Hurricane Irma?

[Draydey]

Wishing everyone best of luck

 

[sky13]

Wow, United has extended their travel waivers. Now covers 5-30 September.

 

[winniepoohthe]

Spending a second day trying to get through to guest services....hoping I am successful at keeping my free dining plan and moving the trip to Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully everything will be okay by then! Has anyone else had any luck with keeping their plan? I see a few have and a few have not. Wonder what makes the difference? Does anyone know if they will waive the $200 cancellation fee yet?

I get through to Guest Services immediately every time I've called, at this number: 407 939 6104 The DRC (Disney Reservation Center) also has a very short wait time at 407 939 7756.

 

[xWilliam]

What? Why?

Liability

 

[Interpol]

It will be interesting when they close Disney springs then. Will they just not open at all tomorrow if it's business as usual today?

If you leave it there now are they really going to tow it

Maybe, maybe not.

From a legal/liability standpoint, though, it makes sense. Disney would still have some responsibility to keep your car safe if you park in one of their garages. Also, accessibility would be a problem - what if you need to get to your car after you've parked it? Assuming you're not sheltering at DS, why should Disney bear the responsibility of transporting you from your resort back to DS so you can retrieve your car? Same thing would apply to parking your car in a closed theme park lot. Parking your car is easy, transportation from the lot to your shelter is not.

 

[BattyKoda]

Wishing everyone best of luck

I think that is something we can all agree on.

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

We are in the "still going" camp. Set to arrive tomorrow at 10:30 am at MCO. Will probably try to steal a little park time before the closures and then button down the hatches for a couple of days. We will be at Wilderness Lodge, so I can't say I will be sad about having to stay put for 2 days. Who else still plans on going in ahead of the storm and riding it out?

Have fun! I've been through one tropical storm (Isabel as I mentioned in a previous post), Hurricane Sandy in DC, and the 2012 derecho also in DC. Isabel and the derecho were worse than Sandy, at least from damage/power outage perspectives where we lived. Sandy actually wasn't too bad for us, but we weren't on the coast and didn't get hammered by storm surge.

 

[Tom P.]

Maybe, maybe not.

From a legal/liability standpoint, though, it makes sense. Disney would still have some responsibility to keep your car safe if you park in one of their garages.

Would they, though? If I park my car there and it gets broken into, Disney is not liable for that. In fact, most parking garage tickets anywhere state that. Why should they be responsible for damage to my car in a legitimate natural disaster just because it's on their property?

 

[KimBean]

I totally get your point of not assuming that things cannot happen, and I agree with that. However, Harvey brought Houston over 50 inches of rain. It is literally the single largest rain event in recorded US history. Given that even the worst projections for Orlando have it getting 10-18 inches of rain total, and no indication of the hurricane stalling, doesn't it seem reasonable to assume that Orlando's situation will be nowhere near the severity of Houston's?

I know you aren't talking to me but...

It would be reasonable to assume Florida will not get 50 inches of rain. However with the size of this hurricane and the sustained winds you are talking a severity of a different kind.

What parts of Florida (and other states now) get hit with this We just won't know until it happens.

 

[winniepoohthe]

Maybe we should start making suggestions for things/activities families can do with their kids while confined to rooms waiting out the storm. Lots of games you can play with a deck of cards or no cards at all.
I have also seen some of those travel games an drew drawing sets with markers in the gift shops.

What is the point of going to WDW if you're going to just be stuck in a room? Cast members are going to be worried about their own safety and that of their families, and are not going to be able to provide the level of Disney magic that we expect. The eye of Irma is going to be ripping through the center of Florida on a collision course for Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake. There is a good chance electricity and fresh water supplies will be limited or non-existent. As magical as we want to believe Disney is, it is run by humans, and they are not immune to natural disasters.

 

[winniepoohthe]

Maybe we should start making suggestions for things/activities families can do with their kids while confined to rooms waiting out the storm. Lots of games you can play with a deck of cards or no cards at all.
I have also seen some of those travel games an drew drawing sets with markers in the gift shops.

What is the point of going to WDW if you're going to just be stuck in a room? Cast members are going to be worried about their own safety and that of their families, and are not going to be able to provide the level of Disney magic that we expect. The eye of Irma is going to be ripping through the center of Florida on a collision course for Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake. There is a good chance electricity and fresh water supplies will be limited or non-existent. As magical as we want to believe Disney is, it is run by humans, and they are not immune to natural disasters.

 

[Interpol]

Cell Phones - A point was made to Inactivate unnecessary apps to preserve battery life. Another tip is to connect yourself to the Guest WiFi at the resort, and possibly disable your cellular "data" connection on the phone. It uses less battery to talk to the WiFi network than it does to talk to a cell tower a couple miles away. If you've got external battery packs - get them charged now. Streaming video on your cell phone uses processor power, which also uses up battery. Just "browsing" the internet for weather updates will use way less power than if you let the kids use the phone to watch YouTube videos. Keep the phone plugged in at all times, until the power goes out, then you'll start the outage with a full charge.

