My Weekend At Multiple Theme Parks During COVID-19

Last weekend was Labor Day weekend; Labor Day weekend is typically the mark of the “end of summer” and people flock to theme parks, water parks, boat days, vacation destinations – you name it, they go there…but not this year. 2020 has been a year for the books. Nothing that has happened this year is normal. But really, what is normal?

For Labor Day 2020, I decided to take advantage of the extra day off and drove up to Orlando; I lived in Orlando for six and a half years when I worked for Disney, so I know the city really well. It’s also one of my “happy places”. My friend Tina still lives there and the idea was to hang out with her, because I really miss her so much!

While I was in Orlando, I decided to do the unthinkable and go to a theme park; but I didn’t just go to one. No. I went to three theme parks – two at Universal on Saturday and Epcot on Sunday and Monday. Now let me give you my honest opinion about the experience.

I stayed at Universal Studios’ Endless Summer Resort Surfside Inn. It is one of the two new hotels opening up at Universal Orlando Resort that just opened earlier this summer. The check in experience was smooth and seamless. I didn’t feel uncomfortable or unsafe whatsoever. I walked in, they took my temperature, gave me a band and sent me to the front desk. At the front desk, I used one of the hand sanitizers around (there were numerous). The entire hotel experience was amazing. Catching the bus to City Walk was great, we had the entire bus to ourselves, and it took a whole ten minutes to arrive.

Now let’s talk about the parks. First, City Walk was slammed. There were temperature checks again, hand sanitizers everywhere, and metal detectors to get past security and into City Walk. But once you were in City Walk, there were people everywhere. I will give the guests credit where credit was due: EVERYONE had masks on. They wore masks everywhere we went. However, here is my complaint. I did not feel like people were properly social distancing and there were too many people, period.

Once we went into Islands, the crowds really didn’t change. It was also slammed. The ride wait times were really long, the virtual queues were maxed out, and people didn’t really respect the six feet apart rule while in line. But it was an experience that I felt I needed to experience.

Let’s shift over to Disney. Saturday night, after a long day in the sun and in the heat with a million people around me, we went to Disney Springs. Again, temperature checks to get into Disney Springs, which was great! I also noticed, considering that Disney Springs is technically an open space and has several entrances – Disney minimized the access points so that they could control the crowd. This isn’t to say that Disney Springs was empty, because it wasn’t. It was definitely crowded, but people were all wearing masks and hand sanitizers were everywhere. On Sunday, I read that Disney Springs reached capacity the night before (go figure).

On Sunday, we started our mornings at Disney Springs again. This time it was definitely less crowded; still busy, but not as crowded. From Disney Springs we headed over to the Outlets on Vineland for more shopping. Also crowded, lines were long to get in but we really only wanted to go to one or two places. The crowd was as respectful as you could be during this pandemic. Not always socially distanced, but they made an effort. From the Outlets we headed over to Epcot. Disclaimer: you must have a reservation in order to enter any of the four Disney theme parks. The Disney Park Reservation system is very easy to use and Disney has allotted a specific amount of “types” of guests per day (I.e. Annual Passholders, Hotel Guests, Daily ticket holders, etc.).

We ended up getting rained out on Sunday night, only getting to go to three or four of the Food and Wine Festival kiosks but since I anticipated in advance the possibility of either wanting to go back on Monday, I had reservations already made. So it was actually on Monday that we were able to complete the full festival options. Typically Food and Wine is the most popular event Disney has in the fall, but with COVID they reduced the number of options due to construction and keeping in mind the capacity limits. Of all the options that had, I liked about 10 kiosks (that is huge, since I am extremely picky).

Overall, I will absolutely tell you that I felt safer at Disney World than at the Universal parks. Hotel-wise, I think Universal did a great job. I am hoping to go back in the next few weeks with the goal of staying on Disney property so I can properly compare the two experiences.

Masks were definitely required, and strictly enforced. Since it could be another year of wearing masks, I also bought some at Disney and at Universal to add to my collection. It’s the little things nowadays that keep us smiling.