Looks like this time I waited just long enough to finish this post, so we’ve got two new rumors from Walt Disney World, along with a host of updates from Disney World and around the world. Here’s the October 19 Disney World Reopening Update!
PREVIOUS UPDATE + WDW MASTERPOST
In case you’re behind (it’s easy to fall behind these days…even for us), our last update was on October 5. 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.
Walt Disney World Updates
We’ve got lots of updates from Walt Disney World, including planning updates, rumors, and updates on attendance and hotel reopenings.
Disney World Reservations Available Through 2021
One of the more useful updates as of late—Disney World bookings are now available through the end of 2021.
The big date to mark is October 1, 2021, which is the 50th anniversary of the opening of Walt Disney World. It’s unclear at this point what Disney will do to celebrate the 50th Anniversary. Originally, we might have expected the celebration to start before spring 2021 and carry into spring 2022. Now…?
Starting in early 2021 makes sense if Disney needs a way to get more attendance, particularly during spring months that usually account for an oversized amount of attendance.
Starting later makes sense if Disney wants to have money to make it the best celebration possible. And if they want to celebrate without the awkwardness of a pandemic. And if they’re stuck with low capacity in early 2021.
Unfortunately, I don’t see Disney delaying just to spend more money. I’m keeping overall expectations low so that if we get anymore than a 6-month period of special cavalcades, I’ll be impressed.
The optimist in me would point to 2023—the 100th anniversary of The Walt Disney Company, at a nice backup for a “real” celebration.
Parks Pass Extended
The Disney World Park Pass system has been extended to January 14, 2022, from its previous end date of September 23, 2021.
I don’t read much into the extension of Parks Pass, but I do hope the extension is followed by some improvements to the system.
As we’ve written before, it makes sense to have Parks Pass in place as long as there’s any risk of substantially limited crowds. This doesn’t mean the parks will actually hit that capacity—usually they don’t. Unless the parks are fully booked months in advance—rare, but happens some holidays—parks pass isn’t an impediment to vacationing guests.
In fact, Disney has repeated added availability to Parks Pass, which is much easier than having to reduce access by telling people who thought they could visit that they no longer can.
Parks Pass is an annoying extra step for guests planning their vacations, though. Particularly at the moment, where park hopping isn’t an option, it’s a big shift to have to fix full days at individual parks (though we’ve generally been fans of this approach for a while).
But Disney can always modify Parks Pass down the road. I hope—and we all know I often hope too much—they’ve got a team working on improvements, like park hopping.
My other big hope for parks pass is they sort out the treatment of passholders. Passholder availability remains limited on weekends, though the school year has also brought more weekday availability.
One might have expected Disney to just scrap or modify the passholder problem temporarily, but they’ve reopened sales to select groups (people who cancelled their passes previously), so they’re keeping the basic structure.
In sum, the single change I’d like to see parks pass have is an opening of park availability on a first-come first-serve basis after, say, the first four hours of the day. So if a park opens at 9AM, then at 1PM any remaining capacity would open for anyone—including park hoppers and passholders who have hit their limit.
Am I expecting this anytime soon? Not really. Limited hours make park hopping a drag, and if the parks aren’t filling up with passholders many weekdays anyways, I don’t see Disney investing in changes to the existing, functional system.
Walt Disney World Hours Extended
Disney has continued to tweak park hours, this time expanding the hours on various holiday-related dates. BlogMickey has a good rundown of the changes.
Expect these changes to continue. It’s tough for Disney to predict crowds these days, as people are making decisions based on myriad ever-changing factors.
Changing park hours is one of the best ways for Disney to save money (cutting hours) or enhance guest experience (expanding hours), so we expect them to utilize these changes as they see fit.
TRON, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind Delayed?
Also via BlogMickey, rumors are circulating that both TRON, the new coaster coming to Magic Kingdom, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, the new coaster coming to Epcot, have been delayed into 2022.
The notable thing about this delay is that it means two huge new rides will miss the 50th Anniversary of Walt Disney World on October 1, 2021. Were Disney to push the celebration to start on that date, this could mean a mid-celebration debut of these rides.
TRON roller coaster in Shanghai Disneyland
While the reason for the delays is simple and obvious—money—I do think they’re somewhat revealing.
It’s clear Disney could fund the rest of construction now. That they’re choosing not to suggests that they don’t see any value in bringing two huge new rides to the parks in 2021.
On the one hand, maybe they simply know people like us are thrilled to rush back to Disney World as soon as we can. The lack of new rides isn’t keeping me away, or many people away, so why rush it?
On the other, maybe they just see weak, inelastic demand through 2021 and don’t see any reason to spend money if they’re not going to be able to reap the benefits of increased crowds.
Related to the above two points, they may not see any benefit to the new rides because they expect to keep crowds capped through 2021. If they can hit capacity without spending money, then there isn’t benefit to pushing these projects through.
Whatever the case, my takeaway is that Disney doesn’t expect a return to normalcy before mid-2021, and probably not during the rest of 2021, either. If they did, they’d have every reason to try and get these projects done to see a stellar start to their 50th Anniversary celebrations.
New Virtual Queues Coming to Disney World?
Well before Disney World reopened, it was clear things would be different. One of the big changes we expected was expanded use of virtual queues.
Virtual queues—like the boarding pass system used at Rise of the Resistance—allow Disney to manage line size, which is especially important when lines have reduced capacity due to social distancing.
