WDW COVID-19 Operational Changes- Reservation System-Rope Drop Procedures

It would be great if we could also book at a later date for the 35% off discount, too -- but it is probably one or another not both. I would like to delete the tickets, since you had to purchase tickets for the free dining plan and use my annual pass for this vacation. Thanks again for this information.
Well, my TA talked to Disney for me tonight and while I can't change anything right now, when we can modify we can take the tickets off since we have APs. So that's a little $ taken off, but certainly doesn't make up for the loss of the DDP. Good luck to you. You're not alone!
 
I think you are the type of guest that will be the exception. Most people who are going to Disney world for a vacation won’t be happy to hang out by the pool if they can’t get into a park. You can spend a lot less for a much nicer location if you want to hang out by the pool at a resort. And stay home for free to play board games. 🤷‍♀️
We’re annual Passholder’s with DVC points and live just an hour away - so my perspective is definitely different than others who have to fly or buy passes specifically for this one vacation. Definitely get the frustration a lot of people feel - but if there is that frustration, it is probably better to delay the vacation to be sure to get all you want out of it. For myself, I work very crazy hours and had this week, and time off of work, planned 11 months ago - so it is worth it to me to be in my happy place, using points already paid for, and just focus on spending time with my kids and husband away from hectic life for a week.
 
Yeah, I finally had gotten a reservation (180 days out) for Ohana at 7pm. Thought that was a mythical thing that didn’t even really exist! I’m trying to think now - better for my waistline, better for my waistline lol
At 180 days I usually have pretty good luck getting Ohana ADR close to the time I want... but yeah they do fill up pretty quick. It's disheartening when you're a planner and you put in the time to get it right and it all goes kaput . We're all rolling with the punches, eh! :wave:
 
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To be fair, people book ADRs 6 months ahead, Many places are booked solid, I don’t think we can fault Disney for not realizing in January they couldn’t accommodate all those diners,

Only fthing to do was to cancel them all Because no way to privatize those who had them, Now, i do think the offer of free dining was a mistake as a recovery offer...that wasn’t thought through, IMO

But, other than that, I am not sure how they could be doing anything else but suspending it all, Can you imagine a guest having the dining plan and not getting a reservation?

It is not ideal and honestly, the experience will not be the same and Disney knows that.

I just don’t agree they are doing things to purposely make guests angry . I really think they want people to wait and don’t want them thinking they are getting a normal WDW vacation.
Well...for starters they could not reduce park hrs to what can only be described as laughable...that would help.

But, I can understand having to cancel all fastpasses/adrs, but to take back a promotion that we booked almost a year ago and our only option is to suck it up. pay rack rate or cancel...that's crooked and sleazy. We would've never booked Disney at rack rate if we weren't getting "free dining." It's despicable that they're allowed to get away with it. We'll be canceling...you know once they grace us with being allowed to get our money back and stop holding it hostage, but it's still a disgraceful way to treat customers.
 
AFAIK the reason park hours are reduced is for a lot of reasons but one has to do with cleaning wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people who did part-time or occasional work want to take a hard pass on getting back to the mouse. IMO they can't open up full hours until they can make the money to do so seems like a 1-2 shift park for the immediate future. I also dont think the demand will be there call me crazy the guy who hasn't got a haircut since march :)
 
Well, my TA talked to Disney for me tonight and while I can't change anything right now, when we can modify we can take the tickets off since we have APs. So that's a little $ taken off, but certainly doesn't make up for the loss of the DDP. Good luck to you. You're not alone!
Honestly, I wouldn't rely on anything a CM is telling anyone right now. Disney is not the company it was 4 months ago. I hope for those still going they are able to make modifications, but it seems to me they're wanting ppl. to cancel, and after the things that have already come out; unfortunately I can see them saying it's either what you have now or it's canceled. Good luck, hopefully I'm wrong.
 


i have an AP and have added dining plans to our resort reservations to be able to use the Disney Visa perk that allows you to take advantage of 6 mos no finance charge for Disney Vacations...now that dining plans are being cancelled I’m assuming this payment option will no longer be available
 
