16 New Pitfalls We've Never Seen Before in Disney World

maybe you've been to disney world hundreds of times but you probably haven't had to deal with these problems before we're seeing issues that we've never had to manage before and today we're gonna get you up to speed on what you need to do to have a smoother vacation [Music] hey everybody it's aj for disney food blog massive transportation delays not being able to even book your hotel and waiting for hours to talk to a cast member on the phone no these aren't necessarily typical problems you'll encounter when you're planning a disney world trip but it's what we're seeing right now these new pitfalls might make your trip a little more complicated so we've got the tips to help you out the first pitfall we're starting to see right now is the skyliner situation staying at a hotel on the skyliner route seems like a great idea you have a lot of options for which hotel you stay in from the more budget-friendly pop century resort to the fancy and amenity-filled riviera resort and you get access to one of the quickest ways to travel to the parks well at least it's supposed to be if you're staying at pop century or art of animation you're at the end of the line and you need to transfer at caribbean beach which means you may have to wait in two lines before you are actually headed to epcot or hollywood studios but the bigger bummer might be when you've shelled out the cash to stay at the riviera resort and you have to wait a while to get on the skyliner so here's what's happening the station at riviera is on the epcot line but everyone who boarded at caribbean beach will be passing through which means you'll need to wait for an open gondola to get on board cast members will leave an open gondola after a few full ones but that means you won't be boarding as quickly as you might at other stations this can be especially true when there are large crowds waiting to board just before the parks open or when the parks close we've also seen really really long lines to get back to the resorts at the end of the night at hollywood studios in epcot now right now disney is still loading only one party per cabin most of the time but during busy times they are asking if people are all right sitting in a cabin with other folks so be prepared for that you can tell them that you're not comfortable with it and get your own cabin as social distancing guidelines relax even more the long lines will start to get a little shorter but you can still expect crowds to build a park open and park close sure the ride on the skyliner is quick between 3 and 12 minutes depending on where you're going but you need to get on it first if you don't want to wait in a super long line for the skyliner you may want to consider only traveling when crowds will be lower i.e not right at park open or about an hour following or ride a park close obviously that's not going to be an option for you if you want to get the most time out of your park day so if you don't want to get stuck behind a bunch of other people in line first thing in the morning show up before the skyliner opens about 30 minutes before the park's due you'll have to wait for it to open but when it does you'll be one of the first on board otherwise consider other forms of transportation buses aren't typically running on the regular to parks you can get to via skyliner so you may want to drive yourself or get a ride share but that has its own problems all right the next pitfall we're seeing in disney world right now is ride share hassles so if you're facing an hour long wait to get on the skyliner you might be tempted to just call an uber or lyft which will still likely be faster than waiting in a massive line for disney's free transportation but it might take longer than you're used to fewer people are driving for ride share services right now after demand for ride shares dropped by 75 during the pandemic many drivers left that job and demand for rides is rising but those drivers haven't returned with fewer drivers and higher demand it may take a while to match with a driver you may have a driver cancel while you're waiting to be picked up and have to go through the process again this has happened to some of our reporters multiple times now that can cause the price to go up as well rides are costing as much as double what we're used to lately check both uber and lyft for which has the better price and check for deals or look for promo codes and disney's minivans still aren't running so the regular ride shares are your only option if that's the kind of transportation you need to take if you need car seats by the way you may want to consider booking a shuttle in advance that offers those as they're not common in ride shares now if all of that sounds too complicated you may just want to rent your own car there is an alamo car rental location right outside of magic kingdom that offer shuttles to and from your hotel but if you're more into the ride share deal you could schedule a trip in advance in the app that may help prevent drivers from canceling on you and should guarantee a certain pickup window that could be really helpful if you're using it to get to the airport since you know what time your flight is and when you need to leave okay next we're going to talk about park passes yeah we've been dealing with making park pass reservations since last july but they are selling out mega fast now even as park capacity starts to increase even more disney hasn't yet given a new number but it did indicate the park capacity will be increasing beyond the 35 figure we'd previously seen we've recently noticed an increase in available park passes for the months of may and june but still many dates remain booked up like magic kingdom for the park's 50th anniversary in october 1st is book solid and a few other dates in the