Wow, there will no longer be smoking areas inside any of the WDW parks. There will be areas outside the gates as well as the resorts. As an ex-smoker I am not sure how I feel about this.
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Effective May 1st
Not terribly surprised. More and more places are going smoke-free entirely. Our workplace has been a smoke-free campus for a few years now. Those who have to take a smoke break actually have to walk OFF the property to the sidewalk near the street to smoke. Of course, the idea is to discourage folks not just from smoking around others, but to discourage folks from being smokers altogether.
I think the popularity (if you want to call it that) of smoking has waned dramatically in the past decade, so I can see the need for smoking areas to be less important. (Except, of course, to those who ARE still smokers!)
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This situation does make me think about our last trip to Universal Studios.
One day, we were all getting our snacks. I had ice cream, my wife had a slushy drink, etc. Anyhow, we wanted a nice, relaxing place out of the sun. And the most relaxing/beautiful place we found was this covered area overlooking the water. Trouble is, after we sat, we quickly discovered this was one of the designated smoking areas. So, we finished up as quickly as we could, since smoke seems to bother my allergies quite a bit.
Not sure I like this. I’m not a smoker, but I have a feeling that rather than leave the park and then go through security etc again, a fair number of smokers are just going to light up wherever they are instead. And let’s face it, I’ve never seen anyone spoken to by a CM for smoking outside a designated smoking area, so how well will this be “policed”? I’d much rather have smokers in a small, designated area than potentially scattered all over the parks…
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There will be an adjustment period, I’m sure. I have called CMs over to have a chat with guests smoking in non-designated areas. It happens. There will always be the “rules don’t apply to me” folks.
I think the designated smoking area concept was mostly successful and helped ween smokers away from smoking and strolling. This seems like the next logical step in eliminating it all together.
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Bravo!!!
As long as the outside of the parks areas are not directly next to walkways to get in.
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I think it’s almost inevitable that they will be in areas that guests walk past. For one, they have to be reasonably easy to find or guests won’t use them. Also, there are very few areas outside park entrances which are completely out of the way.
Gross.
Build them enclosed spaces like some airports have.
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I doubt they’ll spend the money on this, but I agree that this would be a great idea. I recently traveled through Stockholm Arlanda airport - they had a smoking pod at our departure gate and there was absolutely no smell at all coming from it - I only noticed it was there because it was right in front of my seat!
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I agree, I think this is what will happen. I have seen a cast member speak to someone that was smoking. All they do is direct them to the nearest smoking area. Now I guess all the can do is ask them to put it out.
I do believe it was mostly successful as well, but I think it was because they had somewhere reasonably close to go to. Now they don’t, so I am sure they will try wherever they can.
I just hope e-cigs/“vaping” are included. Those things are disgusting as well.
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I would think e-cigs would be included as well
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They’re already covered by the current smoking rules, so no reason why they wouldn’t be covered by this as well.
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I’m happy with this decision, especially since Disney is such a family focused destination. My kids hated walking by the smoking area while we were there. Luckily that was just at the resort. I can’t recall the smoking areas in the parks. For the record, I’m an ex-smoker.
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I think most of the smoking areas were off the beaten path. For example, the pathway connecting the Fantasyland train station to Tomorrowland is a smoking area, but people often aren’t even aware that such a pathway exists. (I expect this to change, however, once Tron opens up, since it is partway down the aforementioned pathway.)
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Though the numbers have been decreasing there were smoking areas in the parks. I too am glad they will be gone but as an ex-smoker I remember how tough it was if there was no place to smoke.
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The current rules state “e-cigarettes or other products that produce a vapor or smoke” so I assume that would be included on 5/1 as well.
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or vaping, although I understand folks already do that anywhere they seem to get away with it. Not judging, just saying
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