For many Disney Fans, pass holders or people who just enjoy going to Disneyland, I bet we are all missing the Disney magic. Some might wonder, what is going to happen to Disneyland? Or what has happened to Disneyland throughout quarantine? As a fellow Disney lover, I too am curious about the future of “the Happiest Place on Earth”. 

As of July 9, 2020, the Downtown Disney District began its reopening stages. They only allow park guests to come in if they wear a mask or facial covering and maintain the six feet of social distancing. They require temperature scannings before entry and parking is only permitted in the Simba lot. 

In Downtown Disney, they allow park guests to eat at the restaurants for indoor and outdoor dining and shop at the stores, but hotels and main park areas will be closed until further notice. All high-risk persons will need to take extra precautions and might not even be let into Disney. 

On Nov. 19, Downtown Disney will finish reopening and will extend to Buena Vista Street, the main entry area in the California Adventure park. It will extend to allow members to eat in restaurants and shop in the stores. But because of COVID-19, the park will continue to enforce coronavirus restrictions. 

During the four month closure, Disneyland alone has had to lay off 28,000 “cast” members (or park employees). This has had major effects on the parks reopening because Disney still needs to have enough cast members to keep the park running smoothly and to be able to strongly enforce COVID-19 guidelines. 

You may be wondering, what will Disneyland be like when the main park areas can reopen? At first, Disney will only allow passholders to come, but will only allow 25% park capacity. To be able to go into the park, passholders will have to be put on a reservation list, which can take weeks to get into the park. The park will, of course, enforce all COVID-19 restrictions and laws. For more information on the parks reopening plan, visit the Disneyland website, https://disneyland.disney.go.com/experience-updates/. 

As of now, Orange County is in its red tier of its reopening stage. Disneyland will start its reopening phases in the yellow tier, which will just be the very beginning stages of Disney’s full reopening. The California state tier plan begins with purple, then red, then orange and finally yellow. Purple is set as the stay at home order, red is letting more places open up (such as restaurants and salons), orange is allowing larger places where more people can come (like Disneyland) and yellow is letting almost everything open. 

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we can make the best of quarantine by following guidelines set by the state, social distancing, wearing a mask and staying home as much as possible. As a big Disney fan and speaking for the words of the other fans and passholders, I too am eager to go back to Disneyland and cannot wait for the park to reopen.