Disney Proposes Phased Re-Openings for Disneyland and Disney World This July

The Walt Disney Company has announced phased re-openings of Disneyland and Disney World this summer.

Today, the company announced a three-part re-opening strategy for its Disneyland Resort. The re-opening will begin July 7 with the Downtown Disney area. Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure park will follow, resuming operations on July 17. Two hotels on the property, Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa and the Disney Paradise Pier hotel will re-open July 23.

This comes on the heels of last month's news that the company will begin a two-part phased re-opening of the Walt Disney World Resort. The Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom parks will resume operations on July 11, followed by the July 15 re-opening of EPCOT and Hollywood Studios.

Guidelines for responsible re-opening were set forth for Disney World last month including reduced capacity, mandatory face coverings for guests and staff, temperature screenings before admittance to the parks, temporary suspension of gatherings that draw crowds including parades and fireworks, the expansion of cashless transactions, and increased hand sanitizing stations throughout the parks. Further information regarding the re-openings will become available at a later date.

Of the re-openings, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said, "We've done everything we can to open up responsibly. Taking the guidance of local health officials, state health officials, national health officials, plus our own well-qualified doctors on staff to create an environment to create new operating procedures, to create new policies, to do new training, new standards of hygiene."

The company shuttered both American Disney Parks in mid-March as Covid-19 began to sweep the United States, after closing its Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan parks in January. Shanghai Disneyland resumed operations on May 11.

It has been estimated that Disney lost approximately $35 million each day from park closures.