What It’s Like Visiting Universal During Covid-19
October 13, 2020
By: Amy Baranek, Vacation Experience Architect
We recently returned from a vacation to Universal Orlando- just a few weeks after they reopened. We stayed at two different on-property resorts and visited Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Citywalk numerous times. Note that EVERYWHERE I discuss, you MUST have a mask on. By sharing our experience, I hope it helps answer any questions you may have about traveling during this new time in our lives!
Hotels:
Upon entering both resorts, there are numerous signs that all guests over the age of 2 must have a facial covering that covers their nose and mouth. As soon as you enter, there is a security guard who will check everyone’s temperature. Your temperature cannot be over 100.4. Once your temperature check is good, you receive a wristband with the color of the day, showing that you have been scanned with a normal temperature. You then do not need to be rescanned to re-enter the hotel, Citywalk, or the parks. (I did ask what would happen if a temperature was higher; they will have you rest in a separate area for 15 minutes or so and then recheck your temperature. At this point, you may be asked to have a medical consultation to determine your health.)
The whole process is very fast, and once you are cleared, you are good to enjoy the hotel. There are hand sanitizing stations throughout the hotel. The check-in desk has blue marks on the floor indicating where each party should stand while waiting in line. Between every guest we watched as the front desk cleaned everywhere, the counter, the credit card machine, anywhere that may have been touched by the previous guest. There are large plexiglass safety barriers up to help with social distancing between the front desk and guest. Check in was fast and friendly. When possible, they are encouraging mobile communication, so while you are checking in, a text is sent to your phone encouraging you to ask any questions you may have to that number. We used this to ask for more towels for our room, a map of the hotel, and for park hours. It was a great resource to use while we were there. At check in, they will also ask if you want room charging privileges. This is something that worked well for us when making purchases. All they do is scan your room key and ask for some information and you have charged your purchase to the room. This avoids less contact and kept things a little safer.
Bell services is unable to help handle your luggage, if there are carts available, you can borrow a cart to bring in your bags, they just ask you return the cart when you are done so they may sanitize it before the next use. We didn’t find this to be a big problem for us. Housekeeping services only happen upon request, and they are really trying to minimize this. If housekeeping is requested, they would like you to have been out of the room for at least 3-4 hours before coming to your room to clean. This can also be requested by text. After you check out of the hotel, a thorough room cleaning is done and that room is left vacant for at least 24-48 hours before a new guest is checked into the same room.
When we arrived in the room, the remote control was in a small clear plastic bag in each hotel. I thought this was a nice touch, since the remote is such a high touch area! Extra towels were brought to us in a sealed plastic bag at both resorts.
Pools are open, while in the pool or on a lounge chair, you do not need to have a mask on. If you get up to go get some food or head back to your room, you are required to have a mask on. Due to the limited capacity at the resorts, not all of the resort pools were open during our entire stay, (but) there was at least one open at each resort.
Transportation:
The transportation was amazing! We never had to wait for a bus, and frequently, there were multiple busses waiting in queue. There were hand sanitizer stations available before getting onto the bus. Everyone was required to have their temperature scanned before getting on the bus. If you had already been scanned earlier in the day and had the appropriate wristband color on, you were good to get on the bus. If not, they would scan you there and give you the wristband color of the day. Social distance signs were everywhere on the bus, but they never allowed very many people on the bus at a time. I believe the most we had on a bus was 3-4 families. Once we even had the bus all to ourselves!
Boat transportation was also similar with a limited amount of people allowed on at a time; everyone must have a temperature check for the day before getting on, and hand sanitizer stations available.
If you chose to walk to the park from your resort, the security check station is set up before you enter Citywalk, and if you haven’t had your temperature checked for the day yet, they will check it here and give you a wristband with the color of the day.
Citywalk:
Before entering the security scan at Citywalk, you will need to have your temperature checked. However, if you have already had your temperature checked at your resort and have your wristband color of the day showing you were checked, they will let you bypass this area and just head through for a security check.
The one place I found that did bottle neck was the escalator to go up from transportation drop off to Citywalk. Especially in the morning when we arrived and everyone is heading to the parks, being dropped off at the same time, and trying to head up the escalator. We just tried to hang back in line, distanced on the escalator and it worked out okay. Bag check goes as normal through an airport security-type monitor, while you walk through a metal detector. You are then set to head to the moving walkway or to walk on your own. The other place that left me slightly uncomfortable once was the moving walkway….we had people ahead of us that weren’t walking, so we just stood our distance back, but others wanted to keep moving so they walked past us and the other standing people on the walkway. So on this note, you may want to just avoid the moving walkway and walk on your own where there is more room and easy to distance.
Once you arrive to Citywalk, you will find most stores and restaurants are open. Most restaurants here don’t take reservations, so I would recommend if you would like a sit down restaurant, head there to get your name on the waitlist (Toothsome had an 80 minute wait), then explore and enjoy Citywalk. We stopped at VooDoo Donuts who has a queue set up outside with distance markers for everyone to wait until they are allowed in due to the reduced capacity and distanced area inside to order. After we purchased our donuts, we headed to the live entertainment on the water. Here rows were blocked off and there were markers where you and your party could sit. Other then the person who was singing, all other employees were wearing masks, this included the people dancing on stage, and the one speaking to the crowd as well. Toothsome Chocolate Emporium will text you when your table is ready, so we enjoyed the live entertainment for the rest of the time until our table was ready. At the restaurant, you need to leave your mask on until seated. If you need to use the restroom while in the restaurant, you are to put your mask back on; the only time you can have it off is when you are seated at your table. It also seemed that most restaurants were giving you a bag to put your mask in while you ate. Many restaurants have a more limited menu, and most menus are paper so they aren’t reused between customers. We did tend to leave our mask on until after we ordered, just trying to make it a little safer for the wait staff. All tables are distanced apart and at no time did we feel like we were on top of anyone.
