Disneyland Faces Reopening Hurdles

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California released their guidelines (“Amusement parks and theme parks”) for reopening theme parks, and the news was about as grim as anyone hoping for a Disneyland reopening could have feared.

Large theme parks (like Disneyland) have to wait until their county is in the “minimal” risk tier, at which point they can open at 25% capacity. As OC Register reports, it’s reasonable to suspect Orange County (where Disneyland is) won’t reach the minimal tier until next summer “hopefully.”

Conde Nast summarizes the requirements as:

Parks with a capacity over 15,000 are permitted to open when their county reaches the lowest tier for minimal risk, which requires a test positivity rate of under 2 percent and fewer than one case a day per 100,000 residents.

Orange County was recently measured at a positivity rate of 3.5% and with 4.6 cases per 100,000 residents. Currently in the “Red” Tier, Orange County needs to move into the Orange Tier, then down to Yellow, before Disneyland could reopen.

Disney released a rather biting statement:

The Mayor of Anaheim had this to say:

I don’t want to comment on the specific decision by the state. I have opinions, but this deep into the pandemic, my feelings are motivated a lot by my own personal experiences.

I will point out a few things. First, I doubt the state arrived here easily. As much as this looks like a “power move” of some sort, California is in the midst of an unemployment crisis. Delivering a huge blow to tourism while directly keeping thousands of people out of work is going to make that crisis much worse.

Second, the relationship between Disney and California has clearly soured—significantly. This isn’t just “reasonable minds” disagreeing—we can point to two events that show just how far we’ve come (and these are on top of Disney’s very harsh language)…

Back in March, Disney and California were on such good terms that Governor Newsom exempted them from the ban on large gatherings following a call with Bob Iger. Disneyland voluntarily closed anyways. It’s safe to say that at this point things between Disney and the state were very good.

Seven months later, Bob Iger has quit the governor’s reopening task force. This came amidst discussion about the possibility of the state releasing stringent guidelines. They were convinced to hold off, but obviously that delay didn’t amount to much.

Now, the state isn’t allowing Disney to reopen despite the economic situation and support for the reopening from some of Disneyland’s largest unions and the Mayor of Anaheim.

This is a notable swing. We went from Disney being exempted in the middle of a very chaotic, uncertain situation to Disney (and other theme parks) being told to stay closed into next year even though they’ve arguably shown they can safely reopen (see Walt Disney World).

I don’t want to fawn over any Fortune 500 CEOs based on their own books, but reading Bob Iger’s Ride of a Lifetime (affiliate link), he comes off as a very reasonable person. I would suspect he left the Governor’s task force semi-amicably since the state wasn’t supporting Disneyland’s wish to reopen, but Disney’s harsh language toward the state suggests there’s little amicability (which apparently is a word) floating around. (Either way, I can’t wait for Bob to write another book.)

Once Disneyland is cleared to reopen, they’ll only be allowed to operate at 25% capacity. This is the current capacity of Walt Disney World parks (according to CEO Bob Chapek), but one shouldn’t think Disney is content with that in California six months from now (though by then the guidelines will probably have seen some changes).

So, what’s next?

Things have already gotten interesting. Disneyland announced that they’ll be opening Buena Vista Street, the “Main Street” of Disney California Adventure for shopping and dining as an extension of Downtown Disney.

Buena Vista Street will open sometime in November, and it’ll be the first time since March that either Disneyland park has had a guest inside, but at this point it’s only for dining and shopping on that limited part of the park.

The obvious question following this is…when can we expect the actual Main Street USA at Disneyland park to open? Disney hasn’t said they’ll open it (and they said they have “no plans” at the current time to do so), but that would be a bigger draw than Buena Vista Street at Disney California Adventure.

Another question is whether we’ll see more areas of the parks—like all the shops and restaurants—opening without the rides running. Once you remember “hey, people like Disney holiday decorations,” it starts to look like the parks—even without rides—could be hugely popular during the holiday season.

I’m curious whether Disney sorted this out with the state first, or whether they just went ahead and decided they could reopen segments of the parks as long as they didn’t operate rides. This brings us to the bigger question of Disney’s next steps with the state…

Will Disney or the theme parks Sue?

Lawsuits are already being discussed as one of the options for California’s theme parks, and given the amount of money at stake, it’s hard to fathom the parks not suing. Disney’s particular relationship with the Governor has clearly soured, which is maybe reason enough for them to bring their arguments before a neutral party.

And as much as we’re all tired of baseless pandemic lawsuits (most of them are baseless), Disney likely wouldn’t be arguing against the state’s rules entirely or arguing they should be allowed to run whatever business they want however they want becuz ‘Merica. Rather, they’d make two points:

  1. The state has different tiers for different businesses, and we think we should be treated on an equitable basis with other businesses.

  2. We’ve actually shown we can operate with some level of safety in Florida, and we’re willing to do what it takes to operate safely.

I’m not a local government lawyer (or a…pandemic closure lawyer), so I won’t comment on the merits or specifics of any theoretical lawsuits.

The only “lawyerly” thing I’ll add is that there is one big reason neither party wants this to become a lawsuit—discovery. Disney might have to share more information about their ongoing operations and any sort of COVID tracking than they’d like. The state might have to share what went into their decision making. And both parties might have to share (and thus probably go public with) whatever went on between them behind the scenes.

Disney’s Email to Passholders

Finally, I wanted to share the email Disney sent Disneyland passholders. Any emphasis was added by me:

Dear Valued Annual Passholder, 

You may have seen that theme park reopening guidelines were released by the State of California and that parks like Disneyland® Resort were placed in the most restrictive tier. Despite our proven ability to operate with responsible health and safety protocols in place for our Cast Members and Guests, this news from the governor’s office means that our theme parks will not be reopening as soon as we had hoped.

After an already incredibly difficult month for the Disneyland Resort, we are heartbroken and disappointed, and understand you may feel the same. We want to thank you immensely for your patience since our closure and let you know that we continue to think about you as our valued Annual Passholders.

While we work to understand the implications of this and determine what it means for our Annual Passport program, we know that you have many questions and given the latest guidance from the state, we will have more to share with you on the future of our AP Program soon. We also want you to know that the efforts to reopen Disneyland Resort will continue as we work to seek solutions to bring our Cast back to work, get our local economy moving and share the magic and joy of our theme parks once again. 

We thank you for your patience with us during this incredibly challenging time and for being important members of our Disneyland Resort community. We will be in touch with you as soon as we can to share more details. If you have any questions, please contact Annual Passholder Member Services at (714) 781-PASS (7277). 

Disneyland Resort Annual Passport Team