Will you be taking your family to Disney before a cure/vaccine is found for Covid 19?

If the parks are open, we are keeping our Aug. trip dates. We won't go for just the resort. I do hope that WDW opens in July so that they can work out some of the kinks before we arrive, plus I'd like a little cushion of certainty - would hate for the trip to be in question right up to the actual date.
 
No. Partly because my park buddy is my dad, who's high risk due to age. But even if it was just me, I feel like the necessary safety precautions are incompatible with a relaxed entertainment experience. I grew up in the area with APs, and now live in New Orleans but return frequently. And I just can't wrap my brain around how it would be the slightest bit fun while wearing a mask, respecting social distancing, possibly having several things closed, and always having to make sure I'm following proper protocols to minimize the health risks to myself or others. I totally respect that others feel differently, but I'm taking a hard pass till this thing is over with.
 
I can certainly live without some things. We have small children so fireworks are tough to make it to anyway. We like afternoon breaks so I wouldn't mind the parade being cancelled. No indoor rides? No indoor shows? Entire parks closed? No character meals or meets? Requirement to wear masks in the sweltering heat? These are all things that would make me seriously evaluate if I am getting enough value out of the tremendous price tag.

I am beyond sad to say that my DW and I have decided to cancel our vacation plans this summer. This is what we discussed before canceling. It's one of the hardest things we have had to admit during this entire pandemic. It was the realization that this wasn't going away soon. Also, having a blended family creates more problems in rescheduling.

I hope you are all staying safe during this time, and I hope to see you all at Disney world soon.
 
I am really on the fence about going this year or even next year with no cure found. What about you?
We are not going this year but not because of COVID (we are currently stationed overseas and are exploring Europe and parts of Africa while are here instead of flying back to the US for vacations). That said, I would still go, with or without a cure. As long as they'll let us in, we have already have a trip booked to Italy at the end of June that we have no intention on missing. Distancing, masks, whatever; we still want our Italy time!
 
We were still planning on our trip in December but decided to cancel. We live in Pa., masks are mandatory and after living this way for over a month we've decided that walking around an amusement park all day in them is not for us. I've got a lot more respect for medical staff who wear them on a daily basis. They deserve a MASSIVE raise. I dread a hour trip to Giant Eagle and have found a new appreciation for grocery pickup. We are flying to Arizona and hitting several National Parks. My dh and kids are excited for the UTV rentals. We are also flying to Seattle to visit Olympia and Forks(my girls are huge Twilight fans and with the new book coming out it seemed like the right time.)I know we'll probably have to wear masks on the flights which we'll do. Maybe by December Disney won't require masks but we get employee rate at Hilton hotels and I can't wait until the last minute to book a 3 week vacation.(The rates will be gone) I'll miss WDW but look forward to visiting when the time is right for us. Funny thing, the rest of my family is excited to be heading in a different direction and I just want to cry!!! I love my Disney trips.
 
Maybe
If I ever get the money, 10 plus years since our last trip and coming up on either 7 or 8 years since our goal return date of October 2012 or if it didn't look like we would have at least everything but student loans and house paid off to October 2013. My parents paid for
our so far only trip which ended up happening over our oldests 5th birthday so we wanted to aim for a trip for our youngest 5th birthday.
Having gone into an asthma attack from just having a mask on in a recommended but not required store as long as masks are required no even if we end up getting the money from a knock on the door. Plus youngest has Sensory disorder and even putting a mask on in case one would be required to go in and use the bathroom in a store in the small resort town about an hour drive away we went to on a weekend day. (We had packed items to make a picnic lunch at a roadside park where the tables are 6 ft apart-the one other group who came after we were there used the table on the far other end so was about 30 ft from us. We are going to use a different one next time just because there are some that are not a hike down a little hill from the parking area and those ones are single group use having one table and one charcoal barbecuer).
I end up with the money to make a trip and things are back to normal or at least semi normal (they can keep extra handwashing stations that have the water and the soap and the paper towels-can I get some cheers from any parent who has a child who has ended up wearing more of a mickey bar than eaten one for that one. I love the ones that are in the livestock and the 4-H youth projects that are not animals area at the fair in my area. So many parents use the one in the 4-H youth projects section to go wash little hands and faces after getting some of the ice cream that is sold in the area) and I will be going or at least planning a trip before there is a vaccine as I am seriously questioning the while lofty no guarantee that we will have a vaccine in the near future if ever. I am old enough to remember when AIDS came out and there is still no vaccine and no cure though there is an effective treatment.
Meanwhile I will be hiding out along a river perferably in the mountains where social distancing has been practiced for years (just a couple of trips from a recent trip to the resorttown DSC05101.JPGDSC05103.JPGDSC05101.JPGDSC05103.JPG
 


Pediatric ICU doctor here.

Have a trip planned for this fall.

Really not worried about my kids getting particularly sick as they are both healthy (now would not be the time for a Make-a-Wish trip though...have a friend in the PICU of one of the Orlando Children's hospital who has some horror stories of those kids getting sick on vacation...not great). While not a complete count, the best available PICU database for North America (www.myvps.org) shows only 250 PICU admissions of children <18 as of today (May 5th). The dashboard doesn't show it but most of the reported deaths are of adults who were placed in pediatric ICU's as overflow. So based off of this understanding, it's very low risk for them.

Risk factors for my wife and I are low, though not zero, but truthfully, I'm likely at significantly greater risk going to work compared to the parks/hotel/restaurants.