Islands of Adventure and Universal theme parks:
Before entering either of these parks, you will have your temperature scanned already no matter where you are coming from. There are social distance markers on the ground to stand on while you wait in line to enter the park. There are no longer fingerprint scans; just your ticket is scanned for entrance to the park. All employees are trained to remind guests to pull their mask up if they have it down, or their nose out. There are also specific employees who walk around the park monitoring this. There are plenty of hand sanitizer dispensers throughout the park. We saw numerous employees wiping down areas as we were exploring the park. There are social distance markers everywhere, lines for food, rides, lockers, and meet and greets. Universal photographers are still out and available for pictures, when getting your pictures taken, you are allowed to take your mask off for a quick picture. Employees are not able to take a picture with your camera right now.
Rides have great distance markers all throughout the queue. At times it may seem like things are spaced way more than 6 feet apart, but when you look at the big picture, it may be because the line wraps around, and so this keeps you from standing next to someone in the line on the other side. Right before getting on any ride, an employee will squirt some hand sanitizer in everyone’s hands. This is enforced incredibly well, as I watched an employee chase someone who was excited to go on the ride and forgot to get the hand sanitizer. Masks must be worn on all rides unless it is a water ride. At no time did I feel like my mask was going to fly off on any ride we were on. Lockers had numerous attendants. There was someone monitoring the entrance and would direct you what locker station to go to and when it was clear for you to head there. Upon return to the lockers, you would go through a similar procedure. Where they are able to do it, the locker lines are divided into 3 lines, one if you are waiting to put something in, one if you are waiting to take something out, and one to exit the locker area. This was a good system, except you need to ask which line you need to be in prior to entering the line as none were marked. Lockers were being sanitized on a regular basis.
Water fountains were on, but signs requesting one person use at a time were up. Similar signs could be found in the bathrooms at the row of sinks, where every other sink had a sign on it requesting you to not use it in order to maintain social distance. The refillable mug option at the parks is still available, stations had an attendant sanitizing between each use and hand sanitizer readily available for everyone.
Select quick-service options are open and using the mobile app to order and pay is strongly recommended (and really convenient). In using the app to try and figure out where we wanted to eat, we noticed that the app did not flag what quick-service restaurants were closed. The work around I found for this is that since all quick-service restaurants are currently offering mobile order, go to the mobile order menu on the app; the restaurants you see there are the quick-service options that are open. (I wish I had realized that before we walked half way around the park!!) When you arrive to the quick-service restaurant you will meet the host, who will seat you. There may be a wait for a table at which point you will wait on one of the distanced markers in line. While you are in line, this is a great time to start your order, this way when you are seated, you simply click that you are here, show the waiter the order number, and a little while later your food will be brought out to you. If you are using the Universal Dining plan, once you are seated you will let the waiter know you have the dining plan, and he will then lead one member of your party up to the front where you can order and pay with your dining plan card.
Each park has several mask-free rest areas where you can sit and take your mask off for awhile. Some of these areas were very large with plenty of room to space out from everyone. In these areas you are asked to wait until you are seated before taking your mask off, but you are free to stay as long as you wish and are free to have a snack or drink while seated.
Character meets are still happening! They are just modified to maintain distance. You will find a marker on the ground in most areas in front of the characters where you can stand and get your picture taken. The characters will still interact and have fun with you, just from a distance. The floats from the character parade are also brought out at different times during some of these meets so you have an additional fun element in your background picture.
Any inside shows, or rides with rows, are spaced to every other row and you leave three seats between each party in the same row. You are seated by the employees and upon leaving, they ask that you remain seated until your row is allowed to exit. This avoids the large group of people you normally have all trying to exit at the same time. This whole process went very quickly and efficiently. A quick side note here- we were able to see the new Bourne Stuntacular show. All actors who were in close contact with each other while performing the show wore masks the entire time. It all blended very well with the show and is a nice touch on Universal’s part to help keep its employees safe! (It also gave me nothing to complain about in wearing a mask if these actors can perform the crazy stunts they were doing all while wearing a mask!)
Final Thoughts:
I was blown away by Universal! At no time did I feel unsafe while there. Obviously, the choice to travel during the Covid outbreak is a very personal one and you should weigh your pros and cons appropriately. For our family, being able to have some normal fun vacation time during this, while staying as safe as possible, is something that was greatly needed for all of our mental health. It was comforting to go out in public and know that everyone was doing their best to keep each other healthy and safe.
I did daily live reports while at Universal on my Facebook page, if you head back towards the end of June, you can watch those here. I would love to help you plan your escape! Contact me at amyb@wishesfamilytravel.com to discuss your vacation! I was fortunate to be able to use a travel agent discounted rate for this vacation, but it in no way affected my above opinion!