Walt Disney officials announced on Wednesday that the Disneyland resort in California is all set to reopen on April 30 after being closed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Just announced! Magic is finally returning to the Disneyland Resort theme parks! Disneyland Park & Disney California Adventure Park are planning to officially reopen to California Residents on April 30, with limited capacity. Details on @DisneyParks Blog: https://t.co/B1Rk2iAtmv pic.twitter.com/BkD9Cq2MKh
— Disneyland Resort (@Disneyland) March 17, 2021
According to the reports, the resort will open for state residents in its initial phase. It is announced that the two theme parks of the resort, Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventures will reopen with a restriction of 15% capacity.
The Grand Californian Hotel & Spa of Disneyland is scheduled to reopen on April 29 a day prior to the grand opening of the main resort. The other two hotels namely, Paradise Pier Hotel and Disneyland Hotel will be reopened at a later date.
This announcement rejoiced more than 10,000 employees of the resort who have been anxiously waiting to return to work. The pandemic shutdown took a heavy toll on the company’s workforce as Disney had to lay off almost 32,000 employees from its US parks division.
This announcement came after months of controversy which has been going on since its closure in March last year. Californian officials had previously refused to open theme parks even though they were under immense pressure due to protests. As soon as a significant decrease was reported in the COVID-19 cases, the government released subsequently lenient guidelines in early March enabling theme parks to start operating from early April by ensuring that the area meets the COVID-19 SoPs.
However, Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek announced that Disneyland will open in April to allow its employees the necessary time to reboot themselves for their jobs after one year.
The resort is all set to open its limited avenues only and will be allowing various events without rides to comply with the state restrictions. Disneyland’s Downtown Disney shopping district remained open throughout the pandemic and a limited portion of California Adventure was also opened last November for shopping and dining in.
As of now, only Disneyland Paris is the only theme park that will be closed. It is planned to reopen on April 2 2021 but due to a resurgence of the COVID-19 cases, the reopening has been delayed.
