Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[Mainahman]

Now that Universal is reopening, WDW can’t be far behind. June 14 maybe?

Thats my hopes. Gives a good 2 months before our august arrival to get things flowing, further along in restriction drop off, and returning of prarades and fireworks hopefully.

 

[Horizons '83]

I will not be “hiding” until a vaccine. I will not be doing incredibly risky behavior until I’m comfortable my chance of getting Covid is low. Here’s the way I see things currently:

-We just ignored guidelines done by a panel of experts and reopened prior to a two week down turn in new cases
-States that had opened early or never fully shutdown like FL, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Minnesota and Iowa are either seeing their case numbers increase or have been accused of manipulating data.
-Even with testing less then 5% of the population our new cases remain high (>20000 a day)

All this suggests to me that there is a high chance cases may spike in the coming weeks, I am not currently comfortable taking that risk. If numbers continue to down trend nationwide in June, I’ll reevaluate by self restriction on travel.

Florida and Texas are flat and Georgia & Iowa have gone down based of Johns Hopkins numbers/New York Times

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

A detailed county map shows the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, with tables of the number of cases by county.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Rider]

Nope, they've all been closed.



It's probably intentional they are opening later, Disney may very well do the same thing. Although Universal's hotels are ran by Loew's resorts, so there's a different dynamic there too.

The biggest thing (besides safety) will probably be how much demand there would be. Certainly not for all the rooms. But will there even be enough overnight guests to support opening one hotel in June? Or July?

 

[GoofGoof]

Did Universal say anything about hotels? The news articles didn’t mention them and that link to the presentation says nothing.

A very important question for WDW. When Legoland put their plans out it mentioned their parks and hotels would both be held at 50% capacity. For WDW they have roughly 30,000 hotel rooms 5,000 of which are DVC timeshares (rough numbers please don’t bother to nitpick them). DVC rooms are largely sold out and I’m sure regular hotel bookings are pretty high too. How are they going to get down to something like 50% capacity for the hotels/DVC? It’s possible that Disney needs to wait longer because they can’t open with resort capacity that low. That would be a big mess right now.

 

[Touchdown]

Florida’s hasn’t been updated, over 1200 new cases today. Also Texas in the last week has been climbing again, that looks at 2 week averages, I expect that trend to continue.

 

[Patcheslee]

The biggest thing (besides safety) will probably be how much demand there would be. Certainly not for all the rooms. But will there even be enough overnight guests to support opening one hotel in June? Or July?

How would they be able to limit it though to 1 hotel unless they walk guests.

 

[RaveOnEd]

Thats my hopes. Gives a good 2 months before our august arrival to get things flowing, further along in restriction drop off, and returning of prarades and fireworks hopefully.

We're there in August as well, so hoping by then things are in a better flow, but I don't care. I just want to be there!

 

[Andrew C]

Florida’s hasn’t been updated, over 1200 new cases today. Also Texas in the last week has been climbing again, that looks at 2 week averages, I expect that trend to continue.

you need to look at why they have been climbing specifically. There are reasons. Cases on their own are not a good indicator of the picture.

 

[DisneyJoe]

A very important question for WDW. When Legoland put their plans out it mentioned their parks and hotels would both be held at 50% capacity. For WDW they have roughly 30,000 hotel rooms 5,000 of which are DVC timeshares (rough numbers please don’t bother to nitpick them). DVC rooms are largely sold out and I’m sure regular hotel bookings are pretty high too. How are they going to get down to something like 50% capacity for the hotels/DVC? It’s possible that Disney needs to wait longer because they can’t open with resort capacity that low. That would be a big mess right now.

They've been cancelling reservations on a week by week basis - today they just emailed cancellations for June 7-13. I have no clue how many they are cancelling, but that is what they have been doing, usually every Thursday. Currently park hours end then too.

 

[Horizons '83]

Florida’s hasn’t been updated, over 1200 new cases today. Also Texas in the last week has been climbing again, that looks at 2 week averages, I expect that trend to continue.

Just reporting what I'm seeing ...

 

[rnese]

Brilliant move by Universal. Glad to see they're ready to provide recreation and entertainment for the overwhelming growing demand.

To those that think this is too early, how about we just continue to live our lives in fear until a vaccine that we don't know the long term side effects for is available? If we're lucky, that vaccine won't take several decades.

Not to mention only .4% of Americans actually have/had Coronavirus.

Amen! You must have looked at the data. And if we take into consideration the fact that WDW isn't a nursing home...or New York City...or Detroit...or Chicago. Boy, the numbers look pretty different. I'm ready to go!

 

[rnese]

Same ! If Disney isn't open for our July trip than our 2 day Universal trip before Disney will turn into a much longer one! We have one night booked there for the front of the line pass but will gladly stay on their property the entire time if Disney can't get it together or at least make some sort of commitment either way.

I'll be at the beach until June 27, when I'm supposed to check in for 8 nights. I'm talking with the family right now about switching to 3 nights at Uni just in case. I'm ready to put this in the rear view mirror.

