Disneyland's Downtown Disney will be open longer each day, starting this Friday. And not only is Disney extending the operating hours for its shopping and dining district, it now will accept advance reservations for Buena Vista Street's Carthay Circle Lounge – Alfresco Dining restaurant.
Starting Friday, Downtown Disney — including Buena Vista Street — will be open from 9am to 9pm daily, as the Christmas shopping season begins. The district also has added one more dining location with the return of Splitsville, which has reopened for outdoor dining. (In other words... no bowling.) Reservations for that restaurant are available online.
And you can make reservations for the Carthay Circle, starting today, too. A reservation for the Carthay Circle will allow you and your party entry into Buena Vista Street up to one hour in advance of your reservation time, if the land is at capacity and using its virtual queue. In addition, if the Simba Lot is closed to entry, show your reservation to a parking cast member for assistance.
Disney says that its no-show policy on reservation applies, so if you don't arrive at your schedule time, you may be charged $10 per person in your group. You can cancel at least one day in advance to avoid the fee, but that means you can't just make a dining reservation to skip the Buena Vista Street virtual queue during busy times.
Parking is $10 at the Simba Lot and temperature checks and masks remain required. Locations within Downtown Disney and Buena Vista Street may use virtual queues to ensure safe physical distancing within. And mobile ordering is available for many of the open restaurants at Downtown Disney, so check the official Disneyland app for those.
And, of course, if you don't want to head out at all right now, there's always ShopDisney.com.
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At first this might be a trial run to see how things go operationally, but they really should open up more of the park. Open more stores like Gone Hollywood and Off the Page and extend the limit up to the Hyperion Theater. Open up Cars Land for dining and shopping. Open up the winery for outdoor dining. Maybe put some food booths where they were for the festivals. It really needs more capacity. I was there the other day and it took an hour to get into Five and Dime/Elias & Co. When we got in, it was kind of empty, it feels like there is more crowding, less social distancing at World of Disney, but maybe they are being more careful at first.
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I just went there yesterday and felt kinda disappointed, but none of that was really Disney’s fault. I went at 5pm and got in the virtual queue with 350 parties ahead of me. I expected to wait an hour or two but was shocked when I was called only 30 minutes after. The line to get inside only took 15 minutes, but once I got inside my group was met with lines upon lines upon lines. I’ve never seen this many people on Buena Vista Street just standing around waiting. The churro cart had a line that stretched about 50feet back. However, of course these lines look exaggeratingly (new word I made) long because of the social distancing markers, but even with them making the lines look long, there were still many people in line no doubt. I knew that the demand was high but I was a bit surprised.
Long story short, after 5 minutes of entering there really isn’t any appeal to Buena Vista Street. You can walk around and see the park but the boundaries are at the plane in Grizzly Peak, Off the Page in Hollywoodland, and the entrance to Cars land. If you’re thinking about going this week or during the weekend through the end of the year, just remember that there’ll be super long lines and getting to DTD at 9 in the morning won’t do any good because people are arriving almost 2 hours before the opening everyday. Extending the hours will hopefully make it so the best time to go is the last hour of operation.