We are going to Disney World!!
Those were the words that our children exclaimed back at us on Christmas Day (2019) when we told them we were planning on going back to Disney. We were planning two trips in 2020 – one during the summer months and another at Halloween (our favorite Disney season). Two years had passed since we’ve been to our ‘Laughing Place’. Between work and school, a trip had not been feasible. We finally decided to make it work in 2020 so we made our plans, booked the hotel, and told the kids. Little did we know what 2020 had in store for everyone.
Fast forward a few months… It is now April – we have been ‘sheltering in place’ for a few weeks now because of the current pandemic that is affecting the world. COVID-19 has caused everyone to take a closer look at who we are, how we conduct business, and how we go about our daily lives. More and more safety restrictions have been put in place as COVID-19 cases begin to appear across the United States. Schools are closing, non-essential businesses
are being ordered to close, and of course entertainment venues like movie theaters, shopping malls, and theme parks are also shutting down in an attempt to keep people safe and to limit the spread of the disease through person-to-person contact. Disney properties had scheduled to close early March with no scheduled re-open dates in sight.
As the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, we saw the writing on the wall… we cancelled our trips for this year. It was a hard decision – Do we wait and see if things get better? Do we wait until it might be too late and find out we can’t get a refund? What do we tell the kids? All of these questions and more were flying around our heads before we finally made the decision to pull the plug for this year and ultimately, we are ok with this.
People want to believe/hope for the best outcomes – a quick vaccine or the lifting of social distancing orders so we can ‘get back to normal’. People rely on vacations to take a step back from the grind of everyday life and find a little magic again – we personally love visiting Disney to help “reset”. The problem that we face is that our current situation is anything but normal. Almost no one alive has lived through this type of global event and we’ve had decades of living in a culture of relative safety that has skewed the perspective of the situation we are being presented with.
Fast forward to today – at the end of May 2020. We have seen the large impact of this virus both locally and globally. Most of the world has been in varying levels of quarantine/self-isolation for a few months now. We are happy that we cancelled our vacations when we did – Disney has continually pushed back re-opening dates week after week, and they have just cancelled all reservations through mid-June which is when we were originally booked for our first trip. Disney (specifically Disney Springs), the rest of Florida, and some areas of the nation have started to reopen with restrictions. There is a call to reopen for the sake of the economy but I 
am not willing to risk my family’s health or the health of others just to take a vacation. A vacation to a place like Disney, even if they were to open in time for our October trip, would not be the experience we want or expect when we take a trip to visit Mickey Mouse. Yes, there will be lower crowds due to limited capacities in the parks (expected limits of 20-30% of normal capacity) but attractions, restaurants, and experiences that we count on every trip will be missing or drastically limited because of the virus and the safe guards Disney will need to put in place. Trying to explain to our two small children why then can’t run up and give Mickey Mouse a high-five or why they can’t hug their favorite characters is not worth risking our health, going through the inconvenience of a “modified” experience, or the expense and hassle of travel. Your average family-of-four trip to Disney World it costs between $5,000 – $10,000 depending on your hotel, length of trip, and how you are traveling. I will happily wait another year or two for the parks to reopen instead of trying to go now when the pandemic is still moving through the country if that means my family stays safe. I also can’t expect my children (one of which has severe combination ADHD) to understand why Disney is so different from what they have come to know as “normal”.
The other reason we are OK with postponing our trip – the unpredictable behavior of others. We have seen over the last few weeks and months that people may not be approaching this situation in a practical and cautious manner. When I was younger I always wanted to ride my bike in the street, but we lived off of a relatively high traffic road through the town. My mother would always tell me, “I trust you… I don’t trust the drivers”. As I kid you shrug it off, but as an adult with children of my own and others in my life that are “at risk”, I realize the gravity of that seemingly simple statement… just because my family is OK with following the rules and does what is necessary to stay safe based on the guidelines Disney expects does not mean that everyone attending the parks will be doing the same. Everyone is allowed their own opinion and we based ours on science – I’m not willing gamble the health and well being of my family just for the sake of a vacation because others feel they don’t want to wear a mask or keep a safe distance from each other.
Do I want to go to Disney? Of course I do. Do I want things to “get back to normal”? Again, of course I do, but I think we are going to have to re-examine what “normal” is after the virus. Some things are going to go back to how they were, but there are going to be plenty of new “normal”
things that will shape us as a country and as a global community as we move beyond this challenging time. I want to spend time with my family at a place I love… I also want everyone to be healthy and be around for many future trips to come. There is still too much we don’t know about the state of the world right now and I for one can be patient while those tasked with figuring it out do their jobs.
Stay home, stay safe, and be kind to each other. Everyone is stressed, scared, and unsure of what the future holds. Speculating, worrying, and attacking each other isn’t worth the stress and conflict it produces.
I will leave you with two quotes from the man himself, Walt Disney, which I think properly fit our current situation.
A man should never neglect his family for business.
~ Walt Disney
There is great comfort and inspiration in the feeling of close human relationships and its bearing on our mutual fortunes – a powerful force, to overcome the “tough breaks” which are certain to come to most of us from time to time.
~ Walt Disney
