)!

A few reminders / tips and tricks about booking your tickets. You have to purchase a ticket first, and THEN you have to make a separate reservation. The website tells you which days have availability in which park. Conveniently if you want to do a Park Hopper ticket (which will cost you an extra $55) suddenly there’s more availability. 

At the time of writing, if you look at the availability calendar for the next few months you’ll see that if you want to only buy tickets to Disneyland proper availability is tough. If you conveniently pony up the extra $55 suddenly you have more options. If for some reason during the time between you purchasing a ticket and completing the reservation, the date you want gets snatched up between the transactions, you can still use your ticket on another day. However it certainly adds another level of complexity to the process.

Also with the Park Hopper you pick a starting park. We were forced to pick California Adventure because again, we booked… 3 days before reopening. You’re allowed to enter the other park after 1pm the day of your reservation. When purchasing your ticket and assigning it to a day, it will say “All Day.” We panicked several times about “what if they won’t let us in to the other park due to capacity?” It made for a very antsy morning.

Of note, both parks are presently open only to California residents. You’re supposed to bring proof of residency. We weren’t asked about it onsite but you also have to make a Disney account beforehand. Perhaps they were verifying based on that. There were plenty of things they were good about enforcing. Yet we actually do wish they’d been more strict on this.

It’s a Trap

We foolishly assumed that because there were tickets available to the parks that day that we’d have a fair shake at attempting to get into the virtual queue for the Rise of the Resistance ride at Galaxy’s Edge. One of us had never been to Galaxy’s Edge ever – even though we both are huge Star Wars fans. 

Woof, were we as off aim as a Stormtrooper. 

No matter which park you start in, you have to get a spot through the virtual queue. Opportunities to enter the queue are available at 7 am and 12pm. For the morning slot you no longer have to be physically NEAR the park to attempt to get in. This mostly impacts the 7 am folks. They no longer have to be lurking in the parking garage and waiting for the window to open. 

The 7 am window is ONLY available to people starting in Disneyland park.

This is where the trap of the Park Hopper sets in. If you are NOT starting in Disneyland, you have to wait until 12pm to attempt to enter the virtual queue. We have no idea if anyone who started in California Adventure actually got a boarding group assigned to them.

When we loaded the app at 12pm on the dot one of us was sort of able to click tickets. The other wasn’t. The app then just noped out. It immediately said “This virtual queue is closed to Guests not already in a boarding group.”

For the love of the Force, link your party tickets beforehand. We forgot to do so and it may have cost us precious seconds. However really what we think happened is the 7 am slots took up the entire allotment. If you were park hopping and started in California Adventure, you had no chance at it.

We kept checking back in hopes something might open but the odds were not on our side.

We may be wrong and some lucky folks may have gotten those precious spots released at 12pm. Given how limited the capacities on the rides are we think the “7 am reservations filled the day” theory is much more likely. 

Don’t lose hope if you’re starting in the Disneyland park (or are just going to that park). But be prepared to try for tickets right at 7am. We have friends who were only going to be in the Disneyland park and they were able to get tickets right at 7am.

Purchasing tickets we knew it was a possibility we wouldn’t get to ride Rise of the Resistance. Even in the before times it sounds like it was a gamble on if you’d get a boarding group. Yet we’d be lying if we didn’t admit we were still a bit disappointed. 

We’re Going on a (California) Adventure

On to the actual new normal. Our mindset when approaching the day was to just go and have a good time. To not stress too much about doing one thing in particular. We didn’t know what the experience would be like and didn’t want to set ourselves up for failure. It’s totally understandable that some people might not have the luxury of being so lax in their approach. This may be their one chance to attend, they may have cranky kids who are impacting their itinerary, etc. 

Since we didn’t have Disneyland proper tickets to start we didn’t bother to be there for the rope drop. Apparently there was some little welcome back ceremony held with some members of Disney corporate there. 

We arrived at the parking lot at around 10:15 am, there still seemed ample parking. The trams from the Theme Park parking garage are not running. Instead you go through your first temperature check and metal detectors. You then walk about a mile to the park entrance. 

We could tell that frequent Disneygoers were out of practice. People were visibly already starting to feel the strain on the walk in. This is a no duh for anyone who has been to the parks before, but for the love of the mouse, wear comfy shoes. 

Cast members pepper the long trudge to the park. They seem either genuinely happy to welcome people back. More likely they’re just happy at being in business again and are willing to paste on a smile.

Giddiness begins to set in a little as you approach the entrances to the parks. People were queued up in person to buy tickets. We didn’t fully understand the logic of that as the website showed availability. It’s also not like you get a discount for buying in person. 

Upon successfully entering California Adventure we did a little jig of joy at finally being back. While THEDHK had not been to the parks since 2018, Jacque had been much closer to closing. 

