Hurricane - anyone experienced one while at Disney?

[mousiemom]

don't worry about orlando, rarely does a hurricane make it to wdw. we were there when a tropical storm came thru and we went to MK, everybody left, it was misty rain, windy and we loved it! wdw is the best place to be during a storm! we've been down a lot during sept. and the storms are usually hitting where i live on the gulf coast. don't worry!

 

[iluveeyore]

Our trip was planned when Wilma was forecast - we decided we would rather be at WDW when the storm hit than trying to get to WDW, so we changed our flight to a day earlier (SWA let us change flights without any problems because there was a weather alert posted), got a cheap room with our APs at Pop century, then moved to OKW the day the hurricane was due. It came through at the end of the day, we have pictures of my Grandma and daughter on our deck in their ponchos (we brought in the patio furniture as advised). We were in a villa so had all of our groceries for the week (although it was hard to find water, milk and bread as people were stocking up on quite a few items at the walmart supercenter), so we weren't concerned when the resort advised us by phone to stay in our room until notified. It was nice because they played movies all day on the resort channel for the kids, and kept us posted by phone - we were able to go to MK the next day in the afternoon - it was only open to resort guests, so hardly anyone in the parks and it was a gorgeous, calm and sunny day once the storm had passed. There were branches and debris everywhere as we rode the bus to the park, and lots of workers were doing clean up everywhere. But the park didn't show any sign of having been through a hurricane, and it was really an experience to remember.

 

[FOCUS]

Same for me - I was at WDW during Hurricane Wilma in 2005. We had considered canceling our trip, because of the potential path of the hurricane. I'm so glad we didn't! We just got the outer "fringes" of the storm, and had some 50mph wind and rain for about 15 hours. They just had us stay in our room at Shades of Green until the storms passed through, and communicated with us via voice mail messages on our phone at the hotel.

As this poster said, the parks opened around 2:00 pm (Epcot and MK only) but crowds were very light. In fact, the weather improved after the storm! It was very hot and humid right before the storm, but afterward it was very pleasant weather! Plus since so many people canceled their trips because they were worried about the storm, the crowds were light all week.

We were there for Wilma as well. We were staying at POR and it was safe enough that we were able to walk to the main building in the morning, so we ate breakfast. They did what they could to entertain guests...they even brought out a few characters to interact with. It was supposed to be our day to eat an early dinner at Crystal Palace, so we rescheduled that for another day just in case MK never opened.

Then we got word around 1:30 that MK and Epcot were getting ready to open. So we put our our original Crystal Palace reservation back on and headed over to the park. We got there about 2:30 and went right back to Fantasyland and rode every ride as walk-ons (including Dumbo). It makes for a great story that I may be one of the few people in the world to ride all Fantasyland attractions mid-afternoon in about an hour and a half. Even the rest of the day as people slowly filtered in, the lines were very short...and then the kept the park open very late. It was awesome...never needed fastpass as most wait times were less than 10 minutes for everything. I think Asto-Orbiter was our longest line and that was about 15 minutes.

Honestly, the hurricane ended up giving us an awesome story and a great crowd-free day at the park. Here are a few pics of Fantasyland at around 3:00pm that day (sorry for the poor quality).

 

[DaddyBeast]

I was at Disney for Hurricane Floyd in Sept 1999, I was staying on property. Disney prepared for it, hotels had water stocked in hallways. It did go over central Florida and Disney closed all parks down for the day. (My anniversary that I was celebrating at the time) they ended up opening the Animal Kingdom park for on site guests only.

Disney takes care of their guests when a hurricane comes in. More than I can say for most locations.

We were at the Polynesian for Floyd, and were originally on 1st floor in Hawaii. They moved us up to the 3rd floor, put out sandbags, and closed everything up. We had snacks from the lounge and everyone gathered in he 3rd floor hallway for an impromptu party.

I was impressed by how prepared they were for this. There was a plan and they stuck to it. Boarded up the stained glass on the castle, beach chairs in the water to keep from blowing away, and they even moved the campers from Ft. Wilderness to the Contemporary Convention Center.

When some of the restaurants opened the next day, they didn't have full menus, but the prices were reduced. Of course they opened AK to resort guests only, and sending all of the resort guests to one place was a little too much.

Our flight out was canceled, but nobody was coming in either so our room was still available. The rate was discounted as well. I kept the letter saying that MK would be closed for the first time ever.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

I honestly wouldn't worry too much. We're going the Sept 9 thru Sept 17, and it's not even a blip on our radar. Well, okay, it is a blip, but it's a "if we have a tropical storm the Yankees will be scared and stay home (empty parks for us), our photos will be gorgeous, and we'll have a real adventure" blip.

Cat 5's that blow ashore with a lot of disaster happen every couple of decades, not every year, and I'm about as safe at home as I am at WDW, and probably more comfortable. (WDW has backup generators.)

No, it isn't something that is worth the effort and the stress to worry about. Worry about things that are more likely to impact your vacation, like line cutters.

 

[vivkemp]

We landed in Orlando just a few hours before Hurricane Charlie (2004) hit. We almost didn't leave London as there were concerns that we would be landing at the same time the Hurricane was due to hit Orlando, but we eventually left after a few hours delay.

On our descent we recieved clearance to fly over Disney airspace, according to our captain this was special permission. We had a turbulent descent and then once on the tarmac had to sit in the plane because due to health and safety the ground crew were unable to attend to our plane! Reassuring not!!

We were whisked quickly through passport and customs (recommended), and by the time we were doing the paperwork for the car hire the airport was deserted and we appeared to be the only people in the arirport apart from a few staff. They were all appalled that we were intending to drive ourselves to Intenational Drive. Of course we were not really aware of the dangers coming from england where we never see this type of weathe phenomena.

Our drive to ID was without incident - infact there were no other cars on the roads - it was like a ghost town. !! We arrived at our hotel to find it was battened down for the night ( no food available, restaurants shut and the only food was from the gift shop i.e. crisps and biscuits)

Our room was great and we spent the rest of the evening unpacking and watching the TV where it seemed that everyone was evacuating orlando!! We were a bit concerned to say the least, especially listening to the constant news reports.
Eventually we fell asleep and can honestly say that we slept through the Hurricane!! Blame the travelling and the jet lag.

We awoke the next day and although there was obvious damage, trees down, advertising boards in pieces life seemed to be going on as normal.
All the parks were open (except AK which didn't open until lunch time) and as a tourist our vacation carried on as if the Hurricane had never happened

Obviously residents of Orlando were suffering more hardship than us as tourists during this time.

As others have stated, don't worry as these weather conditions are rare, and in the eventuality of it happening, procedures are in place to minimise disruption and keep everyone safe.
Viv