Cruise and Theme Park Operational Updates due to Coronavirus

[Farro]

I wore TWO masks to the grocery store yesterday, sneezed in my car, and felt the sneeze on my hands on the steering wheel. Through two masks. Masks just don’t work. It gives other people the illusion of safety, and puts the wearer at greater risk for cross contamination. But Disney will probably require them because well.....

PSA - You should sneeze into your elbow. All the time.

 

[Lewisc]

that is the real question
During the task force call a couple of days ago one of the teams did a very small survey of about 65 people, 90% said they are not going out during our phase 1.
They agreed to do a larger group survey to see the responses and I think they are getting something together. We are desperate for Central Florida to reopen because it is affecting so many people financially but it won't matter if people are not willing to go out, in fact it'll be worse. Obviously Disney park reopening won't be until phase 2 or 3 so confidence should be higher, but if mandatory masks is a deal breaker for a lot of people that will be a huge issue

Almost all posters think Disney will be all but restricing parks to resort guests only. I'm assuming Universal will be similar. Maybe the parks will be closed due to reduced capacity during, or shortly after, early admission for hotel guests.
The lack of mandatory masks might be a deal breaker for me. Let's look at Disney's options. Wait until their is great treatment of vaccine. Probably not a good option.
Strictly enforce 6 foot distance. That suggests many indoor attractions will have to be so spaced out as to not being worth it to open. How many guests in the stretch room? Almost any indoor attraction will have issues. Probably not a great option. Mandatory mask, at least for indoor attractions sounds like the best option.

I think people are underestimating the demand for Disney to reopen. People will pour into that place.

I think posters on Disney fan boards are overestimating the demand. Some guests have economic issues. Some guests will have issues getting time off. Some guests will wait until "modifications" are removed or liberalized. I suspect many members of DIS take as many trips to WDW in a year as the average family does in their lifetime. Those guests are more likely to wait until parades and night shows are running.

 

[BryGuy415]

Definitely agree, if tourism wholly ceased to exist. And yet, as hard as it is to believe, there is tourism and an entire economy that does and will continue to exist in Florida, beyond Disney.

Theme park tourism accounts for: $75.2 billion in annual economic impact for Central Florida. This includes generating impact in $3.34 billion for education and health care. Can we even fathom what that would do long term to a society?

Theme park tourism accounts for more than 463,000 jobs in Florida.

I think the general issue with your OP is your seemingly apathetic appreciation for what theme park tourism really does for the economy.

https://www.bizjournals.com/orlando...loser-look-at-orlandos-tourism-impact-on.html

 

[yulilin3]

Definitely agree, if tourism wholly ceased to exist. And yet, as hard as it is to believe, there is tourism and an entire economy that does and will continue to exist in Florida, beyond Disney.

look at it this way, think of a pyramid
the base is Disney, followed by Universal and Sea World.
The rest, upper parts of the pyramid are hotel chains, smaller hotels, vacation rentals, car rentals, airlines, big gift shops, small gift shops,restaurants etc, at the very top is mom and pop stores of all kinds
Take away the base and what happens?
Sure Florida has other industries but the biggest one is without a doubt Disney/Universal

 

[vinotinto]

I wore TWO masks to the grocery store yesterday, sneezed in my car, and felt the sneeze on my hands on the steering wheel. Through two masks. Masks just don’t work. It gives other people the illusion of safety, and puts the wearer at greater risk for cross contamination. But Disney will probably require them because well.....

But face coverings reduce the distance the droplets travel. So, someone a foot away from you would have had more droplets reach them than someone 6 feet from you

And it’s about having multiple measures in place. A face covering on its own won’t be as effective as having the face covering, distancing measures, and hand washing and sanitizing. All together.

 

[Eric Smith]

look at it this way, think of a pyramid
the base is Disney, followed by Universal and Sea World.
The rest, upper parts of the pyramid are hotel chains, smaller hotels, vacation rentals, car rentals, airlines, big gift shops, small gift shops,restaurants etc, at the very top is mom and pop stores of all kinds
Take away the base and what happens?
Sure Florida has other industries but the biggest one is without a doubt Disney/Universal

Florida also relies on tourism for a large portion of their tax income. If the parks were to be closed for a lot longer, the state would be in serious financial trouble. I believe Disney is under a ton of pressure from the state to reopen as soon as possible.

 

[jade1]

Yea I meant the constant "I don't think it will open until" and "I think it will open because" type stuff.

It's obviously a moving target, but actual updates will/do happen.

There will be an official open date from Disney,

There ya go, Parks will follow.

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2020/05/disney-springs-begins-phased-reopening-on-may-20/

 

[LSUmiss]

I think if there is one thing I want for my birthday today it’s to not have to deal with this thread constantly. Can we not go into politics and all that?

Happy birthday!

 

[helloconnie]

I think people are underestimating the demand for Disney to reopen. People will pour into that place.

