UPDATED: Disney World Hotel & DVC Resort Reopening Dates
Following today’s big announcement that Walt Disney World will begin the phased reopening of its theme parks in July 2020, we noted that several questions remained unanswered. This includes when Disney Vacation Club resorts and select other resorts would reopen, and whether all hotels would open initially. (Updated June 6, 2020.)
Subsequent to the Orange County Economic Recovery Task Force meeting that covered the opening dates of Magic Kingdom & Disney’s Animal Kingdom, followed by Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, we’ve received more information about the reopening of the resorts, as well as clarifying info about how the parks will operate.
First, a CNBC interview with Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who declined to offer a reopening capacity for the parks, but did state that attendance caps would be dictated by the 6′ minimum social distancing guidelines plus recommendations from health experts. Chapek indicated that Walt Disney World would work to loosen restrictions and increase capacity as health guidelines change.
Chapek went on to say that Walt Disney World will have plenty of hotels that will not be reopening right away. Note that this squares with rumors of the NBA using Walt Disney World as a bubble-site to finish its season. While Chapek talked up consumer confidence and guest enthusiasm to return to the parks, this also makes sense from a demand perspective, and squares with what occurred post-9/11.
Additionally, we have other information courtesy of a press release from Walt Disney World. Here are a few interesting tidbits about a range of topics from that.
With regard to tickets, capacity, and reservations to visit the parks:
“Because theme park capacity will be significantly limited as we welcome guests back to the magic, we will manage attendance through a new theme park reservation system that will require all guests to obtain a reservation for park entry in advance. At this time, we are temporarily pausing new ticket sales and Disney Resort hotel reservations so we can focus on guests with existing tickets and reservations (Disney Vacation Club members can still make new reservations).
Existing ticket holders and Annual Passholders will be able to make reservation requests in phases before new tickets are sold; we’ll be reaching out to these guests soon to provide additional details. We will resume new ticket sales and hotel reservations after that period of time. Theme park reservations will be limited due to attendance limitations and will be subject to availability. More details about this new reservation system will be available soon.”
With regard to character meet & greets and other entertainment:
“Certain experiences we know draw large group gatherings — such as parades and nighttime spectaculars — will return at a later date. In addition, “high-touch” experiences such as makeover opportunities, playgrounds and character meet and greets will remain temporarily unavailable, but characters will still be in our parks to entertain and delight our guests.”
With regard to the opening date of Disney Vacation Club resorts at Walt Disney World (and beyond):
“Disney Vacation Club resorts at Walt Disney World will reopen to members and guests and Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground will begin to reopen on June 22. Disney Vacation Club resorts in Vero Beach, Florida, and Hilton Head, South Carolina, will also open to members and guests starting on June 15. Plans to support required physical distancing as well as enhanced cleaning measures, along with a number of other safety and cleanliness protocols, will be implemented as part of this planned phased reopening.”
Note that while this does not specifically address the non-DVC side of these hotels, we’d expect them to reopen at or around the same time as the Disney Vacation Club wings of the resorts.
Even the banner on DisneyWorld.com is unclear about this. Above is the original banner (see current one below), which states that the phased reopening plan calls for “Walt Disney World theme parks and Disney Resort hotels to open beginning July 11.” If this is to be taken at face value, at least some resorts will open to the general public on July 11, 2020.
May 29, 2020 UPDATE: Directly above is the current banner notice you’ll see if visiting DisneyWorld.com. This is very similar to the previous one, with the key difference being the removal of a line that Disney resort hotels would begin to reopen on July 11, 2020.
This makes it even more unclear when the hotels will officially reopen. As we note below, it makes sense to reopen many at the same time as DVC resorts from a practical perspective–but demand will likely be minimal for the hotels until the parks begin to reopen on July 11. Either way, we should have official news from Walt Disney World very soon.
June 6, 2020 Update: A couple of quick updates to supplement our longer Walt Disney World Resort & Restaurant Reopening Changes ‘Know Before You Go’ Info post.
