December 29, 2021, 4:20 PM · What is the worst thing hurting the Walt Disney World experience right now?

Over the past couple of days, we have talked about upsells and price increases, reservation requirements, and over-reliance on using apps when in the park. [See Why Walt Disney World Is Creating Hard Feelings Right Now and Why I Don't Want to Live in a Metaverse.] But there's one more factor to consider. And it might be the worst offender of them all.

No, Disney has not developed the technology to physically duplicate you and your family while you are visiting its theme parks. (At least not yet.) But Walt Disney World does have ways to do that virtually. With mobile order and the Disney Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane products, Disney World - and Disneyland - have created the ability for people to be multiple places at once, at least in virtual space.

You now can place an order for lunch at Pecos Bill Cafe while waiting in line at Splash Mountain. If you bought the Disney Genie+ upsell, you might also be waiting virtually for a return time at Big Thunder Mountain at the same moment, too. In Disney's version of the metaverse, you now can be in three places at once: the Splash Mountain queue, the Pecos Bill queue, and the Big Thunder queue.

That sounds great, right? You are multi-tasking in the Magic Kingdom and getting stuff done! But what happens if everyone else in the park is doing the same thing? If everyone is waiting in three queues at once virtually, instead of just one physically, Disney could need to create up to three times the capacity in the park to avoid problems such as long standby lines or everything booking for the day shortly after park open.

Disney Genie+ and its predecessor Fastpass did not create any extra capacity, however. It's well understood that as more people used Fastpass, standby wait times increased at those attractions, as a higher percentage of the rides' capacities was given over to the Fastpass return queues.

Mobile order extends the problem to "quick service" restaurants, which we often call counter service around here, because the service at them is too rarely quick. Before mobile order, you had to wait in a physical queue to place your order, which meant you were not waiting in another physical queue for a ride or show. That helped keep wait times down elsewhere in the park and made traditional meal times nice times to ride. Now with mobile order, you can place a meal order while you wait or do something else, making those other lines longer again.

I wrote yesterday that I loved mobile order when it debuted at the Disney theme parks. But relatively few people were using the service back then. When the pandemic hit and Disney pushed everyone to use mobile order at its counter service restaurants, the system could not scale. Disney limits the number of mobile orders it will accept, based on kitchen capacity. So people ended up having to place their orders hours in advance, and those who failed to do so found few or no options available. With Disney World's table service restaurants often booking far in advance, that meant scrounging lunch or dinner from food carts.

Meanwhile, those who did manage to get in their mobile orders still found long waits to pick up their food, as short-staffed kitchens struggled to keep with the flood of mobile orders.

I have heard from Disney insiders that customer satisfaction ratings for mobile order flew through the roof when that service debuted. Just as the initial users of Fastpass loved and raved about that service. But as anyone who has worked for any length of time in product development - in any industry - might have learned, sometimes products that perform great in the smaller, testing phase fall apart when scaled up into mass usage.

Any decent-sized theme park can absorb a small percentage of its visitors "cloning" themselves by using things like mobile order and virtual queues. Those become nifty little back doors that fans who have access to them absolutely love. And who wouldn't love saving time like that? But if you back door everyone, then that becomes the new front door.

Queuing is fundamental to the operation of a theme park. There is no way to avoid queuing when bringing thousands of people into an attraction with limited capacity. The only question is how to manage those queues - whether to run them physically or virtually, or to manage queuing through appointments, where visitors must follow a pre-set, scheduled itinerary. Otherwise, you need to limit capacity to such a low level that every location can serve visitors on a walk-in basis. That approach only works for venues on either end of the market, whether they are cheap, unpopular destinations or high-priced, ultra-exclusive ones.

For everyone in the middle - including Disney - it's queues. Virtual queues provide a wonderful alternative to physical queues, allowing people to avoid the drudgery and potential discomfort of shuffling through a slow-moving queue. But if you mix virtual queues with physical ones, a park can end up with capacity problems if it does not sharply limit the ways that guests can use them. Disney CEO Bob Chapek reported that 30% of Walt Disney World guests upgraded to Disney Genie+ when that service launched. That ain't sharply limiting anything.

Disney employs some of the best industrial engineers in the business. They know that there is no free lunch. So when Disney pushes mass adoption of products like mobile order and Disney Genie+, it's because top managers have accepted the trade-offs.

Ironically, Disney's fear of public backlash might be making the guest experience at Walt Disney World worse. Disney Genie+ could make just as much money for the company and have less of a detrimental effect on park operations if Disney charged more than three times as much for it - the current price at Walt Disney World is $15 a day - and fewer than 10% of park guests used it. That would put Disney Genie+ closer to the going rate for similar line-skipping products at other theme parks and allow standby wait time for other guests to fall.

Elsewhere, Disney could achieve some of the labor savings and communication efficiency of mobile ordering by replacing that system with kiosk ordering at its counter service restaurants. Or it could revamp mobile ordering as an upcharge service or deluxe hotel guest benefit to limit the number of people using it to a manageable level.

I am not endorsing any of these ideas, but mean simply to point out that Disney has options - including options that might lead to better in-park operations, even if that means higher upcharge costs for guests. Disney should not allow fear of public backlash against those price increases to keep it from making changes that would improve the guest experience inside the parks for all.

After all, as I wrote about in my first piece this week, the Internet is now designed to provoke controversy and broadcast complaints. Backlash is inevitable, no matter what Walt Disney World and Disneyland end up doing. So forget about trying to avoid that. You can't.

Disney's challenge - as always - is to improve its guests' experience while preserving a return on investment for the company. What is happening at Walt Disney World and Disneyland now is giving the company plenty of information with which it can refine better products and operations going forward.

