Due to the State of California’s plans not to issue theme park reopening guidelines until next month, today the Disneyland Resort announced it would need to postpone the proposed reopenings of Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.
What’s Happening:
- After proposing theme park reopening dates for July 17th, today the Disneyland Resort announced that those plans would be postponed.
- In a statement, Disney explained that The State of California will not issue theme park reopening guidelines until after July 4th.
- As a result, the resort says it will not have enough time to prepare for a July 17th reopening.
- However, Downtown Disney will begin its phased reopening as planned on July 9th.
- With the theme park reopening in limbo, the proposed July 23rd reopenings of Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa and Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel have also been pushed back.
- The news comes on the heels of 11 unions representing the resort’s Cast Members sent a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom urging him to not approve Disney’s request to reopen in July.
- That letter stated that not all of the unions’ safety concerns had not been addressed by Disney.
- On that front, Disney noted that they have signed agreements with 20 union affiliates.
- Among those is the Master Services Council, which represents more than 11,000 Cast Members.
What They’re Saying:
- Statement from Disneyland Resort: “We previously announced a proposed phased reopening of our theme parks for July 17, pending government approvals. We developed enhanced health and safety protocols for both cast and guests at Shanghai Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort that have been approved, allowing us to reopen in a responsible manner and bring our cast members back to work.
The State of California has now indicated that it will not issue theme park reopening guidelines until sometime after July 4. Given the time required for us to bring thousands of cast members back to work and restart our business, we have no choice but to delay the reopening of our theme parks and resort hotels until we receive approval from government officials. Once we have a clearer understanding of when guidelines will be released, we expect to be able to communicate a reopening date.
Our Downtown Disney District will reopen on July 9 as previously announced with health and safety protocols in place for our cast members and guests. The opening of our Downtown Disney District has been previously approved in line with restaurant and retail openings throughout California. The Master Services Union, which represents our retail cast at this location, previously signed an agreement for members to return to work.
In order to reopen our theme parks we need to negotiate agreements with our unions to return employees to work. We have had positive discussions and are very pleased to have signed agreements from 20 union affiliates, including the Master Services Council, which represents more than 11,000 of our cast members. The signed agreement details plans that include enhanced safety protocols that will allow us to responsibly reopen, and get thousands of our cast members back to work.
We thank our cast and guests for their patience during this unprecedented time while we await approval from government officials.”