We already heard that Disney was closing the Walt Disney World Speedway this July to make way for transportation improvements. We now know that is a euphemism for more parking spots. It’s a good think too, because on its busiest days the Magic Kingdom had… Read More »Walt Disney Speedway will be razed to make way for more parking.
Call it what you will a slinky bus, wiggle bus, caterpillar bus, accordion bus, or vestibule bus, the new articulated buses at Walt Disney World add a new dimension to travel around the resort. Disney even built a whole new loading and unloading area at… Read More »Inside Walt Disney World’s new Slinky Buses
Ever since my first ride on the monorail at Disneyland I’ve had a fascination with Mass Transit. A ride on the PeopleMover energized my idea of personal rapid transit the same way. Unfortunately, I’ve been disappointed by the lack of wider adoption of these technologies… Read More »Could Google provide a solution to Walt Disney World Transportation Issues?
This week crazy-like-a-fox billionaire businessman Elon Musk introduced his latest revolutionary concept, the Hyperloop, and then gave it away to the masses as an open source project. Musk’s previous successes include Paypal (without which much online transactions wouldn’t happen), Tesla (an electric car company that’s profitable for a change), SpaceX (a private company that is helping NASA get payloads into space with an eventual goal of Mars(!)), and SolarCity (affordable solar panels for home and business; It remains to be seen if this will fall into the success category, but it seems likely with a net positive in the profit column last quarter).
Hollywood director Jon Favreau has said he modeled his version of Tony Stark, aka Marvel’s Iron Man, at least in part after Musk. But I think Tony Stark is the wrong model. Musk reminds me more of late period Walt Disney, when Walt had his eye on the future, not just of entertainment and the Disney Company, but of the planet as a whole and improving the lives of those who live on it. His gained steam with Monorails (mass transit), moved onto PeopleMovers (person rapid transit (PRT)), and dabbled in energy efficiency and recycling. Then Walt united all his theories and took on the mother of all urban planning projects – EPCOT, the experimental prototype community of tomorrow. With EPCOT, Walt wanted to build a working community where he could partner with industrial explorers with a similar vision for the future.
That is essentially the same vision as Elon Musk; which is why I think there is a natural partnership between Musk, his companies, and The Walt Disney Company. To get started, create the partnership for the purposes of building a working prototype of the Hyperloop at Walt Disney World. Musk, or his team, would be involved enough to oversee things, but most of the R&D would be left to Walt Disney Imagineering. The resulting prototype would be a great first step to making a full scale Hyperloop a feasible project to get past local and state governments.
Disney’s Imagineers already have much of the expertise needed to build such a system. They have experience with air-bearings (from the Flying Saucers ride in 60s to the revisited version at DCA), mass transit systems (Monorail, PeopleMover, etc.) and for years they used a garbage disposal system at the Magic Kingdom that magically whisked away trash right from the curb side down an air pressure driven pipe. They also have good contacts in the coaster and mass transit construction industries, so finding suppliers would not be difficult. Read More »Bring to Walt Disney World: The Hyperloop
One question I get a lot is “Should I rent a car when I visit Walt Disney World?” If you’re not staying on property, the answer is pretty simple: Yes. There are no resorts within convenient walking distance of Walt Disney World, even the Downtown Disney resorts, and most resort shuttles are so inconvenient they’ll wreak havoc on your schedule. If you’re staying on property however, the answer is a little bit trickier.Read More »Should I Rent a Car?
In the past we’ve done our share of speculation for how Disney World could fix its transportation woes. What if I told you there was a solution that would cost the resort less than $50 million to build. That’s about half the cost of the… Read More »Proposal: A Solution to Walt Disney World’s Transportation Problems
A new Bus Depot at Magic Kingdom to allow for larger buses and therefore more capacity to move guests during peak transportation times at the resort. A recently filing at the local water district shows there will be 8 new load and unload zones added… Read More »New Bus Depot at Magic Kingdom to allow for Larger Bus
With the recent announcement of an Avatar themed land and attractions coming to Disney’s Animal Kingdoms and the troubled opening of Disney’s first Hawaiian resort, Aulani, a lot of the conversation has settled on the types of risks the Walt Disney Company’s parks and resorts division has been taking lately.
It’s a bouillabaisse of different complaints:
You can see why the Disney company may be confused. One one hand they get attacked for not doing enough on the other for doing too much. That’s true, but the general theme is Disney needs to take more risks when it comes to its parks and resorts.
Read More »Risk and Reward, is Disney Parks & Resorts on the Right Track?