Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
Do you even know what social distancing is? Its not the same as the stay at home orders. Disney will have physical distancing in queues just like Shanghai is doing.
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Opening WDW with Social Distancing
- Thread starter MisterPenguin
- Start date
NelleBelle
Well-Known Member
According to a report form the WHO, there is no proof that those who have had COVID-19 are completely immune at this time.
https://www.npr.org/sections/corona...covered-covid-19-patients-are-immune-who-says
Unfortunately I think you are correct. However who knows what state/federal incentives may become available that may improve the business sense of the argument.
Seanual757
Well-Known Member
I don't disagree at some point we need to open up as a local Central Florida resident it's more important that we open up sooner than later the economy in Central Florida needs it since we cater to the conventions, and visitors to our state.
This is why I am still holding out that Come May 1 the state opens for Phase 1 (this will allow Disney to bring n the cleaning crews, and CM's to start on the training of the new ways Disney will need to operate until this fiasco is over) then come June 1 they open to either resort guests and not APH's to get a few weeks of trial runs before opening everyone. We know the International Travelers are not coming anytime soon and we can still expect 30ish % capacity for some time but money needs to start rolling in.
This is why I am still holding out that Come May 1 the state opens for Phase 1 (this will allow Disney to bring n the cleaning crews, and CM's to start on the training of the new ways Disney will need to operate until this fiasco is over) then come June 1 they open to either resort guests and not APH's to get a few weeks of trial runs before opening everyone. We know the International Travelers are not coming anytime soon and we can still expect 30ish % capacity for some time but money needs to start rolling in.
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DryerLintFan
Premium Member
In regards to social distancing, the CDC guidance is that social distancing is necessary for any where a person will be in close proximity to others for more than 4 minutes.
I skipped a couple pages, so I don't know if someone mentioned this... but things like walkways, some food lines, shopping, etc. would not need social distancing under this guidance.
We'll be running our elevators at work at 50% capacity due to this guidance, instead of only allowing 1 or 2 people in the cab.
I skipped a couple pages, so I don't know if someone mentioned this... but things like walkways, some food lines, shopping, etc. would not need social distancing under this guidance.
We'll be running our elevators at work at 50% capacity due to this guidance, instead of only allowing 1 or 2 people in the cab.
Phase 1 in a few days?? That's not even realstic.
Seanual757
Well-Known Member
our governor has already mentioned it our stay at home order ends on 4/30 let's see what he does.
This thread created for the narrow topic of discussing opening WDW with social distancing still in force since it keeps coming up in the Big Thread…
WDW and Social Distancing
People have been arguing whether it is possible that WDW can open and still maintain social distancing.
Of course WDW can!... If they only let 10 people in the park. Yes, that’s a cheeky answer, but it brings us to problem number one: How few people can WDW have in the park so as to allow for social distancing and still be financially profitable? Obviously, WDW isn’t going to open just to run a deficit.
And so, people talk of ‘reduced attendance,’ but by how many? Let’s use the Magic Kingdom as our park of example. The MK in 2018 (the 2019 figures are due by this June) had 20.859 Million guests for the year. On average, that’s 57K guests per day… we’ll call it 50K per day. They’re not there all day all at once, so, let’s say the average peak attendance is 30K.
No, I don’t think (and I would certainly hope not) that anyone would think that you can put 30K people in the MK and still maintain the 6 foot social distance (6SD). And so, what’s the minimum number of people that can be in the MK for the MK to make a profit? Actually, I don’t know that figure.
Social Distancing
And, let’s for a moment talk about what we mean by the 6SD. The six foot figure is from the distance that the large and micro drops we aerosolize by speaking and talking get thrown from our mouth-holes. Sneezing and coughing throw them farther, but we’re supposed to cover our mouths for coughs and sneezes. We generally don’t when we talk.
And let us presume, for this thought exercise, that a 6SD means a good faith effort to keep 6SD at all time. So, this isn’t just with regard to a parade or fireworks. Oh, no. If we’re going to be consistent, it means 6SD at all times, everywhere, without exception (as a matter of WDW policy… not when people accidentally invade our 6SD).
And so, for this discussion *anything* that would violate the 6SD is removed from the list of to-dos, just like parades and fireworks are off the table, unless we can find a workaround that protects the integrity of the 6SD rule. Anything short of that means you’re not really serious about 6SD.
