You may need to check what your travel insurance covers

Disney Frenhines

DIS Veteran
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Disneyland in California has just announced it is closing it's parks and hotels from Saturday to all guests for at least the next two weeks. This is becoming serious and it may not be too long before Walt Disney World will be doing the same, so I'd advise everyone who have a vacation booked for the next few months to check where they stand. My fear is that the travel insurance companies won't be sympathetic if you cancel your trip simply because WDW will be closed. You could be lucky if you are staying at a WDW resort hotel and it's closed, but, if you are staying off site and your hotel isn't closing they may say that you can still fly and have a hotel. Might be worth getting advice.
 
Time zone difference so I realize most of the UK is asleep, but WDW announced this evening that it’s closing from tomorrow through the end of March.

I really hope insurance companies are sympathetic and reasonable at this time. Daughters prom, grad bash and graduation ceremony are looking dangerously unlikely based on announcement from our FL county’s school board. Such a mess!
 
This is from the FAQs page of my insurers (LV)..,
I booked my trip to go to a theme park / resort which has now been closed. I don’t want travel, can I cancel the trip?
Whilst the FCO advise the country is safe to travel to, you are unable to make a cancellation claim.

Ouch! I feel so very sorry for people caught up in this whether through holiday dilemmas or ill health.
 
And I'm guessing if the hotels are still open your travel company aren't going to be sympathetic. We are due to go the week after Easter and its looking increasingly likely we will be £6k out of pocket! Its alright saying you can rebook later in the year SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY-what happens when all the people who were due to go now try to rebook-we can't all fit into the same time slot. Plus its not that easy to get time off work during the summer months at short notice-there is a reason we book these things a year in advance.
 


I'm booked for mid September, considered a reasonably quiet time and there has been no availability for value resorts for quite a while, so if you decide to rearrange for later on in the year and you want to stay on Disney property then you are not going to find it easy to get a hotel. Unfortunately, insurance companies are rarely sympathetic, but, maybe the travel companies will do something to help their customers out. I would imagine, if you are staying at a Disney resort property and you booked through Disney directly that you will have a good chance of getting a refund as the hotels will also be closing and it's not the customers fault and Disney customer service is pretty good.
 
If you go on the MDE app, all the information that you need is there. The hotels are going to remain open, as is Disney Springs. Anyway, go and take a look, especially if you have booked your trip through Disney itself.
 
I mentioned this on the April Happy Dance thread, but we "lucked" out on cancelling our plane tickets if we need to. Flight demand is so reduced that many flights are getting cancelled. Our trip out is direct, but our return has a domestic connection that was cancelled. They've offered us an alternate that's two hours earlier (and means we'd have to get on Magical Express at something like 5 AM), but we can get a refund on the entire booking instead.

Plan A is still pretending there's a chance Disney World will be open for Easter. Plan B is rolling the Disney hotel and tickets forward to October, and getting new flights.
 


Just received an email from my travel insurance company. They are saying that anything booked before March 13th is covered as normal, anything booked after is not if the claim has anything to do with Covid-19 as it is classed as a 'known event' from that date. At the moment I am still planning on going and will only not go if the current situation continues.
However, as Donnie has banned all travel to the USA by citizens from the Schenegen countries and now the UK and Eire I'm wondering what the airlines plan to do regarding refunds or travel insurance companies will do if airlines don't do the right thing and refund tickets bought by those not allowed to travel to the USA.
 

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