Walt Disney World Park Hours cut starting September 8 2020

[Armerius]

Air travel is certainly up from previous points in the pandemic, but the point is it’s nowhere near back to normal or in the context of this discussion nowhere near where it needs to be to help Disney. I get that some people are flying to go to WDW now. I have a friend who is going in about a month from around me, but that’s anecdotal and not relevant to the need for a large number of tourists to want to travel.

I think Disney would love to increase park capacity but the problem is not just guest demand (which is a problem) it’s also concerns with current case counts and large crowds. If the situation on the ground was improving they may be more motivated to relax some rules. Instead they are investing in more signs explaining mask rules. On the attendance front, the minute Disney starts turning away tourists who want to stay in their resorts because the parks are sold out they will start restricting AP holders again. The only reason limits were removed is they weren’t hitting capacity anyway. They won’t forgo “super profits” from out of state tourists staying in the hotels and eating most meals on property.

Yeah im one of those tourist that wanna go back there. im planning a trip for around 13 days in disneyworld in sep or october next year.(im from south america) but still waiting for park times to go back to normal, together with fireworks etc. to start making reservations , besides im expecting once disney can get rid of most of the restrictions (i dont mind using a mask all day..cause we do it anyway here by law this days) they will start with discounts for their rooms etc to attract visitors.

A question though ..anybody knows or is there any rumor when the all star hotels will be available for booking again? im planning on staying on the pop century but if there is a big enough diference in price i might save a few bucks staying in the all stars.

Anyway,lets hope once the vaccines start to come up things will go back to normal.

 

[disneycp]

Sure, yes said ever , figured most would get the context, but alas. you win.

You’re right that Covid hospitalizations in Florida are, comparatively, very low right now.

Don’t bother trying to argue with the people on this thread though, a lot of them get upset if you mention anything even remotely uplifting; if you try to base your worldview on them it becomes really bleak really fast.

 

[GoofGoof]

You’re right that Covid hospitalizations in Florida are, comparatively, very low right now.

Don’t bother trying to argue with the people on this thread though, a lot of them get upset if you mention anything even remotely uplifting; if you try to base your worldview on them it becomes really bleak really fast.

Since he was responding to my post I assume you are referring to me. I think you are missing the point. WDW relies on tourists from all over the nation/world to operate at normal levels. International travel is a no go for the foreseeable future. That’s roughly 20% of WDW’s normal customers. In addition, air travel is way down. Many people just aren’t traveling anywhere far, especially on airplanes. A number of states also have travel quarantine requirements that require people to quarantine 14 days upon returning from a state on the list. The criteria for being on the list is a percent positive under 10% and 10 cases per 100,000 population or under over a 7 day average so for FL under 2,100 cases per day for a 7 day average. It’s hard for people who work outside of their home and/or have kids in school to go to one of these states right now knowing it will require 2 additional weeks at home after returning. Some of the states with these travel quarantine rules also happen to be some of the prime demographic for WDW. Disney needs out of state tourists back to increase hours and increase offerings and open the other half of the resorts. Back in August as cases began to trend down there was some hope from people here (including me) that if that continued the case count would be low enough by Thanksgiving (the start of WDWs busy holiday season) that there would be a meaningful holiday bump in attendance. That looks unlikely now.

So while it’s great for the community that hospitalizations are down in FL compared to the summer spike it’s not relevant to this particular discussion around park hours and crowds returning. Me pointing that out isn’t getting upset at something uplifting, it’s just a fact.

