Though Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland have been closed for nearly a month now, it looks like the crowing spread of the Coronavirus outbreak has prompted the Oriental Land Company to announce that the Tokyo Disney Resort will be closed from February 29th through March 15th.
This closure applies to all parts of the resort, including Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea and the Ikspiari shopping mall adjacent to the resort. All guests with tickets or reservations they already paid for during this time will be refunded in full.
Though the resort closed temporarily last year due to a typhoon, this is the first long-term closure since the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011.
Because Tokyo Disney Resort is owned by the Oriental Land Company (and not by Disney) these closures are not expected to have much impact on the losses already being felt by Disney due to this virus outbreak.
Of course, the timing couldn’t be worse for this closure, as on April 15, Tokyo Disneyland is scheduled to open several new attractions as part of a major Fantasyland expansion project, including a new Beauty and the Beast trackless dark ride, a Big Hero 6 flat ride, and a Broadway-style theater. If the reopening on March 15 goes as planned, the resort could still technically make this opening, but with the Coronavirus situation changing almost daily, it’s hard to predict if the resort will actually reopen on that projected date.
Other theme park closures in the area
Though Tokyo Disneyland is the biggest theme park in Japan to close due to the Coronavirus threat, it is not the only theme park in the area that is temporarily shutting down, as Sanrio announced an indoor theme park in suburban Tokyo called Sanrio Puroland and an outdoor theme park in the Kyushu region called Harmonyland will also be closed until March 12. Cultural attractions like the Tokyo National Museum and the Ghibli Museum are also closed as well until further notice.
For a full list of the closures due to Coronavirus, you can check out Time Out’s full list here.
Though most of the attractions that are closed are in Tokyo, other regional parks are keeping an eye on the situation without fully closing. As of February 28th, Universal Studios Japan in Osaka is still open, but their website says that they are closely monitoring the situation, and are performing daily health checks on Team Members.
As we’ve said previously, there is no way to know exactly how long Disney parks (and the travel industry at large) will be dealing with the effects of Coronavirus, but while this situation is continuing, all travelers should check out the CDC’s official site here, which has information on the virus and how to prevent its spread.
