As Hurricane Irma heads toward the caribbean islands and Florida, let’s chat about what to do if you find yourself thinking about Disney World hurricanes.
I also have a quick tip to help you find dining reservations during your trip.
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These are notes from this episode. There’s much more info included in the audio so be sure to listen to the episode for a better explanation.
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Info on Disney World hurricanes
- Advice for people to plan for Disney World hurricanes
- National Hurricane Center current info
- Disney World hurricanes policy
- People who are at Disney World during a hurricane can expect anything from outdoor attractions being closed to parks being closed with required sheltering at resorts.
Quick tip of the day
Listener Lori emailed this tip:
“I was trying to book an early morning reservation for three at Garden Grill, and wasn’t happy with the times available. I increased the number of guests from three to five and did the search again and found that more (earlier) times opened up. I booked the breakfast for five, then went back in the reservation later and edited back to three guests. So my tip is, if you aren’t finding the restaurant availability you want, try increasing the number of guests and more reservations may appear.”
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Joy Paul
Thursday 14th of September 2017
Disney accidentally canceled our reservations in October while all of the other Irma cancellations were taking place. We were able to get our reservation back but have yet to see the credit from the 1st reservation but are still expected to pay the current reservation in full. Guest services is so backed up they can't even talk to us this week. How confident would you be that your entire reservation (fast passes and all) would be restored in this situation? We are pretty uneasy as of now but are still planning on going at this point. I hope Disney can recover from all of the hurricane drama!
Kathleen
Saturday 9th of September 2017
I love your blog and podcast and used a lot of your info to plan my recent trip, but I was surprised that you didn't mention safety as a consideration in this episode. To suggest that someone might want to travel to an area expecting a category 5 hurricane because otherwise they would lose money on their vacation seemed a little tone deaf to me, to be honest.
Shannon Albert
Saturday 9th of September 2017
I hear you, but it's not a black and white issue for everybody. Many people have saved for years for a family vacation and losing that money is hard to imagine. However, now that there is a hurricane warning in the Orlando area, everybody should be able to get the money back on at least the Disney portion of their trip, so that should make the decision to stay home a little easier.
Nell
Friday 8th of September 2017
I'm curious what the state of the park will be after the storm. Our trip is booked for a few weeks from now. I know we can't predict the damage, but has there been past damage in the parks following significant storms? I would assume Disney works very quickly to repair and get,thinga back in order, but I am just wondering what to expect when we arrive.
Nick Gwozdz
Thursday 7th of September 2017
We were booked for a short trip in the fall of 2016 when hurricane Matthew occurred. Our October 7th flight was cancelled. We originally cancelled our room (off site) and we were not going to go however when it was decided there was little impact in the Orlando area we wound up booking a different room, renting a car and driving down overnight on October 8th on a whim and still had a good couple days in the parks. It was a little more crowded than we expected. We felt that more locals were at the parks than usual trying to take advantage of the reduced crowds. It was still a good time and we are glad we went tho we did miss out on our Not So Scary Halloween Party.
With regard to combining multiple dining reservations... we have not had very good luck with that in the past. We toured with friends for a week in June 2016 and with different friends for the week between Christmas and New Years of the same year and often when we did have separate dining reservations (booked for the same time period) we had a difficult time getting seated together. This was most evident at Be Our Guest for lunch one day and the hostess was borderline rude about it. I wouldn't book separately and assume you will be able to combine the groups. We did have larger parties (the first time we were 6 and 5 and the second time we were 6 and 6) and it was during a time when the park was especially busy, so that might have something to do with it. Podcast listeners since late 2015. Tennessee residents, first family trip was one week June 2014. AP holders 06/16-06/17 - spent 53 days in the parks. Disney Cruise booked 2018. After that, who knows...
Also thanks for the content... we always enjoy every episode.