WDW Reopening Estimates

[mhaftman7]

Based upon the data, it doesn't seem that the theme park environment is conducive to significant virus spread even though there are many reasons that I would think it would be conducive. Between WDW, Universal and Sea World there must be over 100,000 CMs (or whatever Universal and Sea World call their employees). The last week before they all closed, there had to be a few hundred thousand visitors to all the parks (non Disney included). Many of those visitors in February especially were from New York due to their mid winter break. We know that the virus was spreading in New York in February.

Yet, given all that potential, neither Orange nor Osceola county had a significant outbreak. In both counties other than a few "spike" days of test result dumps, they don't really have a curve, they have an ant hill. Both counties have (and have had) low positive test rates. Contrasted with Broward and especially Miami-Dade, it is clear that something is very different and that the environment in those two counties is more conducive to spread than the Orlando area counties.

Whatever the reason, the data shows that there doesn't seem to have been significant spread due to tens of thousands of visitors and employees interacting in theme parks in central FL. I'm not saying there is no risk of spread at WDW or another theme park. I'm just saying that the risk seems pretty low given the available data.

I'm not sure why this is the case because everything about a theme park (and especially WDW) seems like it would be the perfect environment for the virus to spread like wildfire. There is packed transit, disgusting surfaces everywhere, standing in queues for hours in some cases in close proximity to other people.

It's not just the confirmed case curve and the testing that indicates the outbreak was far less severe than I would have expected around WDW. The syndromic metrics don't show nearly the spike that the southeast Florida counties show.

Just because certain regions don’t have spikes doesn’t mean it’s a nonissue. What percentage do the numbers truly represent? Asymptomatic and people not tested still need to be accounted for. We’ll never know the whole story.

 

[Herdman]

I agree that capacity limitations would need to be enforced, but my concern with this iteration is guests with pre-existing reservations. People that booked prior to the pandemic generally have had dining reservations and maybe even fast passes already scheduled. Telling people the plans they made cannot be accommodated at the last minute will definitely cause problems. You also will have short trippers that may not plan on going to the assigned park at all and be stuck/forced to do something they don’t.

I think Disney REALLY needs to push MDE for the time being. If you see Family A has reservations for breakfast at a MK resort and FP+s lined up at MK, you tally them as an anticipated guest. They’ll be tracked via Magic Band and can give you a very good predictive number of who will be where and when. For example, using small numbers for simplicity sake, if you wanted to have 100 people at MK on a given day and 75 people made plans using MDE, you put them in the expected tally and then limit to 25 people who have no predetermined plans. Obviously the actual numbers would 100x higher, but it’s just an example. Yes, it would be disappointing for guests to be not allowed admittance while other guests would in that scenario, but MDE is available to ALL guests and capacity will NEED to be monitored. I think it would be even worse for a family who took the time to plan their day to not be allowed admittance due to capacity limits met.

Just a thought.

Good thoughts. They could use any number of iterations to try and come up with park attendance distrbutions. Regardless of what that is, there is more than likely going to be some group of people that aren't going to be happy with the plan.

 

[ThatMouse]

The current park ticket structure and season pass program does not map well to a reduced capacity park situation that may not allow you flexible entry. You can still buy tickets that supposedly offer "unlimited" entry, but it seems unlikely that is going to be the case at least for the next year. I feel like we won't get any passholder refund, and the extra 2+ month passholder extension won't be enough to matter to us, but Disney is still selling these same "bad" tickets to people. I don't see a happy park hopper / fast passin situation even by September.

 

[Epcotbob]

The current park ticket structure and season pass program does not map well to a reduced capacity park situation that may not allow you flexible entry. You can still buy tickets that supposedly offer "unlimited" entry, but it seems unlikely that is going to be the case at least for the next year. I feel like we won't get any passholder refund, and the extra 2+ month passholder extension won't be enough to matter to us, but Disney is still selling these same "bad" tickets to people. I don't see a happy park hopper / fast passin situation even by September.

Yeah I’m very curious how they will handle that. If they “re-start” the AP year with very limited access or even some of the parks still closed, it will be a very bad deal for the passholders.

I know the terms of service exempt them from really having to make any special accommodations, but the right thing to do would be to not restart the AP year till all the parks are back to full open status.

 

[csmat99]

There is nearly no scenario that's likely to happen that would put Disney opening any later than by the end of June.

They're bleeding money they need the parks open and I would assume that they probably think they can keep most people relatively safe. It really is as simple as if you're not comfortable going don't go.

You can't use the argument that, well the workers have to go back too then, because anywhere they go work, at Disney or outside of Disney, in similar jobs is going to have interactions with people.

I fully expect to be going on my trip in late May. I'm already prepared to move it to sometime in June. but I see almost no likely scenario where we're not able to go by the end of June.

if they do open it June it will be very restricted. Florida still has mandatory quarantine if coming from certain parts of the country. You are also seeing governors questioning their own decision to open states up again like in Miss where infection rates have shot up.

 

[peter11435]

Pretty sure I've heard @lentesta mention on the Disney Dish podcast a few times that MK capacity is closer to 90,000.

There’s a difference between total daily attendance and in park capacity.

Has there been a day when 90,000 have visited the MK? Yes

Has there been a day when 90,000 were in the MK at one time? No

 

[robhedin]

If things do open in a very limited capacity, I can see the sales of APs (both new and renewals) dropping off until things start to get back to normal. If attendance is expected to be low (for whatever definition of "low" Disney uses), then they may have to rely on AP holders to keep things going (similar to after 9/11). In that case, I can see them restarting the pass as soon as any park is open but also extending those passes by some time (3 months?) after the current new expiration dates are determined to both "make good" / generate good will and to give people a reason to come back.

