Breaking: Disney Eliminates Indoor Mask Policy

Disney is officially eliminating the indoor mask mandate at both of its domestic parks effective Thursday February 17.  Here is the official statement from Disney:

Beginning February 17, 2022, Face coverings will be optional for fully vaccinated Guests in both outdoor and indoor locations. We expect Guests who are not fully vaccinated to continue wearing face coverings in all indoor locations, including indoor attractions and theaters. Face coverings will still be required by all Guests (ages 2 and up) on enclosed Disney transportation, including Disney buses, monorails, and Disney Skyliner.

To review, upon reopening after the Covid-related closure, masks were required EVERYWHERE at Walt Disney World - indoors and outdoors.  These protocols were in place, along with other restrictions, such as social distancing markers and capacity limitations.  Once case numbers started declining, Disney revised their policy to first allow masks to be removed for outdoor photographs, and then again to be for indoors only.  There was a brief window of a couple of months when, following CDC guidelines, Disney removed the requirement for all vaccinated people in all locations, indoors and outdoors, except on Disney transportation.

Tips for Making Dining Reservations

 

I've written a bunch about food on this blog, because ... well, why not?  Dining is one of the things that makes your WDW vacation so unique.  Here I talked about classic Disney snacks and I have an in depth guide to dining in the trip planning section, which talks about (among other things) quick service vs. table service, the Disney Dining Plan and more.  Today we're going to focus on table service restaurants, because we're going to talk about making dining reservations (until Disney starts "allowing" people to make quick service reservations, table service are the only ones we need to worry about here).

Specifically, I want to talk about the when and how of making these reservations.  In the past, you could make advance dining reservations (ADRs) 180 days before your trip.  That's about six months ahead of time!  Partially due to Covid and also partially due to guest satisfaction, that time has been cut down to 60 days before your trip.  Personally, I preferred the old system, as I'm a planner (as you can probably tell) and since a lot of people weren't prepared to even book a trip 180 days beforehand, let along reserve seats in a restaurant, this worked to my advantage (and is probably a factor in why it was changed).

Disney First Quarter Earnings Call Notes

 

 

The Walt Disney Company had their quarterly earnings call yesterday, in which they discussed the financial aspects of the company with their investors.  This can be dry material (and often is!) but sometimes bits of information can be gleaned in terms of where the company sees itself and where it's going.  

There is a lot of information in these calls and I'm not going to discuss all of it here (if you're interested in the number of new Disney+ subscribers and such, there are plenty of places to find that information).  But there were a couple of tidbits relating to Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, which obviously includes Walt Disney World, that might be relevant so I figured I'd talk about a couple of those here and offer some quick commentary.

Figment Popcorn Bucket, and the Problem With Disney Merchandise

 

Epcot’s International Festival of the Arts began recently, and in traditional Disney fashion, items exclusive to the event became hot commodities.  In this case, one particular item became the hottest commodity of all – a popcorn bucket featuring the beloved Figment, selling for $25 at Pop Eats and containing rainbow popcorn.

 

If you were to visit Epcot for the first day of the festival, what line do you think might be the longest at the start of the day?  Perhaps Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, since it’s the newest ride in the park and just recently went to standby?  Or maybe Test Track, which always sees inflated wait times early in the day, or Frozen Ever After, perennially one of the most popular rides in the park?  No, the longest line that morning – and indeed all day – was to purchase this Figment popcorn bucket.

 

Remy's Ratatouille Adventure Drops Virtual Queue

 

Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Epcot’s newest attraction, is switching from a virtual queue to a standby system beginning January 10, 2022.  In this post we’ll talk about what that means and if it has any bearing on the Individual Lightning Lane (ILL) purchase, as well as how virtual queue might be used in the future.

 

If you’re interested, you can read the official announcement from Disney on their blog  . Basically, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure debuted as part of the World’s Most Magical Celebration for Walt Disney World’s 50^th Anniversary on October 1.  It had been a long time coming, and had been ready for months leading up to that date, but Disney held off opening it, partly because of the optics of having a large crowd for a new attraction during the pandemic and partly to take some of the pressure off of Magic Kingdom, which was sure to have (and did have) massive crowds on October 1.

 

Classic Walt Disney World Snacks

 

When you’re walking around the Disney parks all day, one of the most important things to monitor is when you need to take a break to eat.  The parks are chock full of food, from the smallest snack to the largest sit down meals.  Many meals, especially of the larger variety, often need to be planned well in advance.  But snacks?  Those are impulse buys, and you should take advantage of them whenever you can.  After all, a little snack can go a long way in keeping your day on track.

 

Walt Disney World is known for its food game, even among snacks.  There are plenty of places throughout the resort where you can get unique snacks, and certain times of year bring certain specialties as well.  But what about the ubiquitous snacks, the ones you can find EVERYWHERE?  What is the quintessential “Disney snack”?

 

New Airport Shuttle Service to Walt Disney World

 

Photo courtesy of sunshineflyer.com/gallery

The Sunshine Flyer just announced that they are going to be providing bus service from Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Walt Disney World Resort hotels starting on February 1, 2022.  This is a second replacement for Disney’s Magical Express service, which ends as of 12/31/21.  Since there are now a couple of new options, this post will take a look at these services and talk about the pros and cons of each, and other available transportation options.

 

As a quick reminder, Disney’s Magical Express was a “free” shuttle service from MCO to your on property resort hotel.  This was one of many perks that have been chipped away by Disney in recent years.  We talked more about this here but we’ll just say that the Magical Express was a fun benefit to staying on property, as it had themed buses and Disney cartoons playing on the way to your destination.  Some of the “magic” was lost when Disney decided to end the Magical Express.