Post COVID Disney - an eye opener

It has been years since we went to Disney. Given we have been there almost every year, this has been a long break. There have been many Disney or Disney related posts in this blog...

We wanted to go somewhere, anywhere as a family. The only place the Kids agreed to go was Disney! The happiest place on Earth! We had hotel reservations but no confirmed tickets till the last minute. The way it works now is that you check availability on that day and if it opens up, book the tickets. It is total headcount based per San's information! The Disney main park is booked solid. We did get an opening for the California Adventure on Friday for a Sunday visit. We took it!

The road trip itself was fun. I got to drive and drive and clear my head after a long long time. Long drives are cathartic in their own way. The family has a playlist of songs I don't like and I am sure they wanted to play those so I will not try to sing along. 

Disney has changed a lot post COVID. First the prices. We expect that from Disney and were not grumpy. Disney tickets are now variable pricing like United. So no surprises there! 

Next the mask requirement and enforcement. There are signs everywhere, things being said on the speakers and by the folks who are working the lines, but... there are a lot of folks who simply are not following mask guidelines. So you go at your own risk! Again, expected to see this given the demographic in the US. 

Then the demographic of the crowd. Normally we see a colorful crowd. This time the crowd we saw was less than 20% of colored folks. Most of the folks who were working in the restraurants, kiosks and the folks responsible for line management were black/Hispanic/Asian. The walking, riding crowd was not. We saw 4 desi families total from 8AM-4:30 PM in that park! That was interesting. Maybe all the desi folks are risk averse and don't want to risk COVID by coming to Disney? Maybe the ticket prices are ridiculous that not many follks think it is worth the trip? Don't know!

Then there was the fast pass..we could reserve a fixed time window for a ride and go at that time to save time instead of standing in line. There were restrictions but it still worked. You needed some planning skills. Now there is no fast pass. It has been replaced with the "lightning pass". You pay 20 bucks a person and you get to go through this line for the top three rides in the park. Then there is another 20 bucks a person pass for all other rides.  Think "special Darshan" queue at Thirupathi.. 

Initially we thought maybe maybe we could go to guest services and switch the ticket from California Adventure to the main park, but it was not meant to be. So after spending 30 minutes after park opened to try switch tickets, we ended up walking into the California Adventure park. The minute we walked in though, the kids eyes lit up. The Avengers theme area was in this park!! We always wanted to see this since it opened. So we ran to the first big ride and realized the wait time was 90 minutes. We stood in line for 105 minutes to see a 3 minute ride. It was great, but we promptly bought the lighting pass and the other paid fast pass. Then we covered the next two top rides in the next hour. As soon as you use the pass, it lets you book the next ride on the App. 

we just love this "Radiator springs" area which Jr. used to call "Gladiator springs".. the attention to detail to the Cars movie series is just amazing!

Between the big rides the kids would take us to the little rides in each area!

The extra money was well spent as we pretty much covered everything by 4:30 PM. The last ride we went to was the Guardians of the Galaxy (which used to be the drop tower now converted to a new themed ride).. except.. except.. instead of one drop, now there is 7 drops and you just keep going up and down for 3 minutes. Haven't screamed like this in a long time and my fingers were white from holding on to the arm grip the whole time. The funny thing is that the lightning pass for this had a wait of 30 minutes. Guess by 4PM everyone paid for a lightning pass! The regular line wait time was 2 hours!! Reminded me of United Airlines again "All group 1 ready to board!" and you see 400 out of the 420 people on the plane line up as group 1!  It is just a question of time when they introduce the Thunderbolt pass which is 100 bucks a person and an escort will walk you to the ride and sit you there and put the seat buckle... you heard it here first!

Was telling the family "Thirupathila kooda mottai adichcha sandanam freeaa kudupaanga.. Disneyla sandanam sold separately!" (even in Thirupathi, when you go tonsure your head, they will give you sandalwood paste for free to apply on the head.. if it was up to Disney, they will charge for that separately). They are trying to make up for the park closure during COVID by charging for everything. 

The kids were extremely helpful in using the App, planning, making us run from place to place, ordering food on the App, etc. It is great when your kids are old enough and they tell you what to do! Told them that for the first time they moved from the liability to asset column and they both rolled their eyes! 

We just decided that there was enough exposure to unmasked people for the day, or for our life and walked out at 4:30.  The small parade was fun to watch on the way out!

You can no longer take pictures in front of special props. For every such place, there is a Disney Photographer and a line! They take the picture and you pay for it.. we just clicked pictures as we walked along.. with our phones. For once I didn't even edit these pictures from the phone to post in the blog!

We did not stay back for the fireworks. We had seen it the previous night from the restaurant where we had dinner. The kids were like "we covered everything thanks to the paid pass! Let's go get some rest!"

On the whole it was a nice day, pleasant weather, great rides. The food at Disney sucks and it has gotten worse over the years and the unmasked crowd is a little scary. 

They have redone a lot of rides and it was good to go on these.

We will still recommend Disney to anyone as it is guranteed fun for the day! The happiest place on earth is accessible only to folks who can shell out a lot of money at short notice and the more you fork out, the happier you are!

A video of the day.. Have captured the cars thing here.. the kids wanted to go on it again.. so we took the single rider option where we are all separated and went back to the line for 30 minutes and did it twice. This is one ride that makes the California adventure worth it! Truly amazing!

Disney is still king.. just need to improve on the food options, especially for vegetarians! No better place to enjoy the holiday spirit!

Had a nice dinner at a local Italian place to made up for the bad food in the afternoon, and called it a day! 

Our drive back was interesting thanks to a great rest stop! 

2021 definitely wrapped up nicely with this one day adventure!

The best part for me was to watch the girls talk to each other all day, jointly plan what to do next.. it was like watching them be kids again and that alone was worth all the driving!