Disney CEO Bob Chapek said his company is doing everything it can to ensure guests can safely experience Walt Disney World when it begins a phased reopening this summer.
The resort's Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom parks are slated to welcome back visitors on July 11 while Hollywood Studios and EPCOT are scheduled to reopen July 15.
"I think what we can say is that we've done everything we can to open up responsibly," Chapek told CNN Business in a recent interview. "Taking the guidance of local health officials, state health officials, national health officials, plus our own well qualified doctors on staff to create an environment to create new operating procedures, to create new policies, to do new training, new standards of hygiene. So that when a guest comes in we can continue the trust that guests have always had with the Walt Disney company and enjoy the parks so they can make those magical memories that last a lifetime."
Both workers and guests will wear masks and be asked to practice responsible social distancing upon reopening.
"You'll also see a copious amount of tape at six-foot distances in our queue lines and essentially throughout the park so that people know what six-foot actually looks like," Chapek added.
Capacity will be determined by the park's ability to accommodate guests appropriately.
"What we're doing is using the six-foot social distancing in order to set what the capacity should be," Chapek told CNN. "So our industrial engineers have been busy over the last few months, trying to figure out what that would look like, and the capacity that we're going to open up with is actually slightly below where we really think we can reside with that six feet."
Chapek hopes that a patient approach to reopening will help the destination avoid another potential shutdown.
"One of the reasons why we're moving so slowly, so deliberately and so cautiously, is that we hope to avoid that type of situation, and we think by moving very cautiously and deliberately, that we can mitigate the chances of that happening," he added.
Out West, Disneyland will be permitted to open under phase 3 of California's "four-stage road map."
Topics From This Article to Explore
