Walk Time: Back on the road to fun, or under it?
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.
Last month, officials at the Anaheim Transportation Network [ART], which runs the buses that take visitors from area hotels and the Toy Story parking lot to Disneyland and back, announced that they would stop running the bus service by March 31. That raised questions about whether Disneyland guests who use the Toy Story Lot would have to walk to the parks starting in April. Well, they can (and I always do), but Disneyland officials told local reporters this week that transportation will continue to be available to and from Toy Story after ART shuts down.
Disney has not said yet exactly what that will be, or who will run it. But the easiest solution would be for Disney to lease ART's Disney-branded buses and hire drivers to drive them, just as they have been doing.
Also at Disneyland, Star Wars Rise of the Resistance reopened this week, after a three-week refurbishment. Across the country at the Walt Disney World Resort, Frozen Ever After also reopened this week, at EPCOT.
Catching up on Six Flags news, I have written about the company's expansion of season pass benefits that allow Gold level passholders to visit parks in their designated region as well as their home park. Six Flags also is changing the Perks & Play benefit program for its passholders and members. The company will no longer sort pass benefits into tiers that can be unlocked only after visiting a designated number of times. Under this year's rules, the Perks & Play benefits will be available to all passholders and members. However, Six Flags said that certain "surprise" benefits may be offered to passholders from time to time, based on their visitation during the year.
This week also brought new about a couple of potential future developments at Universal. First, Universal filed a patent application for a system that uses IR vascular scans and projection mapping to create an illusion of various stuff flowing through the veins of your body. Second, a local government agency that oversee the land around Universal Orlando selected Elon Musk's The Boring Company as the most qualified candidate to create an off-road transportation system for linking the CityWalk hub with the Universal Epic Universe. You can read more details about The Boring Company's proposal in this report from the Orlando Business Journal.
I also want to offer congratulations to our friend Dave Cobb, who announced this week that he has started a new role as VP Creative at Paramount Global Experiences. You might know Dave as the Creative Director for Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi on Yas Island and Men in Black: Alien Attack at Universal Studios Florida. This is a return to the mountain for Dave, who worked as a Senior Creative Director for Paramount back when it owned theme parks in the early 2000s. Best wishes to Dave, and we can't wait to see what his team at Paramount comes up with next.
Finally, we're still talking about Josh D'Amaro's appointment to become the next CEO of The Walt Disney Company. And we are speculating about who his replacement at Disney Experiences might be. Check out D'Amaro & Walden Have Every Reason to be Optimistic on our Discussion Forum.
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
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