Walt Disney World Park Hours cut starting September 8 2020

[legwand77]

Once again -p "ever". Your words.

Sure, yes said ever , figured most would get the context, but alas. you win.

 

[GoofGoof]

Yes, I am/was just talking about the data, run more tests more positive numbers and that affects your restricted travel. The travel restrictions are not based on the unknown number of people who might be C19+ via a PCR test.

Your travel restirctions don't matter as much to Disney as they are very busy already by all accounts here, the restrictions that are holding back Disney are their own and not the few NE states. If you think it is all locals and AP at Disney, you would be very surprised.

I never said all, but the fact remains that over half the hotel rooms are moth balled. There’s no way to say crowds are back and it’s out of state tourists driving it. The increase in crowds at the parks started around the time they lifted the AP restrictions. It’s reasonable to assume a large portion of the increase in crowds are local AP holders or people driving in from neighboring states. Remember we have TSA stats showing airfare still running 30-40% what it was last year for same day. The masses aren’t flying yet.

TSA checkpoint travel numbers | Transportation Security Administration

The TSA's passenger volumes page provides daily updates on the number of travelers screened at TSA checkpoints. It includes historical data for comparison, showing trends in travel volumes over time. This information is particularly useful for understanding travel patterns, especially during...

www.tsa.gov

 

[giantgolfer]

. If you think it is all locals and AP at Disney, you would be very surprised.

I find it funny that you think you have ANY idea whether or not someone is an AP/ local or a traveling resort guest.

Do you talk to every single guest when you are there and ask them? Serious question. I’ll hang up and listen....

 

[legwand77]

I never said all, but the fact remains that over half the hotel rooms are moth balled. There’s no way to say crowds are back and it’s out of state tourists driving it. The increase in crowds at the parks started around the time they lifted the AP restrictions. It’s reasonable to assume a large portion of the increase in crowds are local AP holders or people driving in from neighboring states. Remember we have TSA stats showing airfare still running 30-40% what it was last year for same day. The masses aren’t flying yet.

TSA checkpoint travel numbers | Transportation Security Administration

The TSA's passenger volumes page provides daily updates on the number of travelers screened at TSA checkpoints. It includes historical data for comparison, showing trends in travel volumes over time. This information is particularly useful for understanding travel patterns, especially during...

www.tsa.gov

The TSA gate traffic is over 1M for the first time yesterday and not even a holiday weekend. I remember when a month or so ago when it was only 500-600k range. Note this is also without any business travel or international travel. That alone would be around 20+%

Disney has set their own restrictions at 25% per Chapek. No need to open rooms when they can't get into the parks. People are traveling to the parks that is not an assumption at this point. Even saw a trip report recently of someone flying down from Pittsburgh.

 

[JoeCamel]

The TSA gate traffic is over 1M for the first time yesterday and not even a holiday weekend. I remember when a month or so ago when it was 60% off same day. Note this is also without any business travel or international travel. That alone would be around 20+%

Disney has set their own restrictions at 25% per Chapek. No need to open rooms when they can't get into the parks. People are traveling to the parks that is not an assumption at this point. Even saw a trip report recently of someone flying down from Pittsburgh.

1M is ~ 40% of normal. This is not surging back

TSA checkpoint travel numbers | Transportation Security Administration

The TSA's passenger volumes page provides daily updates on the number of travelers screened at TSA checkpoints. It includes historical data for comparison, showing trends in travel volumes over time. This information is particularly useful for understanding travel patterns, especially during...

www.tsa.gov

 

[legwand77]

1M is ~ 40% of normal. This is not surging back

TSA checkpoint travel numbers | Transportation Security Administration

The TSA's passenger volumes page provides daily updates on the number of travelers screened at TSA checkpoints. It includes historical data for comparison, showing trends in travel volumes over time. This information is particularly useful for understanding travel patterns, especially during...

www.tsa.gov

Did I say was surging back? It is steadily and slowly coming back. It was down 95% at one point.

 

[JoeCamel]

Did I say was surging back?