Transportation and 6SD
For the MK to open, guests have to get there. What if airlines have to enforce a 6SD? Well, there goes 60% at least of long distance travelers (not to mention continuing bans on international flights). And when you land in Orlando, is the Magical Express going to pick you up? If it does, it can’t have different parties next to one another… not back to back, and not aisle seat to aisle seat. So, the ME is running at about 50% capacity.
At the MK, the Contemporary gives you the perk of walking to the gate. Every other monorail resort, and the general parking at MK makes you travel by monorail or boat to get to the MK gate. For people driving in, they’ll need to leave an empty row between each group on the tram. So, trams are at 50%.
First, let’s see how bag check goes: There are two lines going to each security person… oops, can’t have two lines next to each other. So now, there are half the number of security lines. Now let’s say there are 10 guests/families in a line. Well, that line is now 60 feet long. And each 60 foot line needs to be 6 feet from each other. And no switchbacks that pass people to walk right pass you, otherwise, you’re violating 6SD. Just how much space will that take up?
Now it’s onto a monorail or watercraft. In a monorail cabin, perhaps 4 individuals can sit in the four corners. Or it’s only one or two families. That’s about a 30%-50% capacity for monorail. Same for the ferries. Can’t pack 300 people on a ferry. Perhaps just 50 that can still keep 6SD.
How about those showing up on buses? They can skip the train/ferry, however, the bus, in order to maintain 6SD will only have about 6 groups (and not the 80 people they can pack in). Then those coming off the buses still need to go through the reduced security.
Once people disembark from mass transit, there is usually one snaking line leaving the station until it can spread out at the tapstiles. But remember, everyone in that snaking line needs to allow for 6SD. If you’re the last to leave a monorail, you may have to stand there for about three minutes for everyone to spread out before you can go.
Now that you’re at the tapstile… oops, they can only operate one of the four touchpoint clusters at a time to keep people separated. The lines at the tapstile can’t be next to each other, and everyone in line needs to keep 6SD. So, you’ll have a dozen lines going back about 300 feet… to where? Where can all those lines snake to without being on top of each other? And where do new arrivals getting off the ferries go if they can’t get off the ferry because of the crowds spread out by 6SD is taking up the entire pre-tapstile entrance?
That’s just the entrance. Let’s go into the park….
Queues
What is the MK except a series of queues?Well with 6SD, a hundred person queue is now a 600 foot line. And remember, because of 6SD, you can’t have switchbacks unless the pathing honors the 6SD and doesn’t make one line go right past another. So once the queue is quickly filled, it will have to exit the queuing area and bleed into ‘the street’ and be a long line that everyone in the street has to keep 6SD from. Just how many of them can wind their way through Fantasyland before they completely block the street? After all, you can’t pass them if it will violate 6SD. And you can’t make them do tight switchbacks.
So, is the answer to have FP-only or VQ-only for all the attractions? Well, that still creates a line. Let’s say VQ is 15 minute blocks. And remember, 100 families in a line creates a 600 foot 6SD line. So, do you schedule only 100 people each 15 minute block and pray they don’t all show up at once. And if you do, are you OK with every ride only having a capacity of about 500 people an hour? Then you have to deal with all the VQ slots being given out with no standby line available (since the capacity of all the rides are now so low).… and, oh, the people will holler about that.
Rides
When it comes to filling up the ride vehicles with guests, we’ve already seen that with the strictures on the queues, you’re not going to have to worry about spreading people out. They’ll be arriving spread out.
But then, you still need to spread them. So, the PotC and IaSW boats only get 2 parties each. Coasters fill only every other row. Astro Orbiter can only get one party at a time going up and down in the elevator. Only 40 people on the Riverboat at one time! Only 5 people each time on the raft to TSI.
Shows
Shows have a double whammy. We all are presuming the theater will only be about 30-40% filled to allow for 6SD. But what about their lobbies? Shows have a holding pen, much smaller than the theater, to hold the guests before they go into the theater. You can, at best, get only 10% of the theater’s capacity in the holding lobbies before they need to start spilling into the street for a long single-file queue that respects 6SD and doesn’t switchback on itself.
Food
Just like theaters, we all presume that with 6SD, table service restaurants will have reduced seating. Will they also get the size of their lobby increased fourfold? Because, like theaters, restaurants have small lobbies for the guests waiting for their rezzie to get called. So, like theaters, the line for restaurants will snake out into the streets causing more street congestion.
