Hurricane Milton - WDW Resorts Related Updates & Planning Thread

[GADisneyDad14]

As Walt Disney World is currently in the forecast cone for what is now Tropical Storm Milton, opening up a consolidated thread for Milton related planning questions/posts for the WDW Hotels and Resort operations.

Some ground rules based on past Tropical Storm/Hurricane threads:

- No travel judging. Everyone has different travel circumstances - posts critical or judgmental of decisions to travel or not are not helpful or welcome here.

- No hysteria or alarmist weather forecasting. The DIS is fundamentally a Disney planning related site - it’s not The Weather Channel or a place for amateur meteorologists to interpret weather forecasts.

- Theme Parks and ticket related discussion is best for Theme Park Attractions & Strategies Board (although some overlap here is inevitable). There is an ongoing thread here:
Thread 'Keeping an eye on Tropical Weather 2024'
https://www.disboards.com/threads/keeping-an-eye-on-tropical-weather-2024.3954326/

Posts venturing too far towards any of the above may be removed. Infraction points will not be given unless consistent violations of our guidelines or ongoing disruptive behavior occurs. Posts that are simply deleted will receive a notification as such in your alerts. In the (unlikely) event a warning/infraction points are given you will receive a PM explaining as such.

What threads like this are ultimately for:

- WDW hotel cancelation/modification experiences.

- Resort operation experiences for food, activities, etc.

- Resort and travel related experiences from past tropical events.

Thank you - and safe travels to all.

Latest official Disney info page:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/experience-updates/weather-updates/

 

[GADisneyDad14]

If you have helpful Internet resources you’d like to add, please let me know!

Various Resources

WDW’s hurricane policy FAQ: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/faq/hurricane-policy/

National Hurricane Center Milton Information: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Milton

Mike's Weather Page - https://spaghettimodels.com

Mike’s Weather Page (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/mikesweatherpage

FL Roads/Traffic - Florida 511 https://fl511.com/

FL Highway Patrol - https://www.flhsmv.gov/fhp/traffic/live_traffic_feed.html

Fox 35 Orlando - https://www.fox35orlando.com/weather

NBC WESH 2 Orlando - https://www.wesh.com/weather

ABC WFTV 9 Orlando - https://www.wftv.com/weather/

Gas Buddy - https://www.gasbuddy.com/home

Disney Blogs

Touring Plans -https://touringplans.com/blog/disney-world-hurricane-milton-closures/




Twitter/X - Travel/Weather/Orlando Resources

National Hurricane Center - https://x.com/nhc_atlantic?s=21

MCO - https://x.com/mco?s=21

FL Division of Emergency Management - https://x.com/flsert?s=21

Tony Mainolfi - WESH TV2 (local NBC station) - https://x.com/tmainolfiwesh?s=21

Eric Burris - WESH TV2 (local NBC station) - https://x.com/ericburriswesh?s=21

Brian Shields - WFTV 9 (local ABC station) - https://x.com/brianweather?s=21

Denis Phillips - WFTV 9 (local ABC station) - https://x.com/denisphillipswx?s=21

Mike’s Weather Page - https://x.com/tropicalupdate?s=21

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Hold

 

[GADisneyDad14]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842686885140812046

 

[Tinks]

Thank you for this thread!

I was on hold with reservations for 45 minutes, and I'm on another hold currently.

We had BC booked Tues 08 - Thurs 10th. The airlines have already contacted my friends to encourage them to re-book. So I tried to modify online to new dates of Oct 11 - 13, and the website was glitchy.
*note- not the blackout dates of 9th or 10th*

The reservation CM said Disney is currently not doing anything about Milton. Operating as normal and wait and see. Yes, I'm not too happy about that! But she was very nice and now I'm on hold to see if they will refund my BC reservation. (Long story- bc of the glitch, I had to make a new reservation for YC 11th - 13th and try and cancel BC, which it wouldn't let me cancel)

Convoluted story, but that is my reservation/Milton experience.