First, guests are starting to receive “Action Required before returning to the magic” emails that request they confirm, modify, or cancel upcoming visits that are set to occur during the closure of the theme parks, and while many benefits and amenities may be temporarily unavailable. We received this email, and below is what the “Review & Confirm Booking” page options looked like:
Second, it would now appear that we also might have a reopening date for non-DVC hotels at Walt Disney World thanks to these same emails. Guests with reservations between June 22, 2020, and July 4, 2020 who are booked at hotels that are not among the Deluxe Villas that will be open during that time are being offered a reservation adjustments. During this window, Walt Disney World will move guests from closed to open resorts at no additional cost.
However, they won’t have an option to choose the resort if modifying for this date range. (This means that guests with a booking at Pop Century, for instance, could be relocated to BoardWalk Villas. You could not request to be moved to Beach Club Villas or any other resort.) If your reservation is on or after July 5, you may modify your resort choice and choose an alternative, but you must pay the difference in cost.
While this does not definitively state that regular Walt Disney World hotels will reopen on July 5, there is little other explanation for only offering this guest recovery/relocation option through July 4, 2020.
Moreover, reopening the hotels on or around July 5 makes sense for a variety of reasons, and would mean the regular resorts are reopening about a week before the parks (and likely during the soft opening preview period). We’ll await official confirmation of the hotel reopening date from Walt Disney World, but we’re reasonably confident that’s it.
Another reason it makes sense is because the majority of DVC resorts are add-ons at existing Walt Disney World hotels, and they share infrastructure, staffing, and other resources with the hotel side of the complexes. Reopening only the Disney Vacation Club side of the property for an extended period of time isn’t a particularly efficient move.
If the hotel reopening occurs in phases, following the hotels with Disney Vacation Club wings, we’d expect the next phase of resort openings to include those connected to the parks by non-bus transportation (Caribbean Beach, Art of Animation, Pop Century), followed by the remaining resorts.
The process of Walt Disney World reopening its hotels could take a few months.
There might even be some resorts that don’t reopen this year at all if there’s a lack of demand or if they’re being utilized for events or other purposes (think Coronado Springs, the All Stars, both of the Port Orleans Resorts). If that does happen, guests with existing bookings at those properties would be relocated elsewhere. This already happens now when resorts are overbooked, and frequently entails an upgrade.
Disney concludes its press release by noting that the company is being deliberate during these phased reopenings, and is encouraged by how guests are responding at Shanghai Disney Resort and Disney Springs. Disney is doing its part, and requests that guests do their part too, as everyone works together to focus on safety. We’ll keep you posted on additional developments (we’re expecting more) as they’re released, so stay tuned!
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
Do you have a hotel or Disney Vacation Club stay booked for July or beyond? Will you keep the reservation, or are the new rules and eliminated entertainment simply too much to make the vacation worthwhile to you? Optimistic that things will be “back to normal” at Walt Disney World sooner rather than later? A variety of viewpoints are welcomed here, but we will not tolerate insults, arguing, or politically-charged comments. Don’t ruin a 95% fine comment with an unnecessary cheap shot—that 5% will get it deleted. Additionally, please do not debate the efficacy of masks or other health safety policies—all such comments (for, against, otherwise) will be deleted. Those arguments are played out and isn’t the appropriate forum for that. (Saying you will or will not visit in light of certain measures is fine.)
We booked through DVC at AK sept 25-30! Paid for, flights paid, what if I can’t get park tix 60 days ahead of time to book reservations? Anyone know?
I’m in the same boat. We’ve booked a DVC stay starting Sept 16th. Disney canceled all our dining reservations and that’s all we’ve heard from them. I’m even leery of buying the tickets, because even if you have tickets, there’s no guarantee you’ll get into the park. You now have to reserve a park time. What’s the point? No dining reservations, may or not be able to visit parks, no fireworks, no parades, no character meet-n-greets, no buffets, no special events, limited rides, but the same, expensive cost.