I see you edited your post

 

[GoofGoof]

The TSA gate traffic is over 1M for the first time yesterday and not even a holiday weekend. I remember when a month or so ago when it was only 500-600k range. Note this is also without any business travel or international travel. That alone would be around 20+%

Disney has set their own restrictions at 25% per Chapek. No need to open rooms when they can't get into the parks. People are traveling to the parks that is not an assumption at this point. Even saw a trip report recently of someone flying down from Pittsburgh.

Air travel is certainly up from previous points in the pandemic, but the point is it’s nowhere near back to normal or in the context of this discussion nowhere near where it needs to be to help Disney. I get that some people are flying to go to WDW now. I have a friend who is going in about a month from around me, but that’s anecdotal and not relevant to the need for a large number of tourists to want to travel.

I think Disney would love to increase park capacity but the problem is not just guest demand (which is a problem) it’s also concerns with current case counts and large crowds. If the situation on the ground was improving they may be more motivated to relax some rules. Instead they are investing in more signs explaining mask rules. On the attendance front, the minute Disney starts turning away tourists who want to stay in their resorts because the parks are sold out they will start restricting AP holders again. The only reason limits were removed is they weren’t hitting capacity anyway. They won’t forgo “super profits” from out of state tourists staying in the hotels and eating most meals on property.

 

[legwand77]

I see you edited your post

yes to put a real number there as opposed to a percentage as I used a real number (1M) to begin with as some were missing the point

 

[giantgolfer]

yes to put a real number there as opposed to a percentage as I used a real number (1M) to begin with as some were missing the point

Your point missed the mark. Try harder.

 

[Armerius]

Air travel is certainly up from previous points in the pandemic, but the point is it’s nowhere near back to normal or in the context of this discussion nowhere near where it needs to be to help Disney. I get that some people are flying to go to WDW now. I have a friend who is going in about a month from around me, but that’s anecdotal and not relevant to the need for a large number of tourists to want to travel.

I think Disney would love to increase park capacity but the problem is not just guest demand (which is a problem) it’s also concerns with current case counts and large crowds. If the situation on the ground was improving they may be more motivated to relax some rules. Instead they are investing in more signs explaining mask rules. On the attendance front, the minute Disney starts turning away tourists who want to stay in their resorts because the parks are sold out they will start restricting AP holders again. The only reason limits were removed is they weren’t hitting capacity anyway. They won’t forgo “super profits” from out of state tourists staying in the hotels and eating most meals on property.

Yeah im one of those tourist that wanna go back there. im planning a trip for around 13 days in disneyworld in sep or october next year.(im from south america) but still waiting for park times to go back to normal, together with fireworks etc. to start making reservations , besides im expecting once disney can get rid of most of the restrictions (i dont mind using a mask all day..cause we do it anyway here by law this days) they will start with discounts for their rooms etc to attract visitors.

A question though ..anybody knows or is there any rumor when the all star hotels will be available for booking again? im planning on staying on the pop century but if there is a big enough diference in price i might save a few bucks staying in the all stars.

Anyway,lets hope once the vaccines start to come up things will go back to normal.

 

[disneycp]

Sure, yes said ever , figured most would get the context, but alas. you win.

You’re right that Covid hospitalizations in Florida are, comparatively, very low right now.

Don’t bother trying to argue with the people on this thread though, a lot of them get upset if you mention anything even remotely uplifting; if you try to base your worldview on them it becomes really bleak really fast.

 

[GoofGoof]

You’re right that Covid hospitalizations in Florida are, comparatively, very low right now.

Don’t bother trying to argue with the people on this thread though, a lot of them get upset if you mention anything even remotely uplifting; if you try to base your worldview on them it becomes really bleak really fast.

