When Walt Disney World announced its plan to reopen, it took the theme park resort about six weeks to actually open the doors for the first time. Over on the other coast, Disneyland Resort is still closed, and there's little to no indication when that might change, however, it seems that whenever the state gives Disneyland the green light, things should move quickly, as the parks have apparently been "ready to roll" since July.
While theme parks are open in Florida and several other places, they are still closed in California, but many theme parks are beginning to get restless and are calling on the state to relax restrictions. It seems that, when the decision is made to let parks open, Disneyland will be ready to go pretty quickly. According to the Orange County Register, Walt Disney World's Chief Operating Officer Jim MacPhee said last week during a Florida round table of theme park companies...
Disneyland has been ready to roll since July.
Back in June, Disneyland actually announced a tentative plan to reopen in mid-July, and the resort actually began to move toward that plan. However, by the beginning of July, it was clear that California's plan to reopen in general was having a larger influence on the state of the virus in Calfornia than anticipated, and plans were pulled back. The guidelines from the state on what theme parks needed to do to reopen were never released, and thus Disneyland and other parks could not reopen.
While Jim MacPhee says that Disneyland has been ready to go since July, that certainly doesn't mean that once guidelines are released, the park will simply open the doors. Without those guidelines, there's no way to know what precautions might be needed. However, it does seem likely that Disneyland has been working on things behind the scenes. The Downtown Disney district is open for business and that means a certain amount of work had to be done already. And with what Disney has been learning with the other theme parks open, Disneyland has probably been able to prepare in advance for a lot based on what the other parks have already discovered.
Between what Disneyland has learned, whatever work had been done in June ahead of the planned reopening, and the fact that Disneyland Resort simply isn't as big as Walt Disney World, the turn around time between being given the ok and actually opening will probably be comparatively short. You can be sure that after being closed for nearly six months, the parks and hotels won't be closed a day longer than is absolutely necessary.
Because of the potential risk however, it does seem clear that even with phased reopening to limited capacity, theme parks will be among the last businesses in California to reopen.
