7 questions facing theme parks as reopening date looms
California theme parks know when they can reopen after a year of coronavirus closures, but a whole lot of questions still remain about what Disneyland, Universal and other amusement parks will be like once they return.
California theme parks can reopen on April 1 provided the counties they reside in reach the red/substantial tier 2 risk status of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s updated Blueprint for a Safer Economy.
Starting on April 1, California theme parks can reopen at 15% capacity in the red/substantial tier 2, 25% capacity in the orange/moderate tier 3 and 35% capacity in the least-restrictive yellow/minimal tier 4.
California Health and Human Services secretary Mark Ghaly and California Business and Economic Development director Dee Dee Myers spoke to the media last week about the Newsom administration’s “Blueprint Refresh” that allows California theme parks to reopen.
Let’s take a closer look at 7 questions facing theme park operators and fans as the April 1 reopening date approaches.
Q: Will advance reservations be required to visit California theme parks?
A: Online reservations will be required to get into big and small theme parks in the state. Large parks like Disney, Universal and Six Flags have already set up reservation systems or are developing them.
The online reservation requirements could be more burdensome for California’s smaller amusement parks that don’t have the resources of their larger rivals.
The online reservation systems will allow the parks to gather information on visitors and provide the “ability to contact trace should there be an issue,” Myers said.
Q: How many tickets can each visitor purchase?
A: Demand is expected to be high for tickets to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm and other California theme parks after a year of coronavirus closures.
Online reservations will be limited to “small groups” during the red tier. That translates to a maximum of 10 people from no more than three household groups. No intergroup mixing is permitted among the “small groups.”
The “small groups” restriction goes away in the orange and yellow tiers.
Theme park attendance is limited to California residents during the red, orange and yellow tiers.
Q: Can theme park restaurants reopen?
A: Knott’s Berry Farm and SeaWorld San Diego have been hosting food festivals during the pandemic while Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood have similar events planned for March and April.
The festivals allow the parks to sell food while indoor dining is prohibited during the most-restrictive purple tier of the state’s guidelines. Indoor dining is permitted during the red tier — but not in theme parks under the new guidelines.
That means indoor dining at the Carthay Circle restaurant in Disney California Adventure will be forbidden in the red tier while eateries in Downtown Disney will be allowed to offer indoor dining. Disney has worked around this restriction by setting up outdoor dining for Carthay Circle.
The seemingly contradictory rules appear to be tied to the 15% capacity at theme parks in the red tier. Indoor dining is permitted at theme parks when attendance capacity rises to 25% in the orange tier.
Q: Do the updated state guidelines still make a distinction between small and large amusement parks?
A: “We no longer have the distinction between the size of the theme parks and this includes all theme parks across California,” Ghaly said last week.
Back in October, California officials issued separate reopening guidelines for small and large theme parks in the state. Small theme parks with a capacity of less than 15,000 visitors would have been allowed to reopen in the orange/ moderate tier 3 while large theme parks could have returned in the yellow/minimal tier 4.
The California Attractions and Parks Association said the decision to place the state’s large theme parks in the least-restrictive tier would have kept the major tourist destinations “closed indefinitely.”
Only one amusement park in California — Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk — was able to reopen under the state guidelines issued in October. The Beach Boardwalk was forced to reclose after only one weekend of operation in November following a rise in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the surrounding area.
Many California theme parks have partially reopened without rides or attractions for special events and food festivals.
Q: When will California theme parks return to 100% attendance capacity?
A: When parks return to normal remains unknown — much like many aspects of the pandemic.
“This is not for the ages,” Myers said. “This is just the next phase as we move forward.”
The revised state guidelines allow theme parks to return to 35% attendance capacity in the yellow tier — but what happens after that is fuzzy.
“We hope and expect that there will be a day where we can turn the page on the Blueprint and move towards a new, slightly different normal for a period of time when some of the restrictions of the Blueprint are not there,” Ghaly said. “We hope that summer is that target.”
Q: When will the state issue the revised guidelines for California amusement parks?
A: Updated guidelines will be issued before the April 1 reopening date. The new guidelines remain a “work in progress” that will be worked out “in conversation with the venues,” according to Myers.
“We’ll come back over the next couple of weeks and try to update this so that we can provide more visibility and a path forward for more businesses,” Myers said.
In the interim, theme park operators big and small are left to wonder what requirements and restrictions will be included in the revised guidelines.
Q: Will theme park employees be regularly tested?
A: The new rules call for theme park employees to be tested weekly for COVID-19.
Last summer, Disneyland unions demanded the park’s employees be tested regularly and notified of positive COVID-19 results by their coworkers.
In the fall, Disneyland began offering free drivethru COVID-19 testing for employees at CVS drug stores as well as at-home, mail-in COVID-19 testing.