Cruise and Theme Park Operational Updates due to Coronavirus

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Just for information’s sake, we booked a new room last night to make up for the POFQ portion of our trip (12/1-12/5). The “Magic Is Here” deal pulled up several DVC studios at pretty good rates (cash reservations). Looked again this morning, and there were even more available than there were last night - Poly, Boulder Ridge, Kidani... I don’t remember where else. I was very surprised by the availability, especially under a discount. We ended up with a studio at Kidani for basically what we were planning to pay for our garden view room at POFQ.

I also got a survey in my email today asking several questions along the lines of how important the discount and the current policies were in my decision to book right now for a trip before 12/31/20.
 
I think it’ll be wrapped nicely into the Genie platform. Whether they keep the name or change it, I think reservations are here to stay and it’s honestly nothing more than a very mild inconvenience, if at all, especially when capacity is no longer capped below their max
It was disappointing however to not be able to hop into Epcot on an evening when staying at BWV.
 


Whats the best way to get to Wilderness Lodge from the Contemporary(Bay Lake Tower). We have a reservation at Whispering Canyon this week and would prefer to not take the bus. I looked online and it doesn't look like any water transportation is available except if we walked to MK and took the boat to Wilderness, is our best bet an uber?
 
Whats the best way to get to Wilderness Lodge from the Contemporary(Bay Lake Tower). We have a reservation at Whispering Canyon this week and would prefer to not take the bus. I looked online and it doesn't look like any water transportation is available except if we walked to MK and took the boat to Wilderness, is our best bet an uber?
Best bet would always be Uber. But if you don’t mind the walk to MK and then boat, it’s free and we always enjoy the walking and boat ride.
 
Whats the best way to get to Wilderness Lodge from the Contemporary(Bay Lake Tower). We have a reservation at Whispering Canyon this week and would prefer to not take the bus. I looked online and it doesn't look like any water transportation is available except if we walked to MK and took the boat to Wilderness, is our best bet an uber?

Personally, that boat ride lowers my blood pressure so I vote boat ride
 


We popped into AK today for a few hours (our first visit there since the reopening) and it was busy but only felt crowded in Pandora and it's 100% due to the lines snaking through the entire area. Some of the walkways are closed due to the lines, they wouldn't let anyone go past Satuli to get to that path back to Africa, there were ropes blocking my usual cut through paths, etc. It's just so many people (in line or waiting for people in line) that it's hard to navigate. I never could figure out where the end to FOP was but the end of Navi was at Nomad. We have ridden both many times and had no interest in standing in the sun that long.

We mobile ordered at Satuli, eventually found a path there, and actually scored an inside table. They were guarding the outside tables and would not let anyone near the seats without a tray in hand. Our meal was ready not 3 minutes after hitting prepare my order. Extremely efficient.

I saw lots of mask issues, mostly because I was just paying attention, but did see a few corrected. I honestly think some of the compliance issues will improve if we ever get a break from the heat (or maybe that's wishful thinking!).
 
Any chance this new interest in mask enforcement is gonna extend to DS? (...My fam has decided we’re doing dinner on a Fri night in DS and honestly if one falls we all fall anyway so I’m gonna down my vitamins A-Z and join 😬 )
 
Whats the best way to get to Wilderness Lodge from the Contemporary(Bay Lake Tower). We have a reservation at Whispering Canyon this week and would prefer to not take the bus. I looked online and it doesn't look like any water transportation is available except if we walked to MK and took the boat to Wilderness, is our best bet an uber?

Just take an Uber or Lyft. The boats between WL and the Contemporary are not running currently. You didn't say when you were trying to do this, but keep in mind the MK hours which determine the hours of Disney transportation to WL availability. We stayed at Copper Creek last week and needed to get to the Wave after one of those early MK closing nights. The boats and busses weren't an option for us as they had already stopped running. Lyft was like 12 bucks or something. And they arrived (both ways) in about 3 minutes. So simple. So easy. No stress.
 
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as long as WDW is capped at 25% capacity, I don't think a lack of Canadians will have much of an effect
True.

But I wonder if disney are only happy leaving that cap at 25% because they know they couldn't achieve much more than that anyway. So leaving it in place they can use it as marketing about how safe they are which may help them remain close to that 25% consistently. If they dropped it and people got to know the cap was gone or raised they may lose that consistency and begin dropping to less than 25% some days with more people scared to go again.

Regardless, the longer the measures continue the bigger disneys financial issues become - even if their share price still doesn't seem to represent that.
 
https://news.yahoo.com/justin-trudeau-canada-us-border-133648045.html
Doesn't look like Canadians will be going to WDW anytime soon. Who knows how long the border is going to stay closed. How much this will have an affect on WDW is the question?

Yeah, I think there is some politics involved there more than just a concern for health. Canada still has travel open to practically all of Europe, where COVID is right now spiking out of control, at rates beyond even what's happening in the US. I understand Canada may care more about what's happening in the US because they share a border. But it's ridiculous that they are concerned about Canadians going to Florida but says nothing about them going to Europe.

In any case, any international travel is going to be difficult until there is a vaccine widely available. A lot of people just simply don't want to travel right now because they are scared. Those that do and aren't scared are either effected by border restrictions or they think the safety measures are ridiculous and overblown. (ie" Don't want to go to parks with a mask on).

