Originally Posted By AutoPost This topic is for Discussion of <a href="http://www.LaughingPlace.com/Latest-ID-76587.asp" target="_blank"><b>Latest: Tom Staggs Talks About the Future of Visiting Disney Parks (NextGen)</b></a> <p>In today's Investor Conference Tom Staggs talked about the Company's vision for the future of visiting Disney parks. Much of what he discussed is a part of the NextGen project Disney has been working on for some time (Note: Staggs did not use the term NextGen at all). Below is a summary of what Stagg's said:</p> <p>In the coming years there will be a broad, integrated set of systems for a more seamless personalized experience and welcome more and more people while making their vists more satisfying. This will go beyond FastPass in effect developing a version of FastPass for their entire Disney vacation (which starts when they make their reservation). Guests will be able to reserve times for attractions and character interactions, seats for shows, dining reservations, etc booking many of these experiences before leaving their house. A simplified check-in will allow guests to arrive at their resort with room key in hand and go directly to their room or a park. There will also be new ways to pull guests into stories. For example, a tool will allow princesses to greet and interact with guests in an immersive and personalized way. Queues will continue to innovate to become a part of the show (Winnie the Pooh at Disney World being one example). They also will be creating means to better manage flow of guests in the parks as well as get better information into the hands of Cast. Disney is well into development on all of these with a number of patents pending.</p>
Originally Posted By CaptainMichael <<I can feel the mind control starting to work already. >> Not a fan of 90% of what was said.
Originally Posted By CaptainMichael <<It sounds more like being at work than a vacation. Yuk.>> Worse, how many people plan 6 months ahead for work?
Originally Posted By dshyates Oooh! Now we will be able to make ressies for meet and greets 180 days prior our vacation.
Originally Posted By HokieSkipper Terrible. Completely and utterly terrible. Way to kill any spontaneous fun on your vacation. What a disgrace. Complete and utter disgrace.
Originally Posted By MousDad Looks like the initial fears about NextGen being more about customer management than customer entertainment were justified. [How many yeti's can you fix for 1.2 billion?]
Originally Posted By CaptainMichael <<[How many yeti's can you fix for 1.2 billion?]>> Better yet: How many miles of monorail track? @EPCOTExplorer was totally wrong about this btw.
Originally Posted By magic0214 I'm curious to know what will happen for going for the day trips. Will regular fastpass still be available as well as meet and greets, or will I have to wait in regular lines all day?
Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer >>>@EPCOTExplorer was totally wrong about this btw.<<< I didn't know about this. I only heard about thematic use, which honestly, still could be quite cool. But this? Horrid. What's the point? The parks are meant to be full of fun, adventure, and spontaneity. This is exactly the reverse.
Originally Posted By dshyates Thank God Disney has my IBS on file, that way my reservationist knew to remind me to reserve extra potty times. I am so stoked, i got into the always booked quail restroom. I am booked from 1:30p-1:38p on Wed. May 12th.
Originally Posted By leobloom >> I'm curious to know what will happen for going for the day trips. Will regular fastpass still be available as well as meet and greets, or will I have to wait in regular lines all day? << This was my first thought. If I'm not staying at a Disney resort, doesn't this mean I am effectively in line behind all the people who have micromanaged their visit six months earlier? My second thought: in the old days when I stayed on property, I would never have wanted this kind of itinerary to plan out my day. This frankly sounds unwarranted and more than a little disturbing. But I'm sure some of the fans will create countdown clocks for each attraction. Sample: "Only 48 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes and 8 seconds until I'm riding Splash Mountain!"
Originally Posted By leobloom >> Thank God Disney has my IBS on file, that way my reservationist knew to remind me to reserve extra potty times. I am so stoked, i got into the always booked quail restroom. I am booked from 1:30p-1:38p on Wed. May 12th. << Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to reserve my beloved quail restroom? Mickey, you cruel, cruel rodent!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "What's the point? The parks are meant to be full of fun, adventure, and spontaneity. This is exactly the reverse." But how much of the average Disney visitor's time in a park is actually spontaneous? Given the set times for parades, fireworks, stage show, Fastpass, in addition to waits in ride queues and time out for meals, there really isn't much room for spontaneity. I assume that whatever this system is you'll be given the option to use it, so visitor who want to bypass it can.
Originally Posted By Christi22222 ^^^That's a rather disingenuous statement. Clearly someone choosing not to participate in this system will see their theme park experience greatly diminished. You can't exactly "choose" to spontaneously visit Space Mountain if there are no scheduled openings until 2am.
Originally Posted By Christi22222 Obviously this is a large corporation that understands enough to make large sums of money off myself and others. So they aren't completely stupid. With that said, I see a rather huge opportunity for this whole concept to completely backfire on them. They chose very dangerous territory to be inventive and forward thinking.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance I'm sure Disney has no plans on ruining the day visitors experience, especially since so much of the attendance at DL is made up of day visitors. I read that paragraph, and got seriously excited. As someone who comes from out of town maybe once a year if we're lucky, this sounds like it would greatly improve our experience at the parks. I've never found spontaneity to be an option for dining, parades, fireworks,rides or most anything. If you don't plan ahead and think about what's next at all times, you miss out on most things. You have to show up hours ahead to get a good fireworks show, so because of having smalls kids and not being able to devote an entire evening of just sitting, we couldn't ever see the fireworks in early December. Lines are too long, and kids aside, I am not willing to wait an hour to do anything. If they are going to make lines shorter for us, or not have to wait 3 hours to see some chick dressed up like Tinkerbell for my kids, sign me up.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Funny, for me, the fun and magic of Disney as a kid was the serendipity of it all. Will we see live music, or bump into a character? What did we fancy doing and could we take turns as a family in choosing the attractions? Sure, dining, fireworks and parades aside, the fun of the disney park was choice. We fo out in WDW what happens if your party does not feel like that meal you booked 6 months in advance, tough if you are on the dining plan, your loss.