 

[disneycp]

Since he was responding to my post I assume you are referring to me. I think you are missing the point. WDW relies on tourists from all over the nation/world to operate at normal levels. International travel is a no go for the foreseeable future. That’s roughly 20% of WDW’s normal customers. In addition, air travel is way down. Many people just aren’t traveling anywhere far, especially on airplanes. A number of states also have travel quarantine requirements that require people to quarantine 14 days upon returning from a state on the list. The criteria for being on the list is a percent positive under 10% and 10 cases per 100,000 population or under over a 7 day average so for FL under 2,100 cases per day for a 7 day average. It’s hard for people who work outside of their home and/or have kids in school to go to one of these states right now knowing it will require 2 additional weeks at home after returning. Some of the states with these travel quarantine rules also happen to be some of the prime demographic for WDW. Disney needs out of state tourists back to increase hours and increase offerings and open the other half of the resorts. Back in August as cases began to trend down there was some hope from people here (including me) that if that continued the case count would be low enough by Thanksgiving (the start of WDWs busy holiday season) that there would be a meaningful holiday bump in attendance. That looks unlikely now.

So while it’s great for the community that hospitalizations are down in FL compared to the summer spike it’s not relevant to this particular discussion around park hours and crowds returning. Me pointing that out isn’t getting upset at something uplifting, it’s just a fact.

I was actually talking about @JoeCamel, who was purposefully trying to be argumentative about legwand’s phrasing surrounding Florida’s hospitalizations.

I’m also unsure why someone saying deaths and hospitalizations are trending down in Florida needs to devolve into a “but but what about cases! WDW is still screwed for travel!” argument. I seriously think some of you guys have some sort of compelling need to take good news and overshadow it with some sort of bad news you have waiting in your back pocket. It’s...strange, to say the least.

 

[GoofGoof]

I was actually talking about @JoeCamel, who was purposefully trying to be argumentative about legwand’s phrasing surrounding Florida’s hospitalizations.

I’m also unsure why someone saying deaths and hospitalizations are trending down in Florida needs to devolve into a “but but what about cases! WDW is still screwed for travel!” argument. I seriously think some of you guys have some sort of compelling need to take good news and overshadow it with some sort of bad news you have waiting in your back pocket. It’s...strange, to say the least.

I think you are still missing the point. This thread was started because WDW cut park hours due to a lack of demand. The discussion has always been centered around “WDW being screwed for travel” because until out of state tourists come back in large numbers there won’t be a meaningful increase in park hours and park offerings. @legwand77 has pointed to hospitalizations and in the past deaths as statistics that show FL is doing just fine despite case numbers. While that may be true or not (an argument for the general Covid thread) it’s not relevant to the demand issue. So your perception of people trying to overshadow good news with bad isn’t necessarily accurate. It’s just focusing the discussion back on the statistics that do matter for this topic.

I am very happy less people are in the hospital and dying in FL and nationwide overall from Covid but that doesn’t change the fact that I couldn’t take a trip to WDW right now because my kids couldn’t go back to school for 14 days after we returned and I can’t have them miss 3 weeks of school.

 

[Armerius]

Lets not forget that while hospitalizations in florida are down, they are more then likely to go up again soon. just like everywhere else in the world. (europe for example).

Disney knows this. they dont want to hire more staff etc to later on having to fire them again because they will most likely have to cut down hours again, (if things go to hell again). I bet as soon as we see vaccines being distributed , disney will start to ramp up things. so lets hope its soon.

 

[GoofGoof]

Lets not forget that while hospitalizations in florida are down, they are more then likely to go up again soon. just like everywhere else in the world. (europe for example).

Disney knows this. they dont want to hire more staff etc to later on having to fire them again because they will most likely have to cut down hours again, (if things go to hell again). I bet as soon as we see vaccines being distributed , disney will start to ramp up things. so lets hope its soon.

A successful vaccine is the best way for Disney to start getting back to normal at this point. I fear it won’t be until closer to the summer that the impact is felt though. I am cautiously optimistic we could see the start of a relaxing of restrictions dn maybe a bump in demand by Spring Break but it really all depends how effective the vaccine is and how many people agree to get it, plus the logistical nightmare of actually getting it to them. There was a point a few months back that I really thought there was hope that through better actions and testing and tracing we could see cases drop low enough to push a meaningful increase in travel but now I’m thinking it’s vaccine or bust. Here’s to 2021 being a better year than 2020.

