Disney World Closing Due to Coronavirus
Walt Disney World is closing all of its Florida theme parks due to the coronavirus outbreak, the company has announced. This comes after an onslaught of cancellations and closures today.
This includes the closure of Disneyland Resort in California, which was announced earlier in the day. Previously, Tokyo Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland all have closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This story is still breaking, and thus far all we have is an official statement from Disney that was released via the company’s subsidiary ABC News:
“In an abundance of caution and in the best interest of our guests and employees, we are proceeding with the closure of our theme parks at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida and Disneyland Paris Resort, beginning at the close of business on Sunday, March 15, through the end of the month.
Disney Cruise Line will suspend all new departures beginning Saturday, March 14, through the end of the month.
The Walt Disney Company will pay its Cast Members during that closure period.
The hotels at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris will remain open until further notice. The retail and dining complexes, Disney Springs at Walt Disney World and Disney Village at Disneyland Paris, will remain open.
Domestic Walt Disney Company employees who are able to work from home are being asked to do so, including those at the Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Television, ESPN, Direct-to-Consumer, and Parks, Experiences and Products.
We will continue to stay in close contact with appropriate officials and health experts.”
Let’s start with the silver lining here, which is that Walt Disney World will continue to pay Cast Members while the parks are closed. As the largest single-site employer in the entire United States, it would’ve been devastating to many families in Central Florida to have to ride out the closure without income.
Between closures and cancellations, this is already going to take a heavy economic toll on Central Florida, and one that will ripple far beyond just the parks. The entire tourism industry will be impacted, including a number of smaller businesses that cannot sustain a prolonged hit the way Disney can. (On a tangential note, we’d expect all other Florida theme and amusement parks to follow Disney’s lead and announce their own closures within the next day.)
At least Cast Members are being paid during the downtime. Huge kudos to Walt Disney World for that.
You might notice that the rest of the announcement is incredibly vague, with a lot of details still to be determined. It wouldn’t surprise us if this closure mandate came from on high in Burbank, with leadership in Florida blindsided and left scrambling to figure out how to pick up the pieces.
Suffice to say, right now the phone lines are totally jammed and even if you do get through, you might speak with a Cast Member who isn’t totally sure of what’s going on. If you’re not traveling within the next 2-3 days, we’d encourage patience. Walt Disney World will release more details as they’re ironed out. Take a deep breath, be patient, and save yourself the headache of being on hold over the phone for hours.
The move to close Walt Disney World follows a press conference during which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis strongly recommended all mass gatherings be postponed, saying he did not have the authority to require them to be canceled. Health officials say they currently consider mass gatherings to be more than 250 people.
After previously declaring a state of emergency, Governor Ron DeSantis strongly advised municipalities and businesses to limit or postpone events and limit non-essential travel as concerns spiked over the new coronavirus, which stood at 27 cases statewide including a man testing positive at a Palm Beach airport.
At the news conference, Govern Ron DeSantis stated, “I am recommending to local municipalities and private entities to strongly considering limiting or postponing mass gatherings…I think taking proactive measures will help us flatten the curve of this as people get exposed.”
Once Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris close, no Disney theme parks will be operating anywhere in the world. Shanghai Disneyland is in the process of resuming operations, but the park itself has not yet reopened.
As we’ve noted with previous closures, the current end date for Walt Disney World’s closure is very much tentative. Do not expect the parks to reopen at the beginning of April 2020, in time for Easter, or whatever your Spring 2020 travel dates might be.
Walt Disney World and Disneyland are both taking an incremental approach to these closures, announcing something near-term with the intention of reevaluating the coronavirus situation in a couple of weeks and making a determination about reopening then. We’ve already seen the closure of Tokyo Disney Resort extended, and there’s absolutely no reason to believe Walt Disney World will be different.
In terms of commentary beyond that…we really don’t have much to offer. This will have a bunch of long-term ramifications, ranging from crowd calendars to construction…and much more. However, those are a range of topics for another day.
Right now, we’re honestly still sitting here in shock. (Even though the source was ABC News, I triple-checked to confirm this was legit.) Despite Disneyland closing earlier today and the belief that Walt Disney World closing was an inevitability at that point, we didn’t expect this to come so soon.
