Walking back into Disneyland after a year of being closed has been euphoric for all of us here at MiceChat. Each one of us has a deep connection and love for this resort, its rich history, and the significance Disneyland has to millions the world over. The long line of employees and management greeting guests on opening day was an emotional example that the cast and crew of Disneyland feel exactly like we do.
Just to feel the excitement of the moment for yourself, our Dusty Sage was there inside the park the moments before the gates opened to guests for the first time. He shared live as the first guests streamed into the park and followed them up a Main Street lined with emotional cast members and management:
Andy Castro, who writes our Dateline Disneyland column, described opening day as the best day he’s ever had at Disneyland.That’s quite a lot of praise. However, despite best intentions, the current situation does mean that things operate differently right now, and that has resulted in some highs and unexpected lows that it’s important for you to know. By spotting the pitfalls and avoiding them, perhaps you can have your best day ever at Disneyland as well.
The Highs
The team at Disneyland has worked their buns off to get the parks open and show-ready. There are so many good things to say about what they’ve done. Here are a few items of note:
Capacity & Comfort
The capacity and comfort situation at Disneyland is simultaneously odd and satisfying. As a model of what to expect, here’s an explanation of our experience with Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run.
There is no indoor queuing at the park right now, so we were lined up underneath the Falcon outside the attraction. We were funneled up the FastPass path to speed up walking through the queue. Upon hitting what’s normally FastPass merge, groups were sent in an alternating pattern to either side of Hondo’s pre-show room. However, instead of standing still to watch Hondo, you just walk right through as Hondo remains in an idle mode with his back turned and just some audio announcements playing.
Then we entered the Falcon and were immediately sorted into a flight group (only the two of us with no other parties). After being sent to the cockpit door, Hondo didn’t even get a chance to finish telling us our roles (we only had two pilots anyway) before we were shuffled into the cockpit. What normally takes nearly an hour from getting in line to completing our mission took less than fifteen minutes. While some things are different or perhaps missing, it’s overall a great guest experience.
Odd, yet satisfying. We found that the whole park operated like this. While every attraction is a little different, in general, we found that everything was snappy. Lines were short for just about everything. A ten-minute wait for Splash Mountain on a 90° day is astounding; most other attractions were of a similar length. It’s not just attractions either; the low overall capacity of the park meant that walkways were clear. So not only does it feel safe, but it’s also downright enjoyable.
Of course, all theme parks in California require masking, physical distancing, and sanitization. After a long day at the park, we found that Disney is nailing all three categories. Throughout the park closure, the Disneyland team really spent a lot of time ironing out the details of what a safe operation would look like. It shows.
All guests wore their masks except while eating and drinking in designated areas. Physical distancing was taken into consideration everywhere and in excruciating detail, a difficult task for a tiny park built in 1955. Finally, hand washing and sanitization stations are everywhere, and you’ll frequently see Custodial staff wiping down high touch surfaces like railings and tables.
Attraction Upgrades
Just reopening the park is exciting enough, but Disneyland has a few new little goodies to enjoy.
The biggest one is an almost entire re-imagining of Snow White’s Scary Adventures, now Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. This new version plusses the original attraction in subtle ways while replacing some scenes with new, happier, and technologically advanced scenes. We think it’s a smash hit and is worth the time in line (which looks long but often is only about twenty minutes). Keep an eye on the Disneyland App for wait time opportunities.
FIRST LOOK: A Ride on Disneyland’s Reimagined Snow White Attraction
The Haunted Mansion also got a little facelift. While not as exciting as a full update like Snow White, we love seeing additions to classic attractions. What’s especially wonderful is how much of the upgrades were done with ADA guests in mind, starting with the new birdbath by the wheelchair/ECV parking area.
Walking through the Portrait Gallery, everything inside has been stripped, repainted, and redecorated. The ADA loading area has been expanded and partitioned off. To draw your eye away from the new barriers, an old favorite has returned, the April-December painting.
Overall, the attraction has been spruced up with newer and better lighting, some cleanup on things like the scrims in the graveyard, and general maintenance that remind us why this attraction is such a beloved classic. That can be said for many attractions, and the park as a whole. Disney has outdone itself in polishing up things wherever possible.
We’re Baaaaack! First Look at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion Updates
While there still are a few bits of maintenance that still need to happen (it is a big resort, after all), this was the first time we’ve ever seen Main Street without any burned-out light bulbs. That kind of effort is something to be proud of… and that we hope continues.
Guest-Cast Interaction
Walt Disney once said, “You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality.” It seems that the Disneyland Resort cast members have taken that to heart. Nearly every cast member interaction was excellent, perhaps even higher quality than what was typical in the past.
Cast members are put in a difficult situation right now. They’ve been gone for a year and suddenly have a lot of new responsibilities they didn’t have before. Yet, they’re taking it all in stride. For example, Rise of the Resistance cast members are put in the difficult situation of pushing guests through the indoor portion of the attraction to meet state guidelines that indoor attractions should take less than fifteen minutes.