Edited to add I expected to have a long hold. I'm not upset about that. Anyone calling should have lots of time and patience

 

[kmermaid]

This is exactly what I need, thank you! We are flying in tomorrow and schedule to leave on Thursday the 10th. Would love information about what Disney did if you had to extend your stay cuz you can't fly out.

 

[Belle1962]

I just got off phone and they didn’t have any deluxe openings for anytime around the 9th and 10th.

 

[Tinks]

I just got off phone and they didn’t have any deluxe openings for anytime around the 9th and 10th.

Disney is not allowing any reservations for the 9th or 10th at this time. There should be no openings at all.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842957794947051997

 

[L.K.]

Looks like park reservations for Wednesday are also blocked.

 

[Nayan]

I am not sure what/who they use now for television, but if it's satellite there may be a good chance you'll lose the signal due to cloud cover. I suggest searching on YouTube for the local folks (WESH, WFTV, etc) and saving them so if the TV goes dark you will still have information sources (they usually run non-stop during storms).

 

[MommaKetch]

I suggest searching on YouTube for the local folks (WESH, WFTV, etc) and saving them

This is a great tip! We rode out a hurricane at WDW 2 years ago, and the local news stations (vs Weather Channel/CNN etc) had the most up to date info as well as detailed radar images, and tornado warnings. The eye went over in the wee hours of the morning, and I was able to check in and access local news on my cellphone, and not wake the rest of the family.

 

[jfeasel]

Need advice - a group of 11 ages 1 to 81 are scheduled to arrive Wednesday at 12:50 pm. We are flying SWA so we can change our flights. We are all available to fly in on Tuesday but that would mean riding out the storm in Orlando. If we waited to fly in on Thursday, that would shorten our stay. Our question is should we fly in on Tuesday and just ride out the storm? Our reservations are for Beach Club (4 rooms) and we haven't checked on availability for Oct. 8 yet.

 

[bdrex28]

Need advice - a group of 11 ages 1 to 81 are scheduled to arrive Wednesday at 12:50 pm. We are flying SWA so we can change our flights. We are all available to fly in on Tuesday but that would mean riding out the storm in Orlando. If we waited to fly in on Thursday, that would shorten our stay. Our question is should we fly in on Tuesday and just ride out the storm? Our reservations are for Beach Club (4 rooms) and we haven't checked on availability for Oct. 8 yet.

Hard to say but wdw is pretty hardened for storms and they've got it set up pretty good. Worse places to be

 

[Planogirl]

We are due to fly to Orlando in a few hours which should be fine but what about flooding at WDW or Universal? It seems that floods are the worst issue. This storm doesn’t appear to be a huge monster but…

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Neighborly update…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842973361816666266

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Disney’s usual website notice banner has returned:



It’s on post #1, but the link to Disney’s weather notice page is here: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/experience-updates/weather-updates/

 

[keishashadow]

If the forecasts are anywhere on point, cannot imagine any parks having operating hours Wednesday, at least in the afternoon.

So many CMs live 50+ miles away, safety always should come first

 

[Marrila]

The National Hurricane Center has upgraded Milton to a hurricane.

 

[kristenrice]

This is probably off topic (but I didn't want to start a new thread) but we are arriving on Monday the 14th. I have travelled in October every year for the past 13 years and the closest we came to a hurricane was when we arrived about 10 days after Michael came through in 2018. It looks like Milton will make landfall just 4 days before we are scheduled to arrive. Should I be concerned about travel delays (flying)? We already have private transportation reserved and only need to go to/from the airport, but is there a probability that we could have trouble even with that? I had planned a grocery stop, but now I am wondering if I should just pack what we need from home. We are only staying 3 nights and flying SWA so I can pack an extra bag if needed. Anything else I should consider at this point? I am not planning on cancelling at this point. Since I am staying on DVC points, I have the option to cancel, but since it is past my banking deadline, I would want to make sure that I can get a banking exemption.