Walt Disney World slashes park hours for fall
Walt Disney World will cut its theme-park operating hours this fall, with Epcot closing two hours earlier than normal despite hosting the Taste of Epcot Food & Wine Festival.
This week, Disney announced the coronavirus shutdown had cost the company $2 billion.
The theme-park giant generally reduces its operating hours as tourism slows after the busier summer months, but this year has been far from the normal pattern. Since reopening in July after a monthslong shutdown because of the pandemic, the parks have been admitting only a small percentage of the usual number of visitors. Those guests are now required to make reservations in advance that indicate which of Disney’s four parks they plan to visit, and they may only visit one park on any given day.
Under the new fall hours, which begin Sept. 8 after the Labor Day holiday weekend, Epcot will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., reducing the chance for evening dining and drinking at its popular outdoor festival.
The Magic Kingdom, which had been closing at 7, will end its day an hour earlier, operating from 9 a.m.-6 p.m.
Despite being the most difficult park to obtain a reservation for, Disney’s Hollywood Studios also will close an hour earlier than before. Its new schedule will be 10 a.m.-7 p.m. The Studios park is still riding a wave of interest in its new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land, particularly Rise of the Resistance, its latest attraction.
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which opened in
December, remains so popular that guests have to compete on their cellphones for a boarding time — with no guarantee they will be able to get on the ride before the park closes. The online system for gaining access to the attraction also serves as a coronavirusprevention measure, keeping guests from spending hours queued together.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom will shave an hour from both sides of its summer schedule, opening later and closing earlier. It will run 9 a.m.-5 p.m. beginning Sept. 8.
The earlier closing times won’t cause a reduction in Disney’s signature nighttime entertainment. To prevent people congregating, Disney already has been forgoing such high-profile offerings as the “Happily Ever After” fireworks at Magic Kingdom and the “Fantasmic!” amphitheater show at Hollywood Studios.
The evening concert series at Epcot that usually accompany that park’s festivals have also been canceled.
With 182 new coronavirus fatalities reported by the Florida Department of Health on Saturday, 8,109 Florida residents have now died from COVID-19.
When including the 129 fatalities among nonresidents, four of which were reported Saturday, the state’s death toll is 8,238.
The state’s daily reports include deaths from several previous days, as it can take two weeks or more for fatalities to be logged. The state health department also reported 8,502 new coronavirus cases Saturday to push the statewide total to 526,577 infected. It’s the 14th day in a row the state Department of Health reported an increase below 10,000 cases.
Florida’s case total is second to California, which leads the nation with over 538,000 cases, according to its COVID-19 dashboard.
Over 3.9 million people have been tested in Florida, with 49,018 more tests reported Saturday compared with the previous day. Over 2.9 million tests have been administered since May 31.
Across Central Florida:
■ Orange County had 368 new cases with a 7.7% positivity rate and 10 new deaths.
■ Seminole had 83 new cases with a 6.0% positivity rate and eight new deaths.
■ Lake County had 112 new cases with a 7.7% positivity rate and six new deaths.
■ Osceola had 169 new cases with a 13.5% positivity rate and four new deaths.
■ Volusia County had 131 new cases with an 8.6% positivity rate and five new deaths.
■ Brevard County had 113 new cases with a 6.9% positivity rate and two new deaths.
■ Polk County had 286 new cases with an 11.8% positivity rate and eight new deaths.
■ Sumter County had 52 new cases with a 13.5% positivity rate and no new deaths.
Statewide, Florida’s Department of Health reported a positivity rate of 9.91%, but that’s for new cases only and excludes anyone who previously tested positive. For all cases including retests of those previously infected, yesterday’s positivity rate was 13.13%. South Florida, home to 29% of Florida’s population, accounts for about 44% of cases with 229,431 total. That includes 3,162 new cases reported Saturday among Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.
South Florida’s reported deaths on Saturday rose by 46 for a total of 3,556, about 44% of the state’s total.
To date, 30,251 people have been hospitalized in Florida, the state’s COVID-19 dashboard shows, up 521 more than a day earlier. From June through mid-July in Florida, there were 200 new hospitalizations a day on average. That has spiked to a daily average of 455 since mid-July.