Happenings on May 5th at Disney World

[Leslie]

My son and I are going to be at Disney World on May 5th! I am flying down to pick him up from the University of Florida and well I can't miss an opportunity to see the World! Anyway I noticed that Epcot is closing at 3:00 that day, any ideas?

 

[wdwmagic]

It is closing early for the huge press only event for the Happiest celebration On Earth.

 

[Disneyfan1981]

I can't believe May 5th is almost here...pretty soon we'll be posting about our first rides on EE...

 

[MrDisney16]

It has always seemed wierd to me that entire parks would close for press events. You would think management would keep the park open to make more money from the public buying admission, food, merchanise, etc. Oh well, I wouldn't be back at the would probably until next april.

 

[se8472]

You would think management would keep the park open to make more money from the public buying admission, food, merchanise, etc. Oh well, I wouldn't be back at the would probably until next april.

kind of want the press to write good things about the park, so that people will read the good things about WDW and thus want to come and spend even more money!

 

[MrDisney16]

kind of want the press to write good things about the park, so that people will read the good things about WDW and thus want to come and spend even more money!

That's true, but why can't they have both the public and the press in the park at the same time. It's really not fair to the public in my opinion, especially if say a family didn't realize that the park would be closing early because of a press event and saved it for their last day of their trip. They would then only be able to see less then they would if the park was open all day. Not to mention, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, that they would still be paying for admission for a full day to the park, even though the park is only for half a day, which is a rip off. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[Lynx04]

I guess that is why Disney has four parks to chose from, they probably feel that the guests will go the other parks. Having said that, this will push the crowds at the other parks up. I guess it would be nice for Disney to keep AK open a little later.

 

[Epcot82Guy]

That's true, but why can't they have both the public and the press in the park at the same time. It's really not fair to the public in my opinion, especially if say a family didn't realize that the park would be closing early because of a press event and saved it for their last day of their trip. They would then only be able to see less then they would if the park was open all day. Not to mention, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, that they would still be paying for admission for a full day to the park, even though the park is only for half a day, which is a rip off. Hopefully that makes sense.

In regards to the payment, I believe they have added park hopping to the tickets on these days. I am not sure if this happens all the time or if it will with the new MYW tickets, but it makes sense (and should be easier with the computer system now). Therefore, people do lose part of their Epcot (or wherever) day, but they don't lose part of their day as a whole. I also think I heard they extended one park's hours slightly to counteract the changed flow, but I think this is more during peak times when the crowds are there (which May is not necessarily). Anyone have more specifics about this for this announcement?

 

[TownSquareSteve]

There truly is method behind Disney's madness by shutting down the parks early so the media can have full reign of the park. First, like it was mentioned before yhey want the media to have an amazing time at WDW so they in turn will go back home and report on what a good time they, thus giving Disney lots of free publicity. I was lucky enough to be working for the 100 YoM press event at MK and when I say Dsiney goes all our for the media, they go all out!!! There were only about 5000 people in the park and they had a run of all the attractions, free food and drinks, a special fireworks display (to this day the best one I had ever seen) and even gifts for when they left the park. If you noticed after those press events, a lot of newspapers and news stations were reporting about Disney and the amazing time they had, in the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado they had almost an entire section devoted to it. You say why don't they just let day guests combine with the media and not close the parks? Well, Disney wants to give the media a controlled environment, like having no wait times and free everything which if day guests where included you could not do. They want to make sure the media types have an incredible time and pass on their experiences to you. If you ever have a chance to go to one of these press events I say go, they are absolutly amazing to see.

Later all,

Steve

 

[ChrisH9339]

The schedules of the park hours are available months in advance, so if a family were to wait until the afternoon of May 5th (if that were the last day of their vacation) to go to Epcot and get shut out, they had plenty of advance warning to plan otherwise. And like one of the other posters said, there are 3 other parks to choose from. Early May is usually not that crowded, so I don't think the attendance spike at the other parks will make too much of an impact for guests.

 

[se8472]

granted there will be signs all over the place that epcot will be closing early that day. But there are still going to be people who will be inconvienced. Really there isn't much that can be done, disney needs to get its publicity out there and this really is the best way to go a bout doing it.

Like said before, the press events are awsome and disney does go all out with them. But its by no means something that the everyday guest should get into....it is also mostly a adult patry as well.

 

[Carrousel.Lover]

The schedules of the park hours are available months in advance, so if a family were to wait until the afternoon of May 5th (if that were the last day of their vacation) to go to Epcot and get shut out, they had plenty of advance warning to plan otherwise. And like one of the other posters said, there are 3 other parks to choose from. Early May is usually not that crowded, so I don't think the attendance spike at the other parks will make too much of an impact for guests.

Actually they recently posted MGM is closing at 4Pm on May 4th so unless you continuously look at the schedules you would not necessarily know of an early close.