Since he was responding to my post I assume you are referring to me. I think you are missing the point. WDW relies on tourists from all over the nation/world to operate at normal levels. International travel is a no go for the foreseeable future. That’s roughly 20% of WDW’s normal customers. In addition, air travel is way down. Many people just aren’t traveling anywhere far, especially on airplanes. A number of states also have travel quarantine requirements that require people to quarantine 14 days upon returning from a state on the list. The criteria for being on the list is a percent positive under 10% and 10 cases per 100,000 population or under over a 7 day average so for FL under 2,100 cases per day for a 7 day average. It’s hard for people who work outside of their home and/or have kids in school to go to one of these states right now knowing it will require 2 additional weeks at home after returning. Some of the states with these travel quarantine rules also happen to be some of the prime demographic for WDW. Disney needs out of state tourists back to increase hours and increase offerings and open the other half of the resorts. Back in August as cases began to trend down there was some hope from people here (including me) that if that continued the case count would be low enough by Thanksgiving (the start of WDWs busy holiday season) that there would be a meaningful holiday bump in attendance. That looks unlikely now.

So while it’s great for the community that hospitalizations are down in FL compared to the summer spike it’s not relevant to this particular discussion around park hours and crowds returning. Me pointing that out isn’t getting upset at something uplifting, it’s just a fact.

 

[disneycp]

Since he was responding to my post I assume you are referring to me. I think you are missing the point. WDW relies on tourists from all over the nation/world to operate at normal levels. International travel is a no go for the foreseeable future. That’s roughly 20% of WDW’s normal customers. In addition, air travel is way down. Many people just aren’t traveling anywhere far, especially on airplanes. A number of states also have travel quarantine requirements that require people to quarantine 14 days upon returning from a state on the list. The criteria for being on the list is a percent positive under 10% and 10 cases per 100,000 population or under over a 7 day average so for FL under 2,100 cases per day for a 7 day average. It’s hard for people who work outside of their home and/or have kids in school to go to one of these states right now knowing it will require 2 additional weeks at home after returning. Some of the states with these travel quarantine rules also happen to be some of the prime demographic for WDW. Disney needs out of state tourists back to increase hours and increase offerings and open the other half of the resorts. Back in August as cases began to trend down there was some hope from people here (including me) that if that continued the case count would be low enough by Thanksgiving (the start of WDWs busy holiday season) that there would be a meaningful holiday bump in attendance. That looks unlikely now.

So while it’s great for the community that hospitalizations are down in FL compared to the summer spike it’s not relevant to this particular discussion around park hours and crowds returning. Me pointing that out isn’t getting upset at something uplifting, it’s just a fact.

I was actually talking about @JoeCamel, who was purposefully trying to be argumentative about legwand’s phrasing surrounding Florida’s hospitalizations.

I’m also unsure why someone saying deaths and hospitalizations are trending down in Florida needs to devolve into a “but but what about cases! WDW is still screwed for travel!” argument. I seriously think some of you guys have some sort of compelling need to take good news and overshadow it with some sort of bad news you have waiting in your back pocket. It’s...strange, to say the least.

 

[GoofGoof]

I was actually talking about @JoeCamel, who was purposefully trying to be argumentative about legwand’s phrasing surrounding Florida’s hospitalizations.

I’m also unsure why someone saying deaths and hospitalizations are trending down in Florida needs to devolve into a “but but what about cases! WDW is still screwed for travel!” argument. I seriously think some of you guys have some sort of compelling need to take good news and overshadow it with some sort of bad news you have waiting in your back pocket. It’s...strange, to say the least.

I think you are still missing the point. This thread was started because WDW cut park hours due to a lack of demand. The discussion has always been centered around “WDW being screwed for travel” because until out of state tourists come back in large numbers there won’t be a meaningful increase in park hours and park offerings. @legwand77 has pointed to hospitalizations and in the past deaths as statistics that show FL is doing just fine despite case numbers. While that may be true or not (an argument for the general Covid thread) it’s not relevant to the demand issue. So your perception of people trying to overshadow good news with bad isn’t necessarily accurate. It’s just focusing the discussion back on the statistics that do matter for this topic.

I am very happy less people are in the hospital and dying in FL and nationwide overall from Covid but that doesn’t change the fact that I couldn’t take a trip to WDW right now because my kids couldn’t go back to school for 14 days after we returned and I can’t have them miss 3 weeks of school.

