Disneyland Closing Due to Coronavirus
Disney has announced that the Disneyland and Disney California Adventure theme parks will close due to the coronavirus pandemic. This follows the city of Anaheim’s statement about COVID-19, indicating that relevant stakeholders were planning next steps for how to proceed with entertainment and sporting events.
The closure of Disneyland and DCA will begin Saturday, March 14, 2020 and the parks will remain closed through at least the end of March 2020. Disneyland Hotel, Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and Paradise Pier Hotel will continue operating through the weekend to allow guests to make alternative travel arrangements before closing on March 16, 2020 for the same tentative duration.
If there’s any silver lining in all of this, it’s that Disney has announced that it will continue to pay Disneyland Resort Cast Members while the parks are closed. This is already going to take a heavy economic toll on Anaheim, but as the area’s largest single-site employer, it would’ve been devastating to many families to have to ride out the closure without income. So kudos to Disney for that.
Disneyland Resort will work with guests who wish to change or cancel their visits, and will provide refunds to those who have hotel bookings during this closure period. In its announcement, Disney indicates that it anticipates heavy call volume over the next several days and appreciate guests’ patience as we work hard to respond to all inquiries. Please contact The Walt Disney Travel Company for questions and cancellations at (714) 520-5050.
While the parks and resorts are closed, Downtown Disney will remain open. (Although given that most of these businesses are third parties, it’s likely that more closures will be announced–especially without the parks open to provide customers.)
Disneyland now joins Hong Kong Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland & DisneySea, and Shanghai Disneyland as Disney’s worldwide parks that are currently closed. Only Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney World remain open, and Disneyland Paris almost certainly will close in the near future.
That will leave Walt Disney World as the last resort complex operating (we’ll cover the likelihood of a closure there towards the bottom of this post).
The closure of Disneyland comes the day after an announcement from California Governor Gavin Newsom recommending the cancellation or delay of non-essential gatherings with more than 250 people in attendance in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus. The policy, which will be in effect at least through March, extend to concerts, conferences, sporting events and movie premieres.
This course of action from California Department of Public Heath is consistent with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control, and includes “social distancing” and avoiding small events at venues that do not allow six feet of space between people. Gatherings of individuals who are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19 should be limited to no more than 10 people, while also following social distancing guidelines.
“Changing our actions for a short period of time will save the life of one or more people you know,” said Governor Newsom in his statement. “That’s the choice before us. Each of us has extraordinary power to slow the spread of this disease.”
“Not holding that concert or community event can have cascading effects – saving dozens of lives and preserving critical health care resources that your family may need a month from now. The people in our lives who are most at risk — seniors and those with underlying health conditions – are depending on all of us to make the right choice.”
California’s policy defines a “gathering” as any event that brings together people in a single room or space at the same time, such as an auditorium, stadium, arena, large conference room, meeting hall, cafeteria, or any other indoor or outdoor space.
This guidance applies to all non-essential professional, social and community gatherings regardless of their sponsor. Previously, a spokesperson for California clarified to indicate that this did not apply to Disneyland, citing the situation as “complex” and “unique.” Our guess here is that Disneyland is voluntarily choosing to follow this policy, as the optics would be really bad if they didn’t.
The move comes after Orange County declared a local health emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic. This was done as part of broader preparedness efforts related to COVID-19, and not due to a surge of cases in the OC. Doing so will help enable Orange County to respond to a potential outbreak, should one occur. It’ll also allow the county to remain flexible and able evolve with this rapidly changing situation.
California currently has 177 confirmed cases of coronavirus. Orange County, which is where Disneyland Resort is located, has four cases that have been confirmed by the Orange County Health Care Agency, plus 2 presumptive positives from the Centers for Disease Control.
While Disney’s official announcement indicates that Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, and the hotels will remain closed through the end of March 2020, it should be stressed that this is tentative and based upon the state of California’s current guidance. Public health officials will reevaluate and update the state’s gatherings policy closer to the end of the month.
How quickly Disneyland reopens depends largely upon how quickly COVID-19 is contained in the United States, as Disney will almost certainly adhere to whatever guidelines and policies are released by the State of California.
Although Shanghai Disneyland has taken steps to resume partial operations in Disneytown and Shanghai Disneyland Hotel (the park itself is not yet open), that comes 8 weeks after Shanghai Disney Resort first closed due to COVID-19. It also comes after aggressive and draconian quarantine measures by the Chinese government that proved effective in fighting coronavirus. It’s unlikely we’ll see similar measures taken in the United States–even if we did, it’s unlikely that Shanghai Disneyland’s closure is instructive here.
Suffice to say, our expectation is that Disneyland Resort will remain closed beyond March 2020.
Many readers will undoubtedly wonder what this means for Walt Disney World. Obviously, the two resort complexes are very different from one another. For starters, Disneyland Resort is more heavily a destination for locals. Notably, Disneyland only has three hotels.
Consequently, it’s much easier to Disneyland Resort to announce a closure on a Thursday evening that will take effect two days later (or four, in the case of the hotels). Even then, the resort is anticipating heavy call volume due to cancellations and rescheduling.
