When WDW has closed...

[lenshanem]

Our of curiosity...

How many times has WDW closed? Just for the hurricane and 9/11?

On 9/11 how did they handle it? Did they coem on the intercom and tell everyoen what happenned? (I can't imagine how scary and surreal that must have been, cause when I'm at WDW I usually feel liek I'm in another world...)

Did they offer guests any discounts on rooms so they coudl coem back again?

Thansk for info for my inquiring mind...

 

[SnackyStacky]

The two times you mentioned are the only times it has ever closed.

I wasn't there, so I'm not certain, but I think I read that people were sort of "herded" out. They didn't make an announcement, but just closed the rides, and had CMs saying that the parks were closing.

 

[tzvdmd]

Me and DW & DS were there for the hurricane. We spent the night in the Y&BC Convention Center. Everyone slept in lounge chairs from the pool area. Very unorganized. Nothing was offered to us. They did sell us food and drink while we were there at a discounted rate. Very nice of them I would say. Not really.

 

[mimiw.]

we were there in jan. following Sept 11. a cm on a tour told us that an announcement was made that the parks were closing and cm's herded the public out of the parks. No info was given for the reason, only info given out was to return to resorts and info would be provided there. Then park cms were sent to resorts to help out staffing there as obviously resorts were not accustomed to having ALL guests at the hotels during the day.

 

[Jestocost]

I think most people know about the hurricane and 9/11/01 closings, but I have first hand experience with the only other major closing at WDW. One that not many people seem to know about.

In the summer of 2002 (can't remember the exact date in late July), Epcot was closed for an entire day after a late night fire at an electrical substation knocked out power to the park for several hours. We were staying at CBR, which received power through the same substation, and woke up with a very warm room in the middle of the night.

Epcot reopened the next day and we went to the park that day. Everything was pretty much normal, except that all of the food service locations were very low on ice.

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by mimiw.
we were there in jan. following Sept 11. a cm on a tour told us that an announcement was made that the parks were closing and cm's herded the public out of the parks. No info was given for the reason, only info given out was to return to resorts and info would be provided there. Then park cms were sent to resorts to help out staffing there as obviously resorts were not accustomed to having ALL guests at the hotels during the day.

On 9/11, the parks closed down in stages. As shows finished, stage managers and operations managers came on stage to tell guests that the parks were closing due to an unanticipated event, and that further information would be available as they exited. Each stage, attraction and guest area was emptied, and all the guests were guided to the exits, where pretty much any Disney CM with guest contact experience was sent to answer questions and get people out of the parks and back to their resorts.

At that point, CMs who needed to leave to pick up kids or deal with other things because of what was going on, could ask to leave, and most requests were honored. For those CMs who chose to stay, they had time to make whatever phone calls or arrangements they needed to make, and additional CMs were called in.

As the parks emptied and the resorts filled, teams of CMs were dispatched to the resorts to assist there. Anyone who had character training was put in costume and dispatched in character busses to the resorts, where they held hours of character greetings in lobbies and restaurants, which basically kept the kids occupied while the adults all stood in front of any available television set and watched what was going on. Shows like Hoop and the Luau were cancelled for that night, and Pleasure Island closed as well (although I think the rest of Downtown Disney remained open).

I think that every person who left every park that day was also handed a one day / one park ticket as they exited.

 

[lenshanem]

Thanks all. Yes, I do recall the fire at Epcot. Forgot about that.

I had also wondered if they gave another ticket out. Too bad it was a one park ticket and not a hopper. What time did they decide to start herding people out?

I'm also surprised a discount rate for rooms wasn't offered to guests who missed out on part of their vacaction so they could come back if they so choose.

Interesting...

Gosh, I feel for those people on 9/11. Can you imagine what was running through their heads?!? At that point, the scare of terrorists really wasn't a concern for most of us. I wonder what they thought was wrong?

I know when I'm at WDW I feel like I'm separte from the real world. I usually have to catch up on news when i get back.

 

[KidDurango]

You must remember not many lost their vacation. A large portion of guests travel by air, and as there were no flights for several days, many people were staying at the resorts for extra days, free of charge. The parks did open the next day, but it was a very eerie and melancholy time with children running around having fun, oblivious for the most part to what was happening, and their parents on edge and uncertain. The company gave a lot away, and did everything in its power to comfort those that were visiting. In my opinion, the Disney cast did everything they could to treat each person as they would a guest in their own home in a time of crisis.

 

[PatriciaH]

DH and I were there for the hurricane in 1999. We were at Epcot and the park closed around 3pm. We were staying at Port Orleans at the time and since the busses had stopped running and the restaurants were closed, the food court was jam packed. I felt bad for the CM's that night! I waited in line for 2 hours for food. They gave everyone 50% off (even the refilable mugs, etc..) The front desk CM's and bell hops were even trying to help in the food court because some staff went home.

We did get a 1 day comp pass as we were leaving Epcot. We also got a refund of about $350 a few months later. A nice lady called a few weeks after our trip and spoke to me about the hurricane. She said they were refunding us 2 nights hotel/passes since they closed early one day and AK was the only park open the next day. I thought that was great.

 

[lenshanem]

PatriciaH,
Thansk for sharing. That si what I wanted to hear.