And they'd better. Because if fans don't like what Disney is doing to earn their money, those fans have plenty of other options for travel and entertainment.

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Could the mobile ordering problem be solved by not allowing people to preorder at all? You order when you're ready and go in and get it.

Robert, you have clearly thought a lot about this but I'm having trouble agreeing with your cloning theory because, within the parks, Disney is only providing me one physical service at any time. When I make a reservation for a ride or meal (or to get my hair quaffed at the Bibbidy Bobbidy Boutique) in the future I am not joining a queue until my reservation time is reached. Help me here...

“After all, as I wrote about in my first piece this week, the Internet is now designed to provoke controversy and broadcast complaints.“

So I think Robert purposely states opinions that are wildly wrong to drive traffic at his website. He complains about mobile ordering making lines longer at rides because those people are no longer standing in line at a counter service restaurant, but then later states, “ Meanwhile, those who did manage to get in their mobile orders still found long waits to pick up their food”. So whether guests order at a counter or on the app, they still are waiting in line for food, and either way shortens lines at rides around traditional eating times.

Here is another flawed opinion: “ Disney could achieve some of the labor savings and communication efficiency of mobile ordering by replacing that system with kiosk ordering at its counter service restaurants.” This would be an awful idea. How many of us have stood behind someone at a kiosk who took FOREVER because they didn’t know where the hamburger menu was, nor how to customize the condiments? Now compound that with the rush felt at a Disney counter service restaurant at lunchtime. With the mobile app, we do not have to wait for others to figure out how to use the system.

In many of his recent postings, Robert suggests the way guests and Disney could solve the problem is for Disney to raise prices of a service and guests throw more money at it. In this article alone, he suggests the tripling of the price of Genie+ to bring it more along lines of other parks to reduce the number of guests that use it. He is likely correct that it would reduce the number of guests using it, but assuming tripling the price would result in 1/3 of the number of guests using is unlikely true as I doubt there is a linear relationship between the two. He also suggests a 10% surcharge to be added to those who use mobile ordering. The latter suggestion simply would not work. If I’m buying my family a $60 counter service meal, I’m going to be okay with shelling out an extra $6 to theoretically skip the ordering line, and I’m sure others will be, too. Then they brings us right back around to the mobile ordering problem. Robert would probably suggest raising the surcharge to 25%, or 50%, his usual solution of throwing money at the problem to solve it.

The pandemic allowed Disney an opportunity to make changes that were likely in the works already: mass mobile ordering, park reservations, Genie and Genie+, etc. With the infrastructure already in place, it is highly unlikely that Disney will roll back its services to what they were pre-pandemic (even if Chapek is forced out, #FireBobChapek).We just have to hope Disney leadership doesn’t read Theme Park Insider and apply the Robert Niles Money-Solves-Everything solution.

My biggest issue with all these services is the overuse of your phone. Instead of enjoying the parks as is youre always on your phone seeing what the wait times are, trying to order or attempting to get a LL reservation. People rarely just enjoy the parks anymore and have to rely on their device to even have an efficient day at Disney. Part of me misses the period before Genie+ when Disney reopened. Those times were someone of the best as crowds were limited and lines were short as can be

Even though you're only receiving one physical service at a time, you might be taking a place in multiple queues at the same time.

Suppose you're riding an attraction at a given moment but you have a Genie+ reservation for another attraction and a mobile food order. In that case, you're being "virtually" cloned twice because even though you're physically on one attraction, your mobile order and Genie+ reservation is going to be fulfilled before some people who are physically present in the standby queue for either services. It's as though an invisible virtual version of yourself is standing in line for the food and the second attraction. And even though you're not joining the physical queue until your reservation time is reached, imagine the system as though Disney were holding your spot in the line for the next experience. In theory, Disney had to delay at least one standby person's ride/food order in order to make room for the place that they were holding in line for you.

Twobit, get some manners. You can disagree with Robert's ideas without impugning his integrity, claiming (without any factual basis) that he is posting knowingly "wrong" opinions "to drive traffic at his website." You're effectively calling him a liar, which makes you a boor. Do better.

Twobit, get some manners. You can disagree with Robert's ideas without impugning his integrity, claiming (without any factual basis) that he is posting knowingly "wrong" opinions "to drive traffic at his website." You're effectively calling him a liar, which makes you a boor. Do better.

Twobit, get some manners. You can disagree with Robert's ideas without impugning his integrity, claiming (without any factual basis) that he is posting knowingly "wrong" opinions "to drive traffic at his website." You're effectively calling him a liar, which makes you a boor. Do better.

Twobit, get some manners. You can disagree with Robert's ideas without impugning his integrity, claiming (without any factual basis) that he is posting knowingly "wrong" opinions "to drive traffic at his website." You're effectively calling him a liar, which makes you a boor. Do better.

I have been reading Robert series of articles. While i do agree with him in Many aspects ( social media being an outlet for anger and frustation of die hard fans for any real or percived loss of perks is something real) i cannot see Disney as a víctim of nothing here. Most of the problems related here by Robert and Many others are by large and far caused by Disney itself. Because they are putting the money before the guest. I love Disney IPS and the parks and the rides and shows. I truly do. Yes they have some of the most talented people in the industry in every aspect of the park experience, but they don't give the orders, the accounting deparment does, with their stats and porcentages and trending reports. They want You to belive You are having a Unique and customized day at the park, but You are just doing a paint-by-numbers rutine. I AM surprised that the managment are leaving behind all those fans that were giving Disney the Best publicity system ever, Word of mouth. No tv ad or internet campaing can really Match that. And now it's starting to going in the inverse, a snowball effect of anger. Yes it's a business, and with an amazing product to boot. But does really costumers satisfacton matters for them? It does not look ( or feels ) like that.

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