Where’s the cool stuff at?
OK, that’s bad grammar—even for me. However, it’s a valid question these days. Where is the cool stuff? Where’s the innovative, “bleeding-edge” technology for which Disney is known?
Thinking back to my first visit to the World in 1984, it was the use of technology that really caught my attention. Admittedly, the Omnimovers employed at Spaceship Earth, World of Motion and several other attractions weren’t exactly technological breakthroughs but… they were certainly new to me! And I was impressed.
It was also the first time I had been thrust into an Imax screen (Horizons) or had viewed a 3D film (Magical Journeys) using polarized glasses rather than the red/green variety that offered horrible viewing and gave most people a headache after three minutes.
During subsequent (mostly) annual pilgrimages through the 1990s, there were new (and better) uses of technology. I remember being tremendously impressed by the simulators in Star Tours and Body Wars. Being able to make the bombing run on the Death Star is still a thrill for me today (although I am in the “let’s give George Lucas whatever he wants for a new film” camp). Muppetvision took 3D films to a new level—one that’s been even further enhanced by It’s Tough to be a Bug and Mickey’s Philharmagic.
What was particularly impressive to me was the technology you’d find almost accidentally. Do you remember when you could interact with the actors in a scene from Saved by the Bell? Or you could be interviewed by Jay Leno? Those opportunities could literally be stumbled upon while walking through Innoventions.
I remember how impressed I was when my family and our friends had our photograph taken in front of a green screen and I watched, spellbound, as a cast member digitally put us in front of a nighttime shot of Spaceship Earth, complete with a full moon in the background. Yes, I know that any six-year old with a laptop and Photoshop can do that now but, in 1990, it was pretty darn cool. So was the spot in Epcot where you could stand at a railing and talk with a person on a computer monitor. That person asked where we were from and when I said, “Albany, New York” a photographic background of the Empire State Plaza magically appeared behind her. “What? How?” was what I stuttered. Once again, today that would impress few of us but in the 1980s…?
So where’s the cool stuff today? Naturally, I have to give the Imagineers major kudos for pulling off things like Mission: Space. C’mon, who else has a working centrifuge in a theme park attraction (even if it does cause an occasional protein spill)? The technology employed for interactive 3D displays in Toy Story Midway Mania is also very cool. There’s the aforementioned It’s Tough to be a Bug and Mickey’s Philharmagic—both of which offer superb 3D plus sounds, smells and physical effects synchronized perfectly to the respective films. There’s new technology at work with the face recognition stuff and closing cartoon on Spaceship Earth—although it has yet to work for me after three attempts.
What I’m missing are those little things that you could stumble on just walking through the park. Maybe we’ve reached a point where we’ve become technologically jaded and nothing like that will impress us again, but I’d like to think the Imagineers could still surprise is. They did bring us Lucky the Dinosaur and the mobile Muppet Labs, but those were seen by… what…12 people?
So, what is Disney doing in the technology arena? What’s being worked on now that we could see in the near future?
The first thing that comes to mind is the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure. Originally scheduled to open in 2008, the most recent information now calls for an opening in “early 2009.” As a guest, you will be able to volunteer for a Team Possible assignment and be directed to one of the World Showcase pavilions for an interactive adventure. You will use a “Kimmunicator” (think of it as a modified cell phone) that will interact with you, offering clues as you embark on a scavenger-hunt type of mission. To learn more, you can listen to Mark Goldhaber’s interview with the show producer, Jeannette Lomboy-Russo (no relation). You can hear that interview at our podcast here.
I’ve seen some early reviews of testing and while mostly favorable, some are questioning its repeatability. I would think that, over time, they could build up enough “adventures” that you could be reasonably sure to get a new one with each visit. At least that’s the hope. Will folks be willing to take an hour out of their park schedule to embark on one of these missions? Only time will tell.
The other technological advancements seem to be less geared toward entertainment and more slanted toward customer service. A couple of years ago, there was a trial program at the Polynesian Resort that would allow guests the ability to check in via a phone call prior to arrival. I’m guessing this was thought to be a time saver for those eager to hit the parks as soon after arrival as possible. Alternatively, maybe it’s just a way to avoid wasting time in a check-in queue when you finally arrive at your resort. A rumor was reported recently, by TouringPlans.com (link), that Disney may offer an online check-in service that will allow guests to check-in via the Web, instead of via phone call. It now appears the rumor is true and this service begins this month (January 2009). To me, this is another attempt by Disney to use technology to enhance the guest experience (quite possibly saving Disney a buck or two as well). Does this type of service hold value for you? For me, it’s marginal at best. Perhaps it’s because I visit predominantly in off-peak seasons but I typically don’t experience much more than a five-minute wait to check in. If Internet check-in were available, there’s no doubt that I would use it but I wouldn’t consider it a major benefit.
How about this one? Disney is teaming up with Verizon to offer a service that will allow you to use your cell phone to check attraction wait times, access mobile games, locate shows, characters and restaurants inside the parks, and more. This service is scheduled to begin some time this year. Are you interested? Me, too, although… I have to say I think there’s a down side here.