 

[Armerius]

A successful vaccine is the best way for Disney to start getting back to normal at this point. I fear it won’t be until closer to the summer that the impact is felt though. I am cautiously optimistic we could see the start of a relaxing of restrictions dn maybe a bump in demand by Spring Break but it really all depends how effective the vaccine is and how many people agree to get it, plus the logistical nightmare of actually getting it to them. There was a point a few months back that I really thought there was hope that through better actions and testing and tracing we could see cases drop low enough to push a meaningful increase in travel but now I’m thinking it’s vaccine or bust. Here’s to 2021 being a better year than 2020.

yes its vaccine or bust..there are other problems like we dont know how long the vaccine lasts..so we might need 1 or 2 shots per year etc .
But once vaccines are distributed restrictions will be lifted..its up each person to decide if you want it or not. thats not disney problem and to be honest i dont care, the more antivaxers ..more vaccines for the rests of us.

Yes it will be a logistical nightmare but governments are planning for it for months already. besides the economy around the world its bad so everyone is desperate to end restrictions.

 

[GoofGoof]

yes its vaccine or bust..there are other problems like we dont know how long the vaccine lasts..so we might need 1 or 2 shots per year etc .
But once vaccines are distributed restrictions will be lifted..its up each person to decide if you want it or not. thats not disney problem and to be honest i dont care, the more antivaxers ..more vaccines for the rests of us.

Yes it will be a logistical nightmare but governments are planning for it for months already. besides the economy around the world its bad so everyone is desperate to end restrictions.

As long as enough people get the vaccine to snuff out the spread of the virus I don’t care if anyone else gets it after that. For Disney I assume they will not remove mask rules and distancing and capacity limits until case counts drop way down, most likely because of the vaccine. In other words I don’t think the existence of a vaccine alone gets the restrictions removed. If enough people don’t get it or it’s not highly effective we could still have a lot of spread. How they decide when to do what is going to be more contentious than the last 6 months.

 

[legwand77]

A successful vaccine is the best way for Disney to start getting back to normal at this point. I fear it won’t be until closer to the summer that the impact is felt though. I am cautiously optimistic we could see the start of a relaxing of restrictions dn maybe a bump in demand by Spring Break but it really all depends how effective the vaccine is and how many people agree to get it, plus the logistical nightmare of actually getting it to them. There was a point a few months back that I really thought there was hope that through better actions and testing and tracing we could see cases drop low enough to push a meaningful increase in travel but now I’m thinking it’s vaccine or bust. Here’s to 2021 being a better year than 2020.

That is a lot of hope on the vaccine, we have a flu vaccine and flu is still very prevalent, overwehlms hospitals and kills people every year. However one of the side benefits of the vacine is to reduce peoples fears no matter how effective.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

That is a lot of hope on the vaccine, we have a flu vaccine and flu is still very prevalent, overwehlms hospitals and kills people every year. However one of the side benefits of the vacine is to reduce peoples fears no matter how effective.

Pretty sure the seasonal flu doesn't overwhelm hospitals as its something they deal with regularly, and they've never had to bring in ship hospitals or build temporary hospitals to make room for an excess of flu patients.

ETA: PLUS...40,000 flu deaths in America in the average year ESTIMATED vs. 200,000 ACTUAL deaths in 8 months due to covid.

 

[legwand77]

Pretty sure the seasonal flu doesn't overwhelm hospitals as its something they deal with regularly, and they've never had to bring in ship hospitals or build temporary hospitals to make room for an excess of flu patients.

ETA: PLUS...40,000 flu deaths in America in the average year ESTIMATED vs. 200,000 ACTUAL deaths in 8 months due to covid.

Hospitals have absolutely built temporary hospitals for flu outbreaks in previous years. One example of many below. And by the other token how many temporary hospitals were actually used for Covid in the country, the vast majority were never used. But lets not get too far off topic than we already are.

