Planning the perfect trip to Disney World takes courage, skill, and most of all, A LOT of time!
Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom
We’re talking AT LEAST 180 days for those of you who are brave enough to go after those highly-prized dining reservations! That’s why a lot of folks who were planning on being at Disney World right now are feeling especially downhearted. With the parks being shut down so unexpectedly, they gotta start the process of planning their dream vacations ALL over again!
That led us to think — “What would really cheer up the folks who are in this sticky situation?” We’re talking if we could play the role of your DFB Fairy Godmother for the day and grant you some TOTALLY MAGICAL WISHES!
Cinderella Castle
Yes, DFB fam — we’re FANTASIZING here because it’s a fun (and much-needed!) escape from reality right now! While we’d really love to see our buddies who are eager to reschedule their trips get a few “extra enchantments,“ we know that not all of these can happen!
But…let’s be honest, Disney…a few of them sure COULD!
Splash Mountain
Yep, sometimes, just SOMETIMES, Disney World has been able to “work a little magic” for guests impacted by some of the temporary closures that have happened before. Let’s take a look!
How Disney World Has Compensated Guests in The Past
Yes, before we get WAAAY too ahead of ourselves in this vivid and quite detailed hallucination, let’s examine a few occasions where Disney World has historically closed its doors and what that meant for guests who were visiting at the time.
Park Closures
When 9/11 occurred, guests were cleared from the parks within 30 minutes and it’s reported many were given complimentary tickets at the turnstiles as they exited. Resorts remained open and the parks reopened the next day, September 12th, 2001.
Cinderella Castle
Disney World has also experienced several hurricane-related closures over the years. Typically, these shutdowns have been brief and only minimally disruptive, usually only closing down the parks for a few hours. When Hurricane Irma struck in 2017 forcing the parks to close early, Disney made it up to guests by adding a special Extra Magic Hour at Magic Kingdom for Resort guests.
Walt Disney World
Disney World’s resorts have remained open during these storms for guests while Cast Members assembled as “Ride Out” teams to keep everyone safe until the storms passed.
Disney World’s staff has truly gone above-and-beyond to protect everyone during these weather emergencies while still offering guests special entertainment such as rare character greetings and activities. Meanwhile, Disney World has a Hurricane Policy. If Orlando’s National Hurricane Center issues a hurricane warning within seven days of your vacation, you can usually contact guest services to cancel or reschedule your trip with reduced or no fees.
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
Soooo that’s how Disney World has made it up to guests for closing its parks in the past. This current situation we’re facing will be Disney World’s longest closure in history — which has given us plenty of time to really mull things over!
Let’s put on our pajamas (actually, we’re already wearing ours since we’ve been working from home all week! HA!) and fluff up our pillows to start dreaming BIG! In fact, let’s start dreaming really, REALLY BIG!
Off to Fantasyland WE GO!
Allow Displaced Guests Priority Re-booking Of Advance Dining Reservations
We know a lot of would-be guests had their hopes dashed when their advance dining reservations were wiped out. Some of these reservations weren’t easy to come by — it isn’t uncommon for Be Our Guest Restaurant at Magic Kingdom to book up 180 days in advance!
Entrance into Beast’s Castle
While we understand each restaurant can only accommodate a certain number of guests, it would be really wonderful if Disney could sprinkle a little magic pixie dust on this situation and allow guests with canceled trips a priority timeframe to re-book some hard-to-get ADRs they lost in when the parks closed.
Will it happen? It isn’t likely. After all, the popular restaurants are likely already booked up, and Disney can’t prioritize displaced guests over others. But we’ll be sending some positive vibes your way (which is the best any of us can do!).
Issue Multi-Experience FastPasses+ To Replace Lost Bookings
And just like dining reservations, if you were lucky enough to score some sweet Tier 1 FastPasses for popular attractions like Slinky Dog Dash or the new Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, we think it’s pretty unfair you had to give them up. Besides, if you do re-book your Disney World vacation in a window of time shorter than 60 days, all the best FastPasses will most likely have already been distributed!
Runaway Railway Dedication Ceremony
While Disney probably couldn’t re-issue all of your original choices (but one can dream!), it would be awesome if they could at least give out some Multi-Experience FastPasses+ to guests who lost their initial selections.
These little beauties are like Willy Wonka’s golden ticket and are sometimes handed out by Disney when they make a boo-boo (like when the Skyliner stops running). They can be used on any attraction of your choice! If ever there was a situation that merited makin’ it rain some “golden tickets,” we think you’re looking at it!
Add More Disney After Hours Parties
And due to Disney World’s sudden closure, three After Hours parties were canceled including two Disney Villains After Hours events at Magic Kingdom. We had some big plans to hang out with all our favorite baddies while enjoying party-exclusive treats, reduced crowds, and shortened wait times for some of our favorite rides!
