Disneyland Resort - New Entry Gates Incoming?

[Disney Irish]

Other than Magic Key Only they can also do other things like Magicband Only or Re-Entry Only or Non-Stroller Only to dedicate some lanes to being faster to get through. They probably won't, but they digital signs opens things up to several possibilities.

We'll see, I won't be surprised if this was one of the many initiatives to try and speed up entry into the Parks.

Get em thru the gates faster so they can begin to spend money!

 

[mickEblu]

I agree they look very out of place being on top instead of the bottom. I think it looks bad and I don't defend it in any way, but here might be some objective reasons:

1. Maybe not just clearance but now with all the extra electronics could have also been a weight issue where they didn't have anything structurally solid enough in the overhang to safely hold it. I'm not a structural engineer, but maybe they were worried about it falling on someone's head.

2. Probably would have been a lot of extra work cutting them out and re-shingling and fixing the facade and Disney isn't about that. That's probably an excuse since they just re-shingled the train station, but people were also already complaining about how much time this took.

3. I'm kind of wondering if they went digital simply because CMs were tired of spinning the sign or if they are planning to display more than just the typical "Entrance" and "Exit Only" wording......basically have more options whatever that may be.

So I guess we'll see if they are functionally better or if it's a change simply due to laziness and pinching pennies.

All possibilities I guess but I don’t find #2 or #3 to be valid excuses. Not even #1 when you consider how wrong that looks and there was a solution that worked fine for decades. For Disney I don’t find it to be an acceptable compromise or solution.

 

[Touchdown]

It’s interesting that the screens are identical to what USO uses. That system works pretty well. Not sure why the same screen is on the other side though.

 

[TP2000]

Would this be a good time to remind us what the Tokyo Disneyland main entrance turnstiles look like after their 2019 renovation that added new structures with changeable digital signage and touch-free scanners designed for 21st century visitors and technology?

Here's a closer view taken during Covid in 2020 (when Tokyo Disneyland was open while Disneyland USA remained closed for 13 months until 2021). You can see how the digital signage is placed above each entry portal, etc.

 

[mickEblu]

Would this be a good time to remind us what the Tokyo Disneyland main entrance turnstiles look like after their 2019 renovation that added new structures with changeable digital signage and touch-free scanners designed for 21st century visitors and technology?

Here's a closer view taken during Covid in 2020 (when Tokyo Disneyland was open while Disneyland USA remained closed for 13 months until 2021). You can see how the digital signage is placed above each entry portal, etc.

Now I’m more upset lol. How embarrassing and tacky what they did at Disneyland.

 

[Touchdown]

You know the gates are there because they are hoping to reduce staffing right, if AI can properly identify most guests then a CM could man multiple gates.

 

[Disney Irish]

Now I’m more upset lol. How embarrassing and tacky what they did at Disneyland.

You want the entire entrance behind walls and disruption for 2 years all because of a sign that partially covers a couple faux vents? Because that is what it took for the redone entrance at TDL.

This is such a minor thing that I really don't think it warrants that much disruption. The next time they redo the roofs of the gates they'll likely remove those faux vents anyways.

 

[mickEblu]

You want the entire entrance behind walls and disruption for 2 years all because of a sign that partially covers a couple faux vents? Because that is what it took for the redone entrance at TDL.

This is such a minor thing that I really don't think it warrants that much disruption. The next time they redo the roofs of the gates they'll likely remove those faux vents anyways.

Sorry, its so tacky and ugly. There should be no defense from anyone that cares about Disneyland or themed entertainment.

If it’s so minor that’s even less of an excuse to not get the job done right while it was all behind construction walls. Have some pride and don’t showcase that at the entrance of Disneyland.

 

[Disney Irish]

Sorry, its so tacky and ugly. There should be no defense from anyone that cares about Disneyland or themed entertainment.

If it’s so minor that’s even less of an excuse to not get the job done right while it was all behind construction walls. Have some pride and don’t showcase that at the entrance of Disneyland.

I'm not defending it (even though I don't think it really looks bad, sorry), but I'm not going to advocate for a complete 2 year overhaul and disruption of the main entrance just because of it. Like I said before they'll likely make adjustments as they continue on with the other gates, or like I mentioned in my last post will just remove the faux vents next time they redo the roofs.

 

[mickEblu]

I'm not defending it (even though I don't think it really looks bad, sorry), but I'm not going to advocate for a complete 2 year overhaul and disruption of the main entrance just because of it. Like I said before they'll likely make adjustments as they continue on with the other gates, or like I mentioned in my last post will just remove the faux vents next time they redo the roofs.