So, are quick serves the answer? Many quick serves have cashiers waiting on two lines. Oops… too close. They can only do one line now. And the people in the line need to observe 6SD and snake out into… where? The seating area? The street?
Is mobile ordering the answer? Well, if you’ve seen it in action, you know at times there can be 10 groups hanging around the mobile order window waiting for their number to be called. Now try spreading them out to observe 6SD. Just think of the Dole Whip counter where everyone in that dense crowd needs to keep backing up until 6SD is reached. They’d completely block that already overcrowded intersection.
Merchandise
All the merch stores have tiny aisles such that you can’t pass one another without violating 6SD. But, you know… Disney can think outside the box! How about they remove 80% of their shelving? Ya think they’d do that? Even if they made all paths one way, that would mean you’d get stuck behind other guests blocking your way over and over again. There’d be gridlock. Shopping becomes a nightmare (more so than it already is).
Jus’ Being There
Just think about walking about MK always trying to keep 6SD. What a nightmare. Of course, you can’t have anything that would attract a crowd. No streetmosphere. No Dapper Dans. No marching band. No stage shows. No trolley shows.
So What is the Solution
Masks: If everyone’s wearing masks, then 6SD goes away and you only need to tell everyone to sanitize their hands before touching their face. (And have sanitizers literally everywhere.) The hard part here is getting small children to keep theirs on.
Reduced Capacity: If you have 6SD, then you’re rides and attractions are automatically at 30-40% capacity. So, limit attendance by that much. Instead of daily peaks of 30K, aim for 10K. Can the MK be profitable at that level? How does WDW handle a nightmare scenario of capping the MK to 10K, and then 20K show up?
A few things you left out... the finger print scanners aren't going to work on rubber gloves and who is going to want to touch a scanner that was touched by someone else?
Now think about when you go to a super market they will now wipe down the carts for you because again who wants to touch a cart handle that was held by someone else? Well if gloves are worn by all that isn't an issue with having to clean lap bars on every ride but on rides you would expect them to wipe down the seating area and place because it is going to be a petri dish of everything (not that it wasn't already) and that isn't going to be feasible on rides where the ride cars never stop moving or only pause for a few seconds to let out a rider.
Now to make things simple don't go by a 6 foot rule, it is easier to look at what 6 foot rule requires which is 144 square feet per guest. You get this by visualizing that a person standing in an open field is 6 feet from someone north of them 6 fee from someone south of them, east of them and west of them so thats a 12 foot square box, and 12 times 12 gives you 144 square feet so just find the total square feet in any area and that is the maximum number of people you would put there. You can use that to determine the capacity of areas by using google maps and their distancing feature when looking at MK. You can also use it to get rough estimate of the real capacity of the ferries which as 120 feet long and 35 feet wide, of course you need to cut make allowances for the front and rear loading areas on the ferries which aren't open to people during the ride which is about 10 fee on each end so you really have more like 100 by 35 foot area... don't assume any reduction for the stairways which are also off limits the reduction in capacity is still dramatic. 100 by 35 foot area is 3500 square feet which would allow 24 people... but a ferry has 2 levels so double it and you get 48 people per ferry which actually has a capacity of 600 people under normal operating conditions. Usually they run 2 ferries at a time so you normally have about a ten minute wait between ferries. So when you normally had 6 ferry trips taking guest per hour or 3600 people per hour.. .now you have a whopping 288 guests per hour. So to get the number of guests you could get from TTC to the main gate you would need more than 12 hours.. so basically the first 3600 guests that were going to use the ferries would still be waiting to go into the park when you had others leaving the park.
You can also use this 144 square feet number to make other rough estimates of the total park capacity... Measure the box created by the train tracks and you see its basically a 2250 foot square or 5,062,500 square feet which if an open field could with unusable areas would be able to hold a little over 35,000 people... but then we know the reality is a huge amount of the area is taken up by areas where a guest cannot go, such as river and water areas, kitchens, storage areas and ride areas that are off limits. Exactly how much of the area is off-limits is unknown but you could safely assume 50% though the reality is probably much closer to 75%... that means you really only have at best 17,000 or more likely 8,700 capacity. So could the park operate on that low of a capacity? Well about 15 years ago a special event had a max capacity of around 25,000. Disney was never going to plan to operate at a loss and probably assumed they would sell a certain percent of the tickets for any given event night. Say 70%... which means they were fine with 17,500 people guests. Which is
a higherthreshold than you get with a best case 17,000 people. Now consider that 15 years ago your costs were lower and the required number of people to cover costs is probably slightly higher... So is it likely Disney can exist with the lowered capacity? No.
