Anyways, I'm back (hopefully) unscathed! I went with around 9 other people and honestly we had a great time. (We seemed to be one of the larger groups in the park). A few thoughts and experiences from day one.
-It was dead, dead, DEAD in the parks today. Our group of 10 was able to get on every major attraction without waiting a moment. The only wait was for P. Flyers, and that was only 20 min at most and simply a case of extremely low capacity. It's hard to tell with so few people hete, but we never felt worried about being too close to anyone or having to uphold social distancing. Everyone kept to themselves for the most part. I can see why Uni decided to give an extra guest comp pass for tomorrow. They probably wanted to start small today and judge how well it goes, and now that it was a relative success they want a larger sample to emulate Wednesday and on.
-Simpsons Midway Games were free to play and the Carnie employees were actively scouting for people to play. We ended up doing like 75% of them. No prizes with F2P. Don't know if this was an option before but we certainly didn't know about it.
-Curious George, Feivel Slide, and Bourne not open.
-ET cards are gone. E.T. simply says "Goodbye, Friends" everytime. He did this pre-Corona if he was given no name data to work from, but now it is the norm it seems.
-M&G Characters around both parks are now on stages. I saw Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Spidey, and Cyclops at the far edge of MSHI, Spongebob and Patrick on the Kidzone stage, Popeye on the ramp to the Toon Lagoon ampitheatre, and Hashtag the Panda on the steps of Fallon behind a fence. All characters were wearing some kind of mask except Betty Boop and Beetlejuice, both found on the Horror Make Up show stage.
-Some effects on FJ not working. Dragon did not spit fire, similar fog effects seemed fine for other attractions. All but one of the Dementors were stripped down to the Kuka Arm and all were not operating. No skull water projection. Spiders still spit though!
-No preshows for Gringotts, MiB, Hagrids, E.T.
-Masks still seem to be required on coasters.
-Velocicoaster has made some awesome, very visible progress. The best places to see for me were Doom, P. Flyers, Hippogriff/HP Bridge.
-I doubt P. Flyers is going to allow adults for the record, mostly just a way to get TMs trained for the real deal.
-Food was kind of a mess tbh. You have to order via the app in any restaurant to my knowledge, but it took asking 3 TMs to understand what we need to do to get a meal. Some restaurants only allow one group at a time. No TM Discount upfront, you have to pay in full and come back to the cashier after your meal to get any money reimbursed. Freestyle machines seemed very problematic. I had used one and come back to my table to find that a small black plastic tab from the dispenser had chipped off the machine and into my drink. TMs helped me out, but it took about 10 minutes of waiting for me to actually get my drink with no other group in the building. My entire group agreed that all of the soda seemed metallic in taste, and whether that is from lack of use for months or the employee wiping down every inch of the machine with alcohol wipes after every use, it definitely wasn't very pleasant. Definitely the least safe I felt today by far.
-Employees wipe down ride vehicles and give guests hand sanitizer immediately before every ride.
-Superstar floats and music were around, but different. Only one float/IP would come out at a time. I saw a lone SLoP float drive all the way from Esoteric to New York, and a lone Spongebob float stay around Esoteric for guest to take pictures with the characters from a distance, similar to the stage idea. SLoP bikes were out, but I did not see Spongebob Skaters. Blues Brothers show and car were out. Diagon shows and Beat Builders seem untouched.
-It was very hot today. I didn't have any huge problems with masks, but I can definitely see how the heat and humidity could get to some people. It's definitely different than what people, even locals, are used to. Some people probably won't have a good time at all with these restrictions. Keep your limitations in mind when planning trips at this time.
Any of this could change from now to official reopen, so keep that in mind. We had a great time but it was definitely very strange. Hopefully it'll only get better with TM practice.