Disney Villains After Hours Party
Although there’s a significant number of these parties still scheduled from April to July, we wouldn’t mind having a few more opportunities to hobnob with Disney’s worst villains!
Hey, we totally understand if they’ve got a lot of evil plans in the making. It’s more likely they won’t be able to extend their social calendar for us, but who knows!
Finish Cinderella Castle’s Magical Makeover Early
And even though we told you construction projects were being temporarily postponed at Disney World, maybe “less intensive projects” such as Cinderella Castle’s refurbishment might be able to continue forward at some point?
Cinderella Castle
Aided by the fact that Cinderella Castle’s paint job seemed to be going up very quickly last time we saw it makes us all the more wishful Magic Kingdom could re-open with a completely finished castle! A dream is a wish your heart makes after all! We think we remember hearing that tune somewhere! But we won’t be too bummed if we see the cherry-pickets again as long as it means we’ll get to see the castle! (And, of course, we want all the workers to be as safe as possible!)
Postpone Spaceship Earth’s Refurbishment
When Disney World recently announced Spaceship Earth would be closing on May 26th to undergo a lengthy “reimagining” process, fans of the iconic attraction were hoping to get in one last ride!
Epcot
But depending on how long Disney World will remain shuttered, many guests might not get to say farewell to the version of Spaceship Earth they know and love.
We’re certainly hoping Disney would consider delaying Spaceship Earth’s refurbishment. (Heck, call us old-timey, but we wouldn’t be mad if they called off the refurb entirely!)
Extend Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival
Speaking of Epcot, one of our favorite festivals had only just begun when Disney World announced it would be temporarily closing. Epcot’s 2020 International Flower and Garden Festival is currently only scheduled to run through June 1st. Since it’s the highlight of many guests’ Disney trips, it would be a bummer to miss out on so much of the festival this year!
2020 Epcot Flower and Garden Festival
Can we all just agree right now to extend Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival well into the summer? That way, we can enjoy all the food and topiaries PLUS get our hands on more of that adorable merch this year including Spike the Bee and Orange Bird! This news would be so wonderful to hear, but this would be a really hard one for Disney World to pull off — especially with no College Program cast members.
Give Annual Passholders Some Love
We know Disney World’s Annual Passholders could also use some lovin’ right now! Disney’s already assured AP members their passes will be extended for however many days the parks remain closed, but we hope they can give APs a couple of extra perks, too!
Magic Kingdom
Since Epcot’s Flower and Garden Festival was only in its first few weeks, we know you APs would love to have some extra time to pick up your free AP magnet! Especially because the design is so stinkin’ cute this year!
Passholder Magnet
And we know Florida resident and Silver Annual Passholders have dates blocked from June to August. Folks would really love seeing some of these restraints lifted. So many of you have contacted us about this one, but we’ll just have to take this one day at a time!
Grant Automatic Rise of the Resistance Boarding Groups
Okay, all of these suggestions have been pretty nuts so far, but now we’ve got one that’s even CRAZIER! How about guaranteeing guests who had to cancel their vacations boarding passes for Rise of the Resistance? That would certainly help to soften the blow since the attraction is notoriously difficult to get on!
Rise of the Resistance
Actually, Rise of the Resistance had several breakdowns the first day it opened. Reports vary somewhat, but it seems Disney gave out FastPasses+ to ride Rise of the Resistance the very next day, and a complimentary 1-day park hopper for guests who were able to join a Boarding Group on opening day but unable to ride.
Rise of the Resistance
We were hoping there might be some downtime to work on the attraction since Rise of the Resistance has continued to experience operational delays, but as of now, it looks like Disney World has ceased all construction projects.
Rise of the Resistance Ride Vehicle
Stricter safety recommendations recently issued by health and government officials have advised people not to gather in groups of more than 10 for the next 8 weeks, which has made it nearly impossible for work to continue at the parks. While it’s not likely Rise of the Resistance will be “fixed” we’re still chomping at the bit to ride it again when Hollywood Studios reopens!
Free Disney+
Since many of us are stuck at home now (or worse…WORKING from home!) during what was supposed to be our Disney vacation, how about sliding us over a free subscription to the live-streaming service, Disney+? That way, at least we’d have something with which to bide our time until the parks reopen (and take our minds off of this madness!).
Disney+ Streaming Service ©Disney
Actually, most of us have already lost the little willpower we had left and have signed up for Disney+ already! 😉 It’s just the Disney fix we need to get us through this difficult time!
