Hot on the heels of the laying off of several entertainment acts being let go at Epcot right before the resort closed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, now that Disney Springs is also closed, it looks like the future of several locations at this shopping district could be in doubt once the resort reopens.
1. T-REX Cafe and Rainforest Cafe
Both the Rainforest Cafe and T-REX Cafe restaurants at Disney Springs closed earlier this week, along with the rest of the majority of Disney Springs. However, rather than support employees during this temporary shutdown, owner Landry’s has taken the extreme measure of fully shutting down and suspending all of its employees without pay instead of continuing to compensate their workers during this shutdown. And because the company has said that it is completely shutting down (a CEO recently said the were hemorrhaging $1 Million per day), it seems increasingly likely that none of these restaurant will return to operation.
In addition to the layoffs at the Disney Springs locations, this also applies to Yak and Yeti and Rainforest Cafe at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, which have also been affected by this new development, and also will not reopen with the resort when it returns to operation later this year.
2. Ample Hills Creamery
Image: Dakota Gardner
Though the Disney Springs location of the Ample Hills Creamery has been under construction for some time, it looks like this location may never open, as the company behind this ice creamery (which also operates at Disney’s BoardWalk resort) has filed for bankruptcy. This move was actually being planned before the mass closures due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and now with impacts being felt not only in the Florida locations, but those in New York and New Jersey, it seems unlikely that this the planned Disney Springs location will open any time soon, if at all.
3. Drawn to Life – Cirque du Soleil
Image: Disney
Though it was set to debut in just a few weeks, it has been officially announced that Cirque Du Soleil has suspended and postponed the Drawn to Life show at Disney Springs indefinitely. Cirque du Soleil has said that ticket holders will be refunded at their point of purchase for this show, and have not offered a date for a potentially postponed debut. Unfortunately that could mean that this new show will either not debut in 2020, or could be scrapped entirely.
There is a lot that is unknown about the future, not only of these Disney Springs locations, but for Walt Disney World as a whole, as the resort continues to grapple with the growing threat of COVID-19. Though the plan is currently to reopen the resort at the end of the month, with the CDC now recommending that there be no large gatherings of people in the next 8 weeks, such an early reopening seems unlikely at the moment, and many are predicting that an announcement about a lengthier closure time could be coming as soon as later this week.
As we’ve said previously, there is no way to know exactly how long theme parks 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.
