So if Disney ever wants to reboot its 2005 Hitchhiker's movie with a theme park version where the main character visits Disneyland, perhaps Ford Prefect can be renamed "Graco Fastaction," since strollers seem to crowding out actual human visitors in many sections of the park these days.
With more attractions crammed into much less space than Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom — the other theme park in America that's become a "must visit" for families with little kids — Disneyland is the undisputed stroller swarm capital of the United States. Cast members often struggle to keep pathways clear around the entrances to Tomorrowland, Toontown (next to It's a Small World), and Pirates of the Caribbean clear as parents abandon their strollers in packs throughout the day.
In my Orange County Register column this week, I look at the situation in Tomorrowland, where strollers often span the gaps between the old PeopleMover support columns, and sometime spill out to narrow the already tight paths in front of Star Tours and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters.
Mostly, I'm using the stroller situation as a straw man to back into an argument that Disney's best business decision for better crowd management in Tomorrowland is to reopen the PeopleMover. But I think it's an interesting question to ask what else Disneyland might do to alleviate the stroller jams throughout the park.
Given that Disney hasn't got the room to swap Disneyland for a larger, Magic Kingdom-sized replacement in Anaheim, relief is going to come only from reducing the size and/or number of strollers in the park. So how might Disney do that?
The easiest logistical solution is to try to reduce the number of little kids in the park by raising prices on them. Eliminate the child's discount and make everyone — including children under age three — pay the regular, "adult" price. That might keep some parents from hauling their kids to the resort before they turn 10 — long past their stroller years. But Disney doesn't offer a kids' discount on annual passes, and with hundreds of thousands of local AP holders crowding the park throughout the year, the elimination of children's tickets probably wouldn't take a significant number of strollers off the pathways. Maybe requiring tickets for babies would help a bit, but it won't solve the problem.
That's because, ultimately, the problem isn't the number of children in Disneyland. It's the size of those darned strollers these days. Perhaps Disneyland could divert some of Walt Disney World's "NextGen" money into designing and developing the next generation of smaller, stronger, more durable strollers, which Disney could rent in place of its current, somewhat bulky models.
Of course, that wouldn't do anything to address the much larger, SUV-sized rolling roadblocks that many parents are bringing into the park. To do that, Disney would have to get really devious and start emulating... the airline industry.
Wanna bring a stroller into the park? Like checking a bag on a flight, you're gonna have to pay. Let's make the daily stroller admission fee equal to the daily stroller rental fee. That way, people are paying the same whether they bring their own or use Disney's (in our ideal world) smaller strollers.
Must use your own? Then you might have to pay an oversized stroller penalty on top of the stroller admission fee, just as you would for an overweight checked bag on an airline trip.
Why do people bring in such big strollers, anyway? Because for many families, the issue isn't a place to stash the kid. It's having a place to stash their stuff. People need the big strollers to accommodate the diaper bag, backpacks, snack bags, and whatever else they're hauling into the park like they were preparing to climb Mount Everest.
And here's where Disney goes full Spirit Airlines... and starts charging people who bring in oversized bags, not just strollers. Install a "personal item" 9x10x17-inch frame at each front gate lane and tell people they'll have to pay a fee if their bags don't fit in it. Heck, Disney could earn a few extra million on top of those fees by selling the streaming rights to the inevitable front-gate confrontations to World Star.
Now that we're talking about starting a fight, let's put this to a vote:
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Florida has been widening the paths in the parks the past few years to accommodate more strollers and wheelchairs. DLR doesn't have much space so it's probably going "deal with it."
Florida has been widening the paths in the parks the past few years to accommodate more strollers and wheelchairs. DLR doesn't have much space so it's probably going "deal with it."
Disneyland can do a lot of infrastructure changes to free up the walkways for stroller parking. Removing the People Mover will remove the wide footers and the central platform. Remove the many planters on Main St and the hub. The lack of big restrooms is another problem.
I hate to say it, but I think the "Monthly Payment Plans" is tied into this mess. While the intention was initially to raise prices but still make Annual Passes "feel" financially justifiable. The crowds that a monthly payment plan has attracted is the same crowds that brings coolers and stuffs their SUV stroller compartments with rotisserie chickens and possibly smuggling in two more children.
