President Obama to visit Walt Disney World Thursday

The Orlando Sentinel has confirmed with a White House aide that President Obama will be visiting the Walt Disney World resort on Thursday to make an announcement about travel and tourism.

This explains the sudden change in park hours and the additional fireworks at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

For any park guests this will also mean road closures, extra security, and delays delays delays. Roads will be shut down for the motorcade and resort buses will go into delayed service to try and avoid the times when the President is traveling through the resort. Also travel between the resort and the Orlando International airport should see delays as well.

In short, give yourself extra time to travel anywhere within the resort that day. Also, do not expect to park at any of the monorail resorts without a reservation – internal documents suggest the Contemporary Resort is the most likely candidate for where the President’s announcement will take place. If this turns out to be the case, that will subsequently shut down resort bus access to the Magic Kingdom for a period – as has happened with previous VP, VIP, and Presidential visits.

Update: Parade Audience Control staff shifts have been added for the Magic Kingdom park from  7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and the park’s afternoon parade has been shifted to 3:30 p.m.  According to the Orlando Sentinel the President is expected to land at Orlando International Airport at 11:40 a.m. Thursday. He’s expected to leave Disney World between 1:30 p.m. and 2 p.m.