AFAIK the reason park hours are reduced is for a lot of reasons but one has to do with cleaning wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people who did part-time or occasional work want to take a hard pass on getting back to the mouse. IMO they can't open up full hours until they can make the money to do so seems like a 1-2 shift park for the immediate future. I also dont think the demand will be there call me crazy the guy who hasn't got a haircut since march :)
The demand won’t be there. The people who are applauding all the restrictions and regulations aren’t going to go because they are scared to travel and worried about catching covid-19. The people who want to travel and aren’t worried about being in a theme park won’t go because of all the restrictions and reduced hours/ experiences.
 
The demand won’t be there. The people who are applauding all the restrictions and regulations aren’t going to go because they are scared to travel and worried about catching covid-19. The people who want to travel and aren’t worried about being in a theme park won’t go because of all the restrictions and reduced hours/ experiences.
yep I agree I wanted to like this but I like nothing really about what is going on.
 
This is far fetched but was the free dining recovery offer a Chapek move/blunder?

I wonder if Disney instantly realized it was a complete disaster because of a huge response. Maybe they thought it would be very modest response due to virus concerns and financial considerations. Or they thought the virus would disappear and it became clear it wasn’t going to.

I wonder if that’s partially why Iger came back to clean this free dining mess up. They hoped for better, discuss a bunch of ideas but eventually they realized this was basically their only option.

The recovery offer seemed like such a strange, uncharacteristically rash idea for Disney, to pick a date out of thin air, to draw crowds.

Regardless, this is a PR disaster for Disney and Chapek. And I am not sure Josh D’Amaro knows what he is doing.

I am really stunned by this.
 
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This is far fetched but was the free dining recovery offer a Chapek move/blunder?

I wonder if Disney instantly realized it was a complete disaster because of a huge response. Maybe they thought it would be very modest response due to virus concerns and financial considerations. Or they thought the virus would disappear and it became clear it wasn’t going to.

I wonder if that’s partially why Iger came back to clean this free dining mess up. They hoped for better, discuss a bunch of ideas but eventually they realized this was basically their only option.

The recovery offer seemed like such a strange, uncharacteristically rash idea for Disney, to pick a date out of thin air, to draw crowds.

Regardless, this is a PR disaster for Disney and Chapek.

I know this will sound odd, but I really don’t think they knew how impactful COVID-19 was going to be. When they initially closed, it was only for a couple of weeks until the end of March, so whoever they were getting their guidance from was downplaying the situation. When they realized that this was going to have massive implications beyond a 2 week-1 month window, they brought Iger back to help. The dining plan promo was most likely pulled when they made the decision internally to drop dining plans as part of reopening.
 
I think they should have had a fail safe measure in place and only allotted “ X number” of free dining, once they reached the free dining limit, move to a different recovery offer. For a business to give something like that and then take it away is really unheard of. Most people’s vacation packages went up at least a thousand dollars or more to get the free dining because they lost their room discounts. In the very least they should give back the room discount and not just say something like “aren’t you lucky, for a full price room, no free dining, reduced hours, no fireworks or parade, you get to reserve a spot in our parks first, have a magical day”.

We were eligible for the recovery offer as we had a cancelled trip in March & April (and May...not that it counted) but it was going to increase our cost over 2k to pay rack rate and buy 2-day tix (we have AP's) just to get free food. We are used to paying OOP and pretty good at keeping food costs down so I was really on the fence about whether to book under that offer or not. Ultimately, the decision was made for me when Disney ended the offer 3 weeks early. I thought that was pretty sucky of them but this, wow, this takes the cake!

I'm keeping our late July reservation for now but this ridiculousness is mounting. I'm shocked they want to offer so much less of an experience and yet, charge guests the same or more in some cases. We have expiring dvc points that we cannot use later in the year and we have AP's that are to expire early Aug. I know we can get them extended but we can't go again until mid-Dec and most likely, they won't be good then unless Disney gives a longer period to use. I wouldn't go otherwise.
 