 

[Armerius]

Lets not forget that while hospitalizations in florida are down, they are more then likely to go up again soon. just like everywhere else in the world. (europe for example).

Disney knows this. they dont want to hire more staff etc to later on having to fire them again because they will most likely have to cut down hours again, (if things go to hell again). I bet as soon as we see vaccines being distributed , disney will start to ramp up things. so lets hope its soon.

 

[GoofGoof]

Lets not forget that while hospitalizations in florida are down, they are more then likely to go up again soon. just like everywhere else in the world. (europe for example).

Disney knows this. they dont want to hire more staff etc to later on having to fire them again because they will most likely have to cut down hours again, (if things go to hell again). I bet as soon as we see vaccines being distributed , disney will start to ramp up things. so lets hope its soon.

A successful vaccine is the best way for Disney to start getting back to normal at this point. I fear it won’t be until closer to the summer that the impact is felt though. I am cautiously optimistic we could see the start of a relaxing of restrictions dn maybe a bump in demand by Spring Break but it really all depends how effective the vaccine is and how many people agree to get it, plus the logistical nightmare of actually getting it to them. There was a point a few months back that I really thought there was hope that through better actions and testing and tracing we could see cases drop low enough to push a meaningful increase in travel but now I’m thinking it’s vaccine or bust. Here’s to 2021 being a better year than 2020.

 

[Armerius]

A successful vaccine is the best way for Disney to start getting back to normal at this point. I fear it won’t be until closer to the summer that the impact is felt though. I am cautiously optimistic we could see the start of a relaxing of restrictions dn maybe a bump in demand by Spring Break but it really all depends how effective the vaccine is and how many people agree to get it, plus the logistical nightmare of actually getting it to them. There was a point a few months back that I really thought there was hope that through better actions and testing and tracing we could see cases drop low enough to push a meaningful increase in travel but now I’m thinking it’s vaccine or bust. Here’s to 2021 being a better year than 2020.

yes its vaccine or bust..there are other problems like we dont know how long the vaccine lasts..so we might need 1 or 2 shots per year etc .
But once vaccines are distributed restrictions will be lifted..its up each person to decide if you want it or not. thats not disney problem and to be honest i dont care, the more antivaxers ..more vaccines for the rests of us.

Yes it will be a logistical nightmare but governments are planning for it for months already. besides the economy around the world its bad so everyone is desperate to end restrictions.

 

[GoofGoof]

yes its vaccine or bust..there are other problems like we dont know how long the vaccine lasts..so we might need 1 or 2 shots per year etc .
But once vaccines are distributed restrictions will be lifted..its up each person to decide if you want it or not. thats not disney problem and to be honest i dont care, the more antivaxers ..more vaccines for the rests of us.

Yes it will be a logistical nightmare but governments are planning for it for months already. besides the economy around the world its bad so everyone is desperate to end restrictions.

As long as enough people get the vaccine to snuff out the spread of the virus I don’t care if anyone else gets it after that. For Disney I assume they will not remove mask rules and distancing and capacity limits until case counts drop way down, most likely because of the vaccine. In other words I don’t think the existence of a vaccine alone gets the restrictions removed. If enough people don’t get it or it’s not highly effective we could still have a lot of spread. How they decide when to do what is going to be more contentious than the last 6 months.

 

[legwand77]

A successful vaccine is the best way for Disney to start getting back to normal at this point. I fear it won’t be until closer to the summer that the impact is felt though. I am cautiously optimistic we could see the start of a relaxing of restrictions dn maybe a bump in demand by Spring Break but it really all depends how effective the vaccine is and how many people agree to get it, plus the logistical nightmare of actually getting it to them. There was a point a few months back that I really thought there was hope that through better actions and testing and tracing we could see cases drop low enough to push a meaningful increase in travel but now I’m thinking it’s vaccine or bust. Here’s to 2021 being a better year than 2020.

That is a lot of hope on the vaccine, we have a flu vaccine and flu is still very prevalent, overwehlms hospitals and kills people every year. However one of the side benefits of the vacine is to reduce peoples fears no matter how effective.