In the full meeting of the Orange County Economic Recovery Task Force, Thomas Mazloum, Senior Vice President of Resort & Transportation Operations, addressed the theme park guidelines that were mentioned during the earlier working group meeting. There appeared to be a consensus that the large theme parks will be determining their own criteria and will be presenting their guidelines to the county.
What’s happening:
- Earlier today, the Orange County Florida Economic Recovery Task Force held a meeting of the Guidelines for Reopening Working Group.
- During this meeting, they discussed potential guidelines and mandates for reopening many of Orange County’s entertainment and tourism venues.
- While it was acknowledged that these procedures were a work-in-progress and would be adjusted in subsequent days, a later meeting of the Task Force reiterated that point.
- As Thomas Mazloum mentioned, the reported guidelines were just being used by the task force for the purpose of discussion.
- He also restated that the mandates and guidelines discussed were not the draft recommendations from the working group or the county for the reopening of Walt Disney World.
- The working group co-chair Chuck Whittall, President, Unicorp National Development said that Walt Disney World, Universal and SeaWorld should present what they believe they need to do, as they are the experts on their business.
- Whittall said they need guidelines for smaller parks that don’t have the resources of the larger parks.
Other topics discussed in this afternoon’s meeting:
- They are waiting to hear what Florida Governor DeSantis will announce tomorrow regarding if the state stay-at-home order will expire at the end of the month or if those decisions will be passed on to the municipalities
- Mayor Jerry Demmings believes it is likely that the theme parks will be able to ramp up their business using the guidelines coming from the CDC and others.
- The Mayor said that the theme parks have made the right decisions at the right times and have put their guests at the top of their priorities
- He also believes that the theme parks will not open if they don’t feel it is safe for the guests.
- Mayor Demmings also said he expects the opening dates to happen between a couple weeks from now up to a month-and-a-half.