They are for all intents and purposes the same land bar some slightly different architecture. The experience is the same. Attractions, characters, food, there is nothing unique to Disneyland’s GE. That is my whole point. They got this big fancy land and they are sharing it with another resort.
As for the tech, the big thing they’re behind on is Magic Band capabilities. At Disneyland, you cannot use it for tap to pay nor can hotel guests use it to enter their hotel room. It can only be used for tapping into the park and lightning lanes.
Speaking of lightning lanes, they’re being excluded (again) from the changes being made to the system so they’re being left with Genie+ exactly as it was in every way, just under a different name.
They don’t have the security devices WDW does either. They’re still using the old metal detectors and hand checking bags that WDW got rid of years ago instead of the x-ray scanners Florida now uses.
Disneyland cannot even update their own wait times in the app. They have to call Florida and have them do it for them because that’s where the teams that run the apps are located.
All of the attention for these pretty simple systems has been given to Florida but not California.
I am a WDW native 100%. Been there many times, am going again in January. I went to DL for the first time ever just a few months back. I don’t say this as DL fan jealous of Florida, I say it as just fact: There is a noticeable gap in the attention the company shows to WDW vs. DL. And it doesn’t entirely not make sense. I get it, WDW is the bigger and more visited resort. But if they mean what they say when they say they want to get DLR up to being the destination WDW is (which is part of the point of DL Forward), then they’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
That’s why I hope DL gets a ton at this D23. They need it.
