Animal Kingdom review Nov 2020

[Deleted]

We did AK yesterday, and I promised I’d write a review for anyone considering going with COVID.

First, there were WAY more people in the park than I expected. It didn’t feel “like a ghost town” at all. If anything it felt like a less-busy day from olden times.

Mask wear: I somehow missed that neck gaiters aren’t allowed. H and C wear dual-layer gaiters and I thought they’d be okay since they have two layers, but they weren’t allowed into the park with them. I had an extra adult mask in my purse that H could wear, but we had to buy a disposable mask for C from a vending machine in the bus lane, and promised him we’d buy him a Disney mask as soon as we could. It was huge and kept sliding down below his nose, and in the 100 feet between the gate and the gift shop he got stopped twice and asked to fix his mask. So they are VERY serious about correct mask wear and as a result, everyone was wearing masks correctly in the entire park. The only time masks can be removed is if eating or drinking and stationary — so you can’t walk and drink or eat as a way to get around wearing a mask. You also can’t eat or drink in line, which was challenging with a kiddo in some of the longer lines.

Spacing: For the most part people stayed spaced out. Lines all have markers on the ground. I few times I had to ask people to move back to the next marker. The lines also had plexiglass up where distancing wasn’t possible, and many rides have plexiglass as well.

Cleaning: I did not see a single person cleaning anything. Maybe they were stealthy and didn’t do it in front of guests, but I would feel better if I had seen it. There was hand sanitizer literally everywhere and people were good about using it.

Lines: No fast passes still. FOP and Everest were 120-180 minutes all day. Everything else was 30-45 minutes except a few things we could walk onto first thing in the morning. It was really kind of disappointing that there was no hope of getting onto those rides. I hope they bring back FP for at least the more popular rides.

ETA:
Dining: Very few food vendors out in the park, and maybe half of the kiosks were closed. Lots of drink stands open though. I think they don’t want people trying to walk and eat, and are dealing with reduced capacity. We ate lunch at Rainforest cafe and the food was straight up terrible, so we were pretty hungry most of the day except for snacks we bought.

[wesleycrusher]

I read online that park capacity was increased to 35%. Pre-pandemic, on an average day, most parks were at 55-60% capacity. So your experience makes sense with the wait times. Especially with less shows and character meets to pull people out of ride lines.

[curbsideprophet]

Interesting, thanks for the update. Sorry it was more crowded than you were hoping.

[Deleted]

Nov 25, 2020 18:19:31 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

Interesting, thanks for the update. Sorry it was more crowded than you were hoping.

It felt okay from a COVID perspective, but we were disappointed that the lines were so long.

[monkeyfeet]

My husband told me recently fast passes are going away as the technology is outdated and they’ll move to virtual queues? I have no idea where he read that. We had a similar experience to yours at HS in late Sept, but recently went to Epcot on a Friday (Nov 13) and I think our longest wait was 40 min (test track and frozen).

[chocolatepie]

The parks have been quite busy since late September or so. July and August were very nice.

(we go a lot)

I really miss Fastpasses but they won't be returning in their former state and really, adding them right now will only make the long lines even longer. We are very strategic in our park touring now as I am spoiled by Fastpasses