Under the current theme park reopening guidelines released by the state of California, Disneyland Park and Disney’s California Adventure Park are not able to reopen just yet.
Orange County, where they are located, needs to reach the Yellow risk tier, and it is currently in the Red risk tier (two tiers above yellow). Some have even stated that they expect Disneyland may not be able to reopen until the summer of 2021. But, that isn’t stopping Disneyland from taking steps to get their parks ready.
We’ve already seen Disneyland install health and safety signs around its theme parks, and adopt specific safety measures recommended to them by local authorities, but more changes are on the way.
According to The Orange County Register, Disneyland is planning to “install more than 23,000 coronavirus health and safety measures to prepare for the eventual reopening” of its California theme parks. These measures include thousands of sanitization stations, protective barriers, and warning signs.
Disneyland Resort’s Senior Vice President of Experience Development and Integration, Mary Niven, has said that when Disneyland reopens their parks, they’ll have “50 new freestanding hand washing stations and over 1,000 hand sanitizing stations in guest and employee areas.” We have seen lots of sanitizing stations and some freestanding hand washing stations installed in Disney World as well.
During a recent meeting with the Southern California News Group editorial board, Niven discussed the various steps Disney is taking to prepare for the Disneyland Resort theme parks’ eventual reopening. Niven said, “We have done a lot of work with our industrial engineers to assess every attraction and every attraction vehicle to really make sure that we can ensure that we maintain a minimum of six foot distance between parties at all times.”
Niven also indicated that Disney has “designated industrial hygienists as COVID-19 area coordinators in both our guest and employee areas to ensure that we have an auditing process.” By the time Disneyland reopens, Niven notes that they will have “over 20,000 COVID-19 related signs and markings and have installed over 2,000 plexiglas physical barriers in both our guest and cast areas.”
The OCR reports that “Virtual queues employed in Downtown Disney will also be deployed in Disney’s Anaheim theme parks and hotels.” Mobile order is also set to be expanded to promote contactless payment and prevent long lines.
We’ve seen similar measures instituted in Disney World in terms of the expansion of Mobile Order and the installation of plexiglass on attraction vehicles and queue lines.
Some of these measures, however, have occurred more gradually and been incorporated more recently at Disney World (like the installation of plexiglass at Tower of Terror and other rides). It looks like Disneyland will be taking this time to make sure all of these measures are already in place as soon as the parks in California are able to reopen.
Although the Disneyland Resort theme parks are not able to fully reopen at the moment, part of Disney California Adventure Park will be opening soon for some limited dining and shopping. We’ll definitely be stopping by Disneyland Resort to see what changes or other updates we can spot. Stay tuned for more updates!
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