They’ve created in-character interactions with guests to facilitate a speedier line, like telling guests there’s “no time to stop for data scans!” rather than just yelling at people to keep moving. While cast members are required to regulate things guests may not like (mask policing is likely not fun), we’ve observed that same famous Disney customer service we’ve come to expect.
Challenges Ahead
This section is meant to reflect things that could be improved, and likely will be if they haven’t started already.
Cast Communication
While interactions with the cast are usually great, we did hit some hiccups here and there. These aren’t necessarily the cast member’s fault but are miscommunications about new procedures. Furthermore, while certain things may be clear (keep your mask on), there are other new procedures with grey areas that cast members aren’t quite familiar with (where can I take it off?). Some guest concerns come down to “we really don’t know.”
An early example of this was on opening day, waiting at the tram loop to enter the esplanade. One of our staff needed to use the restroom and had to visit two different restrooms (one wasn’t open) and ask three different cast members just to find one that was open. Ask any cast member what their most frequent guest question is and they’d say “where’s the restroom?” so the fact that no one told these cast members which restrooms were open was just poor communication. We anticipate something so small has been rectified by now, but with so many operational changes, the inevitable unanticipated issues do happen.
Even mask enforcement could be less than uniform. While all cast members will make sure your mask is on and pulled up while walking around (no eating/drinking while walking around), enforcement can be different for things like eating outside of designated dining areas and guests who take their mask off while sitting and not eating and drinking. Disney policies say both are prohibited, but Disney can also tweak operations to help mitigate them happening in the first place. In the meantime, just be patient with cast members as they assess the best course of action.
Rise of the Resistance Boarding Groups
This isn’t all bad, because Disney has put in an effort to really improve the boarding pass experience and prevent you from having to arrive at opening to attempt to get one. The new process gives guests two opportunities to score a boarding pass, once before the park opens at 7am— and can be made outside of Disneyland Resort— and then again at noon in case you didn’t get one the first time, as long as you’re at the resort. This is a huge improvement compared to the previous frantic rush to be inside the park at opening. Our team had significantly fewer problems getting boarding groups for Rise of the Resistance than in the past, but they still go fast (just a few seconds).
The only problem is that if you’re in a larger party, it’s difficult to all get the same boarding group. To enter the virtual queue with more than one person, all the group’s tickets have to be linked to the same account. If the ticket has previously been linked to another account, it can’t be linked to a different one.
This means that if everyone in your party has already linked their own individual tickets to their accounts, you can’t enter the virtual queue as a group. This is further compounded by the fact that any member whose boarding group has not been called cannot ride, even if the group had intended to ride together.
The app really needs to allow tickets to be linked to multiple accounts, at least for the purpose of virtual queue groups. In the meantime, if the group is four or less, making an exception (as long as they can all prove they’re in a boarding group) makes sense as it’s just filling available space (they can currently only load one group per row on the ride anyway, might as well fill as many seats as possible versus four single riders). We hope for a swift solution to this, as not every guest will want their ticket linked to someone else’s account.
Construction
Rides being down is nothing new, but we just want everyone to set their expectations correctly, as construction and refurbishment are still ongoing around the park even though it’s been closed for over a year. Some attractions, like the Matterhorn and Jungle Cruise, will be down for an indefinite amount of time to finish major refurbishment. It’s important to note that Splash Mountain will also be going down indefinitely in the future for its Princess and the Frog overhaul.
Then there’s Mickey’s Runaway Railway. This one is downright hilarious. With the ongoing construction, the gigantic show building absolutely dominates the sightlines of ToonTown, a giant ominous box where whimsical green hills used to be. Disney realized this and hung a huge, clever sign to poke fun at themselves much in the way we sometimes poke fun at them. It’s great seeing Disney have a sense of humor and we hope things like this continue.
While that will look silly for a bit, ToonTown overall has frequently been a troublesome area to keep clean and freshly painted. Delightedly, the rest of the land has been touched up and looks better than it has in some time. Many other recent smaller, permanent changes will go unnoticed like the wider Frontierland bridge as well.
The Unfortunate
Now we get to the troublesome things you should really try to figure out and/or avoid to best enjoy your visit.
Tickets and Reservations
We’ve spent a few weeks now writing articles explaining the process for purchasing tickets and getting a theme park reservation. You need both! They’re both a separate process, and the reservations are new. Guests aren’t accustomed to visiting Disneyland and having to make a prior reservation for admission. We even saw some who had tickets from last year get turned away at the front gate on opening day because, while they had valid admission, they didn’t make a reservation in advance.
Thankfully, resort president Ken Potrock told us they’re already in the process of fixing this issue. The resort hopes to combine the ticket and reservation process. We wish them well and hope that happens soon. In the meantime, please make sure you have a reservation with your valid admission to avoid heartbreak at the front gate.