Social distancing means fewer people fit in the line, which means a regular-length line might spill out into the rest of the parks, which makes social distancing difficult there.
Shanghai Disneyland relatively quickly added “Standby Pass” for a few rides. Instead of going and waiting in a regular line, guests would book a pass in the app and come back at a set time. Disneyland Paris was supposed to roll out standby pass for a few rides, but glitches have gotten in the way.
As noted, Disney World has one virtual queue running—for Rise of the Resistance. Now, rumors via WDWMagic suggest two more may be coming.
That rumor claims Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (at Hollywood Studios) and Jungle Cruise (at Magic Kingdom) might get virtual queues soon.
Virtual queues can greatly impact touring strategy, as guests (1) have to focus on getting a spot in the virtual queue and (2) now have to work around new guest patterns, as other guests no longer follow old habits.
In the event that these virtual queues are rolled out, be sure to keep them in mind when researching touring strategies. Lots of sites (like ours) aren’t able to get updates in as quickly as we’d like because of the pandemic.
We’ve been surprised to have not seen any new virtual queues at Disney World since the reopening, particularly when they rolled out quickly in Shanghai. It’s possible it’s just a numbers game. Maybe Shanghai was operating at a higher share of maximum capacity sooner than Disney World, which (as we’ll see next) is capped at 25% right now.
Disney World Park Capacity At 25%
Disney CEO Bob Chapek said during a CNBC interview (paywall) that the parks at Walt Disney World are being capped at 25% their ordinary capacity.
While this may seem low based on the growing wait times and crowd photos we’ve seen (we still haven’t gotten back to writing about wait times—sorry!), it’s not a huge surprise when you factor in social distancing and an increased preference for people to be outside where most photos are taken.
That said, wait times are still creeping up. If Disney World is really operating at 25% capacity, then it’s hard to see how they could get up to even 50% without significant changes, like more virtual queues (see above) or the return of FastPass+.
Coronado Springs Reopens, Hotel Reopening Recap
The reopening for Coronado Springs—which was the main host of the NBA teams during the bubble—was delayed one day, to October 16, and it has now reopened.
This is a good opportunity to recap the current hotel situation. Art of Animation is the only Disney hotel that’s closed and has a set reopening date—November 1. Others will remain closed…
Polynesian is closed until “summer 2021” for remodeling, but it’s DVC component remains open.
Similarly, Beach Club, BoardWalk Inn, Animal Kingdom Lodge, and Wilderness Lodge are all closed to hotel bookings with no reopening date. But, like Polynesian, the DVC portions of those hotels are open. Complicating matters, you don’t have to be a DVC guest to stay in those rooms—you can book them on the Disney World website or rent DVC points.
Then there are the All Star Resorts, Port Orleans Resort — Riverside, and Port Orleans Resort — French Quarter. These remain closed with no scheduled reopening date. They also don’t have DVC portions.
Minnie Van Service Ends
WDWNT reports that Minnie Vans, the rideshare service Disney operated in partnership with Lyft, has officially ended with the latest round of cast member layoffs.
While I never loved Minnie Vans, that was because they were generally way overpriced compared to the competition on Uber and Lyft. However, many guests at Disney World were more comfortable in a Disney vehicle operated by a Disney employee, so I don’t doubt it had good value for some people.
I took them mostly to Magic Kingdom, where the ability to bypass Ticket and Transportation Center made them a better option than Uber or Lyft.
As an often vocal critic of Disney transportation, I’m disappointed to see any option go. Particularly at a time when budget cuts make it unlikely we’ll see substantial improvements in other modes of transportation, I’m disappointed that a car-centric lean motivated by the pandemic may continue long past the end of the pandemic.
PeopleMover Refurbishment Extended to January 2
We’re nervous as long as PeopleMover is down, but we hope the ongoing refurbishment is actually that, and that the ride is back for 2021.
Updates from Other Disney Parks
Two Disneyland Resort Shows Ending
Frozen—Live at the Hyperion, and Mickey and the Magical Map are both ending at Disneyland resort, with over 200 actors being laid off from the Disneyland entertainment team.
These actors and the shows are big losses at the resort. Mickey and the Magical Map, in particular, was one of those magical productions that added a much needed dose of all your favorite songs and characters to you day.
Disneyland Paris Delays “Standby Pass” Due to Glitches
Disneyland Paris launched their new “standby pass” this week, but had to deactivate the system due to glitches (via DLP Report).
Disney Wish (New Cruise Ship) Delayed Until Summer 2022
Disney Cruise Line Blog reports on a change of date for the maiden voyage of the new Disney Cruise Line ship. This isn’t a huge delay from the “early 2022” that was previously set. One of my big hopes is to be on the maiden voyage for that ship, but I know that’s a tall order.
We don’t cover Disney Cruise Line much on the site, but we’re big fans. We’ve done a handful of cruises as a pair of adults (all the same 3-night Bahamas itinerary on the Disney Dream) and loved them. Prior to the pandemic, we were looking forward to trying some of the other ships.
Disclosure—we’ve never been on any other cruise lines together. And while Disney Cruise Line is priced way higher than other cruise lines, I doubt we’ll do much cruising outside Disney (though when it comes to travel, we never say never).
Disney to Restructure With a Focus on Media
It’s a good thing they promoted the guy from parks to CEO when the guy who’d spent his entire career in media retired from the role.
That’s all for this update! Thanks for reading, and stay safe!