California Governor’s Office Responds to Disneyland Delaying Reopening Plans

California Governor’s office has responded to Disneyland‘s decision to delay their reopening plans. The company sent out the announcement earlier today and the state had a lot to say about the park deciding to reassess their plans. This all comes after the biggest day on record of coronavirus cases. Governor Gavin Newsom’s communication director commented on Disney’s decision with The Hollywood Reporter. With so many staff members in their employ and countless visitors who are anxious to get their summer vacation trips in, the decision to not reopen on the designated date was not made lightly. However, with the announcement, it will be interesting to see if the other theme parks in Los Angeles County decide to take similar action. Newsom’s Twitter feed has been calling for masks and social distancing amid all of the reopenings around the city.

“The Governor appreciates Disney’s responsiveness to his concerns about reopening amid the recent increases in COVID-19 infections across many Southern California counties. The state and our public health experts continue to be in contact with the company and their workers — as well as other theme parks in the state — as we track and combat the spread of the virus,” the statement read.

Disney Parks also released their own statement explaining the decision:

“We previously announced a proposed phased reopening of our theme parks for July 17, pending government approvals. We developed enhanced health and safety protocols for both cast and guests at Shanghai Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort that have been approved, allowing us to reopen in a responsible manner and bring our cast members back to work.”

“The State of California has now indicated that it will not issue theme park reopening guidelines until sometime after July 4. Given the time required for us to bring thousands of cast members back to work and restart our business, we have no choice but to delay the reopening of our theme parks and resort hotels until we receive approval from government officials. Once we have a clearer understanding of when guidelines will be released, we expect to be able to communicate a reopening date.”

“Our Downtown Disney District will reopen on July 9 as previously announced with health and safety protocols in place for our cast members and guests. The opening of our Downtown Disney District has been previously approved in line with restaurant and retail openings throughout California. The Master Services Union, which represents our retail cast at this location, previously signed an agreement for members to return to work.”

“In order to reopen our theme parks we need to negotiate agreements with our unions to return employees to work. We have had positive discussions and are very pleased to have signed agreements from 20 union affiliates, including the Master Services Council, which represents more than 11,000 of our cast members. The signed agreement details plans that include enhanced safety protocols that will allow us to responsibly reopen, and get thousands of our cast members back to work. We thank our cast and guests for their patience during this unprecedented time while we await approval from government officials.”

Do you think this is the right decision by Disney? Let us know in the comments!