The Walt Disney World Resort has posted its answers to some frequently asked questions following the resort's announcement that it will close its theme parks for the rest of the month, starting Monday.
The closure is part of a nationwide effort to stop the spread of the Covid-19 novel coronavirus, which has seen all other major theme park chains in the country close their parks temporarily, as well. But with thousands of visitors having booked stays and bought tickets for what would have been the start of the busy Spring Break season, lots of fans have questions about what to do next.
To address what's probably been the most-asked question about theme park tickets ever since parks started announcing closures, Walt Disney World has said that it will extend its annual passes by the number of days that the park is closed. That means that AP holders will get the full number of park days that they paid for with their pass.
Second, Walt Disney World will extend the valid use period for certain date-specific or multi-date tickets. Tickets with remaining unused days and a valid use period during the period of March 15-31 automatically will be extended for use through December 15, 2020. If you have a completely unused ticket, you may apply the value of that ticket to the purchase of another ticket to be used at a future date. Also, the deadline to use Florida Resident Discovery Disney tickets is now extended until July 31.
Next, if you had tickets to any hard-ticket event scheduled during the shutdown, including Disney After Hours or Disney Early Morning Magic, you will get an automatic refund. Other prepaid in-park experiences that were reserved for the shutdown period, such as Droid Depot, will be refunded automatically as well. All Fastpasses during the shutdown are automatically canceled. (Sorry, no Gplden Fastpasses for use later.)
For hotel guests, Disney has waived all of its cancellation or change fees up to planned check-in dates before June 30. If you have not checked in for a stay March 16-31, you can change or cancel your hotel reservation up until your check-in date. But if you no-show for stays with a check-in during that period, Disney says it will refund you automatically within seven days of the scheduled check-in if you booked with them. If you used a travel agent, check with your agent.
TweetGetting ahold of Disney right now is a bit of trick, as they are slammed with people making changes.
The schedules at Disney are made two weeks in advance, so the schedules are pretty much already made for the STCU Cast Members (though the Cast Members don't see the one for the following week until Sunday morning). They are made based on a variety of factors including attendance projections, seniority, status, preference (does the Cast Member want time of day preference first, max hours first, or work location first). This ensures that the higher seniority Cast Members get what they want over everyone else, which is what unions want when they negotiate the contracts, it's not like every full time Cast Member just gets scheduled exactly 40 hours every week and that's how much they get paid. They get anywhere from 32 to sometimes up to 60 (though that's very rare unless its a high seniority Cast Member that puts that they want more hours).
According to their union contract, that the workers voted on and approved, the company isn't even supposed to pay them for something like this, if there is a work-stoppage the employee is permitted to get paid by using their benefit time if they want to (sick, vacation, floating holiday, etc) up to a certain amount of days. They did add something in the most recent contract that says Disney can pay them for up to 5 days (if the company chooses, which they don't have to) before they have to go into their benefit bank, but that was basically because of what happened during the previous two hurricanes where Disney broke the contract and paid them anyway...which once again is exactly what they're doing now which is breaking the contract to pay them from company money and not money allocated towards their benefit time package.
Sorry for the rant it drives me crazy when people give expert opinions on things they know nothing about..."limited to the hours they have already been scheduled" means they are getting exactly what they would have regardless. They are basically getting a really long paid vacation without having to use any benefit time. This is totally unprecedented as Disney is basically acting as a charity for Central Florida for the next few weeks.
No you missed the point of my post. You are suggesting that somehow Chapek is thinking of screwing them over when in reality they are going to get every penny of what they would have worked anyway. Their schedules are already made for the two weeks, if what you posted is true then they are going to get the pay of what they were scheduled.
Gee TH, you and Chapek old dormmates or something? ;-)
Well, emotions are definitely sure to be running high now with CPs being released early.
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Disney needs to be more specific with their policies. I have unused tickets sitting at home that were supposed to be used Monday. Do I make the changes through the app? Do I have a code to enter to pay for the new tickets in the future? There isn't enough info on how to transfer the ticket credit to a new purchase. An automated e-mail with detailed instructions should do the trick. I don't want to be yet another person calling Disney World right now.
Update: Now there is absolutely no mention of having tickets to my account on the My Disney app. Logical thing for anyone in my predicament is to just give it time. Hopefully Disney gets it all together. After all, no one has experience with what is going on right now.