But from the way the COVID-19 cases are rising in FL, I’m guessing Disney will be shut back down by then anyway. Either way, we’re canceling & waiting for Fall of 2021.
Our June 15 elementary school graduation celebration was impacted. We had booked a value resort, Disney said the only way to reschedule was to upgrade to a luxury resort, with an increased price as well ☹ï¸, that obviously is not in the budget. If this is how they are controlling attendance, it’s pretty unbecoming.
In response to Peg, I totally agree with your comment. It’s a shame Disney isn’t giving out all the info.Its also a shame that Disney keeps changing their rules. I would hope Mr. D’Amoro would reduce the prices since the Disney experience will be greatly reduced..
We have a reservation for a studio villa at AKL’s Jambo House in the 3rd week of September. But I’ve been reading (not courtesy of Disney), that Jambo House is the only DVC resort not reopening because the Major League Soccer team will be staying there for the entire remainder of the soccer season. I can’t get any kind of reliable information from Disney. Every cast member will tell me a different story.
This is extremely frustrating. While I realize that COVID-19 has created many issues that no one’s experience before, I also think that a business as big as Disney for vacations as expensive as Disney vacations are, should be able to get a complete plan of action figured out & in place BEFORE reopening. They’re expecting us to spend thousands of dollars to fly into Orlando & maybe or maybe not have a place to stay, maybe or maybe not be able to dine in any restaurants (all our ADRs were canceled by Disney), maybe or maybe not be able to spend hundreds on park tickets, and maybe or maybe not be able to actually get into a park once the tickets are bought (if they can be bought).
This is the most pathetic plan of action I’ve seen from any company during this whole pandemic. The let’s-open-first-then-figure-things-out-later approach isn’t a good way to instill confidence in guests.
We are booked at Port Orleans Riverside in September. Our entire travel party has 4 rooms and we were given new discounted prices. We were contacted last week. No word since on us moving to a new resort. I hope we dont have to
Contacted by who?
I also have a reservation at Riverside the second week of September-It was a bounce back offer from last September which included free dining that I upgraded-I received a modified reservation last week that removed the free dining, did not seem to refund the difference I paid for the upgrade to table service and did not seem like there was a 35% discount in the room cost or reflect the deposit I have already made to the reservation after I did the math. I’m just really confused. Also I am traveling from NJ and the quarantine of 14 days has just been extended by Florida for an unspecified time – how are they dealing with that?
I have a reservation at Coronado Springs on June 23. Disney called me today and offered to upgrade us to Riviera resort (studio) at no additional cost.
Is it a Tower Studio or a regular Studio? You might want to make sure before accepting it. There’s a HUGE difference between the two studios. One has a queen bed with a queen size and twin size Murphy bed. It also has a full bath (tub & shower) The other has only the queen Murphy (no real bed) & only a shower (no bath tub)
Were you staying at Gran Destino tower?
I have reservations there in August and this would be great if I got the same offer you got.
I am still waiting to hear. Our vacation is July 18-24. Port Orleans is obviously not going to be open. But we have yet to hear anything from Disney. We had a room discount originally and was going may 30th. Then we received free dining on top of the room discount and moved to mid June. Now we only have the room discount. This is all so crazy.
I originally called on the date the systems were all shut down to make any modifications. We were going to change our reservations to July 4th from July 5th. I called about a week ago as cancel I was told by the rep that she heard there would be soft openings and we should be really happy because it would probly be low crowds if we keep our dates and not cancel. I then called on June 6 not knowing that the new information had been released only going through July 4th and was told by the rep again not to cancel that they would be taking care of the July 5th reservation soon. Today I call and the phone is answered right away it appears they have maybe 3rd party people answering because it said customer service she said was a
20 minute wait. She said she didn’t know what blogs were saying that people are getting modifications for free she said the reservations that she has had to change were ones that were later in October but that they didn’t get any discounts or free modifications. She said she could not tell me any information for my July trip and that basically I’m stuck waiting to the last moment on what we are going to be entitled to actually get.
Also our original dates were from may 24th to june 5
Tom – thanks for the update.
