*** Official August 2021 thread ***

hsmamainva said:
We fly out Tuesday! Everything is packed! Waiting for my oldest daughter to work her weekend nursing shifts and it will be time to go!

We have to leave our house at 4am to make our 7:30 flight. Pray for us. 😂
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Have a great trip! We were originally leaving Tuesday also so will be living vicariously through you. Have fun!!
 


Just finished our first night watching epcot forever from our balcony at YC. Got to epcot around 430. Had a pre-dinner lobster roll and beer flight. Via napoli at 515. FEA after 15 min wait. Nemo walk on. Spaceship earth walk on. Candy bar donut after (had a weird cirtusy flavor). DS3 did great with his mask. Overall a great start. AK tomorrow.
 
Well, our lovely 17 day Orlando vacation is coming to an end. Today is a rest/pool day as tomorrow we have a 13hr drive back home. We came in with as little expectations as possible and had an amazing time. Universal ended up being a bigger hit than I thought. Both girls thoroughly enjoyed the parks so I upgraded to annual passes and am hoping to make some weekend trips with them over the next year.

Disney portion was fun but I can honestly say we will be giving it a break for a few years or until shows/dining comes back and the new Genie+ thingie gets it's legs lol EPCOT was a fabulous quiet day. AK we decided we could have saved the park tix day. MK was busier than we have ever experienced. It's definitely the one park FP was missed. Hollywood Studios is still a half day park for us but we ended up doing it twice as I was able to get 7am BG ROTR for Sat (Got on the 1pm group our 1st day).

Grateful to have had the opportunity to plan such a long trip as who knows when it will happen again. Staying off site will always be the number one choice unless we are coming for a short weekend.
 
I have one more work day (Tuesday) and then I fly out Wednesday morning for my 3 days break. I'm so scared it's going to fall through now.....I have everything packed and I just need to make it to the hotel room and sleep a few million hours
 


Ecomommy09 said:
I have one more work day (Tuesday) and then I fly out Wednesday morning for my 3 days break. I'm so scared it's going to fall through now.....I have everything packed and I just need to make it to the hotel room and sleep a few million hours
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It will be great! Positive vibes to you!
 
Trip 8/7-8/17 Disney, 8/18 - 8/22 Universal

I had considered canceling based on all of the negative reviews. So glad I didn't. It was a great trip.

We didn't miss Fast Pass at all. The first part of the trip lines were longer than we were used to but the lines moved. And ...I don't know... the fact that everyone was in the same line, that the line wasn't a result of poor planning on my part or my inability to get a fast pass, the fact that everyone was in the same line, just made it more tolerable. The back half of the trip, the crowd just disappeared. FOP was almost a walk one at 1:40pm. The posted wait was 15 minutes, but we walked straight through the queue, waited for one group and then it was our turn. For the last 3 days of the trip we didn't even rope drop; it just wasn't necessary.

I am so glad that the new system..Genie & Lightning...wasn't in place for our trip. It doesn't sound at all appealing to me and I am glad that I wasn't trying to figure out something new at the last minute.

I missed the characters. I don't understand why more aren't available for for distanced photos. Over 10 days, I saw Buzz at MK once, and Mary Poppins at Epcot once.

Despite the low waits, fireworks at MK were mobbed on the 3 nights we were there. It was insanely crowded. We saw them once, 8/12, in the garden in front of Casey's, arriving at 730 mostly because we were tired. Great view. On 8/17, a day that had very low wait times all day, my daughter and I headed to the hub around 820...just looking for any spot. It was the biggest crowd I had ever seen. I don't know where all of these people came from. Since it was so empty that day, I didn't think we would need to stake out a spot early. We approached from Tomorrowland and the employees just screamed at us to leave the park via the route behind the Main St stores, over and over again. They wouldn't let anyone try to find a spot. It was overwhelming. We ended up watching the fireworks from the Tomorrowland bridge which is a rather bad view.
 
123SA said:
I missed the characters. I don't understand why more aren't available for for distanced photos. Over 10 days, I saw Buzz at MK once, and Mary Poppins at Epcot once.
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Can you believe I was there a few days behind you and I NEVER saw Mickey or Minnie!!! I didn't realize it until the end. I saw princesses, Donald, Daisy, etc. I think I just kept missing the cavalcades. Thinking back it was the weirdest thing. Thank goodness my kids didn't mention it (they are almost 4 and 8).

