A little bit about me, I’m a board certified family physician who has been practice for the pat 15 years. We closed our practices to in person visits in mid March and I began seeing patients in person two days a week since mid May. My family and I are fortunate that we are able to go to Disney typically 3-5 times per year from Michigan. We fly 99% of the time. Last year we had made a Bounceback reservation at the GF for a theme park view room 7/12/20 for 8 nights and 4 nights at the Hard Rock Hotel starting 7/8/20 and planned to fly from Detroit to Orlando. Due to Covid we cancelled our flights in March and watched with baited breath as to what was happening in Florida. In early July we had a very frank discussion with our two children 12, and 14 about going to Florida and staying at Disney. By this time Disney had changed our reservations to 5 nights at the Contemporary and 8 nights in a 2 bedroom theme park view Villa at Bay Lake Tower. We had never stayed at either resort in the past. The Contemporary was the last Deluxe that we had not stayed at. Our family was in agreement that we needed a vacation especially for our well being. My wife and I are both in our mid 40s and I have hypertension. Neither of us are overweight and my BP runs 100s-110s/70s. We both exercise every day. We determined that we would accept the risk for going to Florida but would try to mitigate the risk as best we would. This meant no flights and we would not rely on Disney transportation and that we would drive. These were the hard rules that we would all follow:
- If any of us felt that we were unsafe at the Disney Parks we would cancel our reservations and return home or try to find some other destination to go to.
- We would wear masks as often as we possibly could even when not required
- We would avoid situations where people were not wearing masks or following distancing requirements
- We would use hand sanitizers or wash our hands as frequently as possible
- We would not touch our faces without having used the sanitizer or washing our hands
- We would not do any shows where we remained stationary for extended periods of time
- If a ride broke down or the line stopped for more than a couple of minutes due to cleaning and people did not follow the distancing and mask rules we would leave and come back later
I’m happy to report that we all had a great time and had a highly enjoyable trip. Universal was great and I feel that they actually did a better job than Disney in terms of enforcing the rules. Universal only scans your temp once per day and gives you a wrist band which allows you to enter all of their facilities without being screened again. This is more convenient than Disney but not as affective. The biggest differences that I believe Universal has done a better job is that their CMs are more engaged and willing to tell guests to put on or pull up a mask, I’d say 95% of guests at Universal we’re compliant with the rules but about 98% at Disney however there were only two times I witnessed a Disney CM speak to a guest about a lack of a mask and one of those times was after I brought it up to the CM. Additionally Universal also has the CMs put hand sanitizer onto the guests hands very much like a cruise line experience whereas Disney has automatic dispensers but the guests themselves must take the initiative to use them. Over the two weeks that we were there the attendance steadily increased to where we are glad we’re driving home today and I’m not certain I’d be comfortable with more people in the parks. The shorter hours of the parks and lack of park hopping was a definite negative and I would not recommend that anyone with kids younger than 10 go during this period of time. I think with the rules it’s too difficult. We actually preferred the character cavalcades to the parades. Overall we had a great trip and felt about a safe as possible other than being in our home. I am not stating that it’s safe to go to Disney right now but I think if you follow the rules that we did you can greatly reduce your risk but of course you need to decide if you are willing to accept that risk. I think governments should look at the theme parks as examples of how society can still function relatively normally when following some very simple rules. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask. Thanks!
EDIT: Some people are misconstruing this post as an endorsement that Disney is safe and that it’s fine to go. This is not the case. I am simply sharing my thoughts and rationale for going along with our concerns and experiences. It is up to every individual to determine if they are willing to accept risk for what they hope to gain.
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