Now dont get me wrong. This isn't judgement, this is an observation. And its one that I was guilty of because when I had first started bringing a stroller to the park then it started out with just diaper bags and spare clothes. But it did soon turn into bottles of Gatorade and chips. So IF we're going to look for solutions in reducing a "need" for stroller then you can say "Restrict bringing in your stuff" OR you can say "Make in-park food/amenities more affordable so cheap-o's like me dont have to bring in our stuff".
My other idea would be to eliminate stroller parking in favor of stroller checks spread throughout the park. Have a stroller check stand in each land (possibly two in the larger lands), and require guests who are not using their stroller to check it at the stand. That way, it can be stored folded and out of the way without taking up valuable real estate on the pathways, plus their is no risk of having it stolen. For baggage, allow one reasonably-sized bag per stroller to be stored at the check, and everything else the family has to stash in a locker if they don't want to carry it.
One issue beyond the stroller is the bags of merchandise and crap people hand off the side of them, sometimes doubling their width. Arranging for merchandise bought in the park to get picked up at the front gate may help, but as Anton said, better infrastructure for parking and encouraging smaller strollers would help.
Today, though, parents want to live exactly as they did before they had their kids and expect to make no adjustments for them. It would be unthinkable to postpone a trip to a Disney park just because that might be better, and far less stressful, to wait until your very young child can actually enjoy the trip.
I'll say it again: If your child is so young that you have to bring a whole load of food, clothes, and toys - TOYS - to care for it at a Disney park, because it's too young to eat in a restaurant and too young to be entertained by a DISNEY PARK, that child is too young to be put through the trip.
I was just at WDW a couple of months ago and the strollers were absolutely ridiculous. Huge strollers piled high with supplies packed Main Street and made it impossible to enjoy the atmosphere, much less operate any of the Main Street vehicles - I did not see any of them.
Not to mention the masses of screaming infants and toddlers who have no idea what's going on and are not enjoying the endless hours in the heat and lines of a huge theme park.
Yes, charge full price for any child over one year of age. Charge for oversize strollers - maybe for ANY strollers. Do whatever it takes to arrange parking areas outside of the rides so that the strollers don't block the walkways.
The massive stroller jam really is ruining the atmosphere of the parks, and it will only get worse before it gets better.
I would literally pay double the price to have a day in the parks with no strollers or ECV's. Those ECV's are a menace.
I like many of the stroller solutions (stroller checks, fees, ticket prices), but those small changes won't alter large structural problems.
-RP
Give People an Discount when they bring an same day PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION Ticket (Bus 460) Use the Space that got free doing so (less Cars..) for a MANDATORY Stroller Parking outside the Park and PROVIDE FREE BABY TOWELS with that you can carry your Baby near to your Body. Kids LOVE that!
Problem Solved. No Strollers more in the Park
The whole problem is that the parents are basically inconsiderate of their children and other people. Bring your children to the park when they are ready and not a day sooner. And try to remember that going to a theme park is a privilege and not a right, and the other people in the park paid their hard earned dollars to enjoy the experience, and your "me first" behavior is degrading the experience for everyone.
This is what I would have done. But when your wife grew up going starting as a baby and going every year almost, it's tough to convince here to wait until he is older. And to my surprise he did enjoy himself. So when it comes to strollers and the age I see both points of view. I mean on my last trip the strollers where pretty ridiculous, especially in Tomorrowland. But younger kids can still enjoy it the park.
But then even at 5, we were able to go all day without a nap. Most kids aren't. What gets me about bringing a stroller to carry your stuff and so your kid can nap, is that there's usually an older sibling who is getting less out of Disneyland because it's time to change the baby or the baby is being fussy or we need to feed the baby or we need to go sit in the shade... and so on. I remember going one year and we rode FIVE rides, because we went with a stupid toddler. If ONE of your kids needs a lot of attention, it's not fair to the other kids. Don't bring them until everyone can go all day.
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Kind of tangential here, but I often read online that strollers are almost non-existent in the Japanese and Chinese Disney parks? Can anyone enlighten me as to why there's such a big difference?