Hurricanes and Park Closures?

[Janell]

All great info, thank you

 

[momsavealot]

We were also there for TS Fay and when we came back from the park, mousekeeping had brought in our balcony furniture (we were staying at the Poly) and left a flashlight near our phone. That's when I started to get a little nervous. They slipped a letter under our door whenever there was an update but we were never confined to our rooms or our hotel. Disney had set up a phone number to call to continuously get updates on the hours for the various parks. I have to agree with prior posters that the TS actually was a Godsend b/c it cooled down the parks nicely!!! At first I was complaining to my dh about all the clouds but he said it was a good thing. I didn't believe it until we had a break and the sun came out - 5 min. later I had sweat pouring down my face it was so hot! I couldn't wait for the clouds to come back!!! I have to say that it was also exciting to see the clouds roll in from our balcony! We went the following Aug. and no storms. And now we are returning this August. Disney is wonderful at dealing with the storms and so are the airlines so don't worry!!

 

[stephgles]

This will be our 5th September going to the World. We have been fortunate enough not to have a storm during that time. Should there be a storm coming I have doubt in my mind that we will be safe down there but will still enjoy are time there. With that in mind I have been check the farmers alamanac, and they say a chance of a hurricane the weekend before. But my eyes stay on the tropics regardless...

 

[TiggerStac]

A lot of it depends on the strength of the storm and the time of day it hits. Many of the hurricanes of the past few years either started late in the day or overnight, so the parks were open partial days for a couple days. After a storm, they will bring the parks back up in phases. Usually MK and Epcot are the first to open, then DHS, then AK (depending on any damage repairs that may be required). I think the worst storm in recent history was Hurricane Jeanne back in 2004. It took almost two days to clear the state, it was moving so slow. By comparison, Hurricane Charley was through in maybe three hours.

Our flight was cancelled out of orlando and we were able to get on the last flight out of tampa on this one. They told us as we were taking off that we were the very last flight out and boy the you could see it in the skies. Everyone was watching tv's on phones, etc trying to rebook.

They slipped this under our door:

We were suppose to be down for this storm, but our flights were cancelled and we rescheduled to above storm.


We were on our honeymoon during hurricane floyd back in 1999. We were on a cruise and saw all sun. We came back and couldn't believe the trees down, etc as we were rerouted and had a beautiful cruise. They did close disney for part of the day. We were there a couple days later and would have never know. There was damage at MK during that storm.

 

[kimgof]

We have gone August/September in 06, 08 and 09 and were lucky not to have any troubles with storms I always worry since we drive down the coast to get to Fla. I know once we get there we are fine.

 

[TDC Nala]

We were there during Hurricane Frances in 2004 and all the parks were closed for an entire day.

Two entire days.

Full day park closures (meaning all 4 theme parks closed)

Hurricane Floyd (September 15, 1999)
Hurricane Frances (September 4 and 5, 2004)
Hurricane Jeanne (September 26, 2004)


Partial day park closures:

Hurricane Floyd (September 14, 1999)
Hurricane Charley (August 13, 2004)
Hurricane Wilma (October 24, 2005)

 

[squirrel]

We were there in Sept. 1999. It was our second day at WDW and we were at Epcot when we found out that Disney was closing the parks. They closed two parks at 1pm and the other two at 2pm.

The buses were just taking people back to the resorts. So everyone was kept at their resort. They opened All-Star Movies pool and then a short while later they closed it, this happened on and off a few times during that afternoon/early evening. We were told that the food courts would be closing earlier that evening.

The next morning they opened AK and possibly Epcot. I just know we decided not to waste another day on our tickets for the park we had already seen. We only had a few days at WDW.

We weren't too worried, we didn't even realize that it was that big. My aunt and mom were worried as we didn't call them as the line for the phone was so long.