Central Florida’s major theme park players (Universal Orlando Resort, Walt Disney World and SeaWorld) all came together today to have a roundtable discussion with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on the state of tourism in the area and how theme parks are working to keep guests safe. And though furloughs for many are ongoing, Walt Disney World representatives at this discussion said they’ve brought back tens of thousands of cast members and hope to do more as “volume and demand increases” and Universal said that their resort has also been able to bring back 85-90 percent of full-time workers, but most part-time, seasonal workers are still furloughed.
However, in addition to the discussions around keeping Floridians employed and guests safe, during the discussion Governor DeSantis suggested that the theme parks work on increasing the amount of guests who can visit in a given day, saying “We think the capacity can be increased. When you have the kind of protocols they have in place, you know, we’re very comfortable at the state level that they’re doing it in a good way.” Though none of the theme parks have laid out a plan for raising the number of guests that can visit in a given day, it looks like the State of Florida is ready to give a quick approval to theme parks who want to begin admitting more guests as soon as possible. You can see DeSantis’ comments as well as the rest of the roundtable below:
While technically not a daily capacity increase, SeaWorld Orlando and Aquatica have announced this week that they will be operating daily from now through October 5, 2020, and will also be extending their operating hours, with the park being open until 10pm for the next two weekends. However, because they are still limiting capacity, reservations will still be required to visit the theme parks.
Though the busy travel season will be over in a matter of days as the Labor Day holiday is fast approaching, it looks like theme parks in Central Florida could be looking to court more locals this fall, and an increased capacity level could help them do just that, especially Walt Disney World, which has had very low availability for annual passholders since their reopening.