I know this will sound odd, but I really don’t think they knew how impactful COVID-19 was going to be. When they initially closed, it was only for a couple of weeks until the end of March, so whoever they were getting their guidance from was downplaying the situation. When they realized that this was going to have massive implications beyond a 2 week-1 month window, they brought Iger back to help. The dining plan promo was most likely pulled when they made the decision internally to drop dining plans as part of reopening.
I agree. My dd20 was down there in the DCP. She'd just gotten trained and only been at her location (BoG) for 30 days when Disney closed. The CP recruiters were telling the kids they would be coming back. We had just moved her down there but had to move her back home super quickly as Disney only gave them 3 days notice to move out and find a way home. My dd was supposed to be down there for 6 mos and the kids and recruiters thought they would return. Nope, no one knew how crazy this was going to get.
 
cancelled trip for April/May. Have trips scheduled for Sept and Dec. also have flights booked for both trips....both trips are room plus ddp (Not free dining) so I have no idea what to do now...:oops:
 
Honestly, I think they did it the way they did because they know many people are not going to spend the kind of money it takes for a WDW vacation with these limitations and wanted people to cancel for summer and put trips until next year so they can keep the numbers down,

The fact that they came out with all of this before the details of the reservation system seems like they knew they had to maybe get more people cancele?

I am DVC so for me, parks are secondary, so limitations are not as big of a deal. But, if I was a cash paying guest who didn’t go often, I probably would be canceling.

I am sorry this is not turning out to be the trip you wanted.
I very much agree with you. I think Disney wants to 1) get the dvc resorts open so, people like me who have expiring points, can use them 2) open up so AP's can begin using their passes again, lessening the amount of time they need to extend or refund and 3) get locals in so they will shop and dine and help them assess how they are doing managing people in a covid world. It's a very business-minded approach but it makes sense.
I am a TA and I am advising my clients, who all tend to be once every 5 years types or once in a lifetime people, to delay their trips. This is no way to experience Disney as a first time or infrequent guest.
 
I was just thinking of Chapek quote the other day “the world is ready to get back to some Magic.”

Also Bob: Please don’t come now and we definitely aren’t going to magical about the way we get you not to come.
 
I very much agree with you. I think Disney wants to 1) get the dvc resorts open so, people like me who have expiring points, can use them 2) open up so AP's can begin using their passes again, lessening the amount of time they need to extend or refund and 3) get locals in so they will shop and dine and help them assess how they are doing managing people in a covid world. It's a very business-minded approach but it makes sense.
I am a TA and I am advising my clients, who all tend to be once every 5 years types or once in a lifetime people, to delay their trips. This is no way to experience Disney as a first time or infrequent guest.
Do you think they're going to allow any modifications to existing reservations? I had the recovery free dining. I'd pay rack rate but I'd also like to shorten my trip now and get rid of the tickets I was required to add for FD. I'm feeling very confused about everything right now.
 
I was just thinking of Chapek quote the other day “the world is ready to get back to some Magic.”

Also Bob: Please don’t come now and we definitely aren’t going to magical about the way we get you not to come.
I wonder if this is the “quintessential Disney experience” he said they insisted on before they opened.

Chapek has to be the most clueless executive I’ve ever seen.
 
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Do you think they're going to allow any modifications to existing reservations? I had the recovery free dining. I'd pay rack rate but I'd also like to shorten my trip now and get rid of the tickets I was required to add for FD. I'm feeling very confused about everything right now.
It's hard to know. Do you have AP's or are you just wanting to buy tickets elsewhere? You may be in a position,depending on how soon your trip is, that you need to just suck up the tickets - that is, if you really want/have to travel during this - and hold them for another trip to upgrade or use. I would have previously said, "of course Disney will allow you to modify and keep your hotel" but right now, things are a mess and very uncertain. I'm not sure what they are going to do and our TA emails have not given any better info than what is posted here.
 

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