 

[Sweet Thing]

Yet disney says they have no plans or dates to submit a plan, just means Chapek and his Cronies continue to drag their feet. Its really bohered me that he hasn't spoken up, even having to call Iger back in for additional help to guide, and nothing... give us our Mouse!!!!!

Disney is a whole different beast from Universal. There are a lot more variables and contingency plans they have to factor in. Not to mention as with any decision that Universal leads, they don't have unions to contend with. Yes, Disney and their unions came to an initial agreement, but every decision they make that impacts cast members has to be discussed with those unions. They could also be deciding if it is more beneficial to just wait until a lot of these restrictions are relaxed.

 

[Rider]

How would they be able to limit it though to 1 hotel unless they walk guests.

Move anyone who hasn't cancelled to Hard Rock or Royal Pacific and offer discounts / coupons to anyone who complains.

The same thing will happen at Disney. Anyone with a reservation at a hotel that won't open (and it will be a lot of them) will be moved.

A very important question for WDW. When Legoland put their plans out it mentioned their parks and hotels would both be held at 50% capacity. For WDW they have roughly 30,000 hotel rooms 5,000 of which are DVC timeshares (rough numbers please don’t bother to nitpick them). DVC rooms are largely sold out and I’m sure regular hotel bookings are pretty high too. How are they going to get down to something like 50% capacity for the hotels/DVC? It’s possible that Disney needs to wait longer because they can’t open with resort capacity that low. That would be a big mess right now.

This assumes that demand for a $500 a night hotels this summer hasn't disappeared in the face of 40 million+ people out of work, 0 international travel, cancelled conventions and events, and people who are more than happy waiting an extra year to come back at all.

 

[Touchdown]

you need to look at why they have been climbing specifically. There are reasons. Cases on their own are not a good indicator of the picture.

Im well aware of increased testing leads to increased number of new cases thank you. However, it just highlights how few of the actual Covid cases are being caught by our testing technique. Florida despite the recent increase in testing has only tested 3.7% of their population which is below the national average.

 

[GoofGoof]

They've been cancelling reservations on a week by week basis - today they just emailed cancellations for June 7-13. I have no clue how many they are cancelling, but that is what they have been doing, usually every Thursday. Currently park hours end then too.

Right, I know that but once they eventually open they have a mess to deal with. Let’s say they open July 1. That week is mostly sold out for DVC. There’s probably also a ton of cash hotel reservations. Let’s take Polynesian as an example. There are 380 DVC rooms (mostly sold already) plus there’s 850 hotel rooms for 1,230 total rooms. If they are limited to 50% capacity for the resort that’s 615 rooms. So if 380 rooms are already DVC then they could only sell 235 cash rooms. Aside from the problem that there are probably more than 235 rooms booked you also loose nearly 75% of the capacity of cash rooms. That makes it tough financially to open the hotel. Same applies around the resort. You can always force guests who are reserved to move to another resort but it’s a mess coordinating that. They might be better off waiting until the hotels can open with a higher capacity percentage.

 

[Rider]

Right, I know that but once they eventually open they have a mess to deal with. Let’s say they open July 1. That week is mostly sold out for DVC. There’s probably also a ton of cash hotel reservations. Let’s take Polynesian as an example. There are 380 DVC rooms (mostly sold already) plus there’s 850 hotel rooms for 1,230 total rooms. If they are limited to 50% capacity for the resort that’s 615 rooms. So if 380 rooms are already DVC then they could only sell 235 cash rooms. Aside from the problem that there are probably more than 235 rooms booked you also loose nearly 75% of the capacity of cash rooms. That makes it tough financially to open the hotel. Same applies around the resort. You can always force guests who are reserved to move to another resort but it’s a mess coordinating that. They might be better off waiting until the hotels can open with a higher capacity percentage.

The unknown factor is how many of those would actually follow through on a trip to Florida in July and are not just waiting for Disney to cancel? And if Disney doesn't cancel they will at the last minute?

 

[Miss Bella]

They're getting my family's vacation dollars. The ones I saved from my Disney trip in June.

You better hurry and make and make your reservation. I just made mine for July 2.

 

[GoofGoof]

Move anyone who hasn't cancelled to Hard Rock or Royal Pacific and offer discounts / coupons to anyone who complains.

The same thing will happen at Disney. Anyone with a reservation at a hotel that won't open (and it will be a lot of them) will be moved.

This assumes that demand for a $500 a night hotels this summer hasn't disappeared in the face of 40 million+ people out of work, 0 international travel, cancelled conventions and events, and people who are more than happy waiting an extra year to come back at all.

DVC is the bigger problem. You don’t really have a choice with the way the points work. Unless they ask for volunteers to cancel their reservations and allow them to bank the points I don’t see any easy work around there.

 

[Andrew C]

Im well aware of increased testing leads to increased number of new cases thank you

that isn’t all I’m referring to. Texas is also doing targeted testing of areas where there has been a surge. They go in and test like crazy to control the spread. I keep saying this, but you/we need to drill down deeper into the numbers to get a better idea of what is going on. Also look at things like hospitalizations and the positivity rate.