 

[Herdman]

Yeah I’m very curious how they will handle that. If they “re-start” the AP year with very limited access or even some of the parks still closed, it will be a very bad deal for the passholders.

I know the terms of service exempt them from really having to make any special accommodations, but the right thing to do would be to not restart the AP year till all the parks are back to full open status.

I don't think there is going to be a situation where it won't be a bad deal for someone, especially in the first 2-3 months after they re-open. Restrictions on restaurant capacity, park entry, etc. I think will make most people feel like they are getting a bad deal when they visit. Just a really tough situation to make everyone whole and happy.

 

[marni1971]

There is nearly no scenario that's likely to happen that would put Disney opening any later than by the end of June..

Oh, theres plenty.

I just hope it won’t come to them.

 

[marni1971]

There’s a difference between total daily attendance and in park capacity.

Has there been a day when 90,000 have visited the MK? Yes

Has there been a day when 90,000 were in the MK at one time? No

If I recall it was New Year’s Day 1980 that held the record for most guests in the park.

 

[Epcotbob]

If things do open in a very limited capacity, I can see the sales of APs (both new and renewals) dropping off until things start to get back to normal. If attendance is expected to be low (for whatever definition of "low" Disney uses), then they may have to rely on AP holders to keep things going (similar to after 9/11). In that case, I can see them restarting the pass as soon as any park is open but also extending those passes by some time (3 months?) after the current new expiration dates are determined to both "make good" / generate good will and to give people a reason to come back.

I like the sound of that, I really hope they do something similar to that! I think you are right, attendance will be low. Besides the Disney enthusiasts, there will be a huge chunk of the population that will avoid the parks for quite a while, not to mention the recession that will zap millions of people’s vacation funds. They may not be forced to limit capacity at all....

 

[Peter Pan's Shadow]

You are truly misguided if you think there is any chance of May opening and if they do open it June it will be very restricted. Florida still has mandatory quarantine if coming from certain parts of the country. You are also seeing governors questioning their own decision to open states up again like in Miss where infection rates have shot up.

May is not likely. Also, I just saw the Gov of Mississippi on TV and he said the spike caused them to pause, but found it was due to a data dump so it's being ignored and full steam ahead. And only a few states are not moving forward with reopening and they seem to be politically motivated. It's a real thing based on lots of global and national data, not just the heart string ones. I'm sorry for touching on political topics, but when discussing the reasons for opinions of opening, it was necessary. I truly think early June if not June 1st will be opening. Not a super soft opening either.

 

[DisneyCane]

Just because certain regions don’t have spikes doesn’t mean it’s a nonissue. What percentage do the numbers truly represent? Asymptomatic and people not tested still need to be accounted for. We’ll never know the whole story.

The test data and other monitoring metrics represent trends. The percentage represented is somewhat irrelevant. The combination of all the data shows the relative outbreak significance between regions and there is clearly far less prevalence of COVID-19 as a percentage of population in Orange and Osceola when compared to Broward and Miami-Dade.

No matter what amount or type of testing has been or will be done we will never know the whole story. It is impossible with screening tests to accurately find every positive person.

With the antibody screening guidelines they are specifically trying to make sure they get an extremely low false positive rate at the expense of getting false negatives. They don't want people thinking they have antibodies if they don't.

 

[wishiwere@wdw]

Hearing some murmurings of Disney springs restaurants coming online soon with limited capacity. No retail. And could be totally untrue

Some Cast are being called in starting May 11th but for I’m only aware of 3rd party. Not sure what Disney is doing. I’m also not sure how long they’ll need for deep cleaning and training before opening back up. But something is definitely happening over there.

Edit - added “some” because I’m honestly not sure just how many 3rd party are going with this date. I’m just directly aware of a few.

 

[Getachew]

So it's misguided to look at beaches being opened NOW with tens of thousands of people on them, then assuming it's possible that within 4 weeks a similar size crowd venue may open?

Okay then.

We'll know soon enough. Disney will announce the opening date and details this week in all likelihood. Getting too close.

Thousands of people on Florida beaches? Where?

 

[Dan Deesnee]

Thousands of people on Florida beaches? Where?

In Florida.

I don't think anyone was counting, but a quick Google provided me with multiple headlines stating "thousands" flocked to the beaches when they reopened.

I imagine those crowds have been growing.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

In Florida.

I don't think anyone was counting, but a quick Google provided me with multiple headlines stating "thousands" flocked to the beaches when they reopened.

I imagine those crowds have been growing.

Those need to be taken with a grain of salt...many of the photos were purposefully taken at angles that make it difficult to ascertain whether people were observing social distancing or not.

 

[DisneyOutsider]

So it's misguided to look at beaches being opened NOW with tens of thousands of people on them, then assuming it's possible that within 4 weeks a similar size crowd venue may open?

Okay then.

We'll know soon enough. Disney will announce the opening date and details this week in all likelihood. Getting too close.

May is just not realistic for WDW.. June is possible, but far from a sure thing. I think we all hope it's June, but would not be surprised at all if it's later. There's just sooo many variables to consider that have to all come together.

 

[peter11435]

Those need to be taken with a grain of salt...many of the photos were purposefully taken at angles that make it difficult to ascertain whether people were observing social distancing or not.

Many of those photos weren’t even taken when the beached reopened. Many of the photos from the reopening being distributed including those by main stream media are from before Covid.

 

[scpergj]

I heard from a source (and I have a real source now that I have family that lives in Orlando - they do NOT work for the Mouse) that was told to expect the parks to be open by the end of the month. The source also said ‘at this time’, so my guess is Disney itself still hasn’t totally figured out exactly when they will be opening.