While the Disney Fan community will go no matter what, I think the general public will be very leery. Recent polls show the vast majority of Americans still plan to stay at home while reopening is underway. When the infected/death rates start to rise, this fear will only grow. Second, as of this morning, 14.7% of Americans are unemployed. That is depression era numbers. That means a lot of people no longer have the disposable income to spend on any type of vacation, much less an expensive one like Disney.

 

[Aurora0427]

PSA - You should sneeze into your elbow. All the time.

I was driving in my car. I have allergies. Sanitized everything when I got home. It’s fine. Would never just let one loose in public. Come on now.

 

[tink2424]

Not Disney but I have a trip booked (booked in October of 2019) to Europe to go to Europa Park & Efteling in September/October 2020. I just saw that Europa Park (similar to EPCOT & located in Germany) is opening May 29th. They are employing some of the same operational changes that Shanghai is employing. From the Europa Park website:

Dear guests and friends of Europa-Park and Rulantica,
from 29.05.2020, Europa-Park will be open again for you!
The six themed hotels, the Camp Resort as well as Europa-Park Camping will also be welcoming you from 29.05.2020.
The hotel restaurants will be re-opened step-by-step from 18.05.2020, beginning with the outside areas only. Only the water world Rulantica will remain closed until further notice.
We welcome the national easing of Coronavirus related restrictions announced by the Baden-Württemberg government on 6th May 2020 and have been intensively preparing for a re-opening of Europa-Park, our accommodation offering and the gastronomy, in close cooperation with the authorities.
Health and safety of our guests and employees have always been our highest priority. It is our goal that you continue to feel safe and comfortable when visiting us. We have therefore decided to start the season with a limited number of visitors from 29.05.2020. We will be offering date-specifiy tickets for the 2020 summer season from 13.05.2020 via our online ticket shop. Our park area is large and spacious which means there is enough space for all visitors and employees to keep the mandatory minimum distance.
We kindly ask you, dear guests, to observe the manditory minimum distance as well as the additional hygiene requirements which apply until further notice at Europa-Park.
We look forward to also welcoming our international guests as soon as travel from and to our neighbouring countries is possible again.

So this could give more insight to what WDW will do and I would think Disney would watch how things go at Europa Park as it is one of the biggest theme parks in Europe.

Food for thought!

 

[firefly_ris]

I think if there is one thing I want for my birthday today it’s to not have to deal with this thread constantly. Can we not go into politics and all that?

Quite the optimist over here...

Happy birthday!!!

 

[mattpeto]

Is there a separate thread for mask discussion? I'd like to see that discussion land somewhere else, like forever.

 

[LSUmiss]

I had one sent to my email and took it. We will/ would go with masks, but we have already been to the beach with masks on. Granted it is still only May, so not as hot as it will be this summer. Whatever Disney decides to do though in the parks, people will go. Some will want masks, others not.....but it may be a more equal distribution of people wanting each than you might think.
Edited to add, I never thought my DD 2 would keep a mask on, but she did well for our walk on the beach. She even played in the sand no problems. When she asked to take it off, I just told her we had to keep it on. I realize not every 2 year old would be okay with a mask...my DS most likely would not have at her age!

I hope they send surveys out to ppl who actually have trips booked in June, July & Aug not just random surveys out to random ppl who are have no intention of going but want to feel good about their self-righteousness & vote for what other ppl should be doing when it really doesn’t affect them.

 

[Betty Rohrer]

One thing that stands out to me - sanitizing your hands after every ride? My hands would be wrecked by the end of the day. I'd be more likely to wear gloves.

I would plan on enough gloves to change after every ride not one pair for the day

 

[yulilin3]

I would plan on enough gloves to change after every ride not one pair for the day

you can sanitize the gloves just the same, after every ride

 

[tlmadden73]

I unfortunately feel that date-specific tickets may become the industry standard for theme parks going forward because of this.

Positives and negatives to that of course, the positive being that this helps the parks control capacity more than ever could before.
The negative being, that parks will reduce their employees as LOW as possible to meet that capacity.

A positive for WDW .. I could see date-specific tickets eliminating the need for 8:00 AM Boarding Groups at DHS. If you have to specify what park you are going to ahead of time, they could just let everyone grab a boarding group without actually being in the park. If you have a valid ticket to DHS for that morning, you can get a boarding group .. no matter when you plan on walking through the gate.

 

[DGsAtBLT]

Is there a separate thread for mask discussion? I'd like to see that discussion land somewhere else, like forever.

I mean I know people don’t like it because it’s so polarizing and makes for lots of back and forth, but the fact that they have required them and conversation surrounding that is more relevant to WDW’s opening (and not speculative too) than probably 90% of the conversation here.

 

[yulilin3]

Is there a separate thread for mask discussion? I'd like to see that discussion land somewhere else, like forever.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/how-do-you-feel-about-wearing-a-mask-at-disney-parks.3801147/

 

[woody337]

you can sanitize the gloves just the same, after every ride

How do the latex gloves stand up to hand sanitizer? I've always wondered if it break the latex down.