 

[Samirella]

Originally posted by lenshanem

Gosh, I feel for those people on 9/11. Can you imagine what was running through their heads?!? At that point, the scare of terrorists really wasn't a concern for most of us. I wonder what they thought was wrong?

Imagine watching the entire event unfold on the television in the greenroom and then pasting on a smile and performing a show knowing that no one in the audience knew what was taking place. That's what I was doing on 9/11. It was so hard to dry the tears and look out into the smiling faces, to see them clapping and singing along and not be able to tell them what we were witnessing on the news during our breaks. It seemed like everytime we finished a show and ran back to the tv something else had happened. We actually learned from CNN that the parks were closing. The news hadn't trickled down through all of the proper channels yet, so we had to continue doing shows until it had which was frustrating. I know there was quite a bit of entertainment sent out to the resorts to provide the guests with something to do other than watch the news.

 

[TheWho]

Samirella,
Thanks for the story. I guess none of us, including those in your audience, will ever forget where we were when we first heard.

 

[seashoreCM]

Originally posted by tzvdmd
Me and DW & DS were there for the hurricane. We spent the night in the Y&BC Convention Center. Everyone slept in lounge chairs from the pool area. Very unorganized. Nothing was offered to us. They did sell us food and drink while we were there at a discounted rate. Very nice of them I would say. Not really.

You had just been evacuated from "The World" and into "An Emergency Shelter".

"An Emergency Shelter" could well have been some high school ten miles from the WDW border where nothing but sustenance food and milk/juice/water was served.

Most of the resort rooms are not suitable hurricane shelters due to glass windows that can be broken by objects hurled about in the wind.

As far as I know, the local authorities wikll provide some form of shelter without requiring that guests consume their return limo tickts or homebound plane tickets.

If attractions are closed down a few at a time rather than all at once, people will tend not to leave the park quickly. But it would have been useful to serve all those already waiting in the standby ride lines, if at least to not have as large a crowd waiting for buses all at once.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

>>> running low on ice.
There should have been no problem trucking in ice from other parks and areas not losing power.

 

[Disney-Kim]

We were in WDW for both Hurricane Floyd and Sept 11th. So both times they have officially closed the entire park.
WDW seemed very organized in preparation for the coming hurricane. We were staying at the Beach Club and we had notes under our door many times thru the night and into the hurricane day. We were told to take precautions and were offered 1/2 price dinner at Cape May Buffet. We heard that CBR guests were evacuated to the YC/BC convention center due to flood zones.
We were at the AK the day before the closure and it was closed at 3pm.
We were not offered any compensation for the missed day or ??but I remember reading on the boards that many had asked for some type of compensation and recvd some.
Sept 11th we were at the CBR packing to move to the Beach Club for the rest of our stay. It was a scary morning. We checked in the BC as many frantic people were running around trying to get home. We heard at checkin around 10am that the parks would be closed that day for security as we figured they would be. No compensation offered that day and no food deals. We sat in the room all day and walked around the boardwalk for something to do.
well those are my stories...pretty amazing that we were at WDW for both of these major events.

 

[UncleKyle]

I was on the college program during 9/11. All of my roomates and I were asleep when my mom called and told me what had just happened. All of us had to work later on that day but we found out through everyone the the parks were closing. I remember that even Downtown Disney was closed and we all pretty much had nothing to do.

I will never forget what the parks were like for the next few weeks. I worked the day after Sept 11th and it was one of the most errie and weird things to see. The parks were actually fairly crowded because no one could go home. But within a few weeks things were just dead. I remember calling my manager to my cart where I worked at MGM one day. I told him to look around and we only counted 10 people from the vantage point of my cart in the middle of the afternoon. Normally I would be able to see anywhere from 200 to 300 people every 10 min walking by my cart. My college program experience was never the same after 9/11.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

This is a related question _ Has Disney World ever sustained significant damage from a natural event such as a hurricane? or maybe just high winds during a thunderstorm?

 

[UncleKyle]

Well where I worked at MGM we had some damage done too an outdoor shop and the doors tracks froma really bad storm. I know they've had trees and stuff down before from storms but not really sure about buildings or anything of that magnitude.

 

[Kala]

We had planned our trip for over 6 months. We almost always fly, but since my 6 month old niece was going and we wanted to take her "equipment", we planned to drive. On September 11th, we held a family conference about whether or not to go, and we decided we would go. If we had planned to fly, we could not have gone, all flights were cancelled. The parks were almost empty. Everyone there just wanted to go home, and anyone who planned to fly couldn't get there. Then on Friday, there was a tropical storm. We went to Epcot and were almost alone. We had a great time, but it was almost surreal. We have been to WDW many times, but that trip definitely stands out

 

[popeyeohoh]

We were there 9/11. In Epcot. walking up the main street on way to test track. It was about 11:00 am saw people walking in droves down to the center. Talked to a cm who said the park was closing due to events in NY. ??what?? Took about an hour to get back to por. went swimming. Reimbursed parkhopper one day passes. Many characters in lobby. Fairy godmother, chip and dale, mickey, eyore, goofy some others i can' t recall. I believe we had a message on the phone at some point can't remember the content. I think it was about the park hours for the next day. I wish we would have had more help in getting our return trip in order. any help would have been appreciated.

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by popeyeohoh
I wish we would have had more help in getting our return trip in order. any help would have been appreciated.

Did you ask for help and get none, or was it just not pro-active on Disney's part?