Masks, Masks, Masks

First thing we noticed was that everyone was indeed wearing a mask. In the more populated areas there are Cast Members with little speaker systems and their sole role seems to be to enforce the mask rule. You’re required to wear one to enter the park. Given that masks are mandated in plenty of other places and not easy to enforce, we were definitely concerned about this. 

Based on how polite the Cast Members are forced to be in general, we couldn’t imagine them having to be aggressive and confrontational about it. There were definitely some people wearing them improperly. It goes over the nose folks. They were quickly asked to cover up properly. 

The only time you aren’t required to be wearing a mask is when you’re eating or drinking. This is where enforcement got a little tougher. We’ll talk about the revamped dining experience in a bit. Generally speaking there are now a lot fewer areas where you can acquire sustenance. Seating is also at a somewhat premium in those food areas, though we were always able to find somewhere. At Pixar Pier we saw someone walking and drinking a beverage that wasn’t water. Drinking water seemed to be allowed anywhere. They were told they need to stop walking and go to a designated area to finish their drink. 

In other parts of the parks that stop and eat / drink rule didn’t seem to be as strictly enforced. Overall most people seemed to be trying to behave. We assume the crowd attending in the first few weeks, if not months, are going to be big parks fans. They don’t want to risk getting kicked out. Disney jail can be a scary place.

Wide Open Spaces and Ride Wait Times

The biggest challenge of the parks was spacing. Many small shops and stalls are temporarily shut. This both provides more space and less places to have to have staff control capacity. 

Generally people were okay about keeping socially distant. With the new setup there are just some parts of the park where lines take up so much walkway space. It forces you to walk past people and be closer than 6 feet.

Speaking of the lines, Disneyland lines have ALWAYS been deceptive. For the first time ever this is not necessarily a bad thing. There are markers every 6 feet in the official lines for the rides. Some of the more popular rides have lines that extend beyond where their normal barriers are. This eats into the aforementioned walkways and causes folks in transit to have to pass each other. 

We only had a few instances of people crowding too close to us in the lines. The first ride we went on was The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure. Because the extra part of the line is so close to a huge walkway there was some bunching in the beginning. To the staff’s credit they were quick to try to force people to sort out and distance by group. We were just unlucky in that the people behind us did not seem to want to respect the 6 feet and kept creeping closer. 

Lines moved quickly and efficiently in our experience. Rides are also boarding at limited capacity so there feels like a lot of starting and stopping but essentially you’re always moving in the queue. 

The longest wait time we saw when checking the Disneyland app was shockingly for Soarin Over California. We didn’t end up checking wait times often because they really weren’t that bad.

Of note, all of the Fast Pass, MaxPass and reservation systems are not in service at present. The only return window tickets issued are for folks who have accessibility needs (full disclosure: that was us as Jacque is a wheelchair user). We only had to do that for 3 or 4 rides as we needed special vehicles for them. The rest of the rides we just waited in the regular queue. 

Pirates of the Carribean had a massive outdoors line, though we didn’t check the wait time and it seemed to be moving along at a reasonable pace. Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, one of the seemingly more popular rides that day as it got an upgrade during downtime, had a perfectly reasonable wait time for us. We sped through the general line. 

California Adventure definitely felt like it had more space. Since the park is newer the assumption is that it already has more space to spread out. Plus honestly less people probably had tickets to enter since it was still possible to buy them that week. Disneyland definitely felt more cramped in some of the lands (Adventureland and Fantasyland in particular). 

Given the capacity limits, even the stores had lines. If there’s anywhere we expected there to be lines in order to pay money for stuff, of course it was Disneyland. The lines move relatively quickly but some of the stores are way more crowded than others and people definitely don’t practice proper social distancing.

It’s highly likely that for these first few days Disney is not actually filling the parks to 25% capacity. They may be letting the staff get ramped back up and so as a byproduct the lines just weren’t that bad. 

Want Food? Bring Phone

One of the top places Disney must be hurting with these new restrictions must be food. Dining reservations were completely sold out (ok fair, these are the penalties you pay for not pre-planning). If you want to order quick food, you pretty much HAVE to have the Disneyland app. What impact this is having on the number of impulse food buys? We aren’t sure but it definitely has to be cutting down on some of the business there.

Only a few restaurants are providing table service. All of which are only serving limited menus and as mentioned, are fully booked far in advance. There were technically options to join standby queues via the app but we didn’t actually see any standby lists open up. We checked very frequently. 

If you wanted food from a food stall / cart you basically had to order via the app. It would give you a pickup window. For the staff preview days we heard the waits were as long as an hour before you could pick up your food. Perhaps we ate at off times but generally our food was available to order for pickup in windows of about 20 minutes from the time of placing. 

