I’m starting to get excited.  Now that Universal Studios has re-opened and Disney has announced their July park re-openings, I feel like the return of travel is in sight.  I’ve been watching vloggers and getting the latest updates on what it looks like to be in the parks.  Parts of it look like a return to normal, other parts do not.  To be honest, I’m not real excited about having to wear masks in the parks. It will not be comfortable in the Florida heat.  Also, shots of the spacing in the queues does not set well with me either.  I think lines will appear to be outrageously long at the attractions.  And spacing passengers out in the ride vehicles will also cause the lines to move slower.  Not sure that will provide for a very good park experience.

         BUT there are good things that I am hoping will come out of this situation.  The theme parks had to get creative with line management and had to change the way they were operating.  Universal has instituted virtual queues that guests can enter using the park app.  They can select an available time and come back to the attraction at the designated time.  They had this at a few attractions previously but have now applied it to most of the major attractions in the parks.  This is necessary to control the amount of people in line to provide room for appropriate spacing. Could this be the beginning of new way of managing lines?

         With that said, I am more interested in how Disney will handle this same issue.  They have suspended the Fastpass+ system until further notice.  To be honest, I was beginning to have concerns about Disney’s system of 3 pre-arranged Fastpass+ reservations.  As part of my service, I help my guests arrange their attraction schedules for their time in the parks.  I try to help them avoid long wait times.  I was able to do that well until recently.  With all the new attractions, it is virtually impossible to avoid long wait times for the major attractions with only 3 Fastpasses.  So, my hope is that Disney will rethink their crowd control system while they are forced into this pause.  I feel their solution will play a great role in how soon people will return to their parks.  Keep your fingers crossed.