I’m not here to talk about the Disney v. Florida war. At least not today. No, I’m here to tell you, my fellow parents, that the Disney theme parks have lost their way. And as a studier of branding (in that I like to yell loudly “What were they thinking????” whenever a brand fucks up in a patently obvious manner), I’m fascinated by Disney’s error: they’ve forgotten they’re supposed to lie to their customers.
Recently we took our kids to Orlando for Universal Studios and Disney World. It was the best family trip we’ll ever have, because the kids got along and nobody had a screaming meltdown for 10 whole days and that has nothing to do with Disney but it simply doesn’t happen and I’m gonna brag about it for the rest of my life. ANYWAY, Universal was great! Highly recommend you go there, stay at one of their hotels, and take advantage of the early-entry and line-skipping perks that come with it. Do not miss the Harry Potter stuff, it’s truly wonderful. I’m a grown woman who never particularly liked the Potterverse, and I was utterly enchanted.
After four days at Universal, we moved to Disney World. Whoo boy.
A bit of background: I love Disney. I’ve always loved them. People complain that they’re a wee bit fascist (for real, in the publishing biz my colleagues used to call Disney Publishing “Mousewitz” back in the day). But that’s what I always liked about Disney as a brand–their shit is Locked. Down. If you went to Disney World, you saw it–the place was spotless, always. Rumor had it that all employees were required to pick up any garbage they saw, no matter what their actual job was. The workers (“cast members”) were unrelentingly friendly and always in character even if they were just the cashiers at a Frontierland snack stand. The rides were themed perfectly, every step of the long lines filled with something to look at or do. If you were into the characters, or had little kids who were, it was astonishing how they’d just appear every so often, materializing from the vast “backstage” that you know is there but you could never see–Disney doesn’t forget and leave a staff room door open, people. They’re way beyond that kind of rookie error.
The customer service was top notch. When my kids were babies, I lived 5 miles from Disneyland in California. They had a whole building for us, fitted out with private rooms containing rockers where you could sit and breastfeed. Little tiny toilets for toddlers. Diapers, wipes, and snacks on demand. First aid staff to help. They had a kennel right outside the park gates where you could leave your dog for the day, but come back whenever you wanted to play with them in the yard. There was a bathroom every fifty feet and never a line even for the women’s rooms. They gave you everything you needed before you even knew you needed it. It’s the only place I’ve ever been to where the changing tables in the bathrooms actually had those paper covers in stock.
My point is, they were GOOD at this. It costs a life savings to go to a Disney park. But when you were there, everything was perfect. Everyone was happy. They claimed they made magic, and they pretty much did. Once when I was at Disney World as a 20something, it rained too hard. And I turned to my boyfriend and said “Why are they allowing this?” without even meaning to be stupid. Disney’s control was so tight that the weather must obviously be part of it. (Also I was drunk.)
That’s all gone now.
Disney took advantage of the Covid pandemic to make some changes, and they have fucked up big time. Before Covid, you could ask for and receive a free Fast Pass that allowed you to skip the line for certain rides during a set time. Well and good. But Disney wants more money, so now you will pay for that. In fact, you will pay for every damn thing you do at a Disney park. They still charge a horrifying amount for a ticket to get in. After you’ve paid that, you will need to pay $15 per person per day to use an app called Genie+ if you want to skip lines. That’s obnoxious enough, akin to when airlines started charging to check the suitcases we’d been checking for free for decades. But it gets much worse.
Genie+ doesn’t actually guarantee that you’ll be able to skip any lines at all, nor do they give you a refund if you don’t manage to make it work for you. Instead, it offers you the chance to skip lines if you’re lucky enough. You can’t reserve which rides you want to do ahead of time–you have to do it at 7am on the day you want to ride. BUT! Only if you’re paying to stay at one of the Disney World hotels. Otherwise you can’t use Genie+ until 7:30am, by which point all the line-skipping slots have already been taken by the hotel guests. To make matters worse, you can only reserve one ride to skip the line. The app will tell you when you’re allowed to show up and ride. So you’ve paid extra for this, and now you can skip one line–although you basically only have until 7:01 to make this reservation before all the slots are taken and you’re out of luck. Do I even have to mention that the app is glitchy and might kick you off at 7:00? It is.
Now you can’t reserve another ride until either you’ve gone on the first one (keeping in mind that your slot may be at 8pm that night) OR you’ve waited for 120 minutes. At 120 minutes, you can go on the app again and reserve a second ride, but you’ll still only have that one minute or so before those slots are all gone too. You must keep doing this all day long, ensuring that you have to be glued to your phone and setting alarms and plotting out which rides you are willing to accept because who knows what will be open. Also, the app doesn’t care if you’re in Tomorrowland and the next ride it gives you is a mile away across the park. “Deal with it yourselves” is apparently Disney’s new M.O. Meanwhile, you can pay for a park hopper ticket to move between the four theme parks during the day, ostensibly maximizing your chance to get on all the rides. But Disney now says you can’t do that until after 2pm, even though you paid extra for the privilege. Why? Far as I can tell, because it lets them control the crowd, which lets them hire fewer staffers to deal with it.
Are you confused enough yet? It gets crazier.
Some rides can’t be reserved on Genie+. That’s right, the most popular rides aren’t included in the app. Instead, you must BUY reservations to skip those lines, using something called Lightning Lanes. So now you’ve bought a ticket, paid extra for Genie+, and you have to pay another $10-15 per person per ride to use Lightning Lanes for the best rides. Even more insulting, you mostly can’t get those reservations because everyone else on god’s green earth is also trying to get them. So you may fork out a fortune to go to Disney World for a day and NOT get to ride Star Wars Rise of the Resistance unless you wait in line for 3 hours…meaning you’d have hardly any time for other rides. (Side note: This ride is the best thing that exists in the Star Wars universe at the moment, it’s astoundingly good. I really do love Disney!)
This post is long enough already, so I won’t go into the reservations system they now have for their restaurants, which is another version of this nonsense. We were at Disney World for an entire week but were unable to eat at the most fun restaurant because we didn’t manage to make a reservation three months ago in the 2-minute window before they were all taken and they don’t offer walk-up dining.
I also won’t go into the fact that 85% of the parks just seem…tired. The rides haven’t been updated and they kept breaking down. The customer service isn’t as friendly, the grounds aren’t as clean. There was literal garbage in the water at the Jungle Cruise–the kind that’s been in there long enough to start decomposing. The cast members were mostly vaguely annoyed people shuffling through their jobs, like it was a Six Flags park. Which is fine! Except it’s not how Disney used to be.
Disney used to be magic.
Most people seem to blame the CEO, Bob Chapek, for all these changes. He wants to increase profits. And of course he does–Disney is a business, the biggest corporation in the entertainment industry. But they used to understand what that meant. It meant they were supposed to entertain us. They knew how to put on a show, and the entire experience of going to a Disney park was one big show. Disney is the ultimate expert at professionalism and perfection in entertainment; they’ve been doing it since before any of us were born. They were so good at weaving fairytales that they could make you feel like you were in one. You didn’t think about the price tag. They convinced you that it was worth it.
The magic was a lie, of course–it was actually just really, really good brand management. But Disney was smart enough to hide that fact with the dazzle of their princesses and the glitter of their incredible fireworks displays and their ability to convince you that your experience at the park was the most important thing to them. Now they just use their “guests” as a piggy bank with no attempt to even hide it. You feel used, every minute of the day, and that’s not magical. Branding is lying about your product, covering it with a gossamer veil of quality, and Disney practically invented the concept. It’s the ultimate failure that the company has forgotten that fact.
