A Trip to the Walt Disney World Resort

Alison and I originally planned to go on a safari in Africa in September 2020. We have been dreaming and planning for this trip for a few years. As the global pandemic progressed we realized this trip was likely not going to work this year. Still we held some hope and watched the situation closely with our fingers crossed. Alas, it was not to be. The final nail in the coffin came a couple of months ago, when Delta informed us one leg of our international flight was cancelled. When we received the email we made the decision to reschedule our trip for fall 2021. Of all of the trip delays, this particular one was devastating. We were so excited for this trip and it was disappointing it would not happen this year. 

When we received this news we immediately began thinking about alternative trips we could take in September. I suggested Hawaii and we set our sites on visiting O'ahu. However, that plan was also not to be. We watched as Hawaii shifted a potential tourist reopening (contingent on a negative covid test) from August 1 to September 1. As our confidence in the Hawaii trip waned Alison came up with another plan B. She suggested we visit Walt Disney World. My initial reaction was a no. I listened to her explanation and she had a lot of good points. Alison stays up to date on all of the latest Disney Parks news. From the reports she was seeing people felt safer at Disney World, with the precautions Disney put in place and enforced, than they did at most other public locations. The case and death numbers in Florida, particularly in Orange County, where Disney World is located were also moving in the right direction. We booked a backup trip to Florida. With all of the accommodations from travel companies due to the pandemic it is as easy as it has ever been to book a trip (flight, hotel, etc.) and cancel later, if needed. Our preference was still to visit Hawaii, but Disney World felt like a good backup. Ultimately, Hawaii did not open for tourists (contingent on a negative covid test) in September. They pushed the date back another month. We briefly considered still going to Hawaii and quarantining for two weeks, but decided that did not make sense. Instead, we pivoted to our Disney World trip. Since we already had it booked we were not even that sad we could not go to Hawaii. 

As with our other trips we gave significant consideration to Covid-19 and whether or not we felt our trip was a wise decision. On the face of it this trip appears to be the most risky of our recent vacations. However, upon further examination we determined the risk profile was significantly lower than we expected. Disney World opened at the height of the pandemic in Florida. Their timing was downright terrible. Disney implemented a number of  safety measures including: Cast Member training, enhanced cleaning, hand sanitizer dispensers, Cast Member and guest screenings, and mandatory face coverings. All in an effort to prevent the spread of Covid-19. We heard mostly positive reviews around the implementation of these procedures. Disney appears to be committed to prioritizing health and safety, while it balances reopening the theme parks. 

Beyond what Disney is doing we have monitored the situation in Florida. This feels especially significant on this trip because our ability to social distance will be more limited than it was on some of our other trips. The question was, given the situation in Orange County, Florida, what is the risk, particularly around Disney World? First of all, there have been no outbreaks identified among Cast Members or guests at Walt Disney World. Every week during the Florida Covid briefings the press asks the Florida Health Department if outbreaks have been linked to theme parks. There have been individual cases, but no outbreaks have been identified. There is a healthy dose of skepticism, right now, in the public's trust of the Florida health department. We can to some degree fact check these claims by reviewing the data for Orange County, Florida. The Florida data itself appears to be complete and accurate, as it has been given an A+ rating by the COVID Tracking project (a third-party organization launched by The Athletic dedicated to collecting and publishing Covid-19 data). Given the importance of Disney World to Orange County, both as a top employer and popular destination for locals (especially right now when a larger proportion of Disney World guests are locals, due to limited out of state/country travel) it stands to reason that if Disney World was unsafe there would be a spike in numbers post-reopening. In fact, the exact opposite has occurred. Since Disney World reopened new cases, positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths have all dropped dramatically. In fact, the day before our trip Orange Country, Florida had an average of 9 cases per 100k people compared to 13.1 cases per 100k people in Salt Lake County. Given the current numbers and the safety precautions that have been implemented we feel confident in our ability to stay safe on this vacation. 

