Walt Disney World parks are reopening, Hong Kong Disneyland is reclosing, and I’m trying to understand what’s going on with APs…Here’s the latest on the Disney parks reopening!
PREVIOUS UPDATE + RELATED POSTS
In case you’re behind (it’s easy to fall behind these days…even for us), our last update was on July 10. If you’re brand new and would just like a thorough look at the Disney World reopening, we have a Disney World Reopening Masterpost that covers the basics and links to our deeper content.
We also have an ongoing post—When Will Disneyland Reopen?—for those most interested in that question.
Updates For Annual Passholders
This post went up a few minutes before Disney updated their AP refund policies, which can now be found here. I recommend following this thread over on DisBoards, too.
According to Disney, on July 16, annual passholders will also get more space on Disney Parks Pass for Epcot, Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom for select July/August dates.
Hong Kong Disneyland Will Re-Close
Following an increase in detected coronavirus cases in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Disneyland will close again on July 15. No reopening date has been set.
Hong Kong has a population of about 7.5 million people. 52 new cases were tallied on Monday, bringing the total number of reported cases to 1,522, with eight deaths.
Walt Disney World Reopening Updates
With the Walt Disney World parks actually open now, most of this week’s updates come from Florida…
Latest Florida Numbers
Since we mentioned the Hong Kong numbers, it’s interesting to contrast what’s happening there with what’s happening in Florida. Florida has been averaging over 10,000 newly reported cases daily for the past week, with a total count of 282,435 cases and 4,277 deaths (as of July 13). Florida’s population is around 21 million.
Obviously if you wanted to compare Hong Kong and Florida in any way you’d need to go deeper than these figures, but it seemed necessary to acknowledge the contrasting approaches.
As you probably know by now, we’re voluntarily not in Florida. I’m continuing to work on a post discussing that decision.
Disney World Parks Reopen To Low Crowds, A Few Hiccups
For the most park, the public re-openings of Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom went as expected. Cast Member previews (which we discussed here) showed the basics of the new protocols across the parks. Heading into July 11, there were really only two questions: 1. How would crowds be? 2. What did Disney miss?
Crowds were low. It’s worth noting that while the reservation slots for annual passholders ran out, there was still space for resort guests and other ticket-holders. There were even reports that passholders were being allowed to buy new tickets and credit the cost to a future pass renewal. (Read more about the parks pass reservations system here.)
In the first few days, you had a few rides at Magic Kingdom with waits in the 20-35 minute range, with everything else lower. At Animal Kingdom, the three most popular rides—Na’vi River Journey, Flight of Passage, and Kilimanjaro Safaris—have seen early morning bumps to about 30 minutes, but they spent most of the day around 5 to 15 minutes.
This isn’t a full analysis. For example, we’d also note that Kali River Rapids and Splash Mountain see midday bumps because they’re water rides. But in any case, wait times are simply nothing to fret over.
I’m expecting to put together some post with some thoughtful “wait time analysis” after the parks have been open for a week or so. While posted wait times are only part of the picture, they’re the only part I can personally comment on right now.
As for what Disney missed…not much, but they weren’t perfect either. The big “oh no” moment of the day at the parks occurred just after opening, when crowding outside the Magic Kingdom turnstiles became a problem.
This was most notably covered by Carlye Wisel, who has also highlighted a variety of positives and occasional negatives from her experience in her must-follow twitter feed.
Disney has ways to mitigate this, and we haven’t seen it reported as a huge problem since then. This is one of those things they had to learn.
At Magic Kingdom, they have guests entering via walking path, monorail, ferry boat, and bus. It requires precise timing to keep large groups from forming just outside the gates. I’d expect them to get better at mastering this guest flow.
Rope Drop is (sort of) Gone
Related to the above and below topics, BlogMickey has a great post explaining how Disney is controlling traffic to basically end “rope drop” for the time being.
Pre-closure, guests would arrive 30-90 minutes early and be held in various spots (outside the gates, inside the gates but outside specific lands, or inside lands but outside specific rides) in a mass of people until the rides began operating. For obvious reasons, that isn’t an option anymore.
Now, Disney is using its control of car flow into the parking lots and its other transportation methods (bus, monorail, ferryboat, etc.) to avoid these pre-opening crowds.
In essence, the first guest allowed to access the park should be able to walk from their car/bus/boat directly through the turnstiles and onto a ride without ever being held up.
For the most part, there will still be an advantage to being that first guest and staying ahead of all the other guests with the proper ride order selection. However, that advantage is a lot smaller given the low crowds.
Rise of the Resistance Will Use Virtual Queue
Contrary to earlier reports (based on what Disney had told people), Rise of the Resistance will use a virtual queue system when Hollywood Studios reopens on July 15. The official post is here.
The key difference between this and the pre-closure system is that guests will be able to join the virtual queue at 10AM, 1PM, and 4PM. Previously, the queue opened at the time the park opened, and guests all had to hope for a boarding group at that time.
Since Disney is managing guest traffic to avoid having crowds of people inside the park before rides are operating, the old way would not have worked. Indeed, Disney specifically says, “This means there is no need to arrive early to the park to check the virtual queue.”
Our post on the Rise of the Resistance virtual queue is here, for those who need more information.
This Week’s Random Thoughts
I’m adding this section—that I might keep—where I jot down bits of my thinking. Some of these might turn into longer posts or sections down the road, but right now they’re just brief things to think on.
Boat ride wait times are notable. Boat rides are seeing the brunt of the reduced capacity + increased sanitation, based on my early analysis of wait times. Arguably, the times we’ve seen so far would justify starting with Na’vi River Journey at Animal Kingdom and then delaying Avatar Flight of Passage into the afternoon (getting both at 5-minute early AM waits might be a challenge).
Demand looks…really soft. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Disney decide to close a park—probably Epcot—temporarily if things don’t turn around. Theoretically, some vacationers delayed visiting until all four parks were reopened. But will attendance really double tomorrow? The business side of this looks pretty bad, with only the annual passholder slots in the Parks Pass system filling up. This brings us to…
What the heck is going on with APs? Disney updated the passholder provisions to give passholders visits for hotel stays + three floater days…but that’s all we’ve heard from them lately. We know the parks are below capacity (same-day tickets still available). They haven’t clarified AP refund rules yet, despite promising them in early July.
As mentioned above, APs were even buying same-day tickets with promise of a credit toward a future pass renewal, which is a positively bizarre situation for the gates to be in.
This feels like they see a problem (mad APs) and another problem (soft demand) and a way to solve both problems (give APs more access). This is way too obvious to have not happened yet…right?
The Rise virtual queue wasn’t ever entirely about demand. As we write about in the above-linked Rise of the Resistance post, the use of the virtual queue isn’t really about how popular the ride is—it’s about managing guest flow in light of how unreliable the ride is. In her instagram story, Jen of Perfect Story Travel mentioned waiting four hours for Rise of the Resistance when it was posted at around 1-2 hours (no virtual queue was used during CM previews) because the ride kept breaking down.
All my castle pictures are out of date. The pink castle means I’ll have to add some variety to my stock photos since I usually go with standard Cinderella Castle when I don’t know what else to use.
What’s Next?
Hollywood Studios and Epcot have had Cast Member previews for two days and are reopening to the public tomorrow (July 15). So far there hasn’t been anything notable, and the big question is how the new system for the Rise of the Resistance virtual queue will work out.
Sometime around July 20, we’ll start looking at how wait times at the resort are shaping up. Shortly thereafter, it should be pretty clear what the best touring strategies are.
With that analysis done, I expect to get our reopening content into its mostly “final” position.