It’s a bold move, but Disney along with other businesses deserve credit for prioritizing public health above profits. Even in the last couple of days, Walt Disney World has not seen any attendance downturn. The company probably could’ve hesitated on closing Walt Disney World for another week–perhaps more–without facing public backlash or negative press if a coronavirus case emerged that was tied to the theme parks. While this will undoubtedly leave a lot of disappointed and upset guests, it’s hard to fault Walt Disney World for making this difficult decision.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you surprised that Walt Disney World is closing due to the coronavirus pandemic, or do you think it’s overdue? Will this impact your spring break or other vacation plans? Did you cancel your WDW trip prior to this announcement, or were you in ‘wait and see’ mode? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Thank you for alerting us; we got our info from your email first! We were supposed to leave on Saturday for a week at Disney World 🙁 and now I will get to enjoy some Disney hold music while I’m on the phone trying to get refunds. Fortunately, we hadn’t told our kids yet as it was a supposed to be a surprise for them.
Same here re surprising our kids 🙁 Good luck to you.
Will they reschedule our trips that has been booked for next week? I can’t get through to a live person, because it’s ruined my daughters birthday surprise. Are we just out of thousands of dollars and now she has no birthday celebration?
Yes, they will refund money. People have lost their lives over this. A birthday celebration is really nothing in the grand scheme of it all it.
And there’s no other way you can celebrate her birthday?
Thank you Jeffrey Kemper for some FACT DRIVEN SANITY!!!!
I tend to agree with this. 3x more people die everyday from rabies than from this. This is why it’s so shocking about the various closures and coverage.
Very curious about what happens to the college interns?
Does Disney continue to pay them or send them home?
It’s understandable. After seeing Disneyland close and knowing the situation in Florida, it was only a matter of time. We have vacations booked for July. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal by then.
We are here now. Out vacation was scheduled to end on the last day they are open. We got lucky on the timing. The last three days, crowds were seemingly not affected at all by the pandemic. Props to Disney for continued efforts daily in wiping down hand rails and providing many hand sanitizer stations. Now I’m curious how Magic Kingdom will be tomorrow. A mad house, a ghost town, or if the news of this will have no affect.
My dad and I have a trip planned May 3-8, does anyone have any advice on what we should do? If Disney World reopens before then it’ll probably be safe to go, and if they don’t, we’ll get a full refund even if we didn’t cancel… correct? So I guess what I’m asking is, is there any reason we should cancel now?
Tom, do you think they’ll extend pass holder expiration dates? Mine expires March 31st.
I can’t even get through to talk to a live person and wonder how long it will be to be able to get through. Supposed to leave 3/23. Do you think I will get a 100% refund? What about the military rate Park hopper vouchers we bought???
This entire Corona virus scare is completely ridiculous.. as of this afternoon, there were a little over a thousand infected in the states, with 39 associated fatalities.. not making light of anything, but trying to put perspective on the situation.. every year
39k-69k people die from the flu in this country, and yet there is no economy crushing hysteria! Corona is a statistical blip against the population, and we are in the process of allowing the media to drive us into a panic over a new virus from the common cold family!!! Nothing like trying to position us onto the right side of a media driven non event!!
How many people have been tested in the United States for coronavirus?
Not nearly enough. I understand people are upset about their vacation situation but this is serious. It’s not the flu. It’s nothing our modern society has seen before. This is not just USA political BS, this is the whole world. Do you people really think that this is over? The numbers are increasing exponentially in Italy where they are in a country lockdown.
People need to take a deep breath and realize this is more important than your Disney vacation. This is serious. THINK ABOUT IT. It’s not just Disney, it’s not just the United States. It is the world & our world is filled with vulnerable people who may not live through this if they are exposed. Your mom, grandma, aunts, uncles, children with underlying medical issues etc.
This country has had a minuscule amount of testing done. 400 or so in the state of Florida alone with a population of 21M+ people. Call this panic or call this being smart. Time will tell. Until then, think about what is going on around the WORLD and stop blaming MSM. This is NOT a hoax. Wake up.