Source: https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics-for-covid-suppression/

Source: https://globalepidemics.org/key-metrics-for-covid-suppression/

We plan to take sensible precautions to minimize our risk. Once again, we booked a room with a full kitchen. This will allow us to cook a few meals at our hotel and minimize the number of restaurants we visit. We bought new masks from Athleta. We love them. They are comfortable and should hold up well in the heat and humidity. We bought enough that we can switch our masks a few times a day, plus our hotel room has a washer and dryer so we can clean and reuse our masks. While we would like to say we will only eat outdoors, given the heat, humidity and to some degree the limited dining options, that may not be feasible. However, we plan to minimize indoor dining as much as possible. With the shortened park hours we do expect we will eat less in the parks. Instead we will get takeout for dinner most days. We plan to sanitize often and follow social distancing markers. We are hopeful that all of these precautions will lead to a safe and enjoyable trip. 

Enjoyable is a key word there. We not only weighed Covid-risk when we considered this trip, but we also gave a lot of thought to the Disney World experience. It is going to be different. One blogger Alison follows likes to call this time the "temporary abnormal". A normal Disney World trip requires extensive planning. Disney fast past plus needs to be reserved 60 days in advance for popular attractions. The number of fast passes a guest can get per day is limited. Advanced dining reservations are also needed for the most popular restaurants. Days are normally long and time is split between shows/entertainment, rides, and dining. Normally, there are also significant benefits to staying onsite at a Disney World hotel. During the "temporary abnormal" many of these rules go out the window. There is really no benefit to staying on site at a Disney World hotel, in fact, those hotels are still much more expensive, despite the pandemic. Fast pass plus has been suspended so there are no fast passes available. Park hours are significantly reduced and most of the shows/entertainment/fireworks have been cancelled. Those are mostly downsides. The upside is that crowds have been historically low and wait times for rides have been short. That is why we decided to go - we realized that there will probably (hopefully) never be another time in our lives when we can go to Disney World with minimal planning and ride all of the rides as much as we want with almost no wait. Here's hoping that is what actually happens. 

We left early on Saturday morning. We had to get up at 3:30am to catch the 6am flight to Atlanta. 6am flight are brutal because you have to be out the door so early, but it is usually worth it to have the afternoon/evening at your destination. Normally we bum a ride to the airport, but this trip that did not make sense. Instead we parked at the Parking Spot near the airport. It worked so well and was inexpensive. 

This is our last flight out of the old Salt Lake City airport. They are opening the new airport on Tuesday. It was a little bittersweet. We have flown in and out of this old airport a lot and have many good memories here. We are excited for the new airport. It looks like it will be so nice, but we will miss the nostalgia of the old one. Alison was a little sentimental. She remembers as a kid coming with her mom to drop her dad off at the airport. Back then you could take them all the way to their gate and watch the planes take off. She has so many memories of this airport. 

We had a short layover in Atlanta. We had just enough time to get some burgers and shakes from Shake Shack. Then we walked on to our flight (it was already boarding and most passengers were on board by the time we got there). We had one more short, bumpy flight and we were in Orlando. 

We arrived in Orlando in the early afternoon. We picked up our rental car and picked up groceries on the way to our hotel. I ordered groceries a couple of days before so we pulled up and they loaded them into our car. We got our groceries from Publix, it is a grocery chain, located more in the eastern portion of the US, that is similar to Harmons. It is one of Alison's favorite grocery stores. It was also right across the street from the hotel were we are staying. 

This trip we are at the Hilton Grand Vacations at Tuscany Village. This is one of the Hilton timeshare properties. Alison's parents own a Hilton timeshare and put their children on the deed. We are able to stay at the timeshare properties for a very good rate. When we were planning this trip we first looked at staying at a Hilton Garden Inn. It was so inexpensive right now, but we decided to switch to the timeshare because we could get a one bedroom suite for a great price. With the one bedroom we have a washer and dryer and a full kitchen. We also decided to have a resort day, where we would relax at the hotel and skip the parks. On this day we wanted to stay at a hotel that has a nice pool where we could lounge, and typically these timeshare properties have nice pools and amenities. We chose the HGVC at Tuscany Village because it is the closest Hilton timeshare property to Disney World.

