Is this a sign of the phased reopening, where all 4 parks may not be up and running at the same time during your vacation week? Maybe they don’t want to give people false hope?
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I expect so. It’s hard to see how Epcot in particular could open while the borders are still closed.
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Lol took me a minute
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My thought is that you won’t be guaranteed entry into any one particular park. If you had the 4 day 4 park ticket - that would be a bit of a problem if you have to go to AK on your last day but don’t arrive until midday (obviously these people are not liners) and AK is already at its limited capacity. The ticket would be invalid everywhere else - so maybe they are trying to avoid that situation?
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Good thought. I assume this is more of the reason. I see them opening Epcot just maybe not opening WS in the very beginning.
I wonder how much that would limit the capacity though, and whether it would be worth it to them to open. I have no idea what the capacity of EP as a whole is, but halve it if WS is closed and halve it again because they’re only allowed to open at 50%… With the running costs, it may not be.
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@missoverexcited I agree with you 100%. However I feel with their initial opening it’s not going to be about “worth it” for them as much as it will be about getting things back open to practice operating smoothly under these new mandates. Their biggest goal is to provide space and distancing so they may need FW open just to spread out the guests. Just my thought.
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While I can see Epcot being the last to open, if they need to keep crowd capacity low, having four parks to spread across makes it easier than with three parks.
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Why are we thinking Epcot would be last? Isn’t it the largest park with the most space? I would think that would be a good thing.
What am I missing?
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Yes that’s probably true.
I think this theory has to do with taking longer for international CM’s to be able to get back from home countries if they indeed went home. Another theory is to work more on construction without guests in there yet.
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This ^^^ partly.
Also if they have furloughed staff, it would be a really bad move to bring back ICP participants before full time & part time staff. The unions would be pretty hacked off and so would Florida residents if they were seen to be favouring foreigners over locals.
And apparently some of the WS pavilions have an agreement that.a minimum %age of staff manning it have to be from that country. I don’t know to what extent that is the case, but I’ve seen Norway, China, Canada and Japan mentioned
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Does the 4-park ticket have dates associated? They may really need to get people to nail down dates in order for them to staff and control capacity too.
The 4 park magic tickets that had been available were good through September 30th. Now the standard tickets you can buy are good through December 31st.
An agreement with whom? The associated countries? I know about the International program, but nothing about it.
Even if this is the case and somehow binding, I think it would be easy to throw that out the window for the foreseeable future. Staff WS with US based CMs for however long. Is it as “magical” or “authentic”? No, but people get it and will understand. And I rather furloughed CMs be given back jobs in WS than keeping it (or EPCOT in general) shut down.
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Could this also be that wdw plans to limit (or completely prohibit) park hopping in the same day?
I’m wondering if they will limit too - I don’t know that I would risk depending on the capacity rules they set
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So I have some 4-park magic tickets that I purchased from UT for a trip with start date of May 19. I did not link them due to uncertainty about closures and had thought about returning them for a refund. I am planning a rescheduled “girls trip” with my daughters in late June and yesterday we decided to add my DH and DS11 to that trip. I then linked two of the 4-park magic tickets I had purchased for May to my MDE for them. Wanting to book what FPP I could for them, I just spent a great deal of time of the phone trying to get the dates extended. My DD’s tickets are also 4-park magic but were originally dated for April (and were linked in February) and have already converted to Dec 15. In my first call to WDW after being referred to an internet specialist I was told that some UT tickets convert and some don’t and that I had to call UT. The UT staff I spoke to next had no idea and sent me back to WDW. I then called the ticketing number that @PrincipalTinker shared in the past (I took notes, thank you!) and was told that the park was only officially closed thru 5/16 so far so tickets beyond that had not converted yet. Now I don’t think that’s entirely true because park hours are zeroed out thru 5/23. I didn’t want to just change the dates because I really want the tickets to be good thru 12/15 in case June doesn’t happen. So I’m hoping the last CM was correct and soon they will convert. Does anyone have a similar situation and have your tickets dated past 5/16 already converted?
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Well they are still selling tickets with the park hopper option, the 4 park magic tix are one park per day.
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I have tickets starting 5/29 and they have not converted yet. They have been converting one week at a time on Wednesdays, with hours cancelled through 5/23 as of two days ago. (Click this link for an article on DFB confirming.) Did you call before then?
My tickets will be cancelled next Wednesday, assuming they extend the closure (and I do assume they will, at least through May 31st).