Speaking of tickets, we can get you DISCOUNT DISNEYLAND TICKETS – HERE. (For all you heartbroken former passholders, consider getting 5-day tickets, which works out to an average cost of just $71/day.
Mobile Order
In an effort to keep long lines at registers from clogging up walkways and promote social distancing, Disney is pushing mobile order. Some restaurant locations are entirely mobile order, others only have one register. That said, we’ve continued to hit numerous snags with mobile order.
First, there’s the issue of capacity. There are only so many return times for mobile order. At 10am, members of our staff decided it was hot and they wanted a Mint Julep. The next available pickup time was nearly 1pm. At 2pm, the same staff members decided they wanted a Dole Whip. There were no more pickup times at Tropical Hideaway for the whole day. While the Tropical Hideaway does frequently have a long line, it doesn’t always have one, even if mobile order is filled up.
The next major issue we’ve found is that even if you have a return time, you sometimes still have to wait in a long line to pick up your order. When you receive the notification that “your food is ready,” there’s a line of other people who have the same notification. So now after potentially waiting three hours for your return time, you have to wait 20 minutes to pick it up, waiting in the same line that mobile order was intended to eliminate.
This is something Disney will just have to work out with its foods cast members. In the meantime, we have a couple of tips to mitigate issues. Mobile order food early and outside of peak times (avoid 11:30am-2pm). Also, you can hit “prepare my food” whenever your window is open, we recommend hitting it early, even if you’re on your way to the restaurant.
Limited Menus, Food Availability, and Designated Dining Areas
Further compounding the issue of mobile order is the limited availability of food. Many restaurants remain closed, and the ones that are open have limited menus. It’s difficult to get a reservation for table service establishments such as Cafe Orleans, for example, because there just aren’t that many reservations available. Then, when you arrive, the menu only has a few items – just four entrees at Cafe Orleans. Bewilderingly, the pomme frites aren’t available as an appetizer, but they still come with the Monte Cristo.
Regardless, a few missing french fries won’t ruin Cafe Orleans. Frustratingly, there are just not many places to eat at either park, but especially Disneyland.
Even the simple act of getting some water on a hot 90° day was difficult for us at times. Mobile order windows have a line to return, so stepping in front to ask for a cup of water is awkward. There are very few outdoor vending carts to get bottled water, depending on where you are in the park. We’ve seen reports of some closing early too. Water fountains can be hit or miss if they’re active and it’s a bit of a grey area if it’s sanitary to drink from one.
When you do finally get some food, there’s also the issue of the designated dining areas. Finding somewhere shady to sit and eat has frequently been a problem in the past, but due to physical distancing, there are fewer tables. Disney went as far as designating some curbs on Main Street as designating dining areas because there just aren’t enough places to sit and eat.
Thankfully, more restaurants are expected to open within the coming weeks, adding more options and capacity. Even the few days between cast member previews and park opening, we observed more seating (and umbrellas!) being added. Temporary mismatched seating was also spotted in some areas, perhaps in an effort to add more seating for the time being. We expect things to iron out pretty quickly where they can. But all of this does make us worry about the expansion guest capacity which is heading our way as Orange County moves to the less restrictive Yellow Tier (likely next week) and the state contemplates removing most restrictions as early as June 15th. To accommodate more guests, Disney will need more tables, more staff, and more available restaurants.
Parking
But the single most difficult thing right now (for early risers) is parking. If you hope to be at the park before opening, you are in for a rough go. It can take over an hour to park, get through security and temperature check, and WALK to the front gate (as trams are not running). It’s a mess to be avoided. As a result, we are now recommending that you arrive an hour late to allow parking and the front gate to settle down. If you do want to shoot for opening, you can also try the MiceChat parking offer at The Anaheim Hotel (which will safe you a few bucks and is much closer to the front gate.
Note that if the Anaheim Hotel lot is full (which can happen), the GardenWalk Mall is located directly behind the Anaheim Hotel and costs $30 a day to park (but is still far easier to park and walk to the park than Disney’s own structures).
With how responsive Disney has been, some issues may be fixed before you get a chance to visit. But even with the few pitfalls, all guests can enjoy the effort Disney has put forth to make the parks a great experience, even with the state-mandated restrictions. While we’re excited to see the parks return to “normal,” we think this might be one of the best times to visit Disneyland in recent years. The parks are beautiful, the crowds are light, and there’s nothing quite like Disneyland to bring a sense of joy after a trying year.
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Let’s Hear From You
Now that Disneyland has been open for a few weeks, we imagine that as the park finds its operating rhythm many of the highs we’ve experienced will continue and the handful of issues we’ve encountered will straighten out. Have you been to Disneyland since its reopening? What have been your experiences with the adjusted method of operation at the resort? Do you have tips to share? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
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