Today at The Walt Disney Company 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders meeting Disney CEO Bob Chapek confirmed that decreasing cases of COVID-19 nationwide and promising updates in California could mean good things for the Disneyland Resort.
Chapek is confident that the Disneyland Resort could see a return to normal operation by “late April.”
EDITORS NOTE: Article was updated to include new statement from Bob Chapek which was released after this article was posted.
Shortly after the matter of theme park reopening was addressed, Disney released a statement to Twitter on behalf of Chapek. It follows below in full.
Here in California, we’re encouraged by the positive trends we’re seeing and we’re hopeful they’ll continue to improve and we’ll be able to reopen our Parks to guests with limited capacity by late April — we look forward to publicizing an opening date in the coming weeks. While last week’s announcement stated that theme parks may open starting on April 1, the fact is it will take some time to get them ready for our guests – this includes recalling more than 10,000 furloughed Cast and retraining them to be able to operate according to the State of California’s new requirements. I am pleased to say the response has been great thus far, our Cast Members are excited to get back to work. And this is also good news for the Anaheim community, which depends on Disneyland for jobs and business generated by visitors.
— Bob Chapek, CEO, The Walt Disney Company
The confirmation of intentions to reopen the Happiest Place on Earth lines up with updated California guidelines for theme park reopening.
MORE INFO: BREAKING: Theme parks, Disneyland could be allowed to reopen (with restrictions) as early as April 1
