My understanding is that the rationale has to do with labor. Even though they’re not in public-facing roles right now, the YC CMs are still back at work. If there were to be a sizable gap between the time the NBA left and when the resort reopened for Guests, they’d either have to pay those CMs for the period they weren’t working or re-furlough them, neither of which Disney wants to do at the moment. Though not available for the general public, think of YC, GF, and CSR as all open right now. If they need to delay some resort reopenings, it makes more sense to delay ones that (the hotel-sides) aren’t even open. Even going from DVC-only to hotel-side and DVC open, there’s a large increase in labor capital needed that most guests wouldn’t realize. That large increase doesn’t exist over at YC since the hotel has basically already been open and those CMs are back. When you look at the changes, the only dates that didn’t budge were the three NBA resorts (plus CBR but that’s likely because it’s reopening was too soon to be cancelled; CMs already back at work).
I’m not even sure if pet-friendly options are currently available. I know the dog parks aren’t. Anyone have any info on this? If not, I can try to find out.
The reopening changes have more to do with staffing and demand though.
My understanding is that the current plan is for most of those facilities to reopen (Yachtsman, Ale & Compass, Market at A&C), but we’ll see. I mean the original plan was for Sebastians at CBR to reopen too and that was scrapped relatively quickly. The fate of SAB also remains unknown. If I had to guess, I’d say they’ll reopen SAB since they know what a draw it is and YC can’t rely on DVC members who have a greater incentive to stay there. But again, all of that could change. I can tell you Disney didn’t anticipate these resort reopening delays even on 7/11.
It’s not just demand for YC/BC but for most of WDW at the moment. Apparently, weekends are doing okay (not great) but the concern is weekdays, some of which are just too slow. Remember also that even if wait times seem high at times, most of these attractions are operating anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3 of their regular capacity. Wait times are more indicative of what percentage capacity they’re operating at (and in some cases have been exacerbated by lots of downtime) than crowd levels in the park. Disney expected heavier crowds at this point. If the FL Resident 2-Day Ticket special didn’t indicate that (I cannot emphasize to you how much of a warning signal that is, as it has forever since WDW offered a FL resident discount on a 2 day), CMs being unblocked this week, more spots going to the AP bucket, and the resort delays should make it crystal clear. Disney didn’t want to do any of things (all don’t generate a ton of revenue), but they desperately need more people in the parks right now. I had been told they, even before reopening, they were concerned about September. There’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment regarding what schools may do so parents may be even less enthusiastic about post-summer travel. Likewise, bookings are already very “soft” (not really sure what that means in this moment) and there are concerns about an active hurricane season. WDW has had its operations impacted in some way three of the last four years by a named storm. That doesn’t even begin to factor in where FL COVID-19 cases could go. Who knows?
As a result, for lack of a better term, things seem to kind of be frozen in place at the moment. There’s some small movement here and there with a few things (like the Germany shops) coming back, but for the most part, what you see is what you’re going to get at least until we’re on the other side of September. Remember, the original plan was to take a look at things 4-6 weeks after the initial reopenings and start making major changes. That can’t happen right now. While we’ve seen some glimmers of hope regarding the case count, Disney just isn’t making the money they thought they would and can’t get a firm idea when cases will be at a more manageable level. So when it comes to things like PH, fireworks, etc..., we’re likely going to have to wait until at least October for those things to even be considered, assuming nothing changes which is always possible.
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Silver lining!
