Into the Unknown

Park hours are not set for December yet, so we don’t know what it will look like at this point.

This is excellent. Times are different: look for the positives.

Last year at this time my carefully made plans for our first week of September big trip were being turned upside down by Star Wars Land. It took till nearly July before I could see how to make 3 out of 4 parks having morning EMH work when we’re off property. Adding a hurricane to the mix only seemed appropriate. :rofl:

Still: we could have many changes between now and December. Be flexible. Stay informed. Be ready ! ! :smile:

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I get that hours are not set, yet, but I need some information to be able to plan ADRs in 10 days.

Not really… ADRs have been suspended for now.

I think we’re all going to have to see how the park reservation system works before we can work about ADRs.
My ADR day is (was?) Monday. I’m in the same boat as you.

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My ADRs are in 19.
There will be ADRs, yes?

I mean, we’re having - at least in July - APRs.
(advanced park reservations)

Seems reasonable to have dining continue to be the same way.

Hmm, say you pick your park reservation.

Then on MDE will you see a choice of dining options and times relevant to that park?

Holy wormhole, batman: do you even pick your park? Disney says, your hotel reservation is for this date to that date. Here’s your park days (and times?) now please select your dining from the following locations and times for each day.

:exploding_head:

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Theoretically, that scenario is possible.
But, much like the resort problem of already holding too many reservations to meet the 40% or 30% occupancy to maintain social distancing, I suspect they are also holding too many ADRS. At least up until the point that they realized they needed to reduce availability sometime last month. I think some people are going to lose their their ADRs as well.

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My wife put forth a hypothesis on how Disney might do it that makes logical sense. (And the time periods I’m using are purely for the sake of discussion.)

But let’s say that Disney decides to say that those with reservations at 45 days out get first choice of their park days for the length of their stay. That means they also would be most inclined to pick the days they had already planned.

The next day, the next group of people 45 days out get to pick THEIR resort days.

This is pretty much exactly how booking Fastpasses for onsite guests works.

This means that by the time they get to the 45 days out from MY OWN first day of arrival, some of my park day choices might already be filled up, so I have to choose other parks. But further into my trip (say, 45+3 days), I pretty much have pick of whatever I want.

Then, say in addition, DIsney then allows folks to book their FPPs and/or ADRs at 40 days out. They already have their park days reserved, so they can now focus on FPPs and/or ADRs.

Then, at 35 days out, they start to allow guests with APs to book their reservations, etc.

I think it makes sense for it to work this way. Of course, that doesn’t mean it WILL work that way.

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Wondering if too many reservations for hotels and dining is one (ONE) reason for opening in 6 weeks. Rather than sooner.

Obviously the new software has to be up and running. Then it’ll take a minute to manage cancellations and changes in trip dates.

The more time people have to think about that kind of trip, the more that will chose another date.

Leaving fewer these Disney doesn’t have to pick to go another time.

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This is very logical. Be fun to see what actually transpires.

But (there’s always one) fast passes? :thinking:

And while we’re discussing what on and what’s not: EMH, 7 am AK caught my eye.

What’s the story behind this? After resort guests pick their APRs, there’s room for off site guests?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney temporarily eliminates FPPs during the initial phases. They want to be able to better control the limited crowds, and FPPs really would make that difficult. Still, they MIGHT still use them. But planning your day around FPPs now will be much more difficult…at least in MK.

I think this goes back to the staggered opening times. 8 for AK, 9 for MK, 10 for HS, and 11 for EPCOT. If you want to add EMH to AK, tacking them to the MORNING for AK doesn’t interfere with the shared busing schedule. Most of the other EMH are in the evening. But, for example, when EPCOT has a morning EMH at 10:00, again, the interruption to the busing isn’t huge since it has both monorail and skyliner access to reduce bus requirements.

I hadn’t seen any info regarding who was allowed to make park reservations other than some discussion about resort guests being unhappy with paying for rooms when there weren’t available park reservations.

Having EMH availability seems to indicate resort guests WILL be competing with non-resort guests for park reservations.

Not necessarily. It means that if they don’t fill up a park with reservations from on-site guests, off site guests can also come…but they will end up without being allowed to access EMH.

I think this is reading between the lines of what their announcement said. It implied that reservations would first go to resort/DVC guests, and then AP guests. It is true that it didn’t say that explicitly, it is what makes the most logical sense based on their wording I think.,including the fact that they said the reservation system would take a phased or tiered approach. Otherwise Disney ends up with a bunch of folks with reservations that the guests will then cancel…and the fact is, Disney needs resort guests to bring in the money more than off-site guests or APs since tickets are already purchased. Money for resorts doesn’t come in until they guests actually stay.

From a financial standpoint, it makes the most sense to keep as many on-site resorts guests as they can handle capacity wise, and everyone else ends up with what’s left.

I think the ones who are most negatively impacted will be AP guests.

Agree. Glad I’m not an off site AP person.

Not having a dog in this fight (thankfully), I’m interested in watching how it plays out.

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2020/05/an-update-on-walt-disney-world-resort-reservations/?fbclid=IwAR0AxP3PKKoPfGRHQREmK2UHKqT_OqtdghV0md

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Thank you. This gives me 4 months to think about how to handle dining. We will be losing the dining plan, first time it was going to be worth it for our family. We have 9 day PH tickets. Will it still be a reservation system for the parks in December? Will there be park hopping, will the reduced hours even make it worth it? Will we even go?

I am liking the 60 days for dining choices. It gives time to see how this all shakes out.

We’ll probably be only 4 in our group because it’s the week before Christmas and our trip is for a tournament at Coronado Springs. We were planning a minimalist trip anyway.

For a big group - hard to say. Tho one of our best family trips was in December, at WL. We all bought gag gifts and at an upstairs sitting area overlooking the lobby we exchanged gifts. We did more resort visiting than almost all other trips combined, because of decorations. Also decorated our rooms.

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Received my email from Disney for my December trip. It says, " certain experiences such as Character dining cannot be provided
Well, that helps quite a bit in my planning for dining.

More information to come. The email was notifying me that my reservation package price was being adjusted as the dining plan was being removed.

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