Disney CEO Bob Chapek offered some updates on Disney parks during the company’s annual shareholders presentation Tuesday.
With California now allowing theme parks to reopen as soon as April 1 — assuming parks’ home counties hit the “Red” tier in the state’s COVID-19 guidelines — Disneyland will take a bit longer to recall more than 10,000 furloughed employees and retrain them to work under current conditions.
“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,” Chapek said. “We look forward to publicizing an opening date in the coming weeks.”
The announcement comes just days ahead of the one-year anniversary since Disneyland’s two theme parks last operated, having been shut down on March 14, 2020, just after COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic.
Chapek added that what was supposed to be Disneyland’s big 2020 addition — the Avengers Campus section of Disney California Adventure — will open “later this year,” without offering a specific date.
Disney World fans will also have to wait to experience a new attraction. Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure at Epcot has looked to be nearly ready to welcome guests, but Chapek announced the ride wouldn’t open until Oct. 1, the 50th anniversary of Disney World’s opening.
Also scheduled to debut that day will be La Creperie de Paris, a new restaurant in the France pavilion built as part of the “Ratatouille” expansion.
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