Should you want to snack and not wait 20 minutes or longer, Starbucks might be your answer. They don’t have a mobile order ahead option (even via the Starbucks app) but you may walk up and order there. There are a few other snack stalls we saw that seemed to be willing to take your order on site instead of via the app. If you try to pay with cash they look at you like a leper, so be aware. 

There were some technical difficulties in attempting to even find the place to order Dole Whips via the app, the booth wasn’t showing up. The Cast Member on site was really kind and helped us out by just taking us to a register to place an order. This might be an exception given that it was opening day and we have accessibility needs. 

The limited menus were a bit underwhelming. Trying food wasn’t a particular priority for this trip so we didn’t really invest in trying to acquire some of the more popular dishes. 

The park closed at 7pm (earlier than normal) and we tried to find dinner at Downtown Disney. Unfortunately the majority of the restaurants also were booked up and weren’t accepting walk-ins. The further you got from the park entrance the less crowded the restaurants were. If you’re willing to go outside the entrance radius you may have better luck. 

Rides

Aside from Rise of the Resistance we were able to go on all of the rides we wanted. There was only one malfunction we witnessed. Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue broke down immediately as we entered the line. Thankfully we hadn’t gone far and were able to just zip out.

Rides load at super limited capacities. For something like Indiana Jones where there are usually three rows of passengers, the middle row of the car has been blocked off with a plexiglass barrier. If you look closely you can see it’s attached at the base to what basically is a modified baby seat. Imagineering at its best? 

For Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run in Galaxy’s Edge it is limiting boarding to one party at a time. This is actually super fun, because if you are a small group you are guaranteed to get to drive. If you were a slightly larger party we imagine you’d just have to duke it out amongst yourselves as to who got to pilot the Falcon. 

On Haunted Mansion the elevator loads about 6 groups, we weren’t able to count if there was a limit per group but we assume so. They board every other buggy and then there’s a break between boardings. 

For the most part it felt reasonably well distanced. Coronavirus is generally not spread through sweat, but be aware the rides are not getting wiped down between passengers. This started to panic us a bit, but then again we w also freaked out at the germs and shared surfaces BEFORE the pandemic. 

There’s now hand sanitizer and washing stations (in addition to bathrooms) all over the park thankfully, so be sure to use it after each ride. We actually hope these stations and practices stay well beyond the pandemic. 

Staff Up

For the most part we couldn’t tell if the Cast Members were just going off a “welcome back friend” script or if they were genuinely excited to be back working. There were a few folks we identified as extroverts who have clearly been starving for human interaction and the opportunity to give a performance. We definitely got trapped in a few “in character” conversations, one with staff who were just passing by our group that had stopped to chat in Galaxy’s Edge. 

Literally they overheard us talking about stores we were going to possibly visit and swooped in at the opportunity to inject themselves into the conversation. Truly we hope Cast Member Sarah in Galaxy’s Edge gets their fill of these micro-social interactions we’ve all been missing! 

We certainly overheard grumblings from attendees over changes. Any staff member stationed at a ride entrance/exit or just out in the open must have had the patience of a saint on opening day. There were noticeable roaming packs of well dressed staff. It was a whopping 90 degrees but lots of folks in business attire. Perhaps they were corporate employees overseeing the re-opening, but considering the park was at limited capacity it did feel ironic that the well attired staff didn’t seem to actually be doing anything, but were definitely taking up precious attendance limits. 

Was it Worth it?

Are Disneyland or California Adventure ever actually worth it? Depends. It’s certainly a financial investment for most folks to be able to go. In terms of bang for your buck, if you’re okay without all of the food being super accessible and with some of the rides and stores being unavailable, this is might be the exact time to go. 

25% capacity at Disneyland felt like the perfect amount. If you’ve ever been to the park on a busy summer day in the before times, you know how claustrophobic it can get. That suffocating feeling wasn’t there for us. 

Yes there are definitely trade offs. You won’t be able to get that photo hugging Mickey, some of the more experiential lands feel a little less immersive, and yes you’ll be wearing a mask in all of your photos. At the end of the day though if it means you get to ride a bunch of rides in a day and not feel like cattle in a pen in the lines? Yeah just might be worth it. 

We actually hope they consider keeping the 25% capacity or at least more limited than it was before. We’d certainly consider paying more of a premium for tickets if it meant actually getting to do a lot of the things you want to do in the park. Plus feeling safe and not worrying as much about crowding is priceless.

As the summer progresses we’re guessing people might get more lax about enforcing the wearing of masks properly and we fear for when they open up the parks to not just California residents. For the super Disney fans we know they’ve already got their tickets and reservations. However for those of us Californians who go much less frequently, this might actually be the time to strike. We definitely felt a sense of joy at the “normalcy” of returning to the park. Though is it ever really normal to be at Disneyland?