President of Disneyland Resort Ken Potrock, shares they are at the halfway point of phased re-opening. This information comes to us from The Orange County Register.
What's Happening:
- Disneyland has only reached the halfway point of an extended phase of reopening. It is going to take another year before operations fully return to the way they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Potrock shares that the past two years since the pandemic have started feeling like dog years for Disneyland, with each year feeling more like seven.
- "The last few years have been rough," Potrock said. "So many people said to me that the Disneyland job is going to be the best job you’ve ever had. The first year was a pretty tough job, but this second year truly proved it is the best job in this company."
- Potrock, who is a 27 year Disney veteran, took over as Disneyland Resort President in May of 2020. This is only two months after the theme parks in Anaheim had to shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. No one realized that Disneyland and Disney California Adventure would be closed for 412 days.
- We are coming up on the one-year anniversary of when Disneyland and Disney California Adventure reopened in late 2021. The theme parks look quite a bit different than they did before the pandemic, and Potrock says that they have only reached the halfway point of reopening.
- "We’ve embarked on this legendary comeback," Potrock said. "We’re more than halfway through it, but we’ve got another year."
- Potrock shares that the first year of Disneyland was adaptation and survival. He hopes that the second-year is hope and revival.
- "We focused on two things," Potrock said. "One was we were very focused on a common enemy — the pandemic. Then we had a common objective which was survival. That meant we had to be unified, quicker to market and innovative. We needed to recreate the Disneyland experience without losing the heart of it."
- If looking for a silver lining to the pandemic, Potrock, along with everyone at Disneyland, has the ability to reassess the business in a number of ways.
- "The message that I keep delivering to my senior leadership team is, ‘We can’t get tied up in the bureaucracy,’" Potrock said. "We are dynamic, innovative and decisive. The team is so good that even if we don’t get it right, we’ll ultimately get it right because we’ll adapt."
- "I tell the team again and again, ‘We’re going to try stuff and I’m OK if we don’t get it perfect right away,’" Potrock said. "A lot of times perfect gets in the way of excellence. We’re really focused on doing the best we possibly can. We’re going to listen and adjust as quickly as humanly possible. The team gets it and that’s the culture that we’re trying to create."
- Disneyland's workforce was cut from pre-pandemic levels of 32,000 to a low of 2,000 due to furloughs and layoffs during the closure due to COVID-19. They were then able to rehire 28,000 people in the past year and now have 30,000 cast members.
- "We’re still not staffed up all the way," Potrock said. "We are hiring every single week."
- Not only did they bring back a majority of those who were furloughed, but Disneyland has hired 10,000 new cast members.
- "We’re never going to be back to where we were until those 10,000 people truly have it in their DNA as to what their role and what their mission is as we begin to go forward," Potrock said.
- "We are so empathetic and sensitive to the tough journey that our cast members have been on," Potrock said. "We want to make sure that we are showing sensitivity, compassion and gratitude to our cast members."
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