Walt Disney World has many more moving parts. Beyond the additional theme parks and water parks, there are dozens of hotel and tons of infrastructure built around the world’s largest vacation destination.
This is not to say that Walt Disney World cannot or will not close down, but that it will likely be more of a drawn out process if and when it does occur. It’s difficult to imagine the hotels suddenly closing in the same way as is occurring in California.
With that said, it’s impossible to predict what will happen at Walt Disney World with any degree of accuracy. If you told me yesterday afternoon that the NBA season would be suspended, March Madness cancelled, and America’s Dad infected, I probably wouldn’t believe you.
I know better now, and nothing would surprise me with regard to Walt Disney World’s future operational status. To say the coronavirus pandemic is a “fluid situation” is such an understatement it’s laughable. Developments, closures, cancellations, changes, etc., are occurring with lightning speed.
It is worth noting that while crowds remain normal at Walt Disney World (which is to say high), we’re hearing reports of a surge in cancellations just since yesterday. Hold times on the phone lines are on par with Free Dining release day (for the uninitiated, that’s really long) and that’s not with people rushing to book new vacations.
Suffice to say, if you have a Walt Disney World vacation planned for the next couple of months, you need to be prepared for the very real possibility that your trip will not be happening. It seems like an inevitability that Walt Disney World will close at some point, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see an announcement soon. We will keep you posted as we learn more.
If you’re preparing for a Disneyland trip, check out our other planning posts, including how to save money on Disneyland tickets, our Disney packing tips, tips for booking a hotel (off-site or on-site), where to dine, and a number of other things, check out our comprehensive Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide!
Your Thoughts
Are you surprised that Disneyland is closing due to the coronavirus pandemic, or do you think it’s overdue? Any predictions about if/when Walt Disney World will follow suit? 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!
We were supposed to arrive today (3/12) and stay through the weekend. The rapid escalation of cancellations last night pushed us to cancel at 1 am this morning. Reservations was extremely helpful this morning in providing info and assisting with cancellation and utilizing our tickets in the fall.
Oh, Tom.. I was among the first to react to your post about the closure of Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland. You probably don’t remember, but me boyfriend and I had a 4 week trip to all 3 Asian parks planned. In January, 2 out of those 3 closed. We kept a close eye on the situation and predicted they would be closed for a long time. We decided to cancel the Hong Kong and China parts of our trip and solely focus on Japan for a 3 week trip, ’cause everything seemed to be fine over there and I had already done so much effort in planning TDR – including getting up at 3AM in the morning several times to make reservations. (I was a mess at work the next day, ha ha!) In order to do that, we had to book new flights with a new airline company (we did not get any money back from our former flights since corona is not covered by the cancellation policy – and those flights were so, so expensive!). In a hurry, we made new itineraries, searched for extra hotels in Kyoto and Osaka (we added those cities to our trip since we suddenly had more time abroad to fill up) and booked them. Plus I did some thorough research for a visit to Universal Studios Japan. One day after booking the new flights, Tokyo Disney Resort closed. Again, we cancelled our stays (rightfully so, because the closing period has already been extended), but we could not cancel our flights without losing all our money. What we *could* do in order to save the money from our flights, was rebook them to another destination if we paid an extra amount. As you can probably tell, we really wanted to visit a Disney park. You guessed it. We picked Disneyland in California. This happened last week, so the last 7 days I have been working my ass off doing research on the Disney resort and other California destinations for a 3 week trip. We leave May 1st, but with our luck, this might very well be the third trip we’re losing over the course of two months. This is so exhausting. In Belgium we say: ‘The courage is in my shoes’, which means you are having trouble keeping your hopes up. I have been stressing and planning and researching and booking for several trips every single day since November – even my relationship has been suffering from it. I hope to God it’ll be worth it someday, if/when we get to do our dream trips. Also: hoping for everyone to stay safe. Corona is not a joke, I can tell you as much. For what it’s worth, I do support Disney’s decision to close the parks. It is the responsible thing to do. Take care of each other! Xx
P.S. Tell Mr. Selga I said hi! =)
It’s so heartbreaking to read about what you went through; but, hopefully by May, things will be better. Your boyfriend and you will be in my thoughts.
That is so sweet of you. Thank you, Monica. Xx
Oh dang, that is all awful.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but there’s no way you could’ve foreseen all of this happening at the time. We hope you get to take that dream trip–and sooner rather than later. It sounds like you REALLY deserve a vacation! 🙂
We are wondering what compensation if any, Annual Passholders can expect because of the closure?
Thank you Disney for making a very smart call. Disney just ranked up in my book!!
Also my kids now realize how serious this is because Disneyland is closing. Any idea if annual pass holders will get time added onto our end date?
I booked my vacation via Undercover Tourist for March 28th – April 1st. I’m waiting to receive word from them first because I don’t want to overwhelm their call center. However, if I don’t hear from them by the end of the weekend; I’ll probably have to call them. I saw that Universal is going to tentatively reopen on the 28th. I guess it depends if California can get the bell curve to go down.
