"At capacity" right now would be the slowest Thanksgiving week at Disney World ever. I would never suggest going the week of Thanksgiving in a normal year, but I see no reason not to this year.

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-are masks required while walking in the park? i can maybe understand when in closer proximity and on rides that it may be?

At all times, and they will remove you and trespass you from the park.

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-are there any hotels on monorail system that have been updated and "worth" booking at? i know this is subjective and yes, maybe none are truly worth it.

All of the hotels on the monorail are really nice. My family always stays on property with DVC, but the benefits are fewer right now. Lots of hotels in the area have Disney shuttles, and the dining at Disney resorts is extremely scaled down. I would look into what restaurants are available at the resorts you're looking at before making a decision. We went in August, and it was the first time we had ever left property to eat a meal. There simply weren't enough options at our resort due to so many things being closed.

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-lasty, is the meal plan something we should buy? i suspect that we will be gone from sun up to sun down and i don't think our hotel room will have a kitchen - nor do i really want to cook while away. thoughts?

The meal plan is never worth it (especially with kids), but it also isn't available right now.

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- any discount sites to look at for tickets?

Not really. If you're a Sam's Club member you can save a little bit on the tickets by purchasing through them. It would have only ended up saving us about $50 for 4 6-day passes, so we just went ahead and bought from Disney. This was very good for us because we had to reschedule our trip 3-4 times and did not have the issues with this that some people did. I don't know that I'll ever buy third party again after this experience.

On the other hand, buying Disney gift cards from Sam's is something I would definitely recommend. We do this every time we go. Sam's sells them for less than a $ for $ value, so you are basically making money on the purchase. If you're staying on property, you can charge things to your room and then head up to the front desk and clear the balance with the gift cards whenever you have time (with the lessened park hours, you will have plenty of time).

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haven't made up my mind definitively yet but think this would be something they would enjoy at the ages they are at now. just trying to learn if covid overprecautionary measures will make it less enjoyable?

Honestly, it was fantastic and the COVID measures made it more enjoyable. People aren't in your personal space in the lines for rides, you never have to wait in line for a character interaction (instead they're doing mini-parades called "character cavalcades" where they all walk by and wave at your kids), the stupid playgrounds are closed, and there aren't large parades either.

The only real negative is there aren't nighttime fireworks shows. The rest made Disney an even better experience than it usually is. Honestly, the masks aren't that big of a deal.

If this is their first time ever going, and you want them to have the full experience, then wait till another time. If you think they would love being able to ride the rides as many times as they want and you want to go without having to worry about booking fastpasses and stuff like that, do it now. Don't wait. It won't be like this again.

This post was edited on 9/17/20 at 8:31 pm