Health officials and unions say Walt Disney World safety protocol has prevented Covid-19 outbreaks

The most annoying thing about this is that if there is a negative slide (for which Florida and OC trends pointed back up in the last week), it won't be WDW's fault. Nationally it has been a bad week for the US, and they can't rely on just Florida.

With 1 per 100k being the metric it will be years before Disneyland opens again.

Just got back from spending 4 days in Disney World. If attendance is down I would hate to see the lines when it increases. Within an hour of park opening all major rides were 45 minutes to an hour. Magic Kingdom was by far the worst. I understand it is because of the limited capacity on rides but it made for long days. What got me the most was having to wait in line to go into a store to shop. At Disney Springs there was a 30 minute wait just to get inside the Disney store. We won’t be going back until things return to normal.

I was impressed with their enforcement of the mask rule. I saw a few times people wanted to challenge them on it but the employee remained firm and stood there until the mask was put on.

The attraction lines are still shorter (and faster moving) than they were pre-COVID. They just spread out longer and outside the normal queue areas. Space Mountain stretches around the former smoking area and Skyway station and then down to the outdoor show space heading toward Carousel of Progress. But it still only takes about 35-40 minutes, even with the half capacity. Pre COVID the entire line was inside the building, but would often be 70-90 minutes, even on a good day.

Disney is really inflating wait times, even moreso than they used to. A month ago rides would be posting 30-40 minutes and I was literally walking into ride seats.

Yeah, I was about to point out that 45-60 minute wait times for the major rides is better than pre-Covid. The inability to use Fastpass to get around some of those might throw a kink into things, but that's just the way it is at this point.

I'd rather wait 30-50 minutes across the board for the big rides and 10-20 for everything else than have the e-tickets be 90-120 and have to play the Fastpass+ game.

We've had this conversation many times before, but as a once-every-few-years WDW traveller, I'd much rather have the latter. By playing the Fastpass+ game well enough, I can do everything at least once, if not twice with minimal waiting. As long as I'm willing to invest the time, planning, long days, and "shadiness."

They weren't inflating them when I was there. In fact they were either spot on or a little short. I agree with ApolloAndy. I would much rather play the Fastpass game than stand in line for 45 minutes. With the short hours it is almost impossible to get on everything if you have to wait 45 minutes to an hour for the rides.

Just watch. Within a few weeks prices will likely soar to the point where the most average fam will be "mad at Disney" for making their parks expensive to get into. I bet those prices will be risen to also compensate for the 28,000 people across not just their parks, but ABC, Hulu, ESPN and the likes that they lost to this virus called Covid.

A few days ago I was able to snag a R/T flight from PHL for $70 and hotels are super cheap this weekend. Doing the Sea World beer fest on Sunday and Epcot Food & Wine on Monday. Thank goodness that I have industry contacts down there; the park tickets would have cost more than my flight. Lol.

I'll post a trip report when I get back but it is going to be interesting to see how everything is working in the world of COVID. I wore a mask all summer at my park so that part I'm not worried about. We'll see...

I was watching flights a couple days ago. Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale is $18. To Los Angeles is $29. To Cancun is $83.

So tempting, but I can't pull the trigger.

ShadowThaHedgee said:

Just watch. Within a few weeks prices will likely soar to the point where the most average fam will be "mad at Disney" for making their parks expensive to get into.

I don't think they dropped prices at all at the beginning of this, so I see no reason to believe they'll increase them now. Even though demand is rising, It's not like people are knocking down the doors of the place.

I bet those prices will be risen to also compensate for the 28,000 people across not just their parks, but ABC, Hulu, ESPN and the likes that they lost to this virus called Covid.

Business doesn't work that way. You don't raise prices to make up for some deficit somewhere else. You set prices based on what the market will bear and figure out what that income will cover. But also, given that they laid off 28,000 people, they have less expenses and therefore wouldn't have the need to offset those expenses, so if business did work they way you suggest, it would lead to lower prices.

The prices... They are risen! Amen!

I don't anticipate that Disney is going to raise prices.

Universal has been hitting their self-imposed capacity on the weekends. You would then expect them to raise prices or reduce promotions. That hasn't happened. From August until the end of September, Universal was offering 2 free days with the purchase of 2 days. On October 1st they upped the promotion to 3 free days. The tickets have an expiration of 8/31/2021.

As I understand it, those parks never lowered prices to generate traffic...and they know that they are presently charging a premium price for a product that is...well...not exactly what their customers are probably expecting for that price. Implementing the annual price hike might be a little bit difficult at this point.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I'm not surprised, Mulfinator. Universal will do ANYTHING to get people in. They can blast all the commercials on NBC all they want, but at the end of the day, you still have to have enough people to get in your park and buy with confidence.