Florida 2020- Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run

Our pandemic trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios ended up being the most bizarre, fortuitous, and short trip to theme park that I have ever experienced.

Originally, we hadn’t even planned on visiting Disney during our Florida house-hunting trip, but we quickly found a house that we liked ( which fell through during the inspection) and we shifted gears towards not only visiting the parks, but buying annual passes. Several years ago we purchased WDW annual passes by simply upgrading our day tickets. This time, Dan bought us day passes to Disney’s Hollywood Studios park, so we could visit and decide on dishing out the mega-bucks for year passes.

Since it is pandemic times, we had to not only purchase tickets in advance, but we had to make park reservations the day before. This was the same process as our trip to SeaWorld Orlando a month earlier. The parks have shorter hours and there is no park hopping

We arrived just before park opening and joined the crush of other visitors.

Generally, I felt safe visiting theme parks during the pandemic, but there were two main areas where safety measures seemed insufficient. The first was at park entry. Since the parks are open limited hours with no hopping, everyone arrives at park opening, and there is no way to maintain social distance at the entry gates. I’m not sure how to remedy this, as everyone wants to arrive at the same time to get a full-day out the parks. Somehow, they need to figure out how to control the bottleneck at the entry, especially at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where the entry is narrow.

The other issue is not specifically a theme park issue, but one of the awareness of others. Most of the other guests were good about distancing, but sometimes in the queues excitement takes over, and people feel the impulse to bunch-up. Disney has plenty of signs reminding guests to stay apart, but it didn’t always happen. This was also really bad at the airports, especially when queuing for boarding the planes and going through security.

This was our first visit since 2016 and our first experience at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. The star attraction is “Rise of the Resistance” and the only way to ride it is to get in the virtual queue. In September, the virtual queue had two releases of slots; first thing in the morning and again in the afternoon. Park guests can enter one virtual queue a day in efforts to give access to as many guests as possible. We tried for the morning queue and missed out. All of the morning slots were gone within minutes.

Luckily, the other e-ticket attraction, “Smuggler’s Run”, where guests have the opportunity to fly the Millennium Falcon, had a normal stand-by queue. We rushed over to Galaxy’s Edge to get in line.

Honestly, it was a blur as we tried to find the end of the queue for “Smuggler’s Run”. We snapped a bunch of pictures and tried to absorb the overwhelming land which is Galaxy’s Edge. It’s full of rich details and is enormous. We did not see it all.

Luckily, there were plenty of cast members to direct us to the proper queues. Due to covid, there are more queues than normal, as every store and restaurant also has queues to enter. I have to admit that this somehow took away from the experience, but I also appreciate the safety measures that allow us to enjoy the parks during the pandemic.

The end of the queue ( approximately an hour wait at about fifteen minutes past park opening) was near a stage with Storm Troopers. Due to covid, all of the characters must keep a distance. This didn’t mean that they didn’t interact. I even had a Stormtrooper yell at me to keep moving when I didn’t notice a gap in the queue in front of me!

Much like all of the extra queues, the general lack of characters or atmosphere was also a departure from the Disney magic. We only saw the Storm Troopers, where it felt like there should be many more characters inhabiting the land. I think this must be due to Covid restrictions. However, it was a bit of a let-down for our first trip to Galaxy’s Edge. The land was stunning, but the vibe was terrible. I never quite felt immersed in the experience and never felt like I was transported outside of Orlando.

Here are some pictures of the queue. Like most modern attractions, the queue was constantly offering new perspectives and details to enjoy. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan, but my husband was very excited over everything, especially the Millennium Falcon.

And finally we made it on the Millennium Falcon!

Due to Covid, we had the entire ride vehicle to ourselves. This was cool, because we had a private ride, and not so cool, because the story of the ride has interactive elements with different tasks for all six passengers. The ride will of course run without all six people, but it breaks with the storytelling to have less, making it also feel less immersive. “Smuggler’s Run” is a state-of-the-art motion simulator ride. I’m not sure that I would say it was completely unique, as it takes from ideas of other simulator rides, but it was very well executed. I was a bit overwhelmed by my interactive tasks, when all I wanted to do was really look around at everything. I think the next time I ride it will actually be a better experience.

When we got off the “Smuggler’s Run”, we were thirsty and dazzled by the collectible Galaxy Edge themed coke bottles. At the price point, I think this is something you only splurge on once, but it’s a clever bit of theming. I read that they were showing up as weapons in airport screenings, so we didn’t bother to keep it as a souvenir.

At this point, our trip took a turn when my stepson called and we decided to head back to our rental house, so that my husband could play on the x-box with him. My step-kids live in Sweden, so these weekend calls and bonding time take priority.

Before leaving the park, we made the decision to upgrade to Annual Passes and went to guest relations. By the time we walked to guest relations, it had started pouring with rain. The kind of rain that soaks you to your underwear. Due to covid, the guest relations cast members were standing outside under enormous umbrellas to help guests.

The friendly GR employee informed us that they had temporarily suspended new annual pass sales. We were so disappointed, especially as just the day before, the website listed them for sale. It was raining so heavily that we could hardly see, so we decided to leave and come back later to make use of our day pass.

We went home and I decided to call the WDW help line to ask about the annual passes. I was hoping that guest relations was misinformed and that there might be some way to purchase the annual passes. After a nearly two hour wait, a very kind cast member informed me that there was no way possible to purchase an annual pass, however, since they could see that we only went on one attraction prior to leaving, they offered to refund our tickets. I was a bit disappointed to both not have annual passes and to miss out on the remainder of the day in the park, but we accepted the refund, effectively having a Disney experience for the price of parking.