Just wanted to update people because I did book through a third party. Undercover Tourist just emailed me confirming that my hotel reservation is cancelled and I’ll be receiving a full refund on my stay at the Grand Californian. The park tickets were not, but those are e-tickets that don’t expire until Jan 12 2021 (I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to use them on a later date, and hopefully the expiration date on them will be extended). I didn’t even have to call or email them. Now that’s what I call great service.
Major props to Disney for continuing to pay its workers. That surprised me more than anything else.
my sister in law is waiting word on any closures at wdw, as they were planning to go for spring break. they won’t be going regardless, but shes hoping for closures to avoid having any arguments over any refunds.
if anyone is wondering why close places, read below. i’m glad this is finally being taken seriously: https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171481/coronavirus-us-cases-quarantine-cancellation
Walt Disney World waived cancellation fees yesterday.
(That might not help if she booked via a third party, though.)
So, First week in September we have a trip planned. IF it is reopened by then, I wonder what will happen to crowd levels for Sept onward. . Wonder if we should reschedule for next year.
In my four years of blog readership I’d have to say the past several (6?) months have taken the cake in terms of big/crazy news.
I wonder if the Brickers have ever covered a crazier period in Disney’s recent history?
How are we measuring the past several months?
Because the last 2 days feel like it’s been 2 years, but the calendar suggests otherwise. Either way, the answer to your question is “no.”
Haha.
It’s been interesting slowly getting slightly Disney parks obsessed while planning family vacations and then having the realization…”it’s not always like this…”.
Thanks as always for providing a reasoned, well put together resource that stands head and shoulders above the “competition”.
So what happens to Jeff Reitz’s record of going to Disneyland everyday for the past 2993 Days? Does he get a pass as the parks are closed, or does he have to start all over again.
I booked through David’s Vacation Rentals, they will not even discuss a refund. And no, travel insurance would not have helped, pandemics are not covered.
A reputable company would work with people. Spread the word far and wide, they are a Canadian company that is unwilling to see this extraordinary event for what is and help mitigate losses!
David doesn’t own the points; he’s just a broker between you and the owner. DVC hasn’t said anything about returning points to accounts for canceling other than on a case by case basis. It will take action by DVC before the brokers can do anything. Plus they have already paid the owner of the points upfront to make your reservation. The owner of the points would have to return the payment to David in order for him to return you money.
YES I DID READ THE STORY. Still Its better to be safe then sorry. I know how busy disneyworld is. J/S
Good call.
As an aside, any idea if Disney might make good on 3-day tickets bought under their SoCal offer if the closure goes beyond its intended May 21 window?
I’d hazard a guess that they’ll end up extending those, along with Annual Passes, and any other tickets.
I wouldn’t even bother calling right now (or in the next several days) to find out. They’ll release a detailed statement about tickets at some point before reopening.
Yes, I don’t expect any official word for a few weeks, but it’s good to know what to expect. Thanks for the reply.
My daughters band trip to Disney World over Easter has been cancelled by our school district. My wife and I will most likely try to reschedule our trip till late September. Hoping that we can add our daughter onto our existing reservation at a cheaper resort and not have to cough up more dollars to make the change. What a bummer. A year and a half’s worth of planning and it all goes to hell.
Great article. Thank you. What really jumped out at me is your observation, “State and local economy in Florida are more dependent upon tourism so it would not be surprising to see authorities drag their feet even if public concerns dictate otherwise.” California leadership will save many lives by this wise decision. Florida leadership must do the right thing quickly.
I am not surprised at all, except that they have not closed Disneyworld also. They could take the first step and not wait for the governor to tell them. We don’t have a lot we know of to stop this virus. Except staying away from everyone else. We know just in having the parks open, all in itself ,says it’s safe to some people. I hope this calms down soon.
Florida currently has 34 cases compared to California that has 198 cases. Most of the Florida cases are related to a river cruise on the Nile River. Most of the Florida cases are in Broward County.
In fairness, California has considerably superior testing capacity than Florida, too.
Tough to find what’s not being tested for.
Any news / speculation on Disney Cruises out of San Diego?
Reading the Florida Department of Health website, I can’t see where they have tested even 500 people in all of Florida based on what is posted there. I think we would ALL be surprised by how small the percentage of the population has been tested. No need to test everyone right now, but certainly more than they have. (My opinion, so take it for that)
Finally. This crap is AIR BASED. New CDC guidelines today.
A sneeze in the air will aerosol the area and virus will hang for up to 3 HOURS.
need to close down everything for awhile – avoid ALL CROWDS
indeed #flattenthecurve
i’m glad this is finally being taken seriously by people
Good call making sure the whole resort doesn’t become A Bug’s Land.
If they are closing Disneyland why aren’t they closing Disneyworld.
Read the post, he explains why.
Did you even read the story? SMH…
Good on them. Let’s stop it now rather than let it get even crazier later.