Hurricane Matthew Closes WDW - Reopens Saturday, October 8th

[nduckles]

My coworker is planning to fly in on Saturday and staying until Wednesday of next week. He's considering cancelling but would lose $800 in air fare. He's wondering if he should take a chance and go. Any advice you experienced travelers can give him?

I'd call the airline directly and see if they'll give him a voucher for a future flight, if not a full refund. Worth a try if he's only worried about the airfare. And it all depends on what his risk tolerance is for a potentially rainy vacation. It's a hard decision for many of us. He'll know more over the next 24 hours if he can wait and see. Also, if the airport isn't up and running, the airline might cancel his flight themselves.

 

[HopperFan]

The hard cores (human and birds) hanging in until the bell tolls......


Attractions Magazine ‏@Attractions 2 minutes ago America Gardens Theatre

The birds seem to be enjoying the weather so far, and American Music Machine at Epcot.

 

[AppleSister1]

My coworker is planning to fly in on Saturday and staying until Wednesday of next week. He's considering cancelling but would lose $800 in air fare. He's wondering if he should take a chance and go. Any advice you experienced travelers can give him?

Is he sure he'd lose the airfare? Most airlines will likely have a policy in place to change/get a credit. Maybe he can change his dates with Disney and the airline?

 

[EPCOT is a verb]

I want to thank everyone for contributing to this thread. It has helped me to pass the time as we wait for the storm to arrive. So far, we just have some rain showers. No wind yet.

 

[ErinsMommy]

My coworker is planning to fly in on Saturday and staying until Wednesday of next week. He's considering cancelling but would lose $800 in air fare. He's wondering if he should take a chance and go. Any advice you experienced travelers can give him?

Some are reporting Saturday airline cancelations. I'm sure they're going to be so overbooked it wouldn't be surprising if they added waivers to cancel or change flights.

 

[HopperFan]

TAMPA HAS NO ROOM AT THE INN ........

Kevin Wiatrowski ‏@kwiatrowski VTB
Anyone seeking to wait out #HurricaneMatthew: hotels in Hillsborough County are full. Please look elsewhere. Stay safe! @VisitTampaBay

 

[pattikakes]

Please forgive me, if this has already been discussed, I may have missed it. Can anyone tell me what they do about refunding or reimbursing guests for their Disney Park tickets or special dinner show tickets/reservations if they are closed?

 

[KittyKitty]

Flying from Seattle, we have one nonstop( 2 on weekends) and I wondered if it got into MCO ok today. It left SEA 30minutes early, arriving 20 early. Not that unusual.
The flight turns around back to SEA. It is leaving MCO 1 hour early! Scheduled to leave 6:55pm, will be leaving at 5:55pm. Hope everyone makes the flight. Never seen that before!

 

[DLM1980]

Please forgive me, if this has already been discussed, I may have missed it. Can anyone tell me what they do about refunding or reimbursing guests for their Disney Park tickets or special dinner show tickets/reservations if they are closed?

When they cancelled our Halloween party we received an email that gave us options and how to proceed

 

[shadow0421]

Thank you for your replies. His wife is talking to the travel agent now. They are trying to get the trip transferred to the beginning of next month. He told me the airlines said he had a week to use them or lose them. Hopefully the travel agent can get something worked out with the airline. Thanks again!

 

[HopperFan]

To reinforce, don't plan on heading to Disney Springs until Disney tells you it's reopened.

Mike @ Blog Mickey ‏@Blog_Mickey 10 minutes ago
Sprinkles Disney all ready for the storm #MatthewWDW

1 retweet4 likes

 

[DrunkJam]

The governor of Florida is saying some very sobering things.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/hurricane-matthew-florida-preparations-evacuation

Thoughts and prayers to all.

 

[GPC0321]

This is as close as Floyd Ever got.

That "1" in NC is directly over my town. Floyd is the worst flooding I've ever seen here. We had to haul a sick horse to the vet school in Raleigh the morning after Floyd hit, and at one point we were driving down a street so flooded there were people in boats going down the same street right in front of us. When it looked like Matthew was coming, people were already comparing it to Floyd. We've had a ton of rain here already, and had Matthew hit us directly, it would have been Floyd (or worse) all over.

 

[mousefan73]

This may sound silly but if I were one of the people with their pets in the Pet care place I'd be going crazy. I know they are going to have a ride out crew there but they are shutting down so as well as worrying about yourself and your family you are also going to have to worry about your pet and the brave people taking care of them. I can't imagine those dogs and cats are going to comfortable with the noise and it's not going to be pleasant not being able to take them outside. I would almost be tempted to try to book a room off property at a pet friendly facility and pick mine up. Yes, I'm a crazy pet owner.

do they make exceptions and allow crated pets to join guests in resort rooms? That would be a nice courtesy

 

[Tia1977]

We're watching the progress, we leave very early in the morning. We'll be down there til the 16th. We're driving from TN. We're not panicking, but we're certainly concerned. While we hope to make our check in @ CBR tomorrow, if we have to stop and stay put elsewhere through the night; do you know if Disney would credit our reservation back? We didn't purchase insurance on our package. I'm wondering if they make exceptions for emergency type situations such as Matthew? If not, stopping would still be worth our safety. But, recouping the added cost for another hotel would be helpful. I of course would call them to inform we got stuck and won't be there til Saturday. Would I just call the general reservations line if so?

 

[TwoMisfits]

We're watching the progress, we leave very early in the morning. We'll be down there til the 16th. We're driving from TN. We're not panicking, but we're certainly concerned. While we hope to make our check in @ CBR tomorrow, if we have to stop and stay put elsewhere through the night; do you know if Disney would credit our reservation back? We didn't purchase insurance on our package. I'm wondering if they make exceptions for emergency type situations such as Matthew? If not, stopping would still be worth our safety. But, recouping the added cost for another hotel would be helpful. I of course would call them to inform we got stuck and won't be there til Saturday. Would I just call the general reservations line if so?

You should stay put and call Disney letting them know you won't be there tomorrow and ask for a refund for the night. It will not be safe to drive and there will be nowhere safe to stop probably in all of Florida, since coastal residents have flooded into safe area hotels. You may need to do the same for Saturday if major highways become impassable, since it is unlikely any Florida hotels will be cleared out immediately.

 

[Accident]

I read somewhere that a cat.5 storm hit about a decade ago...on my way home so i cant pull up the info. But im sure if you google it you'll find it.

I'm sure one has hit florida in general but there's never been over a 3 that came into central florida.

 

[wilkeliza]

do they make exceptions and allow crated pets to join guests in resort rooms? That would be a nice courtesy

No they don't make exceptions except for perhaps pets that were at the fort. If your pet is at the kennel (Best Friends) or kenneled elsewhere it is best to leave them there. Those facilities are made for this and for pets specifically. A hotel room is not made for an animal that may become distressed in a storm situation they have never been in before. I'm a crazy pet parent but I would trust my pets at their boarding kennel with their care takers any day over a hotel room.

 

[missnic]

If you're trying to eat at your resort, good luck.. at pop now - food court is open until 10pm, but the lines are literally out of the food court itself. I'm glad I had biergarten for a late lunch!

 

[murmer]

Could be that the airline just isn't sure that they can get the planes there in time. Once they start grounding flights, it takes them some time to get all the aircrafts to where they need to be for scheduled flights.

Our sat morning flight was also cancelled. Thinking it's proactive to give the airport time to assess damage. Now trying to decide if we drive down and get a few days of our vacation or scrap it and try for next year.