Thank you!!!! I’m a physician in the front lines. We can’t get tests!!!!! And the test is at best 60-70% acurate (negative predictive value). The reported positives are just the tip of the very large ice burg.
Look at Italy. They are out of ventilators and ICU beds. They are repurposing other buildings into make-shift hospitals. I was in primary care practice for H1N1 too. I knew H1N1 and this is no H1N1. We had full hospitals. But no one ran out of vents or needed to build more hospitals. This is where we are headed if we don’t take public health measures seriously. Yes, most of us won’t become seriously ill. But enough will to overwhelm our health care if we don’t sliw this down.
Haven’t heard any clamoring for an H1N1 test or any other flu virus test for that matter and most are statistically more deadly. Ask yourself, why is the Corona virus test so important suddenly? Hmmmm. Politics? We’re surrounded by H1N1 flu and it’s actually killing thousands a month in the US. No body seems to be too worried about that. I wonder why? This news couldn’t be more sad for me personally. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.
I saw a tweet that saying that the flu or H1N1 are deadlier because more people have died so far is like playing a movie, hitting pause, and then complaining that it’s only 5 minutes long. We’re at the very beginning of this and under the rosiest expert assessments, this is 10 times deadlier than the flu (1% fatality rate vs 0.1% fatality rate for a really bad strain of flu). Based on our current information, it is about 37 times deadlier (3.7% of those diagnosed have died). We should all hope for more tests so that we can get an accurate number!
New data indicates the Corona virus has a 0.7% mortality, down from the initial 2%. It is expected to go to down to 0.5% by the end of next week with the new data arriving every day. Recovery percentage at 72% and rising, apparently difficult to get people to report back after they are OK. The US healthcare system and governmental response is not comparable to the broken down always on the verge of collapse systems in Italy. But I would note that we have tens of thousands of flu victims every week In the US and at least a thousand a week are dying from it. the healthcare system is not overwhelmed. Panic if you must. Definitely pray. But try and keep some perspective. This virus has likely been in this country for a couple of months already. Emergency rooms are not being overrun with Corona virus victims. As for the herd not being exposed yet, if we include the Corona virus in the new flu shot to inoculate for it, that should be OK. As for Disney’s supposed monetary losses, well, that’s just temporary. I guess you already know how they plan to make that money back. Ouch!
I work in healthcare, and you’re just wrong. Look at the information coming out of Italy. This is not political. Our hospital has 30 ICU beds, and if everyone gets this at the same time (as is the case in Italy and China), there won’t be enough ventilators. Which means, if you show up at the hospital with pneumonia, you get to die. This is entirely about slowing the rate of transmission to the elderly. And yes, people do die from the flu at a higher rate RIGHT NOW in the US than Coronavirus. When 60 million people have COVID19 at the same time, that’s not going to be the case anymore.
Thank you for trying to talk sense into people. The reason Italy is suffering so is because they were so lax about it until it really started spreading everywhere very fast. I prefer that not happen here. Italians are quarantined in their home with drones & tanks with people in hazmat suits walking the streets. Is that what you want here?!?!
Not even an hour ago someone was periscoping Main Street. 1,000s of people packed together so oblivious to what is happening. Makes me cringe!!! People will see how bad this is soon enough and I pray to God it’s not too late!
It’s not the death rate. It’s that 20% of those infected need hospitalization, and also this is a new strain of coronavirus and we have no herd immunity. We do not have hospital beds for 20% of the population. Without treatment more than 2% of people who are infected will die. What we are doing is slowing the spread of the virus to keep our health care system from being overwhelmed. Also there are far more cases in the US only a few thousand symptomatic people have been tested. People with no symptoms or mild symptoms are spreading the virus without knowing it. It’s actually really really serious. Disney wouldn’t walk away from all that money lightly.
This!!! ⬆ï¸â¬†ï¸â¬†ï¸â¬†ï¸â¬†ï¸
where did you go to medical school?
One doesn’t need to attend medical school to read. You only need to have the capacity to think and reason. As an earlier poster noted, the federal government has not been able to adequately respond to the of handling this serious threat. Fortunately private industry understands what is at stake. The disruption of our daily lives sucks, but it is really the only rational approach to stem the hell on earth that has been happening around the world.