Other than diligent and frequent disinfection, I struggle with the utility of other social distancing measures being worth it almost to the point of nihilism. Temperature scans are too easily circumvented with Tylenol/Motrin, 6 feet spacing is nearly impossible to enforce at the hardware store let alone for a theme park, people are terrible with wearing masks properly. Getting on ride vehicles or sitting in show theaters seems to destroy the spacing argument almost immediately. Reducing capacity sounds great from a parks experience standpoint, but at some point, the overall risk of large groups plateaus - is there that much risk increase between 50 people and 500? It's certainly not a linear increase. 50000 people sounds like a lot, but is it that much different than 10000? The most important thing I think Disney can do to decrease their liability is to take care of their Cast Members, and make sure that they have a lenient enough sick policy that CM's don't come to work ill.

I'm not counting on any treatment options to become available anytime soon. There are some flaws in the remdesivir data that I think will come out in the larger post-approval data collection. The critical care literature is littered with drugs that were supposed to be the saving grace for critically ill patients that did well in early trials only to be found useless once exposed to larger, more diverse patient volumes/pathophysiology. From a healthcare resource utilization standpoint, some sort of post-exposure prophylaxis to prevent hospital admission would be the best thing but with so many people having "mild" illnesses it would be really hard to get a study together that can demonstrate that effect. And that still wouldn't necessarily change your risk for feeling like absolute garbage for 2 weeks, just that you could stay home and not need the hospital.

Vaccines are the best hope, and I'm more encouraged by their promise. I believe the worst case scenario will be a seasonal SARS CoV-2 vaccine that'll be like the flu vaccine. Hopefully it'll only be yearly and not every 6 months but that wouldn't surprise me either.

It seemed like a bunch of you felt my prior post was helpful, so I thought I'd give an update that may be able to help you continue to better assess your risks going forward (at least in regards to your children since they are largely getting left out of the conversation in the media - understandably). I

The same VPS database about 3 weeks later (May 24th) has increased cases to 376 admissions to the Pediatric ICUs for children under 18 with 6 total deaths. That's a 1.6% mortality rate for children admitted to the PICU, which is well in line with established standards that PICU mortality should be roughly 3-4%. PICU mortality statistics should not be look at as a way to determine quality of care as the rates are too low, and instead are a marker of patient selection, with low rates indicating that too many "healthy" children are being admitted and high rates indicating that there are likely a number of patients who would benefit from being managed in the ICU for at least part of their hospital stay but are being missed.

The VPS database is undoubtedly an underreport of cases, but probably by no more than 15% given that admission to the PICU is a very specific event. Any underreporting likely comes from sites not participating or failing to update their data frequently. Again, just to be absolutely clear - this is just the number of children going to the ICU, not total cases, not total hospitalizations.

The Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in Children (MIS-C)/Kawasaki like Disease that was very much in the news last week, is certainly new, but probably shouldn't move the needle too much as you all are trying to ascertain the risk to your children. It's important for clinicians to pass along these sorts of trends, but I think the media coverage missed the boat on what was happening. Most importantly that these are not subtle signs and the kids are really sick in a "we clearly need to get you to the hospital" sort of way. Secondly, that pediatricians, Pediatric Infectious Disease specialists and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine specialists like myself are all familiar with Kawasaki Disease and those of us in the PICU deal with organ failure all the time. So it's new, but we're not helpless.

So all told, again, the risks to children remain spectacularly low compared to adults for reasons that still aren't clear. But 6 months into this condition, it's a story that's borne out all over the globe that kids are largely spared in this infection.

Most of my job (in my mind) is risk management and really being thoughtful about how big the actual risks are along with the severity of those risks in relation to the frequency and size of the available benefits. With this in mind, I do believe, with the caveat of it only being May 24th, that schools will reopen in the fall and strongly support this. With reasonable risk mitigation strategies and an understanding that eliminating risk would mean elimination of any benefits (so that's not a reasonable option), everyone can stay safe but the important things won't get lost (academic progress, all the social safety net things for kids that schools provide, etc.). What this means though for you and your family is that your baseline risk changes, and with that, so too might your assessment of how risky a theme park vacation is. Hypothetically (and using completely made up numbers) if your current stay at home routine places you at a risk of 5% of contracting COVID, and you think that going to a theme park increases your risk to 20%, then that jump in risk may seem unwise...but if schools are open and you feel your risk is now 15%, you may feel like going from 15->20% isn't that big of deal any longer and it may change your vacation plans. Just something to think about.
 
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Yes we will. Covid has a 90+% treatment rate and while I would not want to get it, chances are ONE DAY, we will- just like the flu.
We keep our immunity strong, just like we always do and expect to get exposed and get it every once in awhile. My family does not get the flu every year (we don't get the flu shot either) and I assume it will be similar for Covid (but there is a high chance of getting it this year of course)

Honestly, I would almost rather get it so we can build an immunity sooner than later.

I will not go to Disney while masks are required though. Nope.

Absolutely everything you said, I totally agree. It's the modified experiences, closures, and paying Disney prices but being forced to wear a mask that has us putting the breaks on planning a trip right now. We also don't do the seasonal flu vaccine and won't vaccinate for Covid either, so for us, whether there is a vaccine or not is a non-issue. We will self-isolate for 14 days when we return, jump through any necessary hoops we need to in order to travel, etc but the masks are an absolute deal breaker.
 
No we wont be going and cancelled our trip, we in NYC were the epicenter of this thing and it wasn't pretty it was really bad have been wearing masks since this whole thing began, if I have to wear a mask in that Florida heat that would be too much for us it's bad enough here just going to the grocery store let alone hours in that heat or even non heat it's very unpleasant and would not feel like a Disney Vacation
 

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