Disney also claims that it's 25% capacity. I know someone that recently went. They go to Disney a lot and are DVC members, so they know when the parks look busy. They said there is "no way" it's capped at 25%. It's more like 50%. They said they asked a cast member about it and they were extremely tight-lipped about it. So Disney may be cheating that number a bit in order to help their revenue.

He also did the license plate poll (walked through the parking lot to see the license plates are from). Most are from southern states. Lots of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Carolina, and Louisiana plates. Of course lots of Florida too. Also surprisingly a good number of California plates. Looks like California people are going to Disney World to get their fix since Disneyland is closed. New England plates were noticeably scarce.
 
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Yeah, I think there is some politics involved there more than just a concern for health. Canada still has travel open to practically all of Europe, where COVID is right now spiking out of control, at rates beyond even what's happening in the US. I understand Canada may care more about what's happening in the US because they share a border. But it's ridiculous that they are concerned about Canadians going to Florida but says nothing about them going to Europe.

In any case, any international travel is going to be difficult until there is a vaccine widely available. A lot of people just simply don't want to travel right now because they are scared. Those that do and aren't scared are either effected by border restrictions or they think the safety measures are ridiculous and overblown. (ie" Don't want to go to parks with a mask on).

Disney also claims that it's 25% capacity. I know someone that recently went. They go to Disney a lot and are DVC members, so they know when the parks look busy. They said there is "no way" it's capped at 25%. It's more like 50%. They said they asked a cast member about it and they were extremely tight-lipped about it. So Disney may be cheating that number a bit in order to help their revenue.

He also did the license plate poll (walked through the parking lot to see the license plates are from). Most are from southern states. Lots of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Carolina, and Louisiana plates. Of course lots of Florida too. Also surprisingly a good number of California plates. Looks like California people are going to Disney World to get their fix since Disneyland is closed. New England plates were noticeably scarce.
Personally I think a lot of people are trying to make covid a political thing when in reality it is a medical thing. In our province we aren't even open to the rest of Canada, let alone the US. To the best of my knowledge Europeans still have to quarantine 14 days on arrival, please reference it if I'm incorrect which is quite possible.

We have our own outbreaks in Canada but again, we have shut down travel from those areas which feels like some protection. It would be unwise of the PM to open the border to anyone when we are still dealing with our own outbreaks and border shut downs, so I'm glad he is choosing not to.
 
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Yeah, I think there is some politics involved there more than just a concern for health. Canada still has travel open to practically all of Europe, where COVID is right now spiking out of control, at rates beyond even what's happening in the US. I understand Canada may care more about what's happening in the US because they share a border. But it's ridiculous that they are concerned about Canadians going to Florida but says nothing about them going to Europe.

In any case, any international travel is going to be difficult until there is a vaccine widely available. A lot of people just simply don't want to travel right now because they are scared. Those that do and aren't scared are either effected by border restrictions or they think the safety measures are ridiculous and overblown. (ie" Don't want to go to parks with a mask on).

Disney also claims that it's 25% capacity. I know someone that recently went. They go to Disney a lot and are DVC members, so they know when the parks look busy. They said there is "no way" it's capped at 25%. It's more like 50%. They said they asked a cast member about it and they were extremely tight-lipped about it. So Disney may be cheating that number a bit in order to help their revenue.

He also did the license plate poll (walked through the parking lot to see the license plates are from). Most are from southern states. Lots of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Carolina, and Louisiana plates. Of course lots of Florida too. Also surprisingly a good number of California plates. Looks like California people are going to Disney World to get their fix since Disneyland is closed. New England plates were noticeably scarce.
Taking 1 person‘s opinion on how crowded the parks are does not make a valid argument. Nor does the asking of a random park CM, who will know nothing about the capacity limits that upper executives have put in place. I too am a DVC member, and go a lot (like 2-3 times a month) and I would be fine calling the parks as 25% capped capacity right now. Yes the lines seem longer, but I understand why they are. But I can still stand in the hub in front of the castle and get a picture with absolutely no other human being in the picture at noon on a weekday. That NEVER happened before.

You also have to remember with license plates, that rental car agencies at MCO have plates from basically every state in the country. When we lived in NY and would fly down 7-8 times a year and got a rental car each time, we never had Florida plates on the car. We would have California, Oregon, Kentucky, Alabama. So the plate survey doesn’t really mean anything either.
 
Taking 1 person‘s opinion on how crowded the parks are does not make a valid argument. Nor does the asking of a random park CM, who will know nothing about the capacity limits that upper executives have put in place. I too am a DVC member, and go a lot (like 2-3 times a month) and I would be fine calling the parks as 25% capped capacity right now. Yes the lines seem longer, but I understand why they are. But I can still stand in the hub in front of the castle and get a picture with absolutely no other human being in the picture at noon on a weekday. That NEVER happened before.

You also have to remember with license plates, that rental car agencies at MCO have plates from basically every state in the country. When we lived in NY and would fly down 7-8 times a year and got a rental car each time, we never had Florida plates on the car. We would have California, Oregon, Kentucky, Alabama. So the plate survey doesn’t really mean anything either.
You’re right about the plates. You need to look at the age of the car and type of car it is. It’s not hard to spot a rental. Having said that I can say there are more out of state plates that are NOT rentals than a few months ago. Traffic has also picked up quite a bit.
 
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