The Disney Parks were designed to be a place to escape the real world and to live in fantasy and magic themed after some of our favorite characters we all know and love. However, according to a former Disney Imagineer, this might have changed in recent years.
Ryan Harmon, a former Disney Imagineer, who now owns Zeitgeist Design Production, a company whose clients include Disney and other global theme park brands, says Disney has “a good problem.”
Specifically, that too many people are flocking to the Disney Parks in an attempt to seek experiences based on the fond memories they have from attending as a child, which they’d like to pass to their kids.
In turn, this has caused new generations to fall in love with the parks, which creates more and more crowds. Naturally, Disney to some extent has to limit some of these crowds with higher prices. Although, regardless of these increases, he says more and more people continue to visit the Disney Parks.
“So you’ve got this problem where you have too many people who want to come at the same time [so they try] to sort of spread the crowd out,” Harmon told FOX Business in an interview.
He continued: “That’s why they’ve added many more experiences, they try to raise the price high enough. That maybe weeds out some people, but that doesn’t seem to work, and so they’ve come up with a system using your mobile phone…the problem is that unless you plan ahead – which a lot of people do not – you end up going there and having a pretty poor experience because people have reserved rides and shows and restaurants.”
Harmon added that his own two trips to the parks showed him that you really can’t just show up to Disney on a whim and expect a good time anymore.
The former imagineer recalled his own trip to Disney World a few years ago, which he said was a less satisfying visit as they realized they were limited with how may rides and dining establishments they’d get to experience during the trip because others had already booked most of them up ahead of time.
“We bought our very expensive tickets and went in and watched as all these people walked in front of us in the queues because they made an online reservation,” he said. “So we got stuck waiting and waiting and waiting.”
So much so, one of the days Harmon had visited the Walt Disney World Parks they left after only being there for two hours because all of the restaurant they tried to eat at had been booked up for the day.
Harmon says his recent trip to Disneyland was no better as he found himself constantly checking his phone to try to get reservations for a particular ride he wanted to experience.
What are your thoughts of Harmon’s assessment of the Disney Parks? Let us know in the comments!
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