Epcot Arrival and Rope Drop Experience After Reopening

Our in-depth coverage of Walt Disney World’s reopening continues with Epcot. Up ahead is the main temperature check for those parking their own vehicles or being dropped off. You’ll remember that tram service is not available at any of the Parks at the moment. The temperature check line can theoretically extend back here as we see blue physical-distancing tape on the ground more than a hundred feet from the tent up ahead.

Currently, Disney isn’t opening Epcot’s parking lot until 10:30am, or 30 minutes before the Park officially opens at 11am. Until the parking lot opens, you’ll likely be held at the toll plaza. To be ahead of the game, you’ll want to arrive at the toll plaza around 10:15am. With the staggered Park openings, the first bus over to Epcot from your Disney resort may not arrive until 10:15am or later. That could put you at Epcot at 10:35am, or even later.

Disney buses drop guests off at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, which opens at 8am, first. Then many of them switch to Magic Kingdom around 8:15am for the 9am open. Hollywood Studios opens at 10am, and then it’s Epcot at 11am. On the day of my visit, Wednesday, July 29th, 2020, I only watched about six buses arrive between 10:15am and 10:30am. That means most guests driving themselves were in better position to arrive at their first attraction earlier and wait less.

If you’re traveling over the next several months, and potentially beyond, you may want to rent a car or drive your own vehicle down. Historically, Disney’s transportation system is efficient in the grand scheme of things. But you can very easily run into long delays on the micro level. With Disney offering only limited bus, monorail, and boat transportation, driving yourself will put you in control of when you arrive at the Parks. You also won’t be sharing enclosed spaces with other parties to and from the resorts/parks, which is probably a good thing at the moment.

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Magic Kingdom Wait Times Since Disney World Reopened

Now that Magic Kingdom Park and Disney’s Animal Kingdom have been open for a little over three weeks, and Epcot and Hollywood Studios will be open for a similar amount of time before we get to the analysis there, I thought it would be prudent to take a look at how wait times have progressed at what is probably still the most popular theme park in the world. Like its competitors, Magic Kingdom is currently seeing dramatically reduced attendance. When combined with reduced capacity and physical distancing, how has that affected wait times? The experience in general? And for how long? We should be able to come to some conclusions based on what we’re already seeing.

We started our on-the-ground reporting with Magic Kingdom on reopening day back on Saturday, July 11th, 2020. You can pull up any of the parts in that series to get an idea about what average crowds and Magic Kingdom wait times look like so far:

1. Magic Kingdom Rope Drop Expectations and Tips
2. Morning Touring in the Current Normal
3. Fantasyland and Frontierland Touring in the Current Normal
4. Late Morning Splash Mountain and Adventureland Touring
5. Afternoon Touring After Reopening
6. A Virtually Crowd-less Opening Day at Magic Kingdom

While wait times were low on the day of my visit, and only got lower as the day wore on, I mentioned several times during the series that the day of my visit had been the most crowded thus far. That checked out, since it was a Saturday, and there was some amount of pent up demand after a ~100 day closure. Plus, vloggers.

Reopening day was only the most crowded day at Magic Kingdom for about a week. It did stay in the top 25% of most-crowded days for the first two weeks before things shot up a bit. Here’s a familiar breakdown of the average wait time across 17 of the most popular attractions at the Park by day:

The 13-minute average for the day that I experienced right off the bat is very slightly above the 12.8-minute average that we’ve seen so far. July 26th, or about a week ago, also saw a 13-minute average wait.

Here’s the chart for July 26th, which includes the attractions that we’re considering on the left and the time of day across the top. The overall average for the day is then in the bottom right corner:

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We close out our visit to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Toy Story Land.

So far, this is where we’ve been:

1. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway: 9:32am – 10:18am, including the ~30 minutes it took for the Park to open
2. Tower  of Terror: 10:23am – 10:47am
3. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: 10:51am – 11:12am
4. Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy: 11:13am – 11:32am
5. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance: 11:46am – 12:28pm
6. Muppet*Vision 3D: 12:32pm – 12:55pm
7. Lunch at Backlot Express: 12:56pm – 1:40pm
8. Star Tours: 1:41pm to 2:01pm
9. Vacation Fun at the Mickey Shorts Theater: 2:02pm – 2:20pm
10. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run: 2:27pm to 2:51pm

With lightning in the area, Slinky Dog Dash, the Studios’ one outdoor attraction, had been closed for a couple hours:

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We pick up our day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 1:20pm at Backlot Express. So far, this is what I’ve accomplished:

1. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway: 9:32am – 10:18am, including the ~30 minutes it took for the Park to open
2. Tower  of Terror: 10:23am – 10:47am
3. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: 10:51am – 11:12am
4. Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy: 11:13am – 11:32am
5. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance: 11:46am – 12:28pm
6. Muppet*Vision 3D: 12:32pm – 12:55pm

Ordering quick service is a much bigger hassle than it used to be. You’ll first need to lock in a return window to pick up your food on the My Disney Experience app. That return window could be 30+ minutes away. In most cases, Disney requires mobile order to even enter the venue. That likely means eating at off-times is an even wiser decision. You’ll run into fewer people, a less hectic experience, and immediate pickup times for your order. As someone who does not ordinarily follow their own advice, I find myself in the middle of a rain storm waiting for my hummus to be ready around 1pm. That’s three hours after the Park opened at 10am and probably right at peak lunch time. The precipitation pushes even more people towards indoor areas.

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Our morning continues outside Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy, where we just had the show to ourselves. It looks like about ten people will learn how to defraud the government out of 3.9 million and then drive off in a Lamborghini during the next show. At least, that’s why I was there. In Part One, we covered the Studios’ arrival experience and how best to sign up for a Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance boarding group. In Part Two, we started our day at the Runaway Railway.

So far, this is what I’ve been able to accomplish:

1. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway: 9:32am – 10:18am, including the ~30 minutes it took for the Park to open.
2. Tower  of Terror: 10:23am – 10:47am
3. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster: 10:51am – 11:12am
4. Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy: 11:13am – 11:32am

That’s a pretty solid 90 minutes of Park time, first hitting the highest standby priority in the Park in Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. Moving over to Sunset Boulevard after is smart, with waits of about ten minutes at both thrillers. I then enjoyed sitting down in air-conditioning for about 15 minutes before starting the trek back to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

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