They gave us some chocolates as a welcome gift

If I was going to write a review for the Hilton Grand Vacations at Tuscany Village I would probably give the property 4 out of 5 stars. Its location in Orlando is good. It is about 15 minutes driving from Disney World. Nearby there are restaurants, outlets, and a grocery store. The staff we met at check in were friendly and inviting. Although the lobby area was loud and between the masks and plexiglass it was challenging to hear the girl who was checking us in. The resort is a spread out. It has two pool areas and consists of ~10 buildings, built around what appears to be a man-made lake. There is a bridge across the lake, which is good because our building, #5, is across the lake from the main pool area. Our room is comfortable and has the amenities we wanted. It is very spacious. The decor is not our style. Both the decor inside the room and the color scheme/design of the buildings are somewhat gaudy. This seems like an older HGVC property, but despite the age is still comfortable. As far as hotels in Orlando go it is very nice. 

After we checked into our room we drove to Disney Springs. We went back and forth over whether to go to Disney Springs today. We have heard that weekends can get fairly crowded on weekends and we weren't sure we wanted to deal with crowds like that, especially in the first hours of the trip. We did try to meet up with some friends who live in Orlando, but it didn't work out. When they couldn't meet up we canceled the dinner reservation we had, and we were planning to get take out for dinner. A couple of days before the trip I had to call Disney support to get some help with the Disney World app. I talked to the most delightful Disney employee. She was so helpful and after she resolved my issue she walked through the reservations Alison and I have made. She pointed out that since Hollywood Studios was our first park reservation, and we didn't have Magic Bands we would want to pick up our Disney World tickets ahead of time, if at all possible, to avoid any delay getting into the park (Hollywood Studios is the busiest park these days, particularly at opening). Disney Springs has a ticket office where we could pick up the tickets. I made a new dinner reservation and we went to Disney Springs.

The crowds at Disney Springs were not nearly as bad as we expected. Everyone was wearing face coverings and people had room to social distance. There were cast members directing traffic and gently reminding people to follow the health and safety protocols. We did some shopping at the World of Disney store. We bought some presents for Skylee and Holly. For Skylee we got her a sparkly Minnie Mouse purse (she has had her eye on it since last December) and for Holly we got her a baby stuffy. We also found a puzzle that we bought for ourselves - Alison loves it. The puzzle is really three 500 piece puzzles of attraction posters from the park. I bought myself two pairs of Mickey socks. Once we had wandered around World of Disney and made our purchases we continued wandering around Disney Springs. We walked through few more shops. There were cast members at every entrance and exit (which were clearly marked) ensuring traffic flowed smoothly and was distanced. They also monitored how many people were in each building at any given moment. There were so many sanitizer stations and we made sure to get hand sanitizer often. 

We bought gifts for Skylee and Holly

When we finished wandering we found the ticket office and picked up our Disney World tickets. The whole process was very easy. Then it started to rain. It really rained. It was coming down in sheets. When it was coming down hard we would quickly find somewhere to shelter. We had umbrellas, but when it is coming down that hard they don't do a whole lot. The rain would let up and we would begin making our way toward our dinner reservations. We had to stop a few times because of the rain, but we eventually made it to PaddleFish. This is a seafood restaurant located in a giant model steamboat. We were a little early so we had a wait a few minutes to be seated. PaddleFish does have outdoor seating, but with the torrential rain they seated us indoors. We felt okay about it because we were seated far away from everyone else. the nearest occupied table was easily 15-20 feet away. I chose this restaurant because Alison loves seafood. They had good seafood. For our appetizer we had ordered a crab cake. It was served on top of a fried green tomato with a corn in a remoulade style sauce. The crab cake and fried green tomato were both excellent. For our main courses Alison had stuffed cod and I ate catfish. They were both really good meals. Our meal came with a dessert. We went with a cookie sundae. It was truly terrible. We did not finish it. 

After our meal the rain had stopped, but we were ready to be done for the day. That was a good decision because the Disney parks had closed for the day and people were streaming into Disney Springs. It was getting crowded. We headed back to the hotel. 

Back at the hotel we wandered around the property. We walked across the bridge over the lake and to the main pool area. It is a very nice pool area. Large with lots of pool space. It had a few large hot tubs, plenty of seating, and games (ping pong, giant chess, etc.) It will be a fun area to hang out in on our resort day. 

After the walk about we called it a night. We were tired after getting up so early to catch our flight.