If they couldn’t do the job correctly at this time then it should have waited until after the 70th. The digital signs I’m referring to of course which have nothing to do with the new turnstiles.

 

[Disney Irish]

If they couldn’t do the job correctly at this time then it should have waited until after the 70th. The digital signs I’m referring to of course which have nothing to do with the new turnstiles.

I assume it was part of the same budget, so required to be done at the same time but didn't include redoing the roof.

 

[mickEblu]

I assume it was part of the same budget, so required to be done at the same time but didn't include redoing the roof.

Why couldn’t they budget for the turnstiles now and digital signs at a later date? Whatever it is- it’s bad show and unacceptable IMO. Especially during a milestone year.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

I like it better than TDL’s hanging signs… it looks cleaner and more low-key imo

 

[Disney Irish]

Why couldn’t they budget for the turnstiles now and digital signs at a later date? Whatever it is- it’s bad show and unacceptable IMO. Especially during a milestone year.

I have no idea, maybe it needed to be done at the same time because both are part of the same system, who knows. I'm sure there is a reason why it was done this way, even if you don't agree with it.

This to me is such a minor thing as at least the sign itself looks ok even if it covering part of the faux vents isn't ideal. The sign over Leota's is more of an issue than this to me, that sign should just be redone completely as soon as possible.

 

[PiratesMansion]

It's a matter of trade-off. Yes, Tokyo Disneyland's entrance objectively looks better. However, they straight-up leveled their OG turnstiles to put the new ones in. It looks great now, but the tradeoff was that entering the park was a slow, ponderous, compromised experience for well over a year.

Disneyland clearly chose to do the change in phases so as to minimize, to the extent they can, to the guests that are on the ground waiting to get in. They chose to not completely level the turnstiles to expedite the process. It's very possible that with the modern needs of DL, they were forced to make some less-desirable changes quickly to keep the process short.

So, really, there were two options. Option A (Tokyo) clearly looks better when all is said and done, but it would have meant a much greater, sustained impact on entering the park-at a resort where there's considerably more parkhopping, which is comparatively disincentivized in Tokyo vs everywhere else. And then people would have complained about that.

I can tell you that entering Tokyo Disneyland certainly wasn't a fun experience in 2019 when half of the entrance plaza was dirt and the entire entering crowd was then shunted into the other half of the turnstiles-and this is Tokyo Disney, where (at the time) resort guests entered through a designated lane 15 minutes before park opening, and absolutely no one else enters the park before opening in any capacity-no World Bazaar, nothing-until it's *exactly* opening time. And it's Tokyo, so no matter what time the park opens, there's already a huge crowd sitting and waiting an hour before the park opens.

Now, to be fair, we don't know exactly why Disneyland did not make the new gates look like the old ones. It could be cheapness/they don't care/efficiency at all costs over aesthetics/etc., but the fact is that we don't know. It's possible that this was a change they weren't intending to make but had to be done unexpectedly. They could be wanting to go in and make changes later, and not when the busiest crowds of the year are about to stampede through the door in a few days time (frankly, reasonable to me if true). They could fix the turnstiles like they fixed Alice years after they had to put in that OSHA scaffolding rather suddenly.

Is this great? No. But do we have the full story of why this was done in this way, and definitive proof that it will stay like this long term? Again, no.

 

[mickEblu]

I have no idea, maybe it needed to be done at the same time because both are part of the same system, who knows. I'm sure there is a reason why it was done this way, even if you don't agree with it.

This to me is such a minor thing as at least the sign itself looks ok even if it covering part of the faux vents isn't ideal. The sign over Leota's is more of an issue than this to me, that sign should just be redone completely as soon as possible.

The Leota sign is awful as well but there’s something just so wrong and tacky about plopping those digital signs in front of those detailed faux roof vents that really grinds my gears. Especially since it only partially covers those features.

 

[chadwpalm]

For what it's worth, I took a current pic and overlaid it the best I could matching the sizes of the pics as close as possible and this is the result:

The sign is much lower than the previous ones and I have a feeling it was some sort of minimum height clearance issue. So the choices were most likely make the sign smaller (probably not an option), put it on top, or don't use them at all.

Since they seem hell bent on using them, putting them on top was probably the only option for their size and the height of the ceiling.

This is still an explanation, not an endorsement. Again, they'd better make really good use of making them digital to justify what they did.

 

[Jiggsawpuzzle35]

We are seriously talking about signs here? I’m too busy trying to figure out the shortest to get into and really don’t care about this nonsense. If you want to complain about something, it should be about the stupid archaic security process. Jesus Christ I wanna smash my head every time I pick the wrong long and wait behind 9 people with large bags.