News Walt Disney World says goodbye to the final remnants of its COVID-19 safety protocols

[MagicHappens1971]

Disney is probably never going to recover that staff so they will just use the reservation system to shift employees where needed.

The “shifting employees where needed” thing that’s been discussed on these forms at nauseam doesn’t really happen. Attractions can only be staffed by those trained for that specific attraction(s). F&B/Merch cast can pretty much go anywhere, however most locations are so short staffed that they are not being sent elsewhere. This happens every now and then where they deploy cast elsewhere temporarily, for example they occasionally deploy Merch cast from smaller locations to Emporium on peak days.

The basis of my point is that it seems Disney is using the system to manage labor costs, not move cast around.

 

[WorldExplorer]

Is Floral and Gifts back to room deliveries? Covid was the reasoning for not doing that, wasn't it? It still says modified on the website.

 

[G00fyDad]

Is Floral and Gifts back to room deliveries? Covid was the reasoning for not doing that, wasn't it? It still says modified on the website.

Not at this time. I was looking into this very thing for my family and they have not yet started this back up yet. They can either meet you at the resort or they can drop it at the front desk.

 

[Brian]

Not at this time. I was looking into this very thing for my family and they have not yet started this back up yet. They can either meet you at the resort or they can drop it at the front desk.

Walt is rolling in his grave!

 

[Prince-1]

Walt is rolling in his grave!

 

[JoeCamel]

Walt is rolling in his grave!

Well his head is spinning......

 

[Brian]

It was sarcasm. Example #4769 why we need an official sarcasm font.

 

[mysto]

It was sarcasm. Example #4769 why we need an official sarcasm font.

<sarc> oh really </sarc>

 

[esskay]

Yeah it’s a freaking terrible thing that you can’t discuss COVID on a thread that has COVID in the title. If they don’t want COVID discussed on here, might I suggest deleting the entire thread, because this is getting absolutely ridiculous. And what remains undeleted is just a bunch of blah blah blah and gobblygook.

It's a thread discussing Disney's protocols for COVID being removed. Not a thread discussing the rather complex (and mostly political) response, or a debate on COVID as a whole. People who want to debate the existance of it need to go to one of the conspiricy forums and talk to the rest of the nutjobs.

-----

Back on topic, theres seemingly still a lot in place that you could technically class as things that were down to covid, but most of them seem to be due to lack of staff, like the merch to room delivery service for example.

With the fresh batch of students now working at Epcot I wonder if that'll have a knock on effect to fix some of these things. I.E showcase temp staff that were filling their place can be realocated back to other locations around the parks. Only problem is I guess pretty much all of those places are already short staffed, and even with the extra bodies they'll still not have enough people.

Do we know how many ended up being let go just at WDW? The figures 28,000 and 32,000 were thrown around but that was across the whole company. Even the reports for 'parks' includes all their parks so its tricky to know just how short staffed they are.

 

[draybook]

I was just coming here to say the same thing.
Hand sanitizer stations hurt nobody. Use them or don’t.

Even pre-COVID, I’d started to carry sanitizer with me. I can’t tell you how many times in years past I’ve brought a Disney bug home with me.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

View attachment 659251

Yep, I can't count how many times we have come home sick, but I do know it was. every.time!! One of us would get sick the day of or before leaving every time with fever, chills, cough, etc. Disney has thousands of visitors from all over and there is no way they can keep illnesses out of there. There's too many people in close proximity.
It's true to other destinations where there are a lot of people in close proximity, not just disney.
We went knowing this and of course went anyway - it's disney after all!
I don't think most people will cancel their very expensive vacations and (time off from work) if a family member doesn't feel good. So there are the people who go knowing they are sick and those who get sick while there. If someone pays a lot of money for reservations, hotel, tickets, air fare, etc etc and got time scheduled off work, do you think they will cancel if little Jimmy has a "cold" or slight fever? I don't. It's just the way it is, IMO.

 

[draybook]

Yep, I can't count how many times we have come home sick, but I do know it was. every.time!! One of us would get sick the day of or before leaving every time with fever, chills, cough, etc. Disney has thousands of visitors from all over and there is no way they can keep illnesses out of there. There's too many people in close proximity.
It's true to other destinations where there are a lot of people in close proximity, not just disney.
We went knowing this and of course went anyway - it's disney after all!
I don't think most people will cancel their very expensive vacations and (time off from work) if a family member doesn't feel good. So there are the people who go knowing they are sick and those who get sick while there. If someone pays a lot of money for reservations, hotel, tickets, air fare, etc etc and got time scheduled off work, do you think they will cancel if little Jimmy has a "cold" or slight fever? I don't. It's just the way it is, IMO.

It's the Disney souvenir that nobody wants but always gets.

 

[mmascari]

I’m curious how others feel about this. Are most people now so “over” COVID that they would go into the parks knowing they had an active infection?

How active are we talking here?

Like, "it's just allergies" a little bit active. Or, like "pounding headache, uncontrollable coughing, and exhaustion" active?

How about when symptoms started?

Are we thinking someone in the second group before they got on the plane to even travel to WDW? Or, is this someone who tested negative immediately prior to driving to the airport but is on day 4 of a 7 day trip and those allergies that started on day 3 may not actually be allergies after all?


I would like to think that people that tested positive prior to departure prior to going to WDW at all would defer their trip and deal with the disruption.

I assume that people that test negative prior to departure and develop something while at WDW aren't going to stop and will also not test until they return home. Since, if you're not going to act on the test, there's no sense taking one. Plus, since you departed negative, you know you got it somewhere in route. (They could be nice and wear a source control mask at least if they're thinking they may have it.)

Someone who doesn't test even before departure, they actively do not want to know.

 

[LittleBuford]

How active are we talking here?

Like, "it's just allergies" a little bit active. Or, like "pounding headache, uncontrollable coughing, and exhaustion" active?

Active = showing symptoms and/or testing positive

Also, how seriously it affects you doesn't have much bearing on how seriously it might affect others. My grandmother had it and experienced nothing worse than a cold; my father (her son) caught it from her and nearly died.

 

[bhg469]

Reality is. No one is going to cancel. And kids aren’t going to want to either. Everyone always feels better having fun.

Granted I live in Orlando but part of my symptoms were bathroom related... The idea of fun tends to be spoiled when endless trips to the throne are happening. I most definitely avoided the parks when I was testing positive.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

This years merch is better than it has been in recent years, some actual unique designs

 

[mmascari]

I can’t imagine anyone testing just to do that. There is no point.

We tested prior to our trip. The night before we left for the airport. Just the home test. Everyone was negative.

We tested the morning after we returned. Three out of 4 were positive.

Clearly, somewhere between the two dates we shifted from negative to positive. Could have been the first day, could have been after we got back, or it could have been anytime between those two.

 

[Lilofan]

Testing positive for Covid and willingly going to the packed theme parks on vacation is completely irresponsible.

 

[Figgy1]

Testing positive for Covid or knowingly having any communicable disease and willingly going to the packed theme parks on vacation is completely irresponsible.

FTFY It's not nice to share germs

 

[Lilofan]

FTFY It's not nice to share germs

Heck , even the 3 lane 25 yard lap pool in my local gym has signs saying if you have a communicable disease to stay out of the pool.