So Disney is slowly drip-feeding announcements as to how things are going to work, much of it negative. Everything we all knew about WDW is now wrong or out-of-date. You now have to make a financial commitment just to have a chance to enter a park.
Meanwhile, UOR is already open and operating and, from the reports I’m reading — they really have their sh*t together.
During the shutdown they carried on with construction and maintenance. They’ve spruced the place up. They’ve got their systems in place for socially-distanced theme park attendance and it seems to be working really well. They’ve sorted out character interactions. Right now, at least, is an awesome time to go.
I honestly don’t know if I’m coming to Orlando in October but, if I am, I’m increasingly comfortable with it being a UOR-only trip. I’m not paying top dollar to Disney for park tickets when I’d only want to be there for a few days and I don’t even know what my chances would be of actually getting a reservation in a park I want to go to on a day I want to go. I did think MNSSHP would be at least a way to see MK, but that’s off. (Good. I want my money back.) And then all the faff with compulsory ADRs? Ugh.
Meanwhile I know I’d be guaranteed entry to UOR because I’m staying on property. Six nights. That’s a lot of UOR time. Good. Take it real slow. Relax and explore every inch of the place. Really take it in and enjoy it. Rainy day? Meh. Go to the movies. (Actually, is that a thing? I don’t know. I’ll watch TV in my room.) I have plenty of time. Miss out on riding Hagrid’s? Meh. I’ll try again tomorrow. And the day after.
Lots of new restaurants to try out — never really done City Walk properly.
The three C’s will determine if I get on the plane: Calvin, COVID and crowds. But right now I feel a lot of love towards UOR but like WDW is a former lover I broke up with a while ago and have kinda moved on from. For now.
Sounds like a great plan. And totally stress free.
I’m not going near Orlando until Christmas 2021. But I’m still feeling that sense of trepidation over the park reservations. Wondering how people will get on come Monday.
I love your idea. Other than I’m not a huge UOR fan. Way too much of a wimp, but I love ET and the WWOHP.
I suggest you sit back and wait until a couple of weeks before you have to make a decision. By then things will be clearer.
Oh, I won’t make a decision for a few months. There’s no need. I’m locked into my flights. The money is gone. Sunk cost. My resort reservation is fully refundable up to a week before I arrive. And I already have an AP, two EPs (which I’m trusting them to honour) and two dining plan cards. So no additional expenditure in advance is required. Unlike WDW, there’ll be no Ubers to pay for. (Well, except to and from the airport, but UOR is closer to the airport than WDW anyway.)
I’m genuinely relaxed about it. I’ll see how things pan out and decide — well, maybe even in October itself.
I think it has the potential to be a really fun, very relaxing trip. A whole new way to experience Orlando.
(And of course I’ll go back to WDW. In 2022 maybe.)
Sounds like a plan. We love UOR, and having that much time there would make for an amazing and relaxed vacation. And, you don’t need to make a decision anytime really soon and have time to see how everything plays out. Here’s hoping you do get to go in October!
My plan was to go December 2020, then avoid 2021 altogether during the 50th anniversary and return again in late 2022. Now I’m torn because I don’t want to go until things are normal-ish. But I also don’t want to wait until 2022. I’m hoping for February 2021 to be a good time to visit and no 50th madness happening yet.
Mostly just lurking. A lot of what’s on here these days is kind of a bummer. Plus I figure policies are going to change so many times in the next 6 months I haven’t bothered getting involved in the discussion.
I like your idea, @sanstitre_has_left_the_building! I think that 2022 sounds like a good year to go to WDW, assuming that COVID-19 is a thing of the past.
Congrats! Welcome to the Universal Fan Club!1 I’ve been saying & planning the same for a couple weeks now. I can get an USF AP and take up to 12 days / 4 plane rides worth of visits for a 6 day Disney trip.
I still have my Sept. Disney plans, but they look less likely each day
I don’t see how this thread would get you banned. It seems very reasonable to discuss why you’d do a UOR versus WDW trip. I agree with your arguments too.
We were at UOR last week (first time there) and it was great.
Low crowds (except crowded in WWOHP), rode Hagrid’s with VLP 8 or 9 times, masks were enforced, people were mostly following social distancing (WWOHP being the exception, there’s just no space).
Unfortunately, Florida’s rush to reopen is now leading to increasing COVID cases…who knows what it will look like in the fall.
But right now? UOR seemed amazing and relatively stress-free, while our planned October Disney trip seems like a nightmare. I’m hoping that by the time the parks open and they’ve worked out the kinks, maybe it won’t seem so bad? But still nervous about FL and COVID.
We’ve never been to UOR (I have for one day but not rest of fam). We love WDW and it’s just so expensive to add UOR on and split the 10 days we have for vacation. We have Dis trip scheduled for November, but with all the cutbacks for safety reasons and other, I’m not sure we will follow through. We go every 18-24 months so it’s not like it’s a once in a lifetime trip, but we’ve gone enough to notice what will be missed (Fireworks, dessert parties, parades, etc.). I think if we were every year or more guests, it would be great (except July-Sep b/c masks and ridiculous heat).
So, I have booked a trip for the same week for UOR as mostly UOR is rides and those are operating, it’s new to us so we won’t notice anything that is missing, and planning is non-existent as we will have EP. We can just pick a few restaurants we might want to try. And as we only need 5 days at UOR, we can keep the budget reasonable and save the extra from our 10 day Disney planned trip budget for later in 2021, when things are back to normal and hopefully do Disney the way we had hoped.
But of course, this is all wishful thinking depending on the world situation. I don’t have to make a firm decision until August, so we will see what transpires before then both with COVID and with WDW.