Shanghai Disneyland tickets sell out as park prepares to re-open after coronavirus crisis

Tickets for the earliest days of Shanghai Disneyland's re-opening in China sold out rapidly according to the park's website, as it prepares to next week end a three-month shutdown because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Tickets for Monday, May 11, the first day the park will welcome guests again, through May 14 were no longer available on the park's online booking service. They also sold out for the weekend dates of May 16 and 17. Chinese third-party ticket vendor Fliggy and MeiTuan also confirmed that their allotted tickets for re-opening day had sold out. According to Fliggy, the platform's tickets for May 11 and May 16 sold out within three minutes.

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Shanghai Disneyland first shut down on Jan 25, as public venues across China closed to comply with social distancing regulations. Disney later closed its other resorts worldwide as the coronnavirus spread. In an earnings call, executives said that shuttered parks would cost the company roughly $1 billion in profits.

In March, Disney re-opened some dining and shopping attractions at its Shanghai site, though its main theme park has remained closed. The Chinese government has asked Disney to cap attendance of the re-opened park at 30% of capacity, or roughly 24,000 people, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said .

Disney will restart operations with "far below" that number for a few weeks while it adjusts to new safeguards including social distancing, masks and temperature screenings for visitors and employees, he said.