Talking Mickey and the 'Next-Gen' project - the future of your Disney park experience

[FLmom]

I wonder what it will mean for the day visitor. Like our family who has AP's and visits the park for just a few hours at a time but quite often. We go to one of the parks about once a week but try to stay for only half a day though that never seems to work once there we lose track of time and end up spending the full day.

Would one day visitors have to stop in every visit and fill out a form and get a band to experience the parks fully.

 

[wdwmagic]

I wonder what it will mean for the day visitor. Like our family who has AP's and visits the park for just a few hours at a time but quite often. We go to one of the parks about once a week but try to stay for only half a day though that never seems to work once there we lose track of time and end up spending the full day.

Would one day visitors have to stop in every visit and fill out a form and get a band to experience the parks fully.

I'm sure RFID will roll out to Annual Passholders, with everything being tied into your AP profile.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

Yes, but their doing it with a character overlay...

Big Brother Bear.

You win 1 internet today. That was funny.

And true... :lookaroun

 

[rsoxguy]

This is exactly why I cover every inch of my body with aluminum foil before entering the Parks. To all those who have stared and called out, "freak", who's laughing now? My years of social isolation are finally paying off! They'll have no information what with to track me!

 

[roadtripper]

From reading this my first thought was that Disney is going way too far to know where the guests will be at all times and what they're doing. That would be wierd if Mickey asked my kids, "How was your ride on Space Mountain?". Now I'll have to tell all kids that Mickey is as powerful as Santa? That he's always watching so be good for goodness sakes? Scary. Some guest radio frequency tracking(pretty much what it is, same as they do with animals) is OK, like when you slide your ticket into a fastpass machine they know you did that, but this is beyond my comfort level. Did I read that they'll be able to track you by using some kind of smartphone app. in your phone? Does that mean that the app. will be transmitting data of your location without you sending it. Once again, scary. I'll stick with people not always knowing exactly where I am. Why can't Disney just stick to making cool rides and such, besides, all their next gen stuff seems to break quite frequently, so I'm positive the maintainance budgets will go through the roof on this.

 

[MansionGoer13z]

This is starting to sound like the South Park episode "The Ring" Where Mickey Mouse is depicted as the sadistic, greedy boss of The Walt Disney Company, only interested in money.

For Example this technology could be used to coerce Little Timmy and Tabitha into making mommy and daddy buy more Disney stuff:

Mickey Mouse: (Mickey does his iconic laugh) Hey Timmy Tabitha don't forget to tell Mommy and Daddy to buy you some Mickey Ears and Disney costumes before going back to AnyTown, USA. (resumes iconic mickey laugh which sounds a bit more sinister.):drevil:

 

[SyracuseOrange]

This is starting to sound like the South Park episode "The Ring" Where Mickey Mouse is depicted as the sadistic, greedy boss of The Walt Disney Company, only interested in money.

One of my favorite South Park episodes

 

[righttrack]

This is about generating a "wow" experience. Costumed characters may have been "wow" to our generation and generations past, but certainly not kids today. You have to look at it this way. Does Disney "grow old" with it's aging audience, or does it continue to grow and develop with kids moving forward, and preserving its popularity through the ages.

 

[freediverdude]

This sounds great and everything, but can you figure how many miles of monorail could have been added to the resort for $2 billion? Even at $70 million per mile, that's a lot of monorail track they just spent to get Mickey to speak. Just seems like there are other areas that would have made a more humongous difference for that kind of dough.

 

[yeti]

I think your very entry into the Magic Kingdom is a step into a Fantasy world.

...where beloved characters follow your EVERY MOVE....

 

[bjbrad99]

Long time reader and fan of this site(10+ years), but rarely ever post. I have to say I am quite surprised with the reactions I am reading regarding this project. This type of infrastructure investment is literally a game changer for the complete theme park experience. When Disney has this level of unprecedented visibility into an individual guest’s experience, this is going to revolutionize not only the quality of the experience and how it is delivered, but also how Disney as a company structures future development, marketing, scheduling, EVERYTHING. I would suspect that every park decision made over the next 50+ years will be leveraging the DATA from this system to ensure that Disney is enhancing the guest experience (why else do you think Disney would pull into this project consulting firms like Accenture that focus on Business Intelligence solutions for large companies)

The impact of what this change will do for WDW and the change to the guest experience will not fully be felt for decades to come. At this time, it is impossible to predict and incredibly hard to brainstorm as to what the end experience will be. However, think of it from similar technologies which have impacted society. Infrastructure investments like the internet (originally developed by the DoD for wartime communication), GPS (also developed for war efforts), and cellular communication technologies (originally thought of for only voice communication) today have combined and become so integrated as to allow us to share and connect with people in a way that even 10 years ago very few could have predicted or thought possible. I expect that looking back in ten years we will being saying the same thing in regards to how this infrastructure investment has impacted the guest experience.

As you can tell, I am pretty excited to see how Disney (one of the most creative companies in the world) will leverage this integrated technology and blow our minds. I think that Walt would have loved to see this too.

Steve thanks for maintaining an awesome site over the years and I have enjoyed reading everyone’s posts.

 

[scoobygirl39541]

I don't really see a problem with this :shrug: So they can track where we are in the park.... so? Is there something you're trying to hide? I think this is awesome. I wish the characters talked to me like that when I was younger. The silence was weird and awkward and made them seem fake (an 11 year old's perspective). I think the talking adds an insane amount of magic to the experience.

 

[NewtoDisney2009]

This is amazing! I have no problem with the tracking. In fact, I like the idea that if my child got lost, we could possibly use the tracking to find her!!!!

 

[NewtoDisney2009]

I've got to admit that I think some of you guys are making too big a deal out of this. It's really neat. I always had to explain to my daughter why Mickey wouldn't talk to her! Now he can. It will be enchanting!

 

[George]

I've got to admit, I've got mixed emotions about this. A lot of this Next Gen stuff is pretty neat, but if it actually cost 2 billion, I'm a bit horrified.

 

[NoChesterHester]

I've got to admit, I've got mixed emotions about this. A lot of this Next Gen stuff is pretty neat, but if it actually cost 2 billion, I'm a bit horrified.

Costs a lot to research and develop something that has never really been implemented on this scale before. It's cost cant be thought of as "boy we didnt get that ride," the long term impact is as big as the influence fast pass had on touring. The cost will be spread over many years and into the future.

 

[NoChesterHester]

Seriously though... if we could just get one thread that doesn't mention monorail expansion...

Reality: NEVER happening. Would have already. Disney can outfit and maintain the fleet of busses for a 100 years before it paid off. I can easily see another form of transportation, but dont believe I will ever see an expansion of the monorail system in my lifetime.

 

[wdwmagic]

This sounds great and everything, but can you figure how many miles of monorail could have been added to the resort for $2 billion? Even at $70 million per mile, that's a lot of monorail track they just spent to get Mickey to speak. Just seems like there are other areas that would have made a more humongous difference for that kind of dough.

Remember the next-gen stuff goes way beyond a talking Mickey. It will touch every element of your time at WDW.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Remember the next-gen stuff goes way beyond a talking Mickey. It will touch every element of your time at WDW.

I can't wait to see what happens in the restrooms. Go to the bathroom in the clown's mouth and the winner is the first one to pop the balloon?

 

[Cosmic Commando]

I can't wait to see what happens in the restrooms. Go to the bathroom in the clown's mouth and the winner is the first one to pop the balloon?

"Hi, Tim! You're not peeing as much as you did yesterday at Epcot. Maybe you should try some Dasani water? Stay hydrated and have a magical day!"