What's it like being at WDW during a hurricane?

[Disneyland1084]

Especially when you're staying at a value or moderate where you're literally stuck in your room until the hurricane dies down. What's it like watching from your window? I'm not saying I hope I get to experience this, I'm just curious.

 

[Nabas]

Values and Moderates are tough in any bad weather because they require going outside to get to the dining hall.

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

Especially when you're staying at a value or moderate where you're literally stuck in your room until the hurricane dies down. What's it like watching from your window? I'm not saying I hope I get to experience this, I'm just curious.

There is a reason Floridians have hurricane shutters that we close during a hurricane. There could be flying debris and best to close the curtains and stay away from windows.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

BTW, even some of the deluxe resorts have outer buildings, i.e. Poly and GF
I would not have an issue being at WDW, in any resort, during a hurricane, the buildings are safe and hard to be flooded. A lot of the time the worse part of hurricanes occur in the middle of the night, when it's dark outside. Have not been at WDW during a hurricane but we have lived in Orlando for 18 years and then now we live in the Florida panhandle not far from the gulf for another 21 years and have seen our fair share of hurricanes. As a matter of fact the 1st year we moved to our current home, we ended up evacuating back to Orlando for a week, during hurricane Ivan. We actually was watching Jim Cantore on the TV in our hotel room and he was broadcasting only a block from our house.

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

BTW, even some of the deluxe resorts have outer buildings, i.e. Poly and GF
I would not have an issue being at WDW, in any resort, during a hurricane, the buildings are safe and hard to be flooded. A lot of the time the worse part of hurricanes occur in the middle of the night, when it's dark outside. Have not been at WDW during a hurricane but we have lived in Orlando for 18 years and then now we live in the Florida panhandle not far from the gulf for another 21 years and have seen our fair share of hurricanes. As a matter of fact the 1st year we moved to our current home, we ended up evacuating back to Orlando for a week, during hurricane Ivan. We actually was watching Jim Cantore on the TV in our hotel room and he was broadcasting only a block from our house.

You were smart leaving for Ivan, we stayed and had a lot of damage. The beach was never the same.

 

[snikki]

We were there during Nicole in November. We stayed at CSR in the Ranchos section. It wasn’t bad. We knew ahead what times the parks would be closed. We knew we didn’t want to brave the weather and go to the main building so the day the parks closed early we adjusted. Instead of starting late at Epcot we RD and moved up our VN ADR. We are at Le Halles for breakfast and got extras to pack up. We gathered snacks from other countries. We took leftover pizza (don’t mind cold pizza). We were fine from 6 pm until we left the room around 3-4 to hit DHS the next day. On the bus to DHS we heard people talking about hour plus waits for food at CSR.

As for watching out the window, Nicole wasn’t that bad. Sometimes you’d hear the wind howl and you could hear the rain but we slept through the worst of it.

CSR also housed a big number of people from the fort because there were tons of RVs parked at the resort for those 2-3 days.

 

[Stratman50th]

Your biggest worry with a hurricane in the central part of the state is tornados. Hurricanes tend to spin tornados off from the east side of the storm. If it passes over you, or to your east you should be fine. I'm talking central Florida. If you're on the coast someplace that's a whole other thing with wind, rain and especially the storm surge.

 

[dcassetta]

The nice thing about Disney is the stability of their power grid. So, you may be stuck in your room, but there is electricity. We actually lived at Pop for 2 weeks back in 2004 as our area of Orange County had long outages after both Frances and Jeanne.

 

[Karalee402]

We were there for Hurricane Ian last fall, and I can't imagine any places handles hurricanes better than Disney does. Locals were leaving their homes to shelter in place at Disney. We were at the Dolphin, which is definitely different because of the interior hallways, but the staff/cast members everywhere were incredible. It was amazing to watch the sheer power of the storm and awesome to see the way people come together, even in silly ways like sharing games and helping with clean up. I was so impressed, as well, to see that within a day of the parks reopening, you'd never know there had been a storm. From ruined topiaries and absolutely flooded areas, within 24 hours, all was back to Disney normal.

 

[Minniedap]

We stayed in a value during hurricane Charley. Disney does a very good job of making you feel safe. When I checked in and inquired about an approaching hurricane I remember him telling me "don't worry about a thing, we do all the worrying for you". If, you do ever have to experience a hurricane at Disney, make sure you have food in your room. Disney opened the theme parks until one o'clock free of charge to all the resort guests. While we were enjoying the empty theme parks, everyone else was getting food and even the vending machines were empty. We were just laughing about this the other day, we had Triscuits and squeeze cheese to eat all night.