I think conventions are off the table for the foreseeable future. Conventions are one of the biggest threats to spreading the virus again. Think about it people from all across the country being brought together to get close together.. not gonna happen until their is a vaccine or cure... conventions will be done online until that time.
And when you look at those types of guidelines and couple it with the fact that a virus hangs in the air you end up with a big question as to who cam up with those guidelines? Under those guidelines you could have a gauntlet of coughing infected people and you would be fine to walk through the spewed air around them... Common sense says that makes no sense at all.. yet the guideline says it is fine. These guidelines look at like something written by multiple people and then combined with no thought to looking at the finished product and whether it made sense.... Or it was written with the thought that they were never trying to stop the spread and only wanted to slow it down.
And elevators is a whole new problem. Last place I worked with elevators had about 2200 people in an office tower with a total of 12 elevators. At any given time you might have to wait an average of 10 seconds for an elevator. So if you are moving 2 people every 10 seconds to their respective floor you are going to spend roughly 3 hours to get everyone into work in the morning and 3 hours when everyone leaves. Not going to be a very acceptable to most people if everyone goes back to work while trying to do social distancing.
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DryerLintFan
Premium Member
Oh, I forgot to add, LOL.... our associates will be required to be wearing masks in the elevators.... so that is why we're taking the 4 minute rule into consideration. 4 minutes with a mask.
I honestly would expect masks to become the new normal for a while, even at Disney
DryerLintFan
Premium Member
Also, yes, absolutely the goal has never been to stop the spread. Only to slow it down so our scientists could learn more about it, and so our health care facilities could increase capacity for treating it.
This virus will touch us all. There is no stopping that, short of a permanent lock down.
The same WHO that said there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. Sorry, but the big "health" agencies have totally blown their credibility in how they handled this pandemic.
I'm in the "wait-and-see" camp. Thanks, Georgia, for being the canary. We'll watch how their numbers do in a week or two, then devise a strategy that will entail aspects of social distancing, PPE, and liberal use of sterilizing agents, both external (Lysol) and internal (Jose Cuervo).
Well if a person is every really over the virus then there is at least a moment in time when they were immune. The only question is how long does the immunity last. If you consider any virus that people become completely immune to would be one that overtime would become more likely to be extinct because if once you got it you never got it again at some point everyone would have gotten it and the virus would no longer have any host to live in... so probably safe to assume that this virus is clearly not one its typical host could ever be immune from, it's probably not going to be a virus human will have lifelong immunity to if they can ever even clear it from their bodies. It is also possible that once infected you are going to be infected for life and your body will just adapt to it and keep it in check but still allow you to pass it on to others.
DryerLintFan
Premium Member
Well aren't you melodramatic!!
We're following CDC guidelines for opening as well, which means we'll have less than 30% of our associates back on phase one, with staggered start times.
I know it's difficult to be terrified into staying home only to be told a few weeks later we're opening back up again, but there are a ton of people out there doing nothing but planning on how to get us out of our homes without a huge spike or wave two. At the end of the day you need to realize that precautions are the new normal.
Life is likely NEVER going back to the way it was within our lifetimes.
DryerLintFan
Premium Member
I'm in Ohio and they've been very cautious so far. I think we'll be looking at how Georgia plays out too, but I don't think the intent of our Gov. was ever going to be to open 100% right out of the gate. Our businesses will open slowly with the "try something and wait a couple weeks to see how it goes" approach, would be my guess. He's supposedly announcing part of the plan today at 2 pm.
eliza61nyc
Well-Known Member
Oh please I've got you beat. I've got friends who think we're (black folks) immune because the melanin in our skin kills the virus. Or they will concede that we MAY BE able to contract it but it won't kill us.
I have no retort. None
DryerLintFan
Premium Member
My coworker is telling everyone that coronavirus starts in your eyes because that's where your corona is...
John park hopper
Well-Known Member
Tell them viruses have no eyes they can't tell if you are black, white, yellow, brown, simply an equal opportunity infectious agent