It’s been more than three years since Walt Disney World reopened following its pandemic closure. When the parks reopened a lot had to change to follow health and safety guidelines, but in the time since then things have continued to revert to the way things used to be. By now, nearly everything that was running pre-pandemic is back, what's closed at Disney World is now a normal-looking list of standard refurbs, and working as it once did, but there are still a few items that have yet to revert to their old ways. Now another has, and I’m actually a little disappointed by it.
A Winnie the Pooh meet-and-greet opportunity used to exist at Epcot’s UK pavilion, and now, for the first time since early 2020 it does once again. While this is certainly nice for anybody who wants to give the silly old bear a big hug, I’m honestly a little bummed out by it. Because I loved the way Pooh was utilized during the pandemic; as you could occasionally see him on a grassy hillside, inaccessible by guests, trying to catch butterflies.
There were a few changes for the global pandemic at Walt Disney World that I actually thought were awesome, and the way characters were handled in the parks was probably the biggest of them. Since keeping guests in a long line to get up close and personal with a Cast Member in a costume wasn’t possible, we saw characters appear in places guests couldn’t reach, simply existing, or telling their own little stories almost like a silent era cartoon. I felt like it gave the parks a feeling of being alive like the characters really lived there, and that just improved the vibe.
Character encounters, including being able to give them a hug, finally returned to Disney World and Disneyland earlier this year. For a lot of people, this was a big deal. Some serious Disney fans got emotional over it. For somebody like that who absolutely loves Winnie the Pooh, and Disney’s Winnie the Pooh is, to be fair, a fantastic character, this is incredibly exciting.
Meet and greets have just never been high on my priority list, while I love getting pictures with characters, I’m not usually willing to stand in a line to do so when I could be spending my time in lines waiting for attractions. But I love the characters and really enjoyed seeing them in places that made sense for their characters bringing the parks to life.
We do still see characters appearing like this at places like Avengers Campus and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. There we’ll see heroes appear and walk through the land, interacting with guests, rather than simply standing still and taking pictures. Those lands are specifically designed to be placed within their respective universes. That’s not the case for most of the other Disney Parks lands, which may be why this similar idea has been abandoned. Still, I'll miss it.