I appreciate Disney’s offer, especially since I had not even asked for a refund. We are hoping to visit in 2021 with the kids. We want to truly experience Galaxy’s Edge as a family and we will probably even splurge on the themed Coke bottles again!

Social Distancing in Florida: Week 22

As a birthday surprise, Dan took me on a four night vacation to Florida. Florida has quite a bit more covid cases than Colorado, so I was a little nervous about traveling. However, we took many precautions, and I’m thrilled to report that our first major trip during Covid seems to have been a success. We are going to be extra careful for the next few weeks, in case we did become infected, but overall, I feel like we were able to have a safe and wonderful vacation.

We flew first class on United from Denver to Tampa. The flight to Tampa was one of the riskiest parts of the trip. Unfortunately, the flight was full, and although we thought we were playing it safe by booking first class, I don’t think it mattered. If anything, it might have been worse, as everyone in first class was given a Tapas Box for a snack, and the guy across the aisle from me had his mask off for over an hour, as he leisurely enjoyed his snack. I was disappointed that the flight crew didn’t take a stronger stance on the masks. There were a few announcements, but little enforcement. When we landed, we were not dismissed off the plane row-by-row, which I had been expecting, and as usual, people jammed the aisles.

Our return flight was a better experience. The snack was just a bag of chips/cookies, so people didn’t remove their masks for an extended period of time, and we were dismissed by row. The airports were different too. Tampa was much better with signage and enforcement. Denver was far more relaxed, including several people at the United check-in desk without masks, and none of the employees enforcing or even asking them to put on a mask. This was frustrating.

Here’s a picture of the social distancing measures at Tampa. Tampa is a much nicer airport.

Originally, our trip was supposed to be four days at the Doubletree Hilton in Redington Beach. We ended up having enough of the beach after two days, and moved to a Hilton Grand Vacations near Seaworld in Orlando. Both hotels had signage regarding social distancing and required masks in communal areas, things that were followed by a majority of the guests.

On the stretch of beach outside of our hotel, we were able to rent a pair of sun beds for thirty dollars. This gave us bit of space at the beach, especially as the beds were spaced apart. The beach wasn’t very crowded and I felt safe. It was a similar situation by the pool in Orlando; the beds were spaced apart, and as soon as we finished, attendants sanitized them. People stayed with their own groups in the pool, spaced apart. It was actually a really nice vacation experience, as nothing was crowded.

The restaurants all had similar covid procedures to the ones we have been dealing with in Denver, so nothing seemed a surprise, except for the Seabreeze restaurant, which asked us to text before entering. I thought this was a great idea, as it eliminated unnecessary people entering the restaurant and crowding the host stand.

This trip was not about theme parks, yet, we found ourselves unable to resist the siren call of Seaworld. I had never been to Seaworld in Orlando, and Dan had not been since he was in elementary school, so it was a new experience for both of us. We are huge theme park fans and this was our first theme park in 2020.

With the exception of the Florida heat, it was a great experience. We arrived at opening and spent about two hours and then returned in the evening. Masks are required and hand sanitizer was absolutely everywhere: every ride, every store, every restaurant. Our temperature was screened prior to the ticket counter, and it was an easy process, just a sensor that checks for temps without even having us slow down. We went to Disney Springs on the last morning of our trip and they used hand-held thermometers, which took a few seconds longer than the scan at SeaWorld. Both were a painless, quick process that didn’t impede on our enjoyment of the parks.

The park maps are all digital. The shows were open with spaced seating, and at the end of the show, employees dismissed the theaters row by row. There were a few people trying to leave before their rows were dismissed, but it mostly worked well. The ride queues were spaced, and we only had to ask one person, a kid, to step back. It’s hard, I think people in general, especially young kids, are excited to be at the parks, and the instinct is to push forward/bunch up. This wasn’t a huge problem, but guests need to be a bit more aware of their surroundings and less in a rush. The park is certainly less crowded and the lines are shorter, but also things take a bit longer, and we all need to have patience. For example, on some of the coasters ( oddly, not all) we observed the seats/restraints being sanitized. This slowed the load times, but also, the lines were much shorter than average.

Overall, I felt safe at Seaworld and I would definitely return. The biggest obstacle was wearing the masks in the heat. We couldn’t do it in the middle of the day and had to take a pool break at our hotel. Also, if you ride Mako, hold on to your mask. Mine nearly came flying off!

On this trip, I got to check a dream off of my bucket list: Dan took me on an airboat ride to see gators. It was awesome, although we saw more cows than gators. The landscape was gorgeous and the ride was thrilling.

It was hard to return home and back to the daily grind. I hope another Florida vacation is in our near future. This week we have political news with the Democratic National Convention happening. It’s virtual due to Covid, but this election year is certainly an exciting one. I’ve never felt more invested in my making my vote count. I want to get a Biden/Harris t-shirt.

After our yummy vacation food, Dan brought out the pasta maker, which hasn’t been used in years, and made us some fresh spaghetti. It was delicious. It’s shocking that all of the months we were stuck inside this winter, we never attempted homemade pasta.

And the cutest of cute cat pictures, comes courtesy of Tom, and his new toy from Florida. We bought him his own purple stuffed animal, so he’d stop stealing Figment. He loves his new toy. We let him think that he was stealing it off of the shelf. Naughty kitty!