fall are selling out quickly now with the increase in capacity in the parks it should be a little bit easier to snag the dates you want but we still highly recommend you book those park passes as soon as you have your tickets so you get the best selection of park availability if the dates you wanted to book are gone already stay on top of re-releases or refills we're always covering the current status of available park passes over at disney foodblog.com and if you sign up for our newsletter all that news will get sent right to your inbox and remember to keep checking every single morning to see if park passes have been replenished for the time frame you're going that happens all the time and they sell out really really fast when they're replenished so keep an eye on it all right the next new pitfall we've never seen before in disney world is getting food sometimes now we have several situations we want to talk about when it comes to food problems right now in disney world the first one is that there's no room service at the moment so if you're someone who likes to relax and have a lazy morning at your hotel with some breakfast in bed or if you arrive in orlando very very late and are trying to find food on disney world property i've got some tough news for you room service isn't really happening at disney world right now you'll only find it at the yacht and beach club resorts and it's limited compared to what it used to be now this isn't such a bad thing room service at disney world has never really been great and it's always taken a long time to arrive and oftentimes you could only get pizza or seriously overpriced sandwich but if you want some food in your room you've still got options and arguably they're actually better than disney room service anyway thanks pandemic doordash ubereats and other delivery services can now bring food to your disney world hotel this is a total revelation i am loving that it's that easy to get food delivered to your hotel right now you might have to walk to the lobby to pick up your food but remember the food is probably better depending on where you order from and you have more options than standard room service and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg now here's the deal for how to pick up your food i spoke with a couple of cast members when i was at disney world last week and they said that it is absolutely recommended that you come down to the lobby to get your food from your delivery person now the delivery people are allowed to take your food to your room they're allowed to bring it up and put it right outside your door but disney highly recommends for safety reasons that you come down and meet your delivery person in the lobby now that choice is up to you but that's what i was told now we would love to have that twilight feast at the polynesian back but other room service was just okay to bad so i am not all that upset that room service hasn't come back in disney world with doordash you can grab lunch from loads of different restaurants including some disney springs locations like earl of sandwich so you can even get disney food delivered to your hotel all right a couple of other food issues we are encountering when it comes to new pitfalls that we haven't really seen before dining has been booking up really fast now i know you're gonna say aj dining booked up really fast before but we are seeing it get worse than ever before in fact i've been looking for restaurants weeks out and really all that's available are restaurants in disney springs and i literally can't find anything in the parks now you expect oga's cantina to book up quickly if you didn't this is your psa that star wars lounge books up real fast but what about the plaza restaurant in magic kingdom sana animal kingdom lodge you could always get a reservation there before now restaurants all over are booking up further in advance just like hotels and park passes even those restaurants we've typically been able to eat at last minute are totally booked weeks in advance now the booking window currently opens at 60 days out disney hotel guests still get a jump on booking dining reservations since they can start booking all of their dining 60 days out from their arrival day but if you're staying off site you'll need to wait until each day at 60 days to book that dining and you'll want to know where you want to eat before booking for your trip opens and be ready to book the ones you absolutely can't miss as soon as things open like be our guest restaurant or ogus cantina and that's 6 a.m eastern on the website or 7am eastern if you're calling now there are a few restaurants that are available to book on open table and you may be able to book those before the 60 day mark or there may be a few more reservations available than what shows up in the disney system these will likely be restaurants in disney springs though we have seen places like flying fish and jico show up in the past so it's worth checking third party booking engines for your dinner reservations and something else to note that i think is really really important my personal experience in disney world last week was that i wasn't able to book any reservations weeks out or even a couple of days out but if i checked the day before or the night before a lot of reservations opened up for some reason so that's a last-ditch effort to do that if you're really really hoping to dine someplace like chef mickey's or be our guest restaurant they may show up on the walk up wait list which is where you're booking your reservation on my disney experience and you choose now or they may show up the night before for the next day because people do cancel their reservations 24 hours in advance so that they're not charged a bunch of those might flood the system the day before you want to dine okay mobile order now we've