Good point. Also keep in mind that cell service may be spotty or nonexistent.

Radio - I am a "amateur radio operator" in training, and I've always got a battery operated radio with me. (with weather alerts) If you're able to get your hands on a battery operated radio, it can be handy for entertainment or weather alerts when the power is out or if the Disney cable system goes out. Listen for tornado warnings. Streaming radio stations on your phone can work, but again it is using up precious cell phone battery power. A little transistor radio can run for hours upon hours on a single set of batteries.

Good for you! General class amateur radio operator here. Situations like this are precisely why the amateur radio service exists. And don't forget DEARS (the Disney Emergency Amateur Radio Service) - they have the following open repeaters for any licensed hams to access:

VHF: 147.300+ PL 103.5
Echolink: Node 632802
D-STAR: WD4WDW-B 442.000+
DMR: 444.000+

Usually these repeaters are pretty dead, but I suspect they'll be fairly active starting this weekend!

 

[KimBean]

Atlanta here. Remembered I never gave my update on my own preps. I reluctantly went out thinking I was being more safe than sorry and maybe a little silly. Everything here is picked over. Got some of the last packs of water. Got a flashlight but not a great one. I was shocked. No one here is taking this lightly. I am 700 miles from Miami.

 

[winniepoohthe]

I totally get your point of not assuming that things cannot happen, and I agree with that. However, Harvey brought Houston over 50 inches of rain. It is literally the single largest rain event in recorded US history. Given that even the worst projections for Orlando have it getting 10-18 inches of rain total, and no indication of the hurricane stalling, doesn't it seem reasonable to assume that Orlando's situation will be nowhere near the severity of Houston's?

No.

 

[DLM1980]

Maybe, maybe not.

From a legal/liability standpoint, though, it makes sense. Disney would still have some responsibility to keep your car safe if you park in one of their garages. Also, accessibility would be a problem - what if you need to get to your car after you've parked it? Assuming you're not sheltering at DS, why should Disney bear the responsibility of transporting you from your resort back to DS so you can retrieve your car? Same thing would apply to parking your car in a closed theme park lot. Parking your car is easy, transportation from the lot to your shelter is not.

I took the risk last year and it was fine but then again last year they were issuing paper parking passes still. I was told this year to just show my magic band so they didn't print one

Yeah I had to wait till transport was running but it was worth it for me than risk a tree falling on it in a tree lined parking lot

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

While no one can say what will happen in Orlando following Irma the one thing you can say is it will not be flooded from rain like Harvey flooded Houston. People simply must stop comparing those 2 storms. That will not happen here. Not the stall/flood situation.

I guess I agree and disagree. Whatever Irma does from a wind damage perspective, it certainly isn't going to drop 50 inches of rain on Orlando like Harvey did on Houston. But it certainly could cause significant and deadly flooding. According to weather channel Irma could drop at least 12 inches of rain in the Orlando area. We received 20 inches (I know, a lot more than 12) when we lived in Atlanta in 2009 during the flooding there. 20 inches doesn't sound like that much but it devastated Atlanta. I came home from work the afternoon the rain started and there were literally sheets of water running down the inside living room walls of our house because the upstairs windows were filling with water (yeah, we needed better windows). http://www.weather.gov/ffc/atlanta_floods_anniv

 

[ms mouse]

I have decided to leave the moderation of this thread to others.
I want to remind posters that the "ignore" option is available for those troll posters that don't contribute at all to this thread
Also the report option is available and another moderator or webmasters will take care of it
As for me, I'll be checking into AoA tomorrow with my family, live streaming from dhs and mk tomorrow then from the resort on Sunday and Monday as long as is safe to do so.
MTFBWY

How could we watch your live stream?

 

[Eastern]

Wow, United has extended their travel waivers. Now covers 5-30 September.

Where did you see that?

 

[Roxyfire]

What is the point of going to WDW if you're going to just be stuck in a room? Cast members are going to be worried about their own safety and that of their families, and are not going to be able to provide the level of Disney magic that we expect. The eye of Irma is going to be ripping through the center of Florida on a collision course for Lake Buena Vista and Bay Lake. There is a good chance electricity and fresh water supplies will be limited or non-existent. As magical as we want to believe Disney is, it is run by humans, and they are not immune to natural disasters.

Day 1 account, nice.

 

[peteykirch]

I still think MCO was to quick to say they'll close at 5pm. Storm won't be over Central Florida until 9am Sunday. They could've kept it open until 8pm Saturday. Using rough math that's nearly 150 more flights they could've gotten out of Orlando.

If Disney thinks it'll be safe enough to walk around the parks until 9pm Saturday, MCO could've kept operations running until 8.