California hospitals face a 'war zone' of flu patients — and are setting up tents to treat them

California hospitals have had to scramble for more space and staff to keep up with the high numbers of patients showing up in the ER sick with a deadly strain of the flu.

www.latimes.com

your ETA, is exactly my point.

 

[GoofGoof]

That is a lot of hope on the vaccine, we have a flu vaccine and flu is still very prevalent, overwehlms hospitals and kills people every year. However one of the side benefits of the vacine is to reduce peoples fears no matter how effective.

It turns out Covid is not the flu...no matter home many times you say it is. We have vaccines for other things like measles and that was virtually gone before the anti-vax movement became trendy.

Without a vaccine things will take much longer to get back to normal. Much longer. It is a lot to hope for but it’s all we have. People have shown they lack the desire or discipline or whatever you want to call it to do what it takes to get Covid under control and get things open and the government has failed to have a concrete and consistent plan for testing and tracing so we are left with hoping the vaccine bails us out. For Disney’s sake I really hope one of the 20+ vaccines in development pans out or we’ll be talking about hopefully getting the parks back on track in 2022.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Hospitals have absolutely built temporary hospitals for flu outbreaks in previous years. One example of many below. And by the other token how many temporary hospitals were actually used for Covid in the country, the vast majority were never used. But lets not get too far off topic than we already are.

California hospitals face a 'war zone' of flu patients — and are setting up tents to treat them

California hospitals have had to scramble for more space and staff to keep up with the high numbers of patients showing up in the ER sick with a deadly strain of the flu.

www.latimes.com

your ETA, is exactly my point.

We've also been asked REPEATEDLY by the mods not to compare COVID to the flu.

And no. Estimated deaths by seasonal flu are way overblown. Ask doctors how many they've personally seen die of the flu.

 

[Armerius]

As long as enough people get the vaccine to snuff out the spread of the virus I don’t care if anyone else gets it after that. For Disney I assume they will not remove mask rules and distancing and capacity limits until case counts drop way down, most likely because of the vaccine. In other words I don’t think the existence of a vaccine alone gets the restrictions removed. If enough people don’t get it or it’s not highly effective we could still have a lot of spread. How they decide when to do what is going to be more contentious than the last 6 months.

yes probably masks will stay longer but once vaccines are our the gov will lift restrictions.. so at least disney will be able to ramp up assistance. social distancing will be out soon after the vaccine. but mask should stay longer. it pretty much depends on the effectiveness of it. but we dont know. we can only hope for the best. the world is sick of this, once the vaccine is out the flood gates will open for better or worst

 

[legwand77]

Just to be clear, I am not saying Covid is the flu as some appear to have misunderstood.

 

[GoofGoof]

Just to be clear, I am not saying Covid is the flu.

Comparing it to the flu....saying it’s the flu....tomatoes.....tomatos

 

[GoofGoof]

yes probably masks will stay longer but once vaccines are our the gov will lift restrictions.. so at least disney will be able to ramp up assistance. social distancing will be out soon after the vaccine. but mask should stay longer. it pretty much depends on the effectiveness of it. but we dont know. we can only hope for the best. the world is sick of this, once the vaccine is out the flood gates will open for better or worst

For WDW the governor already lifted all the restrictions so in theory they could operate business as usual if they truly wanted to. I agree that some time shortly after a vaccine is widely available capacity limits will rise, some distancing will go away and masks will be last. It’s just going to take a while to get everyone vaccinated and it takes 2 shots 28 days apart for several of the leading contenders.

 

[Miss Bella]

I got my first ever pin code for Jan 3 - june30. It’s weird all these years and I finally got one. It’s for 35% off.

 

[legwand77]

Well looks like Universal is going to start up their nighttime show Universal Orlando's Cinematic Celebration this weekend, with fireworks. Figured they would be first b/t Disney and Universal. The park is also going to stay open till ten.

Yes it is Universal, yes not as big as Disney. However this just one more thing that makes the Disney product even less exciting in comparison.