During the covid pandemic, Disney World made a lot of changes.
Some of them, like taking visitors' temperatures before allowing them into the parks, were short-lived. Other changes -- like pushing people to use digital ordering, even at many food kiosks -- have stuck around.
In that particular case, the theme park giant softened the pandemic-era rule.
DON'T MISS: Disney World makes a change customers will love
When covid-related restrictions were still in place, customers had to use the company's app to order even at kiosks like the Milk Stand inside "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" within Disney's Hollywood Studios. Even though the stand sells only Blue and Green Milk, along with one cereal-based snack, and some cup/alcohol options, you could not just walk up and order.
Now, the Walt Disney (DIS) -) theme park still encourages digital orders by making the process quick, but it also will take walk-up orders. That may seem like a small thing, but some Disney World visitors aren't all that tech-savvy while others might be worried about their phone batteries (a perpetual in-park problem) and some may just want to pay in cash.
Mostly, Disney's Florida theme parks have shed all signs of covid. But one fan-favorite customer convenience never came back: the parking trams at Epcot and Hollywood Studios.
That's about to change.
Image source: Daniel Kline/TheStreet
Disney World fully restores its parking trams
During covid, when Disney World operated with limits on how many people could enter, parking trams weren't really needed. In all four of the company's Florida theme parks, the front of the parking lot sits relatively near the entrance gates.
But as capacity returned to near-normal, forcing guests who arrived later to park farther away, parking trams were restarted at Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, but not at Hollywood Studios or Epcot.
Since it has been more than three years since that amenity was taken away, the company has seemed unlikely to bring it back.
Now, Blog Mickey has confirmed that the Epcot and Hollywood Studios parking trams will be returning in September.
"Disney World has announced that parking lot trams will FINALLY return to Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios next month. An exact date in September has not been given," the website reported.
Why Disney World's parking trams matter
A day at Disney World is a day filled with walking and a lot of sun exposure. Without a parking tram, anyone not arriving at Epcot or Hollywood Studios faces a long walk with no shade and the hard parking lot reflecting heat back at them. Those problems were compounded this summer when Orlando experienced higher-than-usual temperatures, including its first-ever excessive-heat warning.
Epcot is large with even less shade than most Disney parks. Hollywood Studios, it can be argued, has the least shade of any of the four parks, including over the usually lengthy queues for many of its most popular rides. At "Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway," the line is almost fully exposed to the sun and wait times can top two hours.
Asking customers to start their day with a long walk -- especially during the hotter times of the year -- always seemed like a dangerously bad idea. It also delivered a bad customer-service experience.
Who wants to be hot, tired, and sweaty before you go on a single ride?
When Disney brought back trams to Magic Kingdom in late 2021, it had promised to return parking-tram service to all four of its parks by the end of 2022. It kept that promise at Animal Kingdom, where the service returned in March 2022. Now, it will be bringing trams back to Epcot and Hollywood Studios almost a full year later than it had promised.
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