 

[Sparkly]

I was at WDW during Hurricane Ian in September 22. I stayed at POFQ and got some peanut butter and jelly, bread, water etc to keep in the room whilst I was stuck in. The worst hit overnight, really, so I mostly slept.

No loss of power or water or anything, felt very safe. Within a couple of days after the hurricane hit, you couldn't tell there had been one going through.

 

[gottalovepluto]

It should be incredibly boring considering you should be staring at your curtain. They literally tell people to stay away from the windows, keep the curtains drawn- that’s so if anything comes flying through your window you have less chance of getting hurt.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

We waited it out on site back in 2004. The resort itself was fine - built well and we never felt unsafe. As mentioned earlier, many Floridians from the coast drove to Disney and got rooms while waiting it out. They gave us plenty of info and notice - making sure everyone knew the restaurants and stores (along with the parks) would be closed for 1-2 days, depending on the progress of the storm. So we stocked up on food and water early in the trip, anticipating the storm, and dined on a lot of junk food for a couple days. Things finally started opening up slowing, including access to pizza and a few other food options. The electric and cable stayed up the entire time - so we watched a lot of Disney movies and cartoons! The first day the parks reopened were the emptiest we ever saw them! One very small benefit to waiting out the storm!

 

[StageTek]

Especially when you're staying at a value or moderate where you're literally stuck in your room until the hurricane dies down. What's it like watching from your window? I'm not saying I hope I get to experience this, I'm just curious.

I was staying at French Quarter during Irma in 2017. It was exhilarating watching from my window. The power never went out, the CM's were amazing during the whole thing. The resort provided boxed meals. The morning after guests jumped in to help clean up. I was only stick in my room for about 4 hours during the main part and that was at night when I would have been in the room anyway. We could wander around and go to the lobby and food court. That, too, was exhilarating - walking around in such high winds and heavy rain.

Then in 2019 I booked an earlier flight from Los Angeles (switched from Sept 1 to August 30) because it looked like MCO was going to close on the 1st. And I wanted to experience it again. Spent the weekend at POP then my booked reservation at POFQ.

As others have said many locals head to WDW during the hurricane - it was a surprise to me but talking to a lot of people it sure seemed like a wise move. I enjoyed hanging out at the smoking area with a cigar talking to the locals even with the wind and rain.

 

[Aimeedyan]

We rode out one at POR years ago and it was pretty boring, honestly. Nothing much to do, and had to run in the rain during the lighter bands for food. Long lines for meals and limited options + shorter hours at the park.

We live in FL now and after riding out Irma at home, said 'never again' and went to the Swan for Ian. Since the hurricane was headed straight for our house, it was not an exciting adventure but instead really emotional and scary. I cried the entire way there.

Swan did a good job but food was still difficult to come by without long lines. We were thankful to have brought a bunch of items from home. We purposely did a hotel with interior hallways and with a small child, it was a good move. They opened the ballrooms for activities and we had a lot of space to roam. The path turned and our house was spared. We left as soon as we were able to get back home.

If another took aim at us again, we'd go back to Disney to ride it out. It cost us a LOT of money, so it's definitely a privilege to be able to even leave the area and we were thankful for the opportunity.

 

[cakebaker]

We were there for Ian last year. We had gotten off our cruise and new nothing about an impending hurricane until our porter asked where we were headed. We told him WDW and that's when he let us know there might be an issue. lol We were at the Beach Club, scheduled to check out the day it hit. They extended our stay for a night at a pretty decent discount. All in all, it really was pretty uneventful, it really never got terribly bad weather wise from our perspective. Cast was excellent. They changed the buffet at the YC to no reservations, so ate breakfast there. Our best memory though was when we moved to Universal the next day. We had Volc
ano bay scheduled and it actually opened- it was virtually empty the whole day, never waiting to ride anything.

 

[TheOGCruise]

We were there last November during Nicole. The hurricane itself was not terrible but we did stay in our hotel most of one day on our trip. The parks had shut down and most of the staff at our hotel were able to stay on site so they didn't have to travel during the worst of it.

 

[sWDWcopeland]

If you want to see live footage of Ian, check out Wonderland Explorers on YouTube. They were at Wilderness Lodge and did an evening livestream and then another one the next morning to show the "damage". Both were informative as we wondered how Disney World was faring that night.

 

[Disneyland1084]

If you want to see live footage of Ian, check out Wonderland Explorers on YouTube. They were at Wilderness Lodge and did an evening livestream and then another one the next morning to show the "damage". Both were informative as we wondered how Disney World was faring that night.

Great, thanks. I'll check them out.

 

[sneedo24]

We were scheduled to leave the day they closed down the airports for Ian last fall. Beach club staff were very helpful in getting us set up to leave a day early. Even got my DVC points back for that last night.