Disney World Announces Reopening Dates

Disney World announced dates for post-coronavirus re-opening. 

In no real shock to anyone, Disney World in Orlando, Florida has broken their silence on their reopening. The parks have been closed since mid-March along with most other amusement parks and attractions in the Central Florida area.

News broke today that states Disney World's reopening plan has been approved. The parks will reopen with Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom on July 11th, 2020. Epcot and Hollywood Studios will follow four days later, opening on July 15th, 2020.

This date follows the news that both Universal Orlando and several other parks across the country have dropped opening dates for what is left of the 2020 summer travel season. What many aren't considering in the light of this announcement, are the restrictions which will be in place. The gates are just not being thrown open to the 'happiest place on earth'.

Disney has stated both employees and guests will be REQUIRED to wear masks in the parks and also undergo a temperature screening prior to admittance.  Considering how openly flaunted these restrictions have been at Disney Springs (which reopened on May 20th), it doesn't bode well for those who are concerned with safety. Will Disney actually enforce this rule? How will it be enforced? Will those openly violating the rules face consequences? There are no details it be found in regards to how this will be handled.

Park capacity will be 'greatly reduced' and they will offer no parades, night time fireworks shows or other events which cause large gatherings of people. This means that we're likely looking at these parks having a 20-30% capacity in effect, if they follow the model used in the reopening of Shanghai Disneyland. I can tell you already, this will lead to a massive rise in complaints (please be kind to Guest Services, they are trying.) The shows are one of the great draws of the parks, and missing these will lead to a changed experience.

The resort will enable cashless transactions by expanding contactless payments. This is not much in the way of news, but the expansion is a bonus. Over my years of experience both working at theme parks and visiting them, cash transactions have become rare. Most people are using cards or the debit system linked to their Magicbands.

Disney has stated they will increase the number of available hand sanitizing stations.  This is good, but I've heard the argument put that this will 'ruin the immersion'. After a quick poll on Twitter we found that is a 'weak at best, stupid at worst' argument. If a hand sanitizing station ruins your vacation, you probably shouldn't be on vacation.

While this is a good step in the right direction, concerns still arise from the logistics involved, some of which we have mentioned. By no means are these even the tip of the iceberg but Disney, along with Florida as a whole, are pushing hard to get the tourists rolling back in and thus boost the flagging economy during what should be the busy summer season.

There has also been no word in regards to the reopening of the numerous Disney Resort Hotels, Resort Pools, or the Disney Water Parks.

Tales from the Firing Line- How I escaped the Emergency Stop from HELL

Happy Friday!
To make your week look a little brighter, we've got another "Tales from the Firing Line" for you. This is where myself and other folks share their horror stories of working for the Amusement Park Industry. So sit down and get comfortable, these tend to be long!



How I escaped the Emergency Stop from HELL

Where to begin? Oh yes, the backtstory!
Many moons ago, right after High School I worked for Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fl. I was "Ride Operations" at Hollywood Studios, back then known as "Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park" we all just called it MGM for short. I was stationed in Area 3, which included Rock'n'Roller-Coaster (RnRC), Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Fantasmic theater. Typically I was located at Rock'n'Roller-Coaster but often traveled around to my other two sister attractions within my area. 

This story begins one afternoon, I was on inside loop of RnRC. Which included Line Control, Load, Unload and Control. The day was trudging along like normal this steamy summer day, I was just grateful that I got inside loop since the temperature outside soared to over a hundred this fateful day.  I kept moving along my circuit, as normal never knowing what kind of hell would be coming my direction very shortly.
I follow my route around, finally at unload my bump comes across a now empty train. So I in turn head over to Control and plop myself down in the nice, air condition "Parking Booth". Scanning threw the log book, nothing interesting has really happened so I go about the business of launching trains and yelling at tourists not to climb the damn fence. All very typical, day in/day out actions.. then the phone rang about 10 minutes before my lunch break.

"RnRC Control" I answered
Manager: Hey Carrie, just a heads up. We're gonna get hit with a massive power surge.
"SAY WHAT?!"
Manager: Power surge, incoming.
"Aw Fuck, When?!"
Manager: Anytime now, we just got word. Sorry..


I hang up the phone, check that my microphone is off and let loose a string of profanity half a mile wide that is STILL probably hanging someplace over the ride building!
Just great, I'm due for my lunch break next and it's easily been 3 hours since I got to work. I'm hungry and a hungry me often results in a very cranky me. So this was in no way good news.

You see, if your in the Control Booth when the ride goes down or into "Emergency Stop" your required to STAY there until the problem is sorted out or a manager or maintenance gives you the 'All Clear' to leave your post without a complete ride shut-down. So as you can guess, this is NOT a situation you want to be in. While everyone else gets a who-knows-how-long break.. your stuck doing all the work! A power surge is normally a 2 hour problem for something as advanced at RnRC, it's a complete hard reset then you've got to cycle your trains at least 3 full circuits to check all the ride systems.. and that's if nothing goes wrong!

