Quick trip December 15-17 for Christmas decorations. ZIKA concerns?

[njBadLands]

I am not a person who buys into media hype or is ultra paranoid, but I am concerned about this only because my wife will be 14 weeks pregnant if/when we go.

We plan to fly in Thursday night and back to jersey Saturday night. Once day at MK to show our five year old the Christmas experience.

Main questions are:

- does there seem to be a real Zika fear amongst locals in central Florida?
- how are mosquitos this time of year?
- would anyone not go because of this?

 

[Jess G]

Here now.... I haven't seen one mosquito and haven't gotten one bite yet ( I have not done ANYTHING to prevent a bug bite) Disney does leave you a complimentary can on Cutter bug spray in your room that you can use if you're concerned... At this point the days are warm and the nights are pretty cool (60 degrees) I would be more concerned for the warmer months, you should be fine

 

[Jess G]

wanted to add in that since your wife is prego I would not follow my lead with not using the spray they provide. but once again I think it will be ok, make sure she sprays every time before she leaves. seriously I have not seen one.

 

[Goonie139]

I will be 32 weeks pregnant when we go at Christmas and one of my best friends is a local cast member who is just as pregnant. I've been communicating with her about Zika for months and months concerned about our trip.

Three things make me comfortable with the trip. The first is that Orlando is quite a distance from Miami which is where Zika has been localized in Florida. The mosquitos carrying it only travel a mile at most so the chances of getting it in Orlando are extremely low unless there is an outbreak which hasn't yet occurred. Second is that Disney property is and always has been heavily sprayed for mosquitos so the environment of the resorts and parks is always less mosquito-ridden than even the local Orlando area. We cut out a week at the beach and added a week at the parks for this specific reason. Third December is a time of year when the mosquito population has dropped dramatically. It is also cool enough to take the best Zika prevention measures which is covering skin with clothing. You can treat clothing with permethrin to make it a strong mosquito repellent. Between repellent and good covering and the total lack of any localized Zika in the Orlando area I feel comfortable with our two weeks at Christmas.

 

[ratherbeinwdw]

There were over eight hundred zika cases in Tampa with four locally transmitted as of two months ago. I don't know what it is now. Tampa is fairly close to Orlando. It's easy to look up where the local cases are. Many people think it's only in Miami, but they don't usually publish until there is a certain number of confirmed cases. There has been local transmissions in several counties around Panama City. At least the beaches have a regular spray program. I checked before our last trip and the end of the beach, where we were staying, had been sprayed the week before our arrival.
I do recommend you not get on Jungle Cruise as that is where there were so many in May. I covered up with a rain poncho. My son didn't, and he got several bites. One that he killed biting him, was full of blood. (We hoped it was his.) It didn't have stripes, so we're pretty sure it wasn't a zika carrier.
This will be the first time, going in Dec., that I hope it's cold when we're there.
This was the first year we even saw a mosquito in MK. Hopefully, they've been spraying at night like Universal has.