Shanghai moves towards ‘watershed moment’ with Disney resort reopening partially; city reports six new Covid-19 cases

Disneyland amusement park, Disneytown and two resort hotels will remain closed until further notice

Full reopening will be a watershed moment, as it will mark ‘city’s full return to normality’, industry insider says

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In this file photo from May 2020, Disney characters greet visitors at Shanghai Disney Resort after it reopened following a shutdown due to Covid-19. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:00pm, 9 Jun 2022Updated: 6:49pm, 9 Jun 2022

Shanghai Disney Resort said it will reopen partially on Friday following an 81-day shutdown due to the city’s Covid-19 outbreak even as local health authorities discovered six community infections on Thursday.

The Disneyland amusement park, Disneytown and two resort hotels will remain closed until further notice, but the 400,000 square metre Wishing Star Park, the Blue Sky Boulevard and the World of Disney Store will resume operations with limited capacity and reduced opening hours, Shanghai Disney said in a statement, adding that its team was preparing to reopen the entire resort.

The resort will continue to implement strict pandemic control and prevention requirements, with new additional measures and operational changes following guidelines from local authorities during the initial reopening period, it said.

“The full reopening of the Disney resort will be a watershed moment, because it marks the city’s full return to normality,” said Li Wenjie, CEO of Shanghai Yaheng International Travel. “But the resort will still implement its reopening in a gradual manner by limiting the number of visitors and imposing strict virus controls, initially.”

Shanghai Disney Resort’s partial reopening follows the lifting of Shanghai’s two-month-long lockdown on June 1. The resort was temporarily closed on March 21 due to the flare-up in coronavirus cases in Shanghai. China’s commercial hub is aiming to fully restore businesses and life by the end of this month.

This is Shanghai Disney Resort’s second extended closure. It was shut for four months from January to May in 2020, when the Covid-19 outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province.