While theme parks in Central Florida remained closed, the past week has seen the reopenings of both Disney Springs and Universal CityWalk with new safety procedures in place. And now that both of these locations are open, the conversation has naturally turned towards the theme parks, with many wondering if we could see Walt Disney World, SeaWorld, Universal Orlando Resort, and Busch Gardens Tampa opening back up soon. And it looks like we should have more information on that very soon!
Plans to be announced today for Universal Orlando Resort, Walt Disney World and others to come soon
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings announced earlier this week that Universal Orlando Resort would be presenting a comprehensive reopening plan at the Orange County Reopening Task Force meeting today at 2:00 PM. If you would like, you can follow along with the meeting here. Though unconfirmed, the expectation is that Walt Disney World and SeaWorld Orlando will be releasing their own reopening proposals in the coming days as well
And even though we are getting some new information about what the parks are planning to do about their own reopening, there are still a lot of steps to go through between proposal presentation and park reopening. Once the proposal is presented, the mayor must review the proposal and visit each site with his team, seeing health and safety measures in action with a handful of employees. After the plan is given the green light by the local government, it will be sent to Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who will be able to provide the final stamp of approval.
Because there are so many steps, we’d expect Universal to propose a reopening date that is at least a month away so they can put the proposed health and safety measures into practice, with Walt Disney World, SeaWorld, and others following accordingly.
Here’s what we can expect from Universal’s proposal
Though we don’t know exactly what Universal will propose in their reopening plan, the preliminary recommendations from this task force are 50% capacity restrictions during a Phase 1 period, and an increase to 75% capacity in Phase 2, and we expect to see some kind of increasing capacity cap along these lines in the resort’s proposal that will be presented today.
In addition, increased cleanliness measures will also be a part of Universal’s reopening plan, including touchless hand sanitizer at each ticketing entry and turnstile, and increased sanitation procedures, including wipe-downs of ride surfaces, railings, and surfaces.
Universal will also likely implement the new safety rules that have been mandated by Walt Disney World’s Cast Member union to ensure the health of workers at Disney’s theme parks, which include the requirement for all visitors (and employees) to wear masks when visiting the theme parks, as well as go through a temperature screening before they are allowed to enter.
This agreement also requires theme parks to install clear plastic barriers at all of its cash registers, and encourage touchless transactions to minimize the virus transmission risk to both visitors and employees.
Though we don’t know exactly when theme parks in Florida will reopen it looks like we should have some idea of when a reopening could occur in the very near future. Are you excited for the theme parks to reopen, or do you think this is too soon?
As always, while this situation is evolving, all theme park fans should check out the CDC’s official site here, which has information on the virus and how to prevent its spread.
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