said it often on the channel recently but you really need to order your mobile order lunch or dinner early if you prefer eating at peak meal times everyone is encouraged to mobile order from counter service restaurants in disney world which can mean one more place where you'll find competition in locking in your spot smaller locations like woody's lunchbox and toy story land can book up their lunch mobile order pickup window times shortly after the park opens so basically if you want to eat they're too bad there's literally no other times available to eat there now why is this important well because you don't want to get stuck at 11 am realizing the family is hangry and the only pick-up times are 4 p.m or at a restaurant that has a menu you guys don't want so lock in your lunch pick-up time or your dinner pick-up time early in the day so you don't miss out on the restaurant you actually want to dine at even counter service restaurants now need to basically be reserved in advance in a way so that's a crazy pitfall we've never seen before in disney world but it is absolutely something you need to be thinking about if you are heading to disney world and want to dine in a popular fast food restaurant okay now let's talk about hotel availability because we're kind of seeing the same thing with hotels as we're seeing with restaurants and park passes you may need to have some backup hotel choices and not just because your favorite may still be literally closed disney hotels are booking up quickly and you might get shut out of your top choice when hotels first opened disney did state that they're not booking to full capacity which may very well still be the case but even as capacity is increasing we're still seeing some hotels completely booked up months in advance i personally have tried to book some hotels in the past couple of months and there have been many many nights that there was literally not a single hotel available on disney property and many nights that there were only one or two and they were really weird wacky rooms now i've seen that happen before trying to book hotels in disney world in the before times and i will say it did not happen very often and if it did happen it meant something huge was going on on property like a big media event or a big opening or something like that but i've never seen it like this kind of consistently not having hotels available so with limited capacity and a lot of hotels just not open yet then you've got fewer open rooms to go around so if your top choice or even your two top choices are booked for your travel dates then check out some non-disney hotels like the swan and dolphin which are right next to the boardwalk in and walking distance to both epcot and hollywood studios for some more options you may even find better rates at hotels like the swan and dolphin so that's definitely an option you can choose i know i mentioned in another video that that's actually where i'm staying coming up here in a couple of weeks because i love those hotels they're actually cheaper you still get a deluxe feel and you can walk to two parks so that's a no-brainer especially since disney is not giving the same perks that they used to give to their on-property hotel guests but yeah if you are even thinking that you might go to disney world in the next six months or a year or year and a half go ahead and get that hotel booked you can always cancel it and if there's a particular hotel you want to stay at it makes a lot more sense to get that locked in and know that you've got it if you need it then to try to book when you're confirmed and you can't get into any hotels now i'll do a little plug here really quickly for small world vacations you guys know that's the travel agency that we work with having a travel agent who knows their stuff right now is incredibly incredibly useful because they're going to be able to help you figure out and navigate that hotel maze they're going to be able to check those hotels for you see when the hotel you want opens up they're going to be able to kind of wiggle and fiddle fatal as molly would say to figure out when that hotel does have dates available if you need to change your dates a couple days back and forth so a travel agent right now can be really really helpful and like i said we recommend small world vacations all right so another new pitfall that we're seeing in disney world that we've course never seen before is when social distancing sort of goes out the window now social distancing guidelines may be relaxing in disney world but even as disney starts to transition to three feet distancing rather than six feet in some locations it can be tough to even keep that space sometimes during character cavalcades or rainstorms people crowd together and social distancing just goes out the window it was always unpleasant to get crammed into a tight space with strangers but now after a year and a half of dealing with a global pandemic there's still that extra anxiety we're seeing theater shows start to seat people much more closely with only a seat or a few seats in between parties and ride vehicles are starting to remove plexiglass and seat different groups closer together with nearly half of all americans receiving at least a first vaccine dose we're creeping towards the end of social distancing and a return to normalcy in the parks but if you're still concerned about being in a large closely packed group if you've got kids who aren't vaccinated you'll want to pay special attention when characters are going past and when storms pop up and people are all seeking shelter from the rain like we said when the parks first opened only you can determine your comfort level and if you're starting to get uncomfortable it's time to move away it's time to get away from the crowd go someplace else put on your mask there were several