Now I'm nervous, REALLY DAMN NERVOUS!
Shit! Shit! Shit! I have to pee too, NOT GOOD!
I'm watching my panel, I've got the control radio on full blast so I can hear over the music and noise to listen to where this 'Power Surge' is. As I look up I see the bump rotation begin, at this point I'm less then 3 minutes from my allotted 1 hour break, dancing in my chair with impatience I'm watching the rotation ready to BOLT from that control room the first possible moment. I can see my bump, heading my way and dragging his feet.. he knows whats coming too and doesn't want to deal with it anymore then I do!

HURRY THE HELL UP!
Finally he can delay no longer, the door opens and I sign over then literately DIVE out of the booth. I look up and not 30 seconds later the entire control board turns RED, blood red... like DEATH. The power surge took down the system, the entire ride screeched to an Emergency Stop.

...but it didn't matter because I was OUT THE DOOR!
(Insert insane giggling and several minutes of happy dancing in full view of the tourists here)
Since I was out of Control when the power surge hit, it was no longer my responsibility! Although I must admit, it was odd not to hear anyone on the radio giving warning. Either way, I stay well outside the door and give my bump the complete run-down of my non-eventful shift and skip off to a lovely 2 hour break.

I enjoyed my full lunch and clocked back in to sit about and Bullshit since it took nearly 3 hours to get the rid back up and running. However I felt bad for the guy who bumped me, so during lunch I got an extra cookie and brought it to him as a consultation prize.. because your ride crew is like family.

Daily Distractions- 6/26

Daily Distraction 6/26

Good Morning!
You may have noticed, Daily Distractions has been a bit spotty on updates lately. Well it's an easy explanation, I've got to dig up new material for you lovely folks! That's right, the list I made when I began 'Daily Distractions' has pretty much empty now. So this week, I'll be hunting down fun and exciting new things to post up for the Daily Distractions!

Anyway, let's get onto today's distraction!

Today I've got something fun and very much geeky for you, a lovely set of blue-prints which feature many of Disney's Signature rides from all their parks across the globe! This lovely set of goodies comes to us from a Flickr user named Enfilm. How they have all these I've got no idea but I'd love to have some of them printed as wall art for myself!

Enfilm's Photostream

Daily Distraction- Wednesday 5/30

Daily Distraction- Wednesday 5/30

Hello Again Internet Land! How is everyone today? Pretty good I hope!

Anyway, Today's Distraction is a brand new site that just launched this week. Retro DisneyWorld is a website and fourm devoted to the DisneyWorld of the past and all it's glorious aspects! Plenty of pictures to take a trip down Memory Lane: Building of Epcot, Magic Kingdom during the early years, Resorts and Waterparks.. Oh My!

Head over and take a peek! Some things are still disorganized but for a newly launched website I've got high hopes for their success.

Retro DisneyWorld

Star Wars Weekends- Hyperspace Hoopla 2012

It's the 2012 Star Wars Weekends.
The Hyperspace Hoopla is THE show to see and Orlando Attractions Magazine has it up already!

So if you've ever wanted to watch Darth Vader dance to Smooth Criminal.
See the Emperor rap.. Watch Leah and Padme' Wiggle it..

Then you better get to watching! This years show doesn't disappoint!

Pirates getting a NEW attraction- Sort Of!

Well news broke the other day in the form of a slip, Annual Pass Holders (AP) saw in their digital email that a new "Legend of Jack Sparrow" attraction would be coming to Disney Hollywood Studios Orlando this fall.  This piece wasn't in the physical copy of the news letter and was quickly removed which makes all of us think that someone at Disney made a mistake in publishing this little hint!

Well not to let the sudden hype from the internet community and psychotic fan-girls go to waste. Disney World announced today that "Legend of Jack Sparrow" is infact happening, to replace the "Narnia: Prince Caspian" attraction later this year. Narnia is set to close this September at DHS, it's inside of sound stage 4 right beside Toy Story Mania.
This whole thing is spreading like wildfire and Disney Park Blog went into damage control and simply announced this new attraction yesterday. It hit the internet running...

Now before you go nuts and think "New RIDE" just stop.
Don't even think it, we're not that lucky.

"Legends of Jack Sparrow" isn't a ride and can barely be counted as a show.
Let me explain.
Narnia and it's other previous incarnations is a walk-though attraction. It has limited effects, small screens for veiwing movie scenes and plenty of props/costumes within. Our new Pirates attraction will be along the same exact lines.  While they may try to make this new "Jack Sparrow" theme more interactive and entertaining, it's still just a space-filler in my opinion. However, I shall reserve full judgement until I see it for myself.
Don't expect to see this till Holiday Season 2012. Now that's just a personal guess since Narnia isn't closing until September 2012.

Orlando Sentinel has a quote.
"In this attraction, we'll let you walk in the footsteps of Jack Sparrow. It's not 'the making of,' not 'behind the scenes' … it is really a first-person experience," Imagineer Jason Roberts says in the post.

For more details and the press release, please head over to Disney Parks Blog.