Well, Cinderellas, that’s it for our little jam session! We had a BALL bringing all of our ideas to you! As for you folks who will be re-booking the Disney World vacations you had to cancel, we’re thinking about you! While we can’t grant you any of these wishes, we hope we brought a smile to your face! And remember — we’ll be here to help you plan your next Disney World trip every step of the way!
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WE KNOW DISNEY.
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Why do people think disney owes them all this? Sure, people pay thousands of dollars to come and make their reservations far in advance – but it’s not like this is Disney’s fault and it’s closed for the safety of guests and cast members, not to ruin people’s vacations.
Get over it, are you demanding every other business, restaurant, store, etc. pay you back somehow for things you can’t do right now because they’re closed?
These all sound great, but there are also guests that have scheduled their vacations when we are all rebooking. I think Disney is doing it’s good deed by closing parks voluntarily AND by ensuring cast members continue to get paid. I applaud them for the effort they’ve shown. This is a no-fault situation and they shouldn’t have to offer anything extra for making sure customers remain safe!
I’d add thinking more flexibly about extending annual passes, if possible.
Disney has already committed to extending by about two weeks based on the number of days closed, and will, no doubt, be extending longer on both. But for those who had trips planned towards the end of a pass, it may be difficult to re-schedule with a limited extension.
For example, I don’t think our 4/20-5/2 trip is happening and our passes expire 5/9. The sixty day window may or may not work for the friends who were going with us. It would also put us in peak crowds and temperatures potentially. My biggest concern is that my friends only get a credit (rather than refund) on their regular tickets and the only dates that work would require us to buy stand-alone tickets Someone is out a lot of money, unless they go themselves.
That said, no complaints here! People are suffering and many ways, so whatever Disney does here is okay with me. Fortunately, we can take the hit if necessary. I know others are not so lucky. Big thanks to everyone at Disney working through this as well as our health care professionals and first responders.
It would be even better if Disney would reduce the prices of the Annual Pass so that they were affordable again. I’ve read through many blogs where people are saying they can’t afford to buy the pass anymore. Imagine if they reduced the price, how many *more* people would then sign up and enjoy Disney. My pass currently ends in May, and I’m hesitating to renew because of the price.
PLEASE…WE WANT DISNEY + IN LATINAMERICA…
Agree! Our trip Disney World Trip was planned together with a Disney cruise on April 30. We were given the opportunity to switch our cruise to a later date, but being that the cruise was in conjunction with the Disney trip it makes it quite a problem. On top of that our annual passes are due to expire on May 15! So it would be nice if Disney would do something special for all of us who purposely planned our trip before our annual pass expired. I did hear that Disney was Extending the renewal time for our A/P to 90 days past the expiration date? Is that true DFB team? I read it somewhere, it may have been at one of your blogs. Please let me know if that’s the case because I will try to plan my cruise around a trip to Disney World before the 90 days are up! Thanks DFB Team for keeping our spirits up during this difficult time. You give us hope! And as was said before, thanks to all of the hospital workers, health care professionals, doctors and nurses that are working overtime to help people survive the coronavirus outbreak. Our hearts go out to everyone who is struggling during this time and our prayers go out to them as well. With the help of God and our family and friends, we will all get through this together.
I don’t see any anyone “demanding” anything. Nor do I see anyone saying they “should” do anything. The article was entitled things we “wish.” So these are ideas we’re hoping for, not necessarily with any expectations.
Yes, I’m working with airlines, rotes, and Airbnb on numerous travel plans I’ve paid for that aren’t going to happen. I hope I’ll be accommodated. I also know that where I booked something non-refundable, I may not get anything, and that’s fair.
Disney’s top-notch business team will make the decisions they think balance guest service and profitability now and long-term. I’m not worried about Disney the company, though I am concerned for the cast members and all the independent businesses who suffer when Disney is closed. I’m also worried about small businesses and self-employed people around the country economically as well as those suffering and fighting the direct health impacts of corona.
None of those things are acceptable tbh. People who have had trips booked for the Fall/Winter of 2020 would get completely screwed!! Just because the window of time the trip happens, doesn’t mean you can disrupt peoples vacations that were booked before this all happened.
We have had a trip booked for November 2020 back in December 2019. To disrupt and make that trip worthless to give people who had “spring/summer” trips booked an advantage is not cool at all. Everyone wants to eat at the good restaurants and ride the good rides!!
It’s still luck of the draw and 180 / 60 day bookings. Can’t change that at all without hurting others.
Before all of this happened I was never a fan of the rides where you must wear glasses. I NEVER PUT THEM ON. I feel like they have been on everyone’s sweaty faces. Many germs can be spread like this. I would think after this perhaps they should offer paper recycled throw away glasses. Just a thought. Not meaning to offend the mouse.