Like many of you, our 2020 Disney holiday plans have been scuppered because of coronavirus. Now that Disney has released more details about their opening plans, people can start deciding what to do with their trips. In this post we’re going to discuss some of the changes announced, how these will affect your vacation and whether you should keep your trip or not.
Here’s what we know so far
Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom will open 11th July Hollywood Studios and Epcot will open 15th July Walt Disney World DVC Resorts will open 22nd June – at the moment there is no opening date for the remaining Disney World resorts.
Due to capacity restrictions that will be in place at the parks, Disney has decided to cancel all advanced dining reservations, fast passes, behind the scenes tours and Disney dining plans included in packages. Unfortunately, this also includes those of us who booked with a free dining plan offer. If you booked with a free dining promotion, Disney are offering a 35% discount on your room. This is only the room; tickets, flights or anything else included in your package is not included. Guests booked to stay at a Disney resort this year have now all been contacted with 3 options for their package. These are:
Accept the changes and travel as planned
Decline the changes and cancel your booking for a full refund
Move your trip to a date in 2021 (subject to availability and 2021 rate)
We have gone with option 1 and are keeping our September 2020 trip. Here are the factors we considered.
Price
The first thing we had to consider was whether or not we were happy with the new price of our package. Our original price for 2 adults was £2314 for – 7 nights Port Orleans Riverside – Free Quick Service Dining Plan – Free $300 gift card – 14 day ultimate tickets (x 2)
The discounted price is now £1804 and we have lost the dining plan. This is a reduction of £510. Although the QSDP would have been worth more than this, we think it is still an adequate amount and will cover the majority of our food for a week. However this only works for us because we are a couple. If we were a family of 4 or 5 staying in the one room for a week, the discount would still only be £510. At Disney prices it would be impossible to feed a whole family for that. So your holiday has just got a whole lot more expensive. Of course there are ways around this… if you have a car you can eat offsite for a fraction of the cost. Or eat breakfast in your room and take packed lunches to the park to save money.
Reduced experiences
No character meet & greets. No fireworks & parades. Face masks required. Shorter park hours. Water parks closed. Probably no park hopping. These are just some of the changes coming to Disney World when it reopens. You need to decide if these are deal breakers for your family or not. For us, the main thing about Disney is the rides. Although we love the firework shows and meeting characters, we can live without them for this trip. We believe we will still have a great time and get to enjoy all of our favourite things. If you’ve got kids who are excited about breakfast with the Princesses or meeting Mickey Mouse, maybe consider cancelling. It’s a lot of money to spend and not get the full experience. If there are certain things you’re not willing to compromise on, don’t.
Flights
Like many other people, we booked our flights to Orlando ourselves separately rather than through a travel agent. Unless our flights are cancelled they are non refundable, which means we would have lost around £500pp if we decided we didn’t want to travel. This definitely motivated us to try and keep the original dates of our trip. Disney is expensive enough without wasting hundreds of pounds on unused flights! Some airlines are offering customers a voucher for the value of their flights to be used by a certain date. So if you’re not wanting to travel this year but are worried about losing your airfare make sure you check before making a decision.
The rest of Orlando
We have family members joining us on this trip so we are only planning on being at Disney for 7 days out of our 14 day holiday. While details have not been announced yet, Disney have revealed that there will be a reservation system in place to enter a park. Your park ticket does not guarantee you entry. As we’re planning on doing other things in Orlando, if there happen to be days when we can’t get a park reservation then it’s not the end of the world for us. We want to do Universal, Discovery Cove, shopping etc. But if you are planning to spend your whole trip in the Disney bubble and would be disappointed having days where you may not be allowed to visit the parks, reconsider your trip.
First trip?
This was probably the most important factor in our decision. This isn’t our first trip to Disney and won’t be our last. If we were planning a once in a lifetime holiday and these changes were announced, we would 100% cancel our trip & postpone until next year. If you’re like us and plan to go pretty regularly, and feel comfortable going with everything going on the go for it. It could turn out to be a really unique experience. Getting to visit Disney World with heavily reduced crowds won’t happen very often!
So, those were the 5 main things we considered when deciding what to do with our 2020 Disney World trip. Of course there are many other things that need thinking about… are you willing to wear a mask in the parks? Are you comfortable even travelling before there is a vaccine? We all know that Disney isn’t going to be the same for quite some time. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t have a magical holiday!
Are you planning on going to Disney is 2020? Or would you rather wait til next year?
Thanks for reading & see you real soon
Josh & Becky
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