Theme Parks during COVID
As a typical Florida resident, I have been a Passholder at both Disney & Universal. However, for obvious reasons I haven’t been able to use them for more than 6 months due to COVID. While the parks had both reopened, I wanted to wait and assess the situation before I went. While Universal opened back up in June, and Disney then in July, I watched their social media accounts and other friends who visited to assess whether it was worth the anxiety to go.
In this blog post, I compare my experiences at both Disney’s EPCOT & Universal Studios to help you decide if it’s worth the risk.
“My opinion: I only felt safe at Disney & will not be going back to Universal anytime soon.”
Reserve your day & park
Currently Disney limits the number of people in each park to 25% capacity.
As a passholder, you can only reserve up to three different days. Right now Passholders first day to reserve available is August 24th.
Universal does not let you reserve a day but just says they closed when they hit “limited capacity”.
Hand Sanitizer
It was interesting to me how both parks handled sanitization. At Disney you will see the hand sanitizer stations all around the park like in the main picture for this blog. They also had “hand washing” stations set up so you didn’t always have to go into the bathroom. There is an employee who also walks around with a sign telling you to wear masks & wash your hands.
At Universal, they squirt hand sanitizer into your hands before you’re about to go on each ride. I did not see hand sanitizer stations around the park but in one or two places.
I brought my own hand sanitizer to both parks but didn’t feel I needed to use it (just be warned the ones the parks use all smell like tequila lol).
EPCOT
We tried Epcot first because we knew we would be outside most of the time and mask on which felt safest to us.
My friend Bryn took the Skyliner from her resort which leads right you to the back of Epcot and around 11:30am she said she walked right into the park with no lines.
For me, I was driving into the park. I breezed through the gate when I arrived around 2pm. They currently park every other spot so you’re spaced out between people, but I was surprised to be a couple sections back. There is no trolley service currently, but I was in the park no joke by 2:05!
First thing they do is take your temperature. They said my temperature seemed a little high so they then took it again behind my ear and I was clear to enter. They do not touch your bags at the security check, you take everything with you through the machine. The ticket scanner is also touch-less currently (no finger print). This is why the Passholder bands are so great!
With 7 hours in the park, we were able to do Test Track twice, Soar’n once, and go around the world leisurely twice.
You are not not allowed to eat or drink while walking around. The employees will ask you to find a table off to the side to take off your mask and eat/drink. I also found it obvious but still interesting that each of the country employees were just wearing the basic Epcot uniforms, not the country specific dress. This is because many of their international employees went back home at the beginning of COVID.
Best part about Epcot right now is that it’s the food & wine festival. You could tell the menus were much more limited & certain kiosks were still temporarily closed when social distancing could not happen. We did love though the huge tent between Canada and England that houses four stations (chocolate, festival favorites, champagne, and mac & cheese). There are high top tables very spaced out so we took a corner one on it’s own to enjoy some gourmet food safely. My favorites from the festival this year were the Gourmet Mac & Cheese from the F&W tent, the Impossible Slider at Earth Eats and the Chicken Dumplings from China.
Ride times
I felt the wait times were pretty quick but stay patient. Frozen for instance seemed long with a 40 min wait and a line out to China, but they had everyone very spaced out waiting so it was more like 25 minutes said & done. Soar’n & test track were much faster, probably about 15 minutes to wait. I appreciated that Disney put plexiglass barriers for all lines inside so you were not next to anyone. I also learned that as long as you are in line before park close, they must honor your turn on the ride.
Conclusion
Not once did I feel like it was too crowded or that I was unsafe. I give major kudos to Disney & their team for all the meticulous effort they put into making the experience a safe one.
There were sadly no fireworks to end the magical day, but the calmness you feel from having a safe escape is magical enough.
A wonderful day at Disney, even during COVID.
UNIVERSAL
I arrived at universal a little after 8:30 to park and there was a line at the gate. Much more stressful vibes but still manageable crowds as we walked towards the park. They take your temperature before you even get into CityWalk. They parked people every other vehicle like at Disney. They were very quick to take temperatures and then you walk over to the security line.
Amazed to walk into Diagon Alley & see such small crowds when we first arrived in the morning.
Ride times
We were able to get onto the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit in 5 min & The Revenge of the Mummy in 10, but Shrek & Minions both had a 40 min waits. Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts said 30 min wait but we walked right on after putting our items in a locker. By 10am, we had already ridden three rides. There is no plexiglass for inside wait lines. The Hogwarts Express was a 35 min wait, but probably the longest wait we had. We did have the cabin to ourselves at least.
We were disappointed upon arrival into Hogsmeade that Hagrid’s ride was closed for the day, apparently for maintenance issues. They said it was announced on their twitter account, but it definitely put a damper on our day.
Conclusion
You could tell there was a much larger crowd forming around 11am and they were not as good about keeping things organized to maintain social distancing. For instance, The Hogwarts Express to hop parks they are keen to keep everyone separate in line, have only one party per cabin, etc. yet when you get off everyone is bottlenecked into the same exit so everyone is on top of each other when leaving.
We left by 2pm from Universal because it was becoming much too crowded & wait times were so long. Honestly, I felt stressed. Maybe it was the lack of rules & coordination by the employees there, but it felt like everyone was winging it. Plus, not to stereotype, but people at Universal did not seem to follow guidelines like Passholders do at Disney.
Crowds picked up around 1pm and my anxiety couldn’t handle the crowds so we left.
As you can tell, these were both very different experiences.
In the end, I would NOT go to Universal again during COVID. But I felt safe at EPCOT & am looking forward to trying another one of the Disney parks next week.
Would you go to a theme park right now during COVID? Sincerely,
Sarah
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