I definitely missed the characters, but I agree we had the best trip and the lack of FastPass didn't bother us at all. We liked wandering around and just checking out wait times. I think it's all just a matter of your personality and what you expect going into the trip. Definitely unsure about Genie. I liked the freedom to just roam.
 
123SA said:
Trip 8/7-8/17 Disney, 8/18 - 8/22 Universal

I had considered canceling based on all of the negative reviews. So glad I didn't. It was a great trip.

We didn't miss Fast Pass at all. The first part of the trip lines were longer than we were used to but the lines moved. And ...I don't know... the fact that everyone was in the same line, that the line wasn't a result of poor planning on my part or my inability to get a fast pass, the fact that everyone was in the same line, just made it more tolerable. The back half of the trip, the crowd just disappeared. FOP was almost a walk one at 1:40pm. The posted wait was 15 minutes, but we walked straight through the queue, waited for one group and then it was our turn. For the last 3 days of the trip we didn't even rope drop; it just wasn't necessary.

I am so glad that the new system..Genie & Lightning...wasn't in place for our trip. It doesn't sound at all appealing to me and I am glad that I wasn't trying to figure out something new at the last minute.

I missed the characters. I don't understand why more aren't available for for distanced photos. Over 10 days, I saw Buzz at MK once, and Mary Poppins at Epcot once.

Despite the low waits, fireworks at MK were mobbed on the 3 nights we were there. It was insanely crowded. We saw them once, 8/12, in the garden in front of Casey's, arriving at 730 mostly because we were tired. Great view. On 8/17, a day that had very low wait times all day, my daughter and I headed to the hub around 820...just looking for any spot. It was the biggest crowd I had ever seen. I don't know where all of these people came from. Since it was so empty that day, I didn't think we would need to stake out a spot early. We approached from Tomorrowland and the employees just screamed at us to leave the park via the route behind the Main St stores, over and over again. They wouldn't let anyone try to find a spot. It was overwhelming. We ended up watching the fireworks from the Tomorrowland bridge which is a rather bad view.
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We were at Disney 8/14-8/21. 8/17 was a Boo bash day. Extra people entering starting at 7pm. We did the party that night but watched fireworks near Splash mtn to stay away from crowds.

For characters we saw
MK: Stitch and Buzz on Tomorrowland stage, Mickey/Minnie/Donald etc on main St cavalcade. Princesses above train station as we left. Plenty of characters at Boo Bash between cavalcades and socially distanced..
HS--Donald on balcony above bathrooms just as you enter, and Goofy fishing near Hollywood and Vine!
Epcot: Joy doing yoga near imagination pavilion. Mickey/Minnie near front entrance on the right as you enter. Princess cavalcade which just ended.
 
welp friends, we returned late last night. room at YC was awesome, food was awesome, lines were awesome, DS3 was as awesome as a 3 year old can be lol. another great august trip in the books. hopefully see most of you in the august 2022 thread (not sure if there is one yet but I will keep my eyes open).
 
We returned last Wednesday (8/25) from a fantastic (and incredibly uncrowded) trip: 4 days at Universal, followed by 4 days at WDW. It was honestly one of the loveliest and most care-free family vacations we've ever had, thanks to the low crowds and short wait times. We could just throw our touring plans out the window and enjoy the parks at will, like in the "olden days" (you know, the 1980s). ;)

The one blight on our experience was the Boo Bash on August 24th. I don't know whether this would be more appropriate for the Boo Bash thread or this one, but FWIW, if you attended on August 24th, you should have gotten a push message from Disney explaining that because of all the problems they had on that date, your 8/24 Boo Bash admission would be eventually converted to a 1-day park ticket for your future use. I did notice that although our Boo Bash tickets had disappeared from my MDE account by the day after the event (which was expected, since they'd been used), a new set of "8/24 Boo Bash" tickets, with an expiration date of 8/24/2022, appeared in MDE a couple of days later. If the same thing happened to you and you're wondering what it means, I called Guest Services today to inquire about it and was told that: (1) the 8/24 Boo Bash tickets now showing in my MDE are not tickets per se (and thus can't be used to make a park reservation), but are a "placeholder" for the promised 1-day park ticket that the push message referred to; and (2) Disney is still in the process of figuring out how to convert those placeholders into 1-day tickets, and once they have, guests should be able to use them to make a park reservation. (The CM said they'd be converted to 1-day parkhoppers, although the push message referred to 1-day non-hopper tickets, so who knows which is true.) (Updated 9/27: this was not correct advice from the CM. Kindly disregard.)

