Glad we are talking more about demand than the virus , now that numbers have continued to decline. Orange County dropped a tick below 5% positivity today. The state positivity also continues to go down, been under 10% for over a week , closing in on the 5 % range , hospitalizations are also falling fast, now about 50% off the peak less than a month ago. All this news or lack of bad news will only icnrease demand especially rolling in to Labor Day. With more demand things will slowly expand hours, hotels etc. The big hold back is the group trips it will take those a while to recover because they have to be planned out for months. That directly affects the resorts.
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Walt Disney World Park Hours cut starting September 8 2020
- Thread starter durangojim
- Start date
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
The hot takes are really funny. At this point it had more to do with many people being laid off and not having the money to travel.
giantgolfer
Well-Known Member
It’s incredible how tone deaf you are to this whole situation.
Or you are just trolling. I’ll let you pick...
Some could be moving in with family or friends if faced with eviction since rent / mortgage payments are not being made.
That what I said, the discussion is more about the demand.
Yes unemployment is high, but the stock market has recovered 100% and is at a record high. Home sales set a record high in July, strongest since 1968. Consumer confidence is low of course but will come back with the trends decreasing.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
I think you way over estimate the timing of any kind of recovery for WDW. There’s no way numbers that are out today are influencing a large enough group of people that matter to go to FL or WDW Labor Day weekend. That ship has sailed. Just keeping it real here: The summer is sunk. It looks extremely unlikely that cases are going to be low enough for FL to come off any of the travel quarantine lists in 2 weeks. Any benefits from the downward trend of cases would be seen more likely in Nov/Dec not now. The hours being cut and hotels staying closed are based on Disney and Universal looking at current bookings. They have a pretty good idea how demand looks and it doesn’t seem good.
If cases continue to drop and percent positive continues to drop maybe bookings for the holidays tick upward but that assumes people hold firm and act right. If large groups start taking their victory laps and assume that the recent downward trends mean the virus is gone then things could go right back up.
wedenterprises
Well-Known Member
I don't understand why they're cutting hours from the evening. Cut them from the morning and extend into the evening. Especially Epcot, no?
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
My understanding is that the following are being kept open 1 hour after closing:
- Sci-Fi Dine-In
- 50s Prime Time Cafe
- Oga's Canteen
- Be Our Guest
- Liberty Tree Tavern
In addition, this Cast Member stated that those with late reservations at other restaurants were being contacted to make "other arrangements", although this Cast Member would not state what these "other arrangements" are.
My guess is that Disney wants the revenue and will try to accommodate Guests as best they can.
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I agree with you. Didn't word it right, I meant the news getting better into Labor Day, demand is not going to go up till after. The hours getting cut and hotels closing were decisions made a few weeks ago, when things were still peaking or at highs. I agree Disney has the best data analysis in the industry and will adjust as needed.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
I honestly don't think they will adjust much of anything til at least next spring. There is a reason Universal has closed hotels and Disney has delayed opening more. Demand won't be back for a long while. At least the Jurrasic Park coaster will be open by spring so there is something to look forward too.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
No. It’s harder to enforce mask usage and distancing at night.
JohnD
Well-Known Member
There is also the matter of getting up in the morning and starting your vacation. Okay, you don't have to get up at 5am and be at the parks at 6 for rope drop or whatever. But I would still want to wake up and go to the parks. By 9/8, MK and AK will already open at 9am, HS at 10am, and Epcot at 11am. MK and AK can't possibly open any later, especially AK because of the animals and KS. HS still requires getting there an hour or so earlier because of the ROTR virtual queue. And Epcot is simply aligning FW with WS.
wedenterprises
Well-Known Member
didn't think of that.
HairyChest
Well-Known Member
Looks like the shortened hours have just been updated to inlcude dates through the first week of November :/
My December trip will be canceled if these hours expand to our trip days. We just got back from the world and it was already hard enough to eat dinner/visit parks with the current hours.
My December trip will be canceled if these hours expand to our trip days. We just got back from the world and it was already hard enough to eat dinner/visit parks with the current hours.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
I think they will wait to see if there is an uptick in holiday bookings before extending it further. That puts us up to just before the holiday rush which starts with Thanksgiving week.
Herdman
Well-Known Member
What did you specifically have trouble with in the current hours? All the Florida vloggers I've watched on Youtube have not had any trouble experiencing all the attractions in one day. Just curious as to what you found difficult for our future trip.
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
Epcot is already opening at 11 AM. There aren't any morning hours left to cut at Epcot.
MK and DAK are opening at 9 AM, DHS at 10 AM. It already seems those are pretty late openings for those parks.
By all accounts, DAK has been nearly empty for the first and last hour. Both of those hours were cut there.
DHS has been the busiest park and is already opening at 10 AM. IMO, changing its closing time from 8 PM to 7 PM is the change that makes the least sense.
This is primarily a cost cutting measure. Other than local APH, WDW is not bringing back Guests in anywhere the numbers that corporate Disney expected. It's the same reason why several Disney hotel openings have been pushed back.
If Guests were returning in the numbers that Disney anticipated, hours would have been extended, not shortened.
Disney is hurting.
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HairyChest
Well-Known Member
Yea from the vloggers you cant tell. So for Epcot, the issue was even though they closed at 9, the restaurants closed earlier. Specifically Via Napoli had a last seating at 7:45. I don't know whats happening with the restaurants there when Epcot is closing at 7. will last seating be at 5:45? I hope not. Otherwise we were really glad Epcot was open until 9 and gave us somewhere to visit at night.
Magic Kingdom was difficult because we like the nightime lights there, couldn't see that. And if a ride went down , say at 5 due to weather or technical difficulties, it wouldnt come back up because the parks were going to close soon. And we really missed the plaza ice cream parlor, which wasnt open at all.
Animal Kingdom was a huuuuge blow to us because we LOVE Pandora at night. It also caused the rainforest cafe thats outside of the park, to close at the same closing time (6pm). We love it there for dinner.
Hollywood Studios, again it was open until 8 which is better then 6 however we still didnt see much lit up.
The main issue is when visiting for vacation, especially onsite, the best thing is going to a park in the day, pool and rest in the afternoon at the resort, back in the park in the evening for dinner. We could barely do that this trip. We will be able to do that AT ALL with the extra short hours.
Another HUGE issue was and will be even more so the transportation. Because the boats, skyliner, and monorail and busses are only open usually for an hour after a park closes, we couldnt take them at night to visit different places, resorts, or just take them to experience the beauty. That was a huge issue.
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Looks like many operations are running on a tight budget. It's not the WDW from before.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
I too prefer the afternoon break especially in the summer to get out of the heat. I also love the parks at night, especially Tomorrowland and Pandora. Tower of Terror lit up at night is also cool. Star Wars has good lighting as well. It is what it is right now and even if they keep the hours limited by November when daylight savings ends it will get dark before closing.