times when i was in disney world recently that i put on my mask because it felt like i was a little too close to people even though i'm fully vaccinated i felt like i was a little too close to folks and so i would put on my mask even if it's just for their safety all right another pitfall that we are seeing increase in disney world are those telephone wait times if you need to reach disney about a dining or hotel reservation or just a question you might find yourself waiting a lot longer than you used to now i know i know we've been talking about phone wait times for years because if there's ever sort of a restaurant opening or something big happening if food and wine bookings are going on sale or something like that then you're always on the phone for hours and hours right but it feels like these days it's non-stop like you can't even call for just a regular routine question anymore without being on hold for an hour now virtual chat and phone wait times are super long we've waited over an hour to get a live person on the line to help with our reservations over the past few months and i'm guessing the staffing is still down i'm sure people have a lot of questions right now with so many things changing constantly don't forget disney furloughed a lot of their employees and a lot of those folks have not come back so we gotta be prepared to settle in and listen to some disney hold music if you need some specific help otherwise i recommend doing some searching of your own to answer more broad questions we have a lot of resources over at disneyfoodblog.com and we're always working to answer your questions and identify concerns you may have about your upcoming trip by the way if you're wondering how to navigate the maze of phone numbers in disney world we've just published a blog post that basically tells you where all those phone numbers go and the best phone number to use for the thing you're concerned about so go check out that blog post next okay another pitfall we've never seen before in disney world a virtual queue for a cookie so the virtual queue for rise of the resistance was a pretty big deal when it started sign up for a spot in line and come back when it's your turn to ride but now we've got virtual cues for shopping the walk-up wait list for restaurants and virtual cues to buy cookies you might wait longer to get into gideon's bake house in disney springs than to get on rise of the resistance these cookies are a huge deal they're huge at almost half a pound and they're also huge in the fact that just everybody wants them they've been named the best cookie in the world on more than one list gideon's also has limited release cake slices and special cookies and special time frames that you can only get certain things and this all switches out all the time so there will always be fun and unique options but you're gonna have to get on that wait list as soon as you arrive in disney springs in order to guarantee you get the thing you want and by the way we've also seen them shut down the virtual queue around 7 pm so head to gideon's before dinner if you want a cookie for dessert and absolutely if you want to gideon's cookie while you're in disney world that's something you're gonna have to plan that's not gonna be spontaneous for you so on your disney springs day go get on that wait list all right another pitfall we've never seen before in disney world no trams you're planning for a ton of walking but what about before you even get into the park parking lot trams are still not running and while the parking lots are slightly less crowded than super busy days of the past you're still gonna have to hoof it to the park entrance from your car and back the back is tougher by the way we're hearing some talk the parking trams may be coming back soon so stick with us here on the channel we bring you the latest disney news every week on saturday morning and sign up for our newsletter so you get all the news sent straight to your inbox and you know how to plan your trip okay another new pitfall we've never seen before in disney world another kind of virtual cue here a wait to use the pool now this one will depend on how crowded your hotel is and what the current capacity restrictions are but we have started seeing virtual cues at hotel pools before you tote the kids down to the pool you might want to check if there's a weight or not some pools may not have a text to return feature in which case you're gonna have to just wait an old-fashioned line until it's your turn to swim can you even imagine yeah that's happening all right another new pitfall we've never seen before in disney world that epcot monorail closure we've already shared the unexpected bummer of waiting for the skyliner and the difficulty of getting a ride share right now but the trusty monorail is also throwing a wrench in our travel plans lately the monorail connecting the ticket and transportation center and epcot is still closed so you'll be taking a bus from the magic kingdom area over to epcot and the polynesian monorail station is being completely rebuilt it's expected to reopen with the hotel this summer but right now the monorail is definitely not as convenient as you're used to so plan some extra time if you're headed to abcot from the monorail resorts or if you're park hopping between epcot and magic kingdom and if you've got a dining reservation at the polynesian plan to drive yourself or leave plenty of time to get over there via disney's buses next pitfall we're not used to seeing in disney world is needing a plan but not being able to plan should i book a dessert party for my trip later this year will fireworks even be back there's still a lot of uncertainty parades fireworks other things that have been paused to keep crowds from building may be able to come back soon but how soon we recently found out