We had already accepted alternative compensation from WDW (although not a refund) for our Boo Bash experience, directly from Guest Services, so I also asked the CM if there had been a mistake in our receiving an extra park ticket. He said no, that the 1-day ticket entitlements were assigned automatically to everyone who attended on 8/24, and were intended for our use in addition to anything else we might have received. (Updated 9/27: This CM was wrong.)
 
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UPDATE to my previous post about the 1-day comp tickets Disney stated it was issuing to 8/24 Boo Bash attendees: I've called WDW several times (I waited on hold for 2-4 hours each time before being simply transferred to someone else to start the process all over again, grrr) and there's been no clear resolution about the 1-day ticket entitlements sitting in my MDE that look like Boo Bash tickets but aren't, and which have yet to be converted into actual 1-day tickets with which I can make a park reservation. The only answer I keep getting is, "I can't fix this, I have to escalate higher, let me put you on hold for a few more hours..." and as of yet, I simply haven't had 6-8 hours to devote to this insanity. It's beyond frustrating. I wonder: has anyone else from the 8/24 Boo Bash received, or been able to use, their promised 1-day comp ticket?

UPDATE TO MY UPDATE (9/27): For anyone still morbidly curious enough to read on, I'm now told the earlier CMs I spoke with were wrong. We DO NOT get a 1-day ticket if we accepted other compensation for the Boo Bash, which I did (in the form of 2-day parkhoppers), and the Boo Bash "tickets" that still appeared in my account were not placeholders for such things, but some sort of coded flag for guest services. So the 2-day parkhoppers have now been added to my MDE in place of the old Boo Bash thingies that were there. Plot twist: even though the complementary 2-day parkhoppers now show in my MDE and I was told by the CM that did it that I could go ahead and make park reservations, I _still_ can't make park reservations because MDE doesn't recognize them as tickets for some reason (even though they appear in my "tickets and passes" list), so I still have to call. AGAIN. After spending over 4 hours on hold today, which is the third day I've devoted to this. I've already spent more hours trying to get Disney to figure this out than those 2-day parkhoppers will give us in the parks. SMH.
 
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weather_lady said:
UPDATE to my previous post about the 1-day comp tickets Disney stated it was issuing to 8/24 Boo Bash attendees: I've called WDW several times (I waited on hold for 2-4 hours each time before being simply transferred to someone else to start the process all over again, grrr) and there's been no clear resolution about the 1-day ticket entitlements sitting in my MDE that look like Boo Bash tickets but aren't, and which have yet to be converted into actual 1-day tickets with which I can make a park reservation. The only answer I keep getting is, "I can't fix this, I have to escalate higher, let me put you on hold for a few more hours..." and as of yet, I simply haven't had 6-8 hours to devote to this insanity. It's beyond frustrating. I wonder: has anyone else from the 8/24 Boo Bash received, or been able to use, their promised 1-day comp ticket?
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you may want to post this on the boo bash thread or start your own thread for this. Not sure how many people still check this thread :)
 
weather_lady said:
UPDATE to my previous post about the 1-day comp tickets Disney stated it was issuing to 8/24 Boo Bash attendees: I've called WDW several times (I waited on hold for 2-4 hours each time before being simply transferred to someone else to start the process all over again, grrr) and there's been no clear resolution about the 1-day ticket entitlements sitting in my MDE that look like Boo Bash tickets but aren't, and which have yet to be converted into actual 1-day tickets with which I can make a park reservation. The only answer I keep getting is, "I can't fix this, I have to escalate higher, let me put you on hold for a few more hours..." and as of yet, I simply haven't had 6-8 hours to devote to this insanity. It's beyond frustrating. I wonder: has anyone else from the 8/24 Boo Bash received, or been able to use, their promised 1-day comp ticket?
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Occasionally I have been able to get a callback time if they tell me it will be super long wait - could you do that? I often also have luck with the online chat to set this up.
 
DeeBee3 said:
Occasionally I have been able to get a callback time if they tell me it will be super long wait - could you do that? I often also have luck with the online chat to set this up.
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Thanks! I was told that the department that can handle this won't do callbacks. However, it hadn't occurred to me to try the online chat. I'll give it a go! :)
 
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