Disney testing Virtual Queues at its Walt Disney World water parks

[rushtest4echo]

Here's the thing, Disney is going to be accused of copying this from Universal, who in turn copied the Lapu from Disney's Magic Band. The big thing is, Universal probably spent less than 1% of what Disney spent on their system.

Probably true, but most the development costs for MM+ are not really the usage of MagicBands or fastpass. It was the infrastructure that went into hard wiring the tens of thousands of touch points into a massive database system that manages payments, ticketing, reservations for rides and restaurants, communications for all rooms resort wide and the hotel room locks themselves. Just the cost to run everything and to retrofit the tens of thousands of user end hardware was enormous. Heck, if it cost Disney say $10000 in labor and materials to hard wire in touch points at each hotel room door, that's already $250 million and that's not counting any networks, trunk lines, and other infrastructure they probably needed. At the parks, it was probably tens of thousands of dollars per point too, and there are hundreds. Not that I think those investments aren't wise in the long run, but it's very expensive. I'm sure the wireless networks resort wide were not cheap either.

Universal doesn't have to bother with any of that, because, frankly, they're comfortable handing a family of four 4 or 5 sets of passes/tickets/keys per person and not having any sort of advance reservation system for rides or dining beyond phone calls and express passes. Which is fine, but DIsney's stuff is much more convenient and has proven to increase per caps. Iger seems comfortable that the costs involved with MM+ (even the delays and overruns) will benefit the company and customers in the long run.

Universal's beginning to adopt a similar strategy at their water park, though I'm sure it's much cheaper to build it in that to retrofit. But the guest service capabilities of Tapu Tapu are standard in the industry and still don't work around the other 90% of what Universal offers. MM+ is entirely different and is actually "innovative" whether people care for it as a system. Personally, I'm shocked that Universal hasn't at least adopted some of MM+ schemes, without the hardwiring and databases. They could still do a lot with RFID and wireless readers that Disney did with MM+.

 

[Magic Feather]

Fun Fact about Trademarks in regards to virtual waiting.
Disney has Virtual Queue trademarked, and Universal has Virtual Line. Want to see how seriously legal takes this? Ask a Fallon CM about the Virtual Queue, and you will be told that it is a "Virtual Line" for legal purposes.

 

[Herah]

I really hope that if this system is rolled out, it's done properly with magicbands. Nobody has their cell phone on their person at a water park, and nobody wants to carry around a pager or piece of paper.

But a MagicBand has no way to signal or remind. How would that work?

 

[Disney Analyst]

I don't think the waterparks would ever issue a FP+ system where you reserve months in advance... It will definitely be a day of situation. They don't want people booking months in advance and then the water parks are closed due to weather.

 

[rushtest4echo]

But a MagicBand has no way to signal or remind. How would that work?

Wireless touch with a monitor/kiosk would be used in the same way they're used right now. You could walk right up to any point and be told when your next "slide time" is with a magic band. This is already the way that lots of waterpark reservation systems work. If there is a few banks of kiosks located strategically at the bases of the hills, and one bank at the top, then I don't see what trouble people would have just tapping to see what's what. Especially if it's just going to be a rudimentary system where you walk up, select a time or simply say "next available slot" and then it says "okay, some back and slide at 1:30". It wouldn't need to be as complex as MM+.

Would it be as convenient as Tapu for reservations? Probably not. But as far as integrating into the payment systems, the ticketing and everything else that's already at the Disney water parks- I'd like to see them keep it all inside the MagicBand sphere.

Of course all of this relies on people needing magic bands. But Universal seems to think that 100% of people will be comfortable using their "mark of the beast" system (not a religious nutbag here, but that's why some people objects to the wristbands including magic bands) so I'm assuming Disney could do the same. Maybe just have separate bands with less tech that only make reservations at the water parks and only last a day or two like the wristband RFID stuff that is used at Fairs and hotel water parks.

 

[ford91exploder]

This thread is reading very oddly. Do we really believe the Disney should either do something first or not at all? Uni had a good idea, and Disney is trying to come up with their own version of it. That what you're supposed to do when somebody else comes up with a good idea. The time to complain about Disney being behind was when Uni announced their version, not when Disney tries to catch up. Of course they'll try to catch up.

The key here is now Disney is reduced to copying the initiatives of a second tier competitor (UNI) whereas in the not too distant past Disney used to wow us with stuff we did not even know we wanted until we saw it at DL or WDW. That's why Disney's getting no love here.

 

[ford91exploder]

And we see all the great things that's done for guests now, haven't we @marni1971 ?

Because of this:

We are back to "Disney Time" here. Their record of deadlines and opening dates speak for itself.

And isn't this still the Spring Break period? "Literally no wait" for a new slide in a peak season kind of shows that maybe this system isn't needed.

Or that Disney's hit that inflection point where the customers have stopped coming to some Disney properties because a better value and quality of experience can be had elsewhere.