I totally agree with you, on this. World gone crazy!!
Do you think they will extend the expiration date on season passes for the time that the closures are in place? Hope so! That wouldn’t cost them much and would go a long way to make us feel good about the parks.
Cancelled our trip there 28 days out. To arrive on April 2nd. Watching what was as expected To happen. I now know why we did well just reschedule down the road at later date after hurricane season ends of course. sometime. A no brainer. Btw. Full refund received from wdw Think ahead so not in a stuck position.
Did you have insurance?
How do we get refunds for the 5 day trip that was from 3/21-3/25? Thousands of dollars here…!
They had a disclaimer on their site earlier for those who booked vacation packages. They were waiving the $50 change fee. I don’t think they’re refunding but they were allowing you to change.
So sorry to everyone who has to cancel their travel plans! My family may have to as well, if Disney remains closed beyond April. As disappointing as it may be, Disney is doing the right thing. Kudos to Disney for prioritizing public safety over profits… and paying their cast during this time! For what it’s worth, we never get vacation insurance and Disney has always treated us fairly in emergency situations. Most recently, in August 2019, when Disney World (and Orlando International Airport!) closed due to Hurricane Dorian, we had to postpone our trip – the day before we were scheduled to arrive! When we called Disney they were very accommodating! They offered us a full refund without penalty (usually packages cancelled within 30 days of arrival incur a fee). Alternatively, other family members who opted not to travel were able to move their reservation to a future date, also without penalty. Hopefully Disney is showing the same courtesy to guests at this time. Good luck, everyone! Stay safe!
We are so devasted. We left Ontario, CANADA last night and did all our research and NEVER expected this. Currently sitting in an offsite hotel with my family of 5 who are devastated as this was our first trip to Disney. We are scheduled to stay at Art of Animation from the 13th to the 18th. We have a rental car, dining reservations, fastpasses….I actually have zero idea what to begin to do. If anyone has some help, recommendationsor insight to offer this travel weary, shell shocked family we would greatly appreciate it.
I don’t have advice for you – just extending my sympathy. I’m very sorry this happened to you and your family.
I feel so sad for you fellow Canadians! (I live in NYC now). You should probably start by trying to call AoA (in the app click “call hotel”). Or just get there early in the morning to ask questions. Maybe by then even an email would have went out from Disney or the hotel themselves with next steps. Did you already get a room assignment in the app? (I’m not sure if they only do that the day-of) Their website is still letting people book that’s the weird thing. The good thing is that airlines are being more flex and if you have to go back home early you can change your flight without penalty. I’m thinking you’d rather do that then go spending more money at another hotel if Disney resorts close. I would go into the app and push your ticket start date just to anything in the future since you can do that until the end of year without losing them. Though I’m sure Disney will find ways to accommodate their customers re ticket dates. We are due to arrive April 13th and I doubt that will happen now. Good luck!
Well first priority is getting a refund. I have faith Disney will give it to you. But if I was in your shoes I would come up with a new vacation plan because why not? Yall have the time off work and are already down in Florida. Florida is full of beautiful beaches. Maybe a fun road trip through the US back to Canada is another possibility? You have options.
If you are still in Florida there is a space X launch on Sunday 3/15 according to the Kennedy Space Center website. It is not too far from Orlando and they are supposed to be cool to go to. I have never been to a launch, but the space center is an interesting tour if it will be open.
The launch looks like it is a very early am launch you would have to call them/go to website for more info where to go to watch. But it could be a unique experience for your family.
If the museum is closed maybe nearby Cocoa Beach to visit? Just some ideas, but maybe you went back home instead.
I know this sucks for those of you with planned vacations or even worse touching on the ground at MCO but this is important. What really needs to happen is that all flights should be grounded except absolute emergencies. Then the outbreak would be contained in short order and we could get on with our lives.
I was supposed to arrive 3/19. Just cancelled this morning prior to either park closure announcement. I’m glad they made the decision to close. It’s the right thing to do from a public health perspective. I have to admit I was irritated yesterday by someone bragging about how they got a great last minute deal for spring break because their family wasn’t at risk. So it’s ok to expose others in your community for the sake of a cheap vacation?
