There’s a literary expression that goes a bit like, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

Somehow, that phrase seems totally prophetic when you think about how many “big plans” Disney had in the works right before everything got really, REALLY weird.

Disney is probably doing the best they can with the hand they were dealt when things started to go all pear-shaped! And while many of us have had to make do and switch things up during this time, Disney’s unfortunate timing seems especially tragic!

Don’t worry if you don’t understand what we’re getting at — you’ll see what we mean when we show you Disney’s horrible luck when it comes to timing… .

Two of Disney’s Most-Popular Festivals Had Only Just Begun! 

Disney California Adventure’s 2020 Food and Wine Festival had just started on February 28th while only days later Epcot’s 2020 International Flower and Garden Festival began on March 4th — that’s not even 10 days before Disney announced the parks were closing! 

Click here to see the full menus and photos of all the food booths at this year’s 2020 Flower and Garden Festival!

Both of these annual festivals are a BIG deal at the Disney parks, drawing in thousands of guests each year with a ton of new food options, entertainment, and exclusive festival merchandise — all of which Disney had just finished preparing. We’re imagining what spending three days in our kitchens baking pies, peeling potatoes, and dethawing a 25lb turkey for Thanksgiving is like — only to have nobody show up!

Click here to see our Best of the Fest list from 2020’s Food and Wine Festival in Disney California Adventure!

And now, not only are guests stuck wondering what’s going to happen to all of these preparations, but there are so many important, unanswered questions like, “Will Annual Passholders ever receive their beloved AP Magnets?!?”

We know what a tremendous amount of work putting these festivals on can be, so it’s hard to imagine it was all for naught. Flower and Garden was only supposed to run until June 1st while Food and Wine was originally going to end on April 21st. Will they extend the festivals? Will all the Festival merch be sent to the Disney outlet stores? For the love, what about the MAGNETS, DISNEEEEY???

Click here to see why there may be a chance Food and Wine in DCA could be extended!

Hollywood Studios Had Just Debuted a Brand New Attraction Less Than 2 Weeks Before Closing

Oh, but it gets much worse… . On the same day Epcot’s 2020 Flower and Garden Festival kicked off, Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway debuted! Again, that’s just a 10-days BEFORE the parks closed! All that hard work — that blood, sweat, and TEARS…ALL for nuthin’!

See what we thought of our first ride on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway here!

In fact, the plans for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway were announced waaaay back at the D23 convention in 2017!  That’s THREE YEARS of anticipation in the making, only for Disney to have their big grand opening dashed!

Not to mention Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway took the spot of the much-beloved Great Movie Ride, one of few remaining attractions leftover from Hollywood Studios’ original opening day back in 1989. Many fans were eager to see if Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway would live up to Disney’s hype! Disney had been publicizing the new attraction like crazy, even doubling-down and revealing plans Disneyland will be getting its own version in 2022.

Read everything you need to know before you ride Mickey and Minne’s Runaway Railway HERE!

Well, at least the good news is once all of this is all finally over, folks will hopefully be flocking to Hollywood Studios to ride the new attraction — but when you can’t show off your new toy while it’s still NEW, what’s the point?! It’s just sad that Disney invested so much time and energy on something that got WAY overshadowed by these unpredictable circumstances.

If you remember back to August 29th, 2019 when Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened, Hurricane Dorian blew into town the very next week, forcing the parks to close early and scaring a lot of guests away.

Sadly, Disney’s bad timing seems to be a reoccurring theme throughout recent history!

Disney Announced the Parks Would Be Closing On the SAME DAY That They Released The Avengers Campus Opening Date

You might think it couldn’t get any worse for Disney, already losing so much that hung in the balance…but the list goes on! On March 12th, Disney announced Avengers Campus would be opening on July 18th, 2020!

And later that SAME DAY…they told us the parks were shutting down. We bet they’re kicking themselves over THAT timing!

One day before the announcement was made, Disney told us a bunch of cool stuff about some of the new rides such as Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure, and new experiences including special Marvel hero character greetings, entertainment, food (including some of the exciting foods you’ll find at Pym Test Kitchen!), and merchandise including customizable Spider-Bots! 

Now that construction has temporarily stopped at the parks, we’re not sure if Avengers Campus will be finished on time. It seems not even Disney is sure what’s going to happen with Avengers Campus’ grand opening date and have  recently updated their website to changed the new Marvel-themed land from “opening July 18th” to simply “coming soon.”

See some of the SUPER foods you’ll be able to enjoy at this superhero mecca when it opens at Disney California Adventure!

One Month Before Closing Its Doors, Disney Totally Demolished Epcot’s Future World

One of the most massive projects in the works when the parks temporarily closed was the Epcot Transformation! If you recall after narrowly escaping the chopping block numerous times, Epcot’s Electric Umbrella finally closed its doors on February 16th, after which most of what was left of Future World was demolished (RIP Fountain of Nations and Club Cool!).

Epcot’s construction was well into “no turning back now” territory at the time of the closures. The Fountain of Nations, Pin Traders, Fountain View (aka Starbucks), and Club Cool were all completely demolished. It’s a sea of construction walls that they can’t simply walk away from once things gain traction again. 

Disney also announced on February 25th they would finally be closing and updating Spaceship Earth. The iconic attraction’s last day was slated for May 26th.

With the possibility that Disney might be looking for ways to cut corners when the parks reopen, are they wishing they didn’t reveal to us their new plans for Spaceship Earth?

Will we get the chance to say good-bye to Spaceship Earth??

They Released Onward in Theaters and Promoted Mulan in the Weeks Leading Up to A Global Shut-Down

Honestly, with how much stuff Disney had in the works for Disney World’s 50-anniversary celebration in 2021, this list of why this was baaaad timing could go ON and ON! But we gotta cut it off somewhere before it gets too long and depressing! 🙂

One last thing we’ll mention is Disney and Pixar’s new film Onward, which had only just come out in theaters on March 6th. Now it’s already streaming on Disney+ for subscribers to view as many times as they want!

Disney was also flooding the parks with Mulan merchandise to promote the new live-action movie which was set to be released on March 27th. It’s now been pushed back to July 24th, 2020! That means we’re going to have to tuck away our new Mulan Minnie Ears for over a year before we can finally get down to business to defeat the Huns!

See which other Disney films have been delayed and what dates they’re now being released here!

We wonder if the parks will be yanking all this new Mulan merch and re-releasing it next year or will they make brand-new swag for when it’s actually released? It’s anyone’s best guess since nothing like this has ever happened in history! We’ll just have to wait and see!

So, if you didn’t already know how luck HAS NOT been on Disney’s side during all of this, you do now! At least you can thank your lucky stars you probably didn’t have as much on your plate as Disney did when everything started to go wrong. 🙂 At least we can wait for the parks to reopen so we can hurry back and show them some LOVE!

What do you think of Disney’s bad timing? Did you know how much stuff was happening when the parks closed? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!