Disney Springs will start phase opening with third-party stores

Translated: "We want our tenants to start paying rent even if we haven't opened our own properties."

It'll be a very odd experience to essentially have the mall stores open but the Disney stuff closed and no parks open.

I don't remember but did they close the Disney stores while 3rd part was still open before closing everything? Or did they just close it all at once?

^We were there the week they shut down. The parks closed at the end of day Sunday 3/15/20, and we were scheduled to stay until Saturday 3/21. The resorts and Disney Springs were originally to stay open until Friday 3/20. We came back from breakfast on Monday 3/16, and had a note left on the bed saying Disney Springs closing at 5pm, and that the resorts were closing by Friday at 5pm.

We were on the Dining plan and all the reservations we had made for restaurants in the parks had been removed off our itinerary on the app Sunday night into Monday morning. We were set to go to the Hoop Dee Doo show on Monday night, and while we were eating lunch at Deluxe Burger it disappeared off our app, so I called Customer service. It took them several phone calls to find out that the show had been canceled. They called us an hour later to let us know. ;-)

When we got back to our resort(Saratoga Springs,) and we went to the front desk to find out what was going on. The way it happened so fast no one there even knew. They told us if we wanted to leave early they'd give us back the points(for the rest of the week,) and the Dining plan credited back to our account.

We went back to our room and changed our flight to leave out Tuesday afternoon. We already made a reservation for November with the points that we got credited back, and they more than compensated us with the refund for the dining plan. Disney is #1 for a reason and it was evident the way they handled the situation why they are.

Monday night we ate at Chef Mickey's for dinner, and they had attendant's wiping utensils after people picked them up to put item's on their plates. That's when it really sunk in the seriousness of what was going on.

Sunday afternoon my work called me to telling me I'd be working from home. I wasn't surprised. Stay safe everyone!