After being closed since March the Universal resorts and theme parks reopened to the public last week. The parks, Citywalk and the hotels all have new practices in place to help ensure the safety of the guest and team members. First our family checked into our hotel. As soon as we walked in we were stopped and our whole family had our temperatures checked. In order to get into the hotel, ride the bus or boats and to enter Citywalk or the parks you will get your temperature checked anyone over 100.4 F will not be allowed to enter. Every morning we would be rechecked once in the lobby and we were given a colored wrist band each day that allowed us to bypass all the temp checks. A mask or face cover has to be worn in all the public areas with the exceptions of when you are eating or drinking.
As recommended by the CDC there are markings throughout to help keep a social distance of at least 6 feet between other guests and team members. In the attraction lines these were sometimes hard to see around corners and this caused a slight delay in the wait times. We also saw these not always being observed, other guest just made up their own stopping points. Some people were better with maintaining social distance than others, for the most part other guest did fine keeping the 6 feet apart. Some of rides required you to use the virtual line via the app, we had so much trouble with the app this visit. The only ride we really wanted with virtual only line was Hagrids and when we finally did get a pass the ride kept breaking down.
To keep social distance on the rides they would seat guest with empty spots between or give each party their own boat, or cabin on the train. This does add a bit to the wait time as they could not allow as many guest as before. The longest line times were for the Hogwarts Express. Previously multiple groups would fill each cabin but now each had their own, this means even solo visitors had a cabin all to themselves. Just before you got on the ride a team member would give everyone a squirt of hand sanitizer. We visited the parks 4 days and each day it seemed to be more and more crowded. For a majority of the rides were had little to no wait but on Friday we rode the least rides due to longer waits. The water rides you could remove your face masks during the ride but had to put it back on to exit.
When they announced all the new changes I wasn’t sure that they would offer the character meetings anymore but Universal set up these stages near some of the previous meeting spots instead. The characters rotated throughout the day, they had markers on the ground in front of the stage for guest to take pictures and team members told us we could remove our face covers for the pictures.
One thing Universal offers in the park are these refillable cups but with all the changes I thought they may do away with these. If you are unfamiliar the cup for a daily fee you get unlimited soda from the Coke freestyle machines or Icees from some of the refreshment stops. I would say about half of the Freestyle machines were closed and the ones that were open had sanitizing wipes in front or a team member was cleaning in between guests. At the icee stops some were filling the cups others were giving them to us in disposable cups instead.
The quick service restaurants we dined in would only allow a few people in at a time and were seated spaced apart. As you entered you had to sanitize your hands before they took you to a table. They are really pushing the Universal app for ordering your food. We had the worst time with the app as did others around us, when the app wouldn’t work team members would bring a 1 time use menu and allow 1 person to order up at the register. After you placed the order a team member would come get your confirmation number and bring the food to you when it was ready. The problems with the app cause a huge delay in getting our food. The first day it took us 45 minutes just to place our order then 10 or so to get the food. This did not bode well for our hungry toddler, on the last day we finally figured out a system to get the food the quickest but still took close to 30 minutes for the whole process.
Like I mentioned earlier face masks/covers are required this includes in lines and even on the rides. It was hot and humid the whole week and sometimes the mask made it more hot. We took several breaks at these U-rest spots in the park where masks are allowed to be off. This is a big open area with a few benches and tables where you can just hang out and get some fresh air. There are 2 of these in each park. At Universal you will find it near the Back to the Future train just before Simpsonland and the other at the Fear Factor live show near MIB. On the Islands of Adventure side you can find them at the Port of Entry before the Hulk ride and the other inside the Eight Voyage of Sinbad show.
The parks had shortened hours from 9 to 6 daily and they did still have the 1 hour early entry for hotel guest and annual passholders. I know they also have capacity limits at the parks but they were never reached while we were there. I saw team members cleaning hand rails constantly which is probably the cleanest they have ever been when we have visited. With all these different rules in place I never once worried about getting sick. The masks mixed with the Florida sun did cause some over heating but we did try to take breaks in the A/C but we will wait until the fall before we go back. If you plan to go I would bring multiple masks as they get wet or sweaty throughout the day. We had a mini fan that helped when we were in the outdoor lines and drank lots of slushies and ice water.