I brought my family to Disney World the week they dropped mask mandates. I thought the crowds were alarming but I don't regret going.

From February 17, Disney World and Disneyland dropped indoor mask requirements for vaccinated guests.

Since July 2021, both Disney's Florida and California theme parks required masks in indoor spaces for guests age 2 and older, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status.

Now, face coverings indoors (or outdoors) would be totally optional for fully vaccinated guests, though they did stipulate that they expected those who are not fully vaccinated to continue wearing face coverings indoors.

My family and I visited all four of Disney's Florida theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and EPCOT) the same week the new changes took effect. It was quite different from our previous visit in the spring of 2021, and while we welcomed many of the new changes, others felt shocking amid an ongoing pandemic. Insider reached out to Disney for comment about the new changes.

Here's what it was like.

I noticed that all four parks seemed to be at capacity. Packed crowds were very common in Magic Kingdom in places like Main Street USA, across thruways that separate one "land" from another, and in front of Cinderella's Castle, especially before the evening fireworks show.

I thought that it would feel claustrophobic under any circumstances, but it was especially so knowing we're still going through a pandemic.

Many times, I was shoulder-to-shoulder with maskless park goers, sometimes packed so tightly together that I couldn't even cut a path through the crowd with our stroller.

We weren't.

In our previous visit, our then 2-year-old was constantly asked his age and told he needed to wear his face covering.

This time, even though our youngest only wore a mask part of the time and my other kids who are vaccinated didn't at all, no members of my party were asked their ages or vaccination status. Nor were we asked to wear a face-covering inside any Disney theme park.

Masks were still requested while riding Disney transportation such as buses, monorails, water taxis, and gondola rides. Though I saw multiple guests ignore such guidance.

Unlike the Disney World of 2020 and 2021, our dining tables were no longer spaced apart and we sat in close proximity to other parties. While we felt okay about it, the crowds took some getting used to again.

While it's now optional, the convenience of mobile ordering is still available to guests who prefer to plan their meals ahead. We appreciated having the flexibility of ordering directly at quick-service restaurants since last time, we had to order all food through the "My Disney Experience" app.

Last time, Disney performers were scattered few and far between in the parks when they appeared in parades or stage performances. And whenever more than one performer shared a stage or parade route, they kept a lot of distance from one another.

This time, I noticed that parade and music performers stood in close proximity to other performers, as did the outdoors cast of the "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!" at Disney's Hollywood Studios and the entirely indoors cast of "The Festival of the Lion King" at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

It felt like nothing had ever changed.

Unlike the spaced-apart seating accommodations commonplace through the first two years of the pandemic, audience members at shows were encouraged to sit "as close as possible" to adjacent parties.

My family attended six shows throughout our week and never sat more than 2 or 4 inches away from groups on either side of us. I noticed that masks were few and far between, even indoors or at packed performances of 1,500 to 2,000-seat-capacity shows like "The Festival of the Lion King" at Disney's Animal Kingdom or "For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration" at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

One thing that was missing in our previous visit was seeing the warm smiles of Disney employees, called cast members, as they greeted our little ones. Seeing their faces again was a welcome change, and I estimated that about one in three cast members still wore a face covering.

"I still have the option to wear a mask if I want to," one older cast member working a supervising position near Pirates of the Caribbean told me, "but it doesn't do me much good if none of the guests are as well."

Both last visit and this time, we had to wave to most Disney characters from far away.

Only about three feet of distance remained between each princess and visiting parties, separated by a rope and pole stanchion. Each princess interacted with our kids kindly, though autograph requests still weren't permitted.

Character dining is back, and much more expensive. My wife and I and four young kids paid $316.23 to eat family-style at Tusker House in Disney's Animal Kingdom, which was a big hike from the $200 or so we paid at the same restaurant pre-pandemic. Still, we tried to look on the bright side that the experience was now available at all.

Last time, many character dining experiences were either closed or available in less than satisfying ways.

For instance, earlier in the pandemic, Cinderella was the only princess who appeared at "Cinderella's Royal Table." Usually, many princesses such as Ariel, Rapunzel, Jasmine, and Merida were commonly included. Back then, Cinderella only waved at all diners at the same time from at least 60 feet away.

This time, multiple characters appeared during one of our character lunches. Mickey, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy all graced our family with their presence at Tusker's house. While my kids were delighted to see them, they were disappointed that each character still only waved from a distance, this time about eight feet from our table, limiting our photo opps.

Though we appreciated that many more people are flocking to Disney than in the previous two years, I counted more than 200 guests in close proximity as eight lanes of people weaved back and forth in one room separated by a single rope while in line to ride the Jungle Cruise attraction at Disney's Magic Kingdom.

Gone were the social distance floor markers and indoor plexiglass dividers, though, as Insider previously reported, plexiglass barriers aren't effective at stopping the virus in an enclosed space.

During this recent visit, the theme parks still showcased unscheduled, shorter parades known as "pop-up cavalcades." As such, walkways never became too crowded when only one or two floats and a small procession of characters passed by.

However, Disney has announced that longer parades, such as the 12-minute Disney Festival of Fantasy parade at Disney's Magic Kingdom, will be making a return soon.

Many play areas and playgrounds such as The Boneyard at DinoLand USA in Disney's Animal Kingdom have reopened, which provided a happy distraction for my kids while we waited in the park's famously long lines. We were excited to be able to take a midday break from the lines and rides by letting the kids play on the playground.

Disney holds a lot of magic for our little ones and I'm glad we took this trip. My family made some happy memories.

I thought that many of the new changes were welcome improvements from our last visit, however, others were surprising, and at times, alarming. After all, the country is still in a pandemic, and we expected more of a middle ground regarding safety measures and crowd control.

Last time, my kids couldn't even drop their face masks for five seconds to take a photo in front of Cinderella's Castle outside. That was frustrating.

But seeing thousands of maskless parkgoers packed shoulder-to-shoulder indoors now was even more disquieting.

No one from my family is immunocompromised or high-risk. If they were, I don't think I would feel safe visiting the Florida theme park these days. That's because those who are immunocompromised are more vulnerable than the general public to infections caused by viruses like COVID-19, Insider previously reported.

This is why I really empathized with the families who booked their vacation thinking that certain safety measures were in place, only to find that virtually all of them were missing once they finally arrived.

One mother of three from New York City named Heather Martin, who I chatted with inside the park told me, "I never would have planned this vacation if I knew Disney had done away with all safety measures. Friends assured me the company was treating the pandemic seriously but that no longer appears to be so."