In my opinion, we have more than enough people wandering the parks today glued to a cell phone. I’m not enthused about even more distracted guests wandering into my path or clogging the entrance to an escalator while they try to determine the wait time for Soarin’ or the location for a Goofy meet-and-greet.
Nevertheless, I need to give Disney kudos here. I appreciate and applaud their continued efforts to use existing and emerging technologies to enhance the guest experience. They’re not all home runs (see Pal Mickey) but at least they keep trying.
Where should Disney be attempting to utilize technology? For what purposes? The question I have to ask is, “What is the problem we’re trying to solve?”
Is the problem the lack of mobile games in the parks? Really? Don’t we think there’s enough entertainment in the parks now without resorting to a cell phone? Maybe the problem is determining the location of shows and character meets? Nah. Disney does a wonderful job with park maps and times guides.
As I reflect on my time in the parks, there are only three pieces of information that I’m looking for:
- The wait time of the attraction that’s across the park from where I am now;
- Is the restaurant I want to visit open?
- Assuming it is open, is there available seating?
If that information were at my fingertips, I would want for nothing while in the parks. It might be that this new service with Verizon will provide that information via my cell phone but at least to me, that’s not optimal. The cell phone is a reminder of the real world and, as I said earlier, there’s entirely too much usage in the parks already.
Here’s my idea… Do you know that tip board that exists in Epcot? It’s located by the fountains at the hub in Future World. It’s an electronic display and it alerts you to what attractions are open and what the wait times are for each attraction—except it’s not very accurate or timely. On my last trip, we were denied access to Spaceship Earth after it “went 101” (Disney cast member speak for “the ride’s down”). We walked up to the hub’s Tip Board and it listed Spaceship Earth with a five-minute wait. Now I’ll grant you that the ride may have just gone down and the information hadn’t yet been conveyed but… hey, we live in a real-time world, don’t we?
There are counterpart Tip Boards in the other parks as well but, they’re just chalkboards and… the biggest issue I have with all of them is they exist in only one place. If I’m listening to Off Kilter in Canada and want to know what the wait time for Soarin’ is, I have to walk there. Then I’ll learn it’s 80-minutes and FastPasses are already gone for the day and all that will do is tick me off because I walked all the way down here and… you get the picture.
So here’s my idea. You know those flat-screen monitors that are ubiquitous at Walt Disney World? They’re almost everywhere, aren’t they? Well, I’m going to put them everywhere, similar to the placement of monitors for flight information at airports. There will be at least one at every attraction and other strategic locations in all four parks. The display on these monitors will be multi-faceted (have you ever seen CNN or ESPN News?) In the center of the screen will be a continuous scroll of the wait times for each attraction in that park. These times will be updated continuously while the park is open. This scroll will also include the scheduled attractions as well, listing the start times for the upcoming shows.
In a vertical banner on the left will be another continuous scroll, this one listing each park restaurant, its hours of operation and whether or not it has available seating. Maybe we could display those that are “all booked up” in red. In a “crawl” across the bottom of the screen, we’ll run weather updates and other park news such as upcoming dates for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, fireworks times, etc.
So now, from anywhere in any park, you are only a few steps away from being able to answer the questions you want answered. Questions like:
- Do we have time for a ride on Big Thunder before the parade?
- Is the Backlot Express still open?
- Do we have any shot at getting into the Coral Reef for dinner?
- Are FastPasses still available for Expedition Everest?
Cool, huh? What’s that? This doesn’t help you actually make a reservation for Coral Reef? I know that. Here’s Part II of my plan. In each park, we’re going to have at least one area where there will be some number of touch-screen displays allowing you to make a dining reservation from a list of available restaurants. I know you can do this now by calling WDW-DINE, but face it, it’s not that easy. Before you talk to anyone, you’re running through 31 menus asking you to “Hit 1 if you’ve eaten more than six Casey’s hot dogs in the past 5 years”. My idea is much better. I want to allow you to query “available seating for four in Epcot between 5:00 and 7:30 p.m. … on Friday”. This is not too far removed from something that we had a while ago, but has since disappeared. Anyone remember the bank of phones and monitors at Guest Services in Epcot? You could speak to and see a cast member that would help you secure same day dining reservations (remember those days?).
Here’s the really cool part… All of this is do-able with some fairly straightforward database technology. There’s not a lot of “rocket surgery” here. We’ll have ride operators updating the database throughout the day with wait times—generated from those coded cards they ask guests to carry through the queue. We’ll have an application that feeds this information to the monitors in each park and… to your resort TV. Would it help you choose which park to visit tonight if you could view wait times for the major attractions in your resort hotel room? How about we also put it up on a Web site so you can access it from a laptop, smart phone or PDA? Let’s take it a step further and broadcast live webcams from each of the parks so you could also get a look at crowd levels.
I think this is only scratching the surface of what could be done, using existing technology, to enhance the experience of each and every guest at Walt Disney World. Oh… I can pass on the Saved by the Bell experience, but I still want to be interviewed by Jay Leno.
That’s my opinion. What’s yours?
