Took the trip - WDW May 22-28
I've been eyeing this week to go to WDW for five years. Our school year was ending crazy early and Star Wars was going to be completed. My kids are 17, almost 14, and 11. Older two went in November 2011, all of us in February 2015, just me and then 7 year old in 2017. I finally made the call the last week of March to go ahead and go. For our previous visits we had flown in, used Disney transport, stayed on property and used the meal plan.
This time we drove, rented a house through vrbo, and ended up not eating any meals at the parks.
It was a great trip. We were not prepared for the heat. We did parks all seven days and really used the park hopper option for our returns in the afternoon. Never left the parks before, but this time we left most afternoons. They were generally opening about one hour before posted time. Definitely slow rolling us car arrivals especially at Studios. We were there first thing each day and would do 2 to 5 hours then leave. We'd get a bigger meal, go back to house to rest/nap/swim and then go back. Our two Epcot days were only that park since it did not open until 11. We visited Disney Springs twice also. We had two days opening Studios, but also went there three times in the evening.
It would not be a great time for this to be your "only" WDW visit. Without the shows, parades and fireworks some of the special things were lost. Not having fast passes made it feel more amusement park like.
Food was just complicated. We found it to be a pain to order so we stuck with buying snacks and doing meals off property.
Masks were required and I saw little push back while in line and inside/on attractions. Biggest drawback I experienced was that we usually killed time in line eating/drinking and could not do that with the masking requirements.
I'm happy we decided to go. Star Wars did not disappoint. The first Monday we were there we went to Studios in the evening to scope it out. We were able to walk around and immediately board Smugglers Run four times in an hour. Teenager got us in the virtual queue both of our Studio mornings for Rise of the Resistance.
