Refurbishment uncertainty - Grrrr Arrrgh

[Porsche4]

Is anyone else really frustrated with Disney's current policy of just saying "Reopening sometime in the future" or "Reopening Spring/Summer". I just wish they would have the courage to lock in a date so that those of us visiting could have some more certainty of what is going to be available. I cannot believe that a company as big as Disney doesn't have budget/deadline dates worked out in advance for their maintenance crews. If I ran my business that way, well lets just say I wouldn't be in business any more. I feel like they used to have a more firm date timeline but now it seems like there are very few guidelines. Sorry rant over I am just feeling a bit .

 

[duckboyone]

Especially when it comes to Pirates... if it's closed when we come in late June, then I'm going to.... not ride it lol. I'm not the "raise a stink" type of guy, but I'll for sure be disappointed.

 

[Cfiiitz]

I think it’s WAY more risky for them to promise something will be reopened by a certain date and then have to extend… people say here all the time “I planned my trip around being able to ride XYZ…”
I think their strategy on this one is ‘under promise, over deliver’.
With all that said stuff still goes down unexpectedly all the time. I think they just try to be cautious with reopening.

 

[gelatoni fan]

I fully agree that it's really bad that Disney wants people to make reservations for a trip when the show schedule, opening hours, refurbishment schedule, etc are all unavailable.

Tokyo can have refurbishment schedules with exact dates for almost a year out so Disneyland in California is clearly less competent.

 

[Lisa24jks]

I think it’s WAY more risky for them to promise something will be reopened by a certain date and then have to extend… people say here all the time “I planned my trip around being able to ride XYZ…”
I think their strategy on this one is ‘under promise, over deliver’.
With all that said stuff still goes down unexpectedly all the time. I think they just try to be cautious with reopening.

This! Imagine them saying that POTC is going to be open on May 30th, you plan a trip around it, and then something gums up the works and it doesn't open until June 8th, after your trip.

Honestly, as much as I have my very favorite rides, and I'm always disappointed if they are closed while I'm there, it can't be helped. We love It's A Small World at Christmas and our Christmas trip this year was the day before it re-opened. Couldn't be helped and couldn't be changed, but that's life for ya.

(I do realize I say this with the privilege of someone who goes to the parks more than once a year, and others who go more rarely likely want as many things open as possible. But, it just never works out that way. I remember what a big fuss it was when Splash Mountain was built when I was a kid and it took me 3 years to finally ride it, because every time we visited it was down.)

 

[Epicnemesis]

If they tell you they are targeting June 5th and you book June 6th they know they are getting angry “I spent $$$$ on this trip specifically so I could ride X when it reopened” complaints. As it is now they can’t get those because no promises were made.

 

[BadPinkTink]

Is anyone else really frustrated with Disney's current policy of just saying "Reopening sometime in the future" or "Reopening Spring/Summer". I just wish they would have the courage to lock in a date so that those of us visiting could have some more certainty of what is going to be available. I cannot believe that a company as big as Disney doesn't have budget/deadline dates worked out in advance for their maintenance crews. If I ran my business that way, well lets just say I wouldn't be in business any more. I feel like they used to have a more firm date timeline but now it seems like there are very few guidelines. Sorry rant over I am just feeling a bit .

No, it sucks yes but despite what people may think, we are still in a pandemic and the effects of the pandemic on businesses is something people are not understanding. People are still getting sick with Covid, it hasnt magically disappeared. Disney fans want the parks to be like it was, but thats not the reality of the world we live in.

A manager may do the schedule on a Monday for the following Monday, and have a full team. But by Friday, some of the team now have Covid and can't work their scheduled shifts.

A delivery of materials should have left the warehouse at 8am to arrive on site at 1pm. But the driver called in sick, so that truck is still in the warehouse and the deliveries wont go out until that driver returns.

The team scheduled for today are all new hires, who have not worked together and are unfamiliar with the procedures and equipment. They only get half the work done in a shift as they stop and start to make sure they are doing things correctly.

A supervisor did a schedule for next week, assuming that they would have 10 team members, as their manager told them they would get 2 new people from todays recruitment interviews. There were 4 no shows at the recruitment interviews so now the supervisor is down to 8 team members for next weeks schedule.

People just need to to stop with the demands, stop saying well it used to be xyz so why is is not now. This is living with Covid, this is living in a pandemic, it has hidden effects and consequences, and just because YOUR day to day life is back to how it was in 2019, does not mean that everything else is.

 

[Merlin's Magic]

Is anyone else really frustrated with Disney's current policy of just saying "Reopening sometime in the future" or "Reopening Spring/Summer". I just wish they would have the courage to lock in a date so that those of us visiting could have some more certainty of what is going to be available. I cannot believe that a company as big as Disney doesn't have budget/deadline dates worked out in advance for their maintenance crews. If I ran my business that way, well lets just say I wouldn't be in business any more. I feel like they used to have a more firm date timeline but now it seems like there are very few guidelines. Sorry rant over I am just feeling a bit .

Well, what in the past decade has given you an indication that they stick to the deadlines they do set? I'm not saying that to be snarky, I'm really not. It's just Disney continually drops the ball on due dates, pandemic or not.

I really wish they'd take the "pleasantly surprised" route, where they set a date with a large buffer so they can open an attraction back up earlier than the public expects. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have hit on that yet. Or they consistently underestimate their buffer. I'm not sure which.

If it says under refurbishment, don't plan on it being open. If it does, you can be surprised and think of it like Disney magic.

 

[brightlined]

Tokyo can have refurbishment schedules with exact dates for almost a year out so Disneyland in California is clearly less competent.

There's a big difference between a standard refurbishment and a construction project. The annual refurbishments are predictable - they know what they'll entail and how long they'll take. What's happening with Pirates is also a construction project, given what will have to go into removing the trees.

But we've already seen what happens when they set dates and miss. People got really upset when they delayed Rise of the Resistance. A lot of people made plans to attend the Galaxy's Edge opening, expecting to ride it. Naturally, they had development issues that forced them to delay the ride's opening. It was bad, and Bob Iger made a pretty loud apology for it. But the whole thing was unnecessary - the only reason to announce the opening date was for promotional reasons to get people to book trips. What they've done more recently with new rides is more annoying, but more fair to the visitor.

Some part of me wished/wondered if Disney had learned their lesson after one of the most infamous banners in Disney history:



That's Test Track at Epcot in January of 1997. It opened in March of 1999.