Walk Time: Changes at Disney with D'Amaro in charge?
In theme parks and entertainment, "walk time" is the name for the final paid minutes of your shift, when you gather your stuff and start heading home. At Theme Park Insider, "Walk Time" is our weekend look back at the past seven days in theme park news.
Universal Mardi Gras: International Flavors of Carnaval opens today at Universal Studios Florida. Universal Orlando's event includes themed food stands and a daily parade, plus weekend headliner concerts. You can see this year's concert schedule here: Bebe Rexha, Zedd to headline Universal Orlando Mardi Gras.
The big news this week was Disney's announcement that Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D'Amaro will be the next CEO of The Walt Disney Company, taking over from Bob Iger after Disney's shareholder meeting next month. There's no word yet on who will replace D'Amaro as the head of Disney's theme park segment, but that bench is deep, with several strong candidates for D'Amaro to consider.
I was invited to talk with Josh in a video call yesterday, and he said that he will not be ghosting theme park fans. Expect to continue to see him walking the parks and talking with fans even as he moves up to the CEO spot.
"I'm so optimistic about not only where we are, but where we can go in the future, and I will do my absolute best to continue to be the same leader in person - as passionate as I've ever been about everything that we do here at Disney," he said.
On the topic of listening to fans, I have started a discussion over on the forum addressing one of the topics that D'Amaro referenced in our talk: What do you want to see in Villains Land?
The other big story this week was Six Flags' move to extend admission benefits on many of its season passes. For Gold passes the concept of a home park is going away, to be replaced by a home region - a collection of parks that your Gold pass now will get you admission into. Check out the reaction and discussion in Six Flags adds more park access to Gold season passes and Can Six Flags close parks without losing customers?
Finally, there's a great read over on the Streetblog website about monorails and why they never became the popular transportation system that people such as Walt Disney envisioned, specifically in Los Angeles: L.A.’s Historic Affair with Monorails.
Have a great weekend.
Replies (3)
I feel like one thing that goes under the radar is the difference in food quality options at WDW vs DLR. Of course EPCOT skews it, but minus EPCOT, when you compare the food options from the other 3 parks against DLR, it is not even close. MK-Liberty Tree Tavern, HS- like SCI-FI Theater (burgers are Good), 50’s Cafe, I thought the quick service food in Avatar land was good. DLR in my opinion does not even have anything remotely comparable. Just an opinion, but that could definitely be improved upon by a lot.
Russell nails it. D'Amaro and Walden have the chance to continue the company's commitment to "small ball" -- new additions that are not as big.
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I just don't see a lot of opportunity for D'Amaro to put his stamp on the company over the next 2-3 years at least. On the parks side, there is so muck already going on that the first few years of his tenure are going to be defined by how the company executes projects that have already been started or announced. On the entertainment side, Iger has done so much on his way out the door, D'Amaro would be wise to lay low for a while to see how those deals work out before fiddling around with things.
I feel like D'Amaro is going to have 2-3 years of just maintaining the current momentum before he would even consider making any drastic changes at the company. Only a world-wide catastrophe or other major event would necessitate D'Amaro taking Disney off cruise control.