The one thing I wasn’t able to cancel was the DVC portion of our stay. Couldn’t even get through to the phone queue. I’m hoping they will be more lenient about the holding points policy since they will be closed during our stay.
What the Walt Disney Company has done is prioritize their big moneymaker the resort hotels over everything else including public health. Don’t tell me a hotel which is an enclosed space with a large number of people is a safe place to be in the middle of an epidemic. Typically of Disney there’s nothing on the my Disney app announcing this, no email for people who have reservations, offering different options. (I have one starting this Sunday).
Well guess what I’m simply going to cancel the reservation and not rebook. I noticed they made absolutely no announcement about what happens to the annual passholders either.
It’ll be interesting to see what’s left of the Walt Disney Company in 10 years,.
The hotels are staying open because there are a ton of people on vacation now from all over the world who cannot simply pick up and go home. Should Disney kick them to the curb? Almost everyone else with existing reservations will cancel. This isn’t some ploy to keep their moneymakers open while closing the parks. Disney will take a colossal loss on this.
As for everything else…it was clearly a rushed announcement made in the midst of a highly dynamic situation. Maybe take a step back and accept the fact that more details and particulars will come at a later date?
Sorry, Tom, they saw this coming since the end of December and did nothing about it for two full MONTHS. And, they could close the hotels in three days once everyone has had a chance to clear out, and that’s what they should do.
I don’t accept monumental blunders in planning from people who purportedly are in charge of the long run future of the Walt Disney Company, and, particularly, fulfilling their liabilities to customers who have pre-paid large amounts of money for the delivery of future services. If they truly had planned this, an email would have been sent to every reservation holder, offering immediate resort cancellation via email, concurrent with their closure announcement, and immediate, automatic extension of annual passes. Instead, they are pushing their financial risk onto their customers.
I’d like to know what Bob Iger was doing for the last two months? Perhaps the board sacked him for doing nothing to prepare for this. In any event, we’ll see soon enough whether the Walt Disney board of directors will ensure that the the proper steps are taken by Iger’s replacement to straighten this multi-directional failure out, and make their customers whole. I am not holding my breath.
Last I heard it hadn’t gotten to epidemic status, it’s pandemic though. They are probably working on updating the site and apps as we speak. I went on the site and it took a long time to load as people are probably busy canceling. Will probably start getting emails soon. Funny, about an our ago I got an automated email saying I was close to my dream vacation based on my cart (which was empty btw). I feel like I read that they only closed one time ever and that was during a hurricane? Probably trying to get their ducks in a row before announcements. This has all been moving so fast.
Epidemic = disease outbreak that is concentrated in a particular region.
Pandemic = Disease outbreak that occurs over a wide geographic area and affects a very high proportion of the population.
Pandemic is worse than an epidemic.
Disneyland CA hotels are closing Monday 3/16. Parks will be closed as of 3/14. Giving guests the weekend to make arrangements.
You’re right Kelli! I was more focused on the wrong word being used I confused my own self! I need to go to bed. It’s been a long day.
I commend them but I am just shell-shocked. We planned a Carnival cruise for spring break (Apr. 13-18th) then decided to add 2 nights at WDW post-cruise. All of our first times going and we were going to surprise the kids on the last day of the cruise. Then last week I started working on replacing the cruise with more days at WDW because I preferred laying at a resort than being stuck in quarantine on a ship. Then now this! This stupid virus! We haven’t been on a “real” family vacay since 2014 and it’s so unfortunate but for the best I know. I saw it happening though. I get Mousealerts for CRT and all day my phone has been going off with availability. Then I’ve been checking for Caribbean Beach Resort availability for 3 days of our stay since last week, all they had were Pirate rooms then today, boom, openings, so I booked. I’ll still wait to see what happens at the end of the month and cancel everything. We had FP+’s for Runaway Railway, light saber and droid bookings, Oga’s Cantina. So glad WDW is paying their CM’s though. Praying this is all over soon!
Well, I hope Disney will remove some of those blackout dates for us annual pass holders. We don’t know how long these closures will last.