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.
One more from Six Flags: Six Flags Fiesta Texas in San Antonio this week teased its new ride for 2027. You can see their post on Instagram. The hashtag is #whatswithin. Guesses?
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!
Replies (2)
@Brian - I know it seems simple to give guests back popular perks that used to be part of the WDW experience, but I just don't see it happening no matter how much guests want it or how often former CEOs talk about how taking the former perks away was a mistake.
DME was an amazing service, and could be lobbied as a justified expense, because by offering it to on-site guests arriving at MCO meant those guests weren't renting a car and having a greater chance of those guests spending all of their money inside the "Disney Bubble". However, with Uber, Lift, and other ride sharing programs, bringing guests to their resorts with MDE isn't the sure thing it used to be to keep guests on-site. I also don't think people appreciate how much DME cost to operate and maintain, particularly in just the shear amount of labor needed to assist guests arriving at the airport and staff at each of the resorts assisting guests during arrival, which would occur in massive waves as buses dropped off instead of the steady trickles that happen now. The other issue is that because DME has been gone for so long, guests don't know what they're missing, and simply restoring it wouldn't necessarily increase bookings to offset those costs to operate the program.
I just can't see LL going anywhere, because it is a massive source of revenue for the parks that doesn't cost Disney a dime compared to what it would cost to go back to offering FP. Giving guests free LL would instantly strike a massive blow to the bottom line. While D'Amaro does seem to be focused on the overall guest experience, I don't think he's in a position to cut a massive source of pure profit that won't generate at least a bit of revenue to offset those losses. It's not like WDW is struggling to get guests to visit, and offering LL for free is not going to generate more visits or more crowded parks.
As much as we all wish WDW would go back to the way it was, it just doesn't make financial or practical sense for Disney to put the Genie back in the bottle. Maybe if the resort struggles in filling rooms and/or parks, they could dangle free LL or DME as a promotion to get people to visit, but aside from that, the die has been cast.
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The Disney Busses from MCO were one of Disney's best features.
Maybe the New CEO will bring them back... I heard he is a big fan of TPI and I personally know he read this...