Is it possible for you to do a post with recommendations for the temporary “new normal?” Not just the upsides/downsides of visiting in the next few months, but a running list of temporary addendums to the advice in your blog.
As examples – Maybe the next few months aren’t a great time to buy discount tickets through third party sites or rent DVC points. Maybe the next few months aren’t a great time for park hopper touring plans. Maybe the next few months are great opportunities for frequent visitors with no hard agendas (you’ve already shared this advice).
I’d love to hear your thoughts. We visit about once a year and will likely skip 2020, but would love to keep a running/updated post about shifting strategies to save money and best utilize the time for a Disney vacay.
Geoff,
Yes we had the free dining plan because our original reservation was in April. I didn’t realize they were only offering discounts if you were on that particular plan.
It seems that they are trying to get people to cancel with canceling free dining and now having to pay the difference if your already booked resort is closed and you have to modify to a different resort. This is just not Disney. We may go to Universal instead in late August. I have no high expectations for Universal having only been to their theme parks once and I think it would be more manageable in a mask with less ground to cover.
I had reservations June 21 through June 29. I called Saturday to see if I could modify our resort. They said we could but only move it to a DVC resort after July 11 when the parks opened. They said that we had to cover the difference in cost of resorts, no discounts were offered! I did not even receive an email saying we could make modifications. Had to find out from the blogs. Very disappointing. Guest services said, if any new discounts come out in the fall, we can apply that to a resort. We switched it to November. But, will probably cancel. They did not offer to move us to a DVC resort at no additional charge. I don’t know where people are getting that information from. I said if we did not modify our resort reservations, Disney would’ve just canceled them.
Has anyone who had points that were put back into your account, been told when you tried to use them by DVC that you can only use 50% of those points?
You can only borrow up to 50% of next year’s points for your reservation.
For a 7/2 pkg start at a resort that is not opening, we were told that we could move to an open dvc resort for the same dates or different dates. Either way, we got a discount, but had to pay the difference. There was never an offer for a free upgrade (going from a Mod to dvc) offered to us, even for the original dates. Ended up moving the dates so that we don’t have to gamble with when the AP previews might occur.
We were at AS Movies June 24. I got the email, called and they said they changed us to Old Key West for no charge. It’s all in my MDE now. I was thrilled!
Tom,
My husband and I were going to go down to Disney with my in-laws in early October because my sister-in-law was going to be apart of the Disney College Program. She is turning 21 so we figured it would be fun to drink around Epcot. Looks like she is now not going to be apart of the program, and with all of the changes, we are not sure if the trip will be worth it. We are only going now because we already bought tickets to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween party. Instead of staying a week we are thinking of just staying a few days and upgrading from Pop Century to Wilderness Lodge since my husband and I have never stayed there. Do you think we will be upgraded for free if we wait long enough, or should we modify our reservation when we get the chance? Will we need to made reservations for park entry? I was hopeful that by October everything would be going more smoothly, but after keeping up with articles, I am not sure. We go to Disney multiple times a year and are disappointed it will not be the same.
When I talked to a cast member the other day they said they are sending refunds to everyone that purchased Halloween party tickets. Mine are still showing so I don’t know if he was right or not but he seemed to think the refunds for the party were already rolling out.
Tom,
Any update to the reopening of DVC Aulani resort? I see the mention of Vero Beach and Hilton Head, but nothing about Aulani.
Hawaii is stilled closed down. They still
Have a 14 day quarantine in place for anyone flying into the state and I think they are restricting travel between islands.
We had Yacht Club club level booked 7/2-7/5 and received the offer to loaves to DVC yesterday. We’re going to pass and try the Ritz Carlton this time. We’ve never stayed there but hear their water slide/lazy river is awesome and it will be open! If we had booked one of the value resorts we definitely would take them up on the offer but I think we’d lose money if we switched now.