 

[ford91exploder]

I don't think the waterparks would ever issue a FP+ system where you reserve months in advance... It will definitely be a day of situation. They don't want people booking months in advance and then the water parks are closed due to weather.

How is that different from the current system where Disney takes and attraction or restaurant offline with zero notice and tells the people with reservations to lump it.

 

[matt9112]

Yes, quite familiar with it. But Pirates has a large extended queue that went largely unused for years. There was room to allow the line to grow. It may be longer than most of us would like, but on most days, the line can still be contained in it's designated space.

I do not care where the line can or cannot go. I care about the fact that by noon time EVERY single attraction has an unjustified wait time due to the manipulation FP+ has done.

 

[Disney Analyst]

How is that different from the current system where Disney takes and attraction or restaurant offline with zero notice and tells the people with reservations to lump it.

Well you are talking one ride versus an entire park. It would be a PR nightmare.

 

[ford91exploder]

Well you are talking one ride versus an entire park. It would be a PR nightmare.

Point taken, I was visualizing each slide/pool having a FP like queue

 

[Disney Analyst]

Point taken, I was visualizing each slide/pool having a FP like queue

I think the system Universal is working with will likely be the best option. If the parks close due to weather that day there would be no issues.

 

[ford91exploder]

I think the system Universal is working with will likely be the best option. If the parks close due to weather that day there would be no issues.

Exactly and it can even reschedule appointments if a brief storm triggers a shutdown without guest needing to dig out their smartphones as Disney requires one to.

 

[raven]

Exactly and it can even reschedule appointments if a brief storm triggers a shutdown without guest needing to dig out their smartphones as Disney requires one to.

They can also alert guests to weather issues and slide closures immediately with this technology.

 

[Coaster Lover]

Here's the thing, Disney is going to be accused of copying this from Universal, who in turn copied the Lapu from Disney's Magic Band. The big thing is, Universal probably spent less than 1% of what Disney spent on their system.

Well, if you want to get technical, both were launched publicly after Accesso's (formerly Lo-Q's) Q-band and/or Q-bot.

 

[rushtest4echo]

Well, if you want to get technical, both were launched publicly after Accesso's (formerly Lo-Q's) Q-band and/or Q-bot.

Shhhhh...... "innovation"

 

[Satans Hockey]

I was actually at both parks today. Only saw it being used on the taller body slide at typhoon lagoon, I forget the name of the slide. I didn't bother doing it because the standby line was maybe 5 mins or so. They gave people what looked like a wristband to me and they would come back at whatever time it said. They used green tape to make a separate line for it so that those people using it would just come to the front of the line at bottom of the stairs before heading up to the big slide. The workers asking people if they were interested in trying it were at the very bottom of the long staircase leading up to the rides.

 

[No Name]

Thanks for the reply, Steve. What does this new style of "virtual queue" say about their faith in the FP+ system? I only mentioned Legacy as it seems the difference between "Virtual" and FP+ is simply that you can not reserve the FP ahead of time with the virtual system, which is in essence Legacy but just using a pager instead of paper. Why not simply add it to FP+ on MDE?

I think it makes more sense to use paper for an early test run, because the risk of a technology breakdown is eliminated. Imagine if, not only did the whole reserving thing struggle to work well, but the MyMagic+ system went down. That would be a double disaster!

With a paper test, Disney is only risking a single disaster. Once they avoid the first disaster (the logistics of reservations) they can move on and face the second (technology). I would guess the eventual goal is to move to technology of some sort, but they have to go one step at a time.

Also, with a paper test, they don't need to have any readers. All they need is those two little readers above the nose. Oh, and lastly, are magicbands waterproof?

 

[MisterPenguin]

Fun Fact about Trademarks in regards to virtual waiting.
Disney has Virtual Queue trademarked, and Universal has Virtual Line. Want to see how seriously legal takes this? Ask a Fallon CM about the Virtual Queue, and you will be told that it is a "Virtual Line" for legal purposes.

Quick, someone trademark "Virtual Line Up" before the Canadians get any ideas!

 

[JoeCamel]

I think it makes more sense to use paper for an early test run, because the risk of a technology breakdown is eliminated. Imagine if, not only did the whole reserving thing struggle to work well, but the MyMagic+ system went down. That would be a double disaster!

With a paper test, Disney is only risking a single disaster. Once they avoid the first disaster (the logistics of reservations) they can move on and face the second (technology). I would guess the eventual goal is to move to technology of some sort, but they have to go one step at a time.

Also, with a paper test, they don't need to have any readers. All they need is those two little readers above the nose. Oh, and lastly, are magicbands waterproof?

Don't know about the 2.0 but the originals are to a point. I would not dive to 33 meters with one but 3 meters would be fine. People ride water rides and sweat so they don't stop working when they get wet.