that mickey's not so scary halloween party is being replaced with a shorter after-hours event this year but what about christmas when will we find out about mickey's very merry christmas party or the candlelight processional in epcot you may not get much lead time on an event announcement and when tickets go on sale these events will book up quickly especially this year you need to know what things you might want to do and maybe hold some cash aside in case you need to buy a ticket asap if an event is announced love the shows in animal kingdom well festival the lion king is back but nemo isn't but if it does come back you will need more time in that park to guarantee you can see all the shows you may want to add another day to your trip or at least another partial day in animal kingdom which could mean changing up your plans the name of the game right now is flexibility because we just don't know what the future holds i get emails every single day from followers who are saying hey aj is ohana opening soon hey aj we're gonna be there at the end of july are we gonna be able to go to casey's corner and i have to answer every single one i have no idea i don't know when disney's gonna bring things back i don't know when port orleans is gonna reopen i don't know any of the answers to those questions but you know you can trust me as soon as i do it will be in our newsletter it'll be here on the channel and we'll get that information to you but honestly we're just as up in the air as you are with a lot of this stuff so we're trying to plan around all of it too and it's definitely gonna mean that you gotta have some flexibility in your plans and you've gotta leave some hours open for things that disney hasn't even announced yet all right the next new pitfall we're seeing in disney world everything seems to take longer right now when you're at disney world it just kind of seems like you're going in slow motion because of lines because of waiting for transportation and mostly that's because capacity is lower so we've talked about those lines we're seeing and how it takes you longer to get around disney world right now how the line for haunted mansion is way back in frontierland and the line for frozen ever after or is actually in china it's just very confusing you don't really know what all these lines are for and of course no fast pass means you're waiting in those lines for every ride even when you mobile order food from counter service restaurants you're going to wait to pick up that food after you let them know you've arrived to grab it you'll find lines for other transportation besides the skyliner especially a park opening and park close and you may encounter lines at world of disney in disney springs and some smaller stores and the parks you're going to have to wait to get into those stores lines are going to be longer than you've ever seen ride lines may snake far away from the entrance of a ride you'll spend extra time looking for where to even go to start waiting so pad your plans with extra waiting time just to be safe and don't pack your schedule so tightly that you can't make up for an unexpected 30 to 40 minute wait somewhere believe me if you do that you're just going to stress yourself out more so give yourself lots of extra time maybe add if you can an extra day or two to your trip so that you don't have to be so stressed out about fitting it all in now i know you're like aj that would be great i'd love to add an extra couple of days to my trip and i know how expensive that is that's one option the other option is to not try to do quite so much in the time that you have now the biggest pitfall we're dealing with is how quickly things are changing we probably had to re-record a part of this video because the info changed new restaurants are opening all the time the hours and days that things are opening change on a weekly basis a restaurant could be open and the next week it's not and then it's only open these days and only certain dishes are available at certain times health and safety policies are going to be changing a lot over the coming months so you'll want to stay up to date on all of that and keep those push notifications enabled on the my disney experience app that's how disney's communicating some of the most up-to-date information including when they unexpectedly extend park or ride hours and that's always something you want to know you really have to be in the know every single day to see what's changed and what can greatly affect your trip and again one of the best ways to do that is to sign up for our newsletter you won't miss a thing we cover everything that happens in disney world we cover it all we get the huge news sent out to our subscribers asap so you'll be the first to know going to disney world right now can be challenging and we're dealing with a lot of problems we never experienced before but some of these issues are temporary as things move towards normalcy again still you don't want to get caught off guard stay up to date on all the news coming out of disney world and don't worry we've got all the disneylanders covered too our job here is to make sure you know everything you need to know about planning a disney trip on the west coast or the east coast including the difficult things you might encounter and it's our job to give you ways to avoid those issues so i hope this has been helpful thank you guys for listening thank you for watching as always this is aj for disney food vlog and we'll see you real soon

Channel: DFBGuide

Views: 352,066

Keywords: disneyfood, disney, disney world, disneyland, disneyvideo, disneyvacation, food, disney parks, disney travel, disney tips, disney guides, disney planning, disney trip, disney how to, disney vlog, disney vlogger

Id: umjKWCjBuSI

Length: 25min 43sec (1543 seconds)

Published: Mon May 31 2021