We had a linked reservation with my in-laws for Port Orleans French Quarter for July 3-9th. Our window to modify our reservation came open yesterday, and we changed to July 31-August 6th. We were told that as of now, the ONLY properties that are scheduled to be open for the REST OF THE YEAR are the deluxe DVC properties. We had to change to Old Key West Resort and pay the difference, which is a bitter pill because we usually stay at Pop Century, and were already paying more than we normally do by going to a Moderate- now we have to go deluxe. We had a room discount offer- that is no longer being honored. They said no discounts are being offered- you must pay whatever the regular price would be for the resort at the time you are going.
That is exactly what I was afraid of. We have a trip with an existing discount for late July that I need to reschedule. But those restrictions are TERRIBLE. Why would I pay more for significantly less of an experience? And I don’t want to stay DVC because of the bed/sleeper sofa situation. Undesirable all around.
I was able to change my Pop Century reservation to the Caribbean Beach on August 8 and was given the 35% room discount. Could it be that it depends on the cast members you speak to? I made the change yesterday
When I called to modify our Yacht club reservation I was told the same exact thing – that as of now the other resorts are not opening through the end of the year.
Kathleen- Were you by chance one of the ones given Free Dining and that had that taken away and replaced with a 35% room discount? Either way, we were still told only DVC propertied would be available, and with no discounts. Strange.
We had the same time frame for POFQ that had been changed from a free dining offer to 35% room only reservation. They honored the 35% off for our dvc resort/date change.
Does anyone know how far out they were letting you rebook? I have a reservation at All Star Music for Aug/Sept and I do not want to pay the difference to change to a deluxe resort. I would just rather rebook and go fall 2021…preferably Oct/Nov 2021.
Same. They made me move from All Star to Deluxe, and pay a whopping big difference for somewhere we don’t even want to be and that is apparently known as the worst spot at WDW. (Only alternative was the campground.) I cut our nights back from nine to six to cover some of the loss, but we are still out thousands from our original package which had included dining. They really don’t care. Even told me being able to move me to the new resort was a ‘magical moment’ they were able to pull off by going above and beyond in reading through reservation notes, as if I should be grateful. Also, no guarantee to get into parks.
So magical. I’ve felt nauseous since.
On a side note, I would love to take the number of DVC rooms opening June 22, calculate how many people would be staying in those rooms (approximately), and if they let those people into the 4 parks for soft openings, for say, 5 days, what percentage of daily park capacity would that be, on average? I know Disney doesn’t publish their park capacity though.
I’m not good at math and I don’t know how many DVC rooms there are. But someone must, enough to give a good guess….
A similar question is “What percentage of Disney Parks capacity are people staying on-site?”
Tom-
I have a question about your update on hotels. We have reservations at All Star Music from August 28th-September 5th. In the event that it won’t be open by that time…which I am guessing it won’t…I was under the impression that we would be relocated to a different hotel at no extra charge. Now I am seeing in your update that if you are to modify your stay and change your hotel that you will have to pay however much extra it would be. If I keep my All Stars reservation as is will they just end up moving me when my vacation comes if it isn’t open and charge me the extra cost for wherever I am moved to? I am fine with paying the price of a value resort during all these changes but I really don’t want to day more money than I already am for a limited experience.
If you modify your dates or anything yourself, you will have to pay. If you stick with the same dates and don’t make any changes (like you cannot choose what resort to move to) Disney will cover the cost difference.
Sydney, did you see that in writing anywhere or get that from a Disney rep? I called– didn’t change dates, had fully paid for July res for an All Star hotel they said will not be opening and they made me pay (major) difference for the Deluxe or else I just wouldn’t have a trip at all. They said as stated in cancelation policy wording if I had not called to have the res modified or modified myself, at some point in the seven days before arrival the computer would auto cancel it and that would just be that and I would have my paid for trip refunded within a few weeks after.
I just read an article from Katie Kelly Disney’s VP. For safety services.She said Disney will empty trash and replenish towels every other day , is that for safety or what. AKL will still be over $500 nightly with the 35% discount and loss of FDP. Our Disney experience keeps getting worse. Thanks Disney.