When park president Michael Colglazier welcomed fans to the park for its 60th birthday on Friday, thousands of those fans took out their cell phones to post photos and send tweets of the historic moment. And almost all of them faced the same result -- nothing happened. Crushed under the load of tens of thousands of simultaneous requests, the cellular data networks around the Disneyland Resort failed to deliver.
It's become a running joke among Disneyland fans. When the park gets crowded, your connection gets dropped. While it's nice for old school fans to enjoy a return to the days when no one had cell phones or tablets in the park, so you couldn't do anything but read your guidemap, talk to the people around you and enjoy the park anyway, Disneyland's lack of bandwidth creates some real problems for the resort going forward.
Can you imagine the disaster if Disneyland tried to implement Walt Disney World's MyMagic+ system right now, with its current bandwidth capacity? It couldn't. With no public WiFi in the parks and a cell data network that collapses when park attendance swells past average loads, Disneyland guests simply wouldn't be able to access a "My Disney Experience"-type app to manage their Fastpass+ and restaurant reservations.
Of course, the Walt Disney World Resort had to upgrade its bandwidth capacity before rolling out MyMagic+. But even if Disneyland chooses not to bring that new vacation management system to California, it will need to upgrade data networks for its guests.
Whether you like it or not, life is lived online for a huge percentage of people these days. Texting, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and Twitter are part of the social experience of visiting Disneyland. Taking those away from visitors doesn't enhance their experience in the park, it annoys and frustrates them. We might enjoy dressing up like it's the 1950s, but few of us wish to go back to communicating that way again. (Pay phones? Are you kidding me?)
Smart themed entertainment designers will not fight social media but will embrace it and use it to create a more compelling and unique in-park experience. More than two thirds of theme park visitors surveyed by design group Thinkwell Group in 2013 said that they wanted to see better mobile integration in the parks. But designers can't create apps and experiences that reward in-park social media users if the park can't deliver the bandwidth to connect them.
How nice would it have been if Disneyland's guests on Friday didn't have to crowd around a handful of jumbo video screens the park had set up to allow them to watch the morning ceremony? What if they could have watched the event on the park's Periscope feed from wherever they were in the resort? Disneyland broadcast it, but almost no one could access the feed from inside the park... thanks to the crumbling data network. (The event was held in front of the castle, where the small, flat space of Disneyland's hub meant that only invited VIPs and a handful of local media representatives could see it in-person.)
The Orlando-area theme parks have worked to improve mobile data connectivity. Now, it's time for the Southern California parks to step up. Universal Studios Hollywood has introduced free WiFi in its park, but Disneyland's free public WiFi remains limited to its hotels. (And it falls apart on crowded days, too.) All parks need to offer a robust mix of free public Wifi and high-speed cellular data availability to meet the needs of their guests.
Yes, Disneyland fans want their Star Wars Land. Yes, we want new Marvel attractions, too. And more parking, and maybe a new hotel. But along with all of these planned and potential improvements for the Disneyland Resort, fans hope that Disney won't forget to take steps ensure a massive expansion of mobile data network capability for park guests, as well.
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We do take a lot of pictures / videos with our devices, but we tend to wait until we are back at the hotel to do through them and post to social media etc... at the parks, it is all about getting our ride on.
Some sports teams lagged in this effort, and got huge complaints for not providing better service during events. Many owners took the stance that their fans should be paying attention to the game, but instead those people decided to not show up at all. It's unlikely Disney would have the same result by ignoring this problem, but I'm sure there are some out there that need to stay connected and are turned off by the broadband experience at Disneyland.
If you want to split up your party it's simple, pick a time and a place to meet up later. Your phone is not a necessity.
Take for example, last night I was at the WWE: Battleground PPV. I wanted to post that I was there and having a great time. The lack of wifi and cellular connection is a problem. I couldn't conenct to post nor check out what others were saying. Which IMO is a disservice to the WWE whom prides itself on its Social Media presence and interactions.
In the last few years St. Louis has made headway during certain high-profile events by having temporary Cell Towers set up to handle the extra load, but adding a few here or there does not necessarily improve the overall experience.
Add to it events that happen near where people live and your problems grow exponentially as we as a society have moved towards a more cellular lifestyle. Which causes issues in the event of an emergency. You simply can not get a connection to dial 911. That is a huge problem.
Cell towers are increasingly easy to disguise in communities either as a tree or behind a roof, etc. In today's world there is no reason a company can not partner with cell carriers to make this not a problem.
Sorry, it doesn't work this way. This is so 20th century. We're at 21st century. No one meets later to a agreed time and place. People are constantly moving around in the park. Or they might have left the park to return later. You catch up to your friends. If they are in line, you get in line too. If they are in crowd, you find them by talking or texting them.
Fortunately, if you miss them, you can regroup and try a different time. Otherwise, its tough luck and you'll miss them. Missed them at 1pm at the castle because you're stuck at Splash Mountain, tell them you'll see them at Haunted Mansion in 15 minutes.
Then again, WDW has pretty much made it mandatory with the app!
So something magically turned people into morons between December 31, 2000 and January 1 2001?
Just because a new technology is available now doesn't mean you have to or even should use it.
Case in point, food in the 20th century thanks to the rise of fast food convenience, becomes so much faster and cheaper then ever before, but it also equals an America that is one of the most obese countries on earth with a low life expectancy compared to other 1st world countries
So yes it does "work this way" for people who want to enjoy their theme park experience without being on their phone all day. And "getting in line" with your friends is called cutting or line hopping and not allowed in most theme parks, not to mention extremely discourteous.
It's not...except when you expect to do those things using "free" Wi-Fi.
Certainly, you can avoid using the smartphone and you'll have a fine day without them. But if you need to call people, go on specific ride, visit restaurants, a smartphone is handy to do these tasks. I still have the habit of wanting to use my desktop computer to look up information. I can't exactly run back home to peruse information when I'm on the move. I'll just look things up with my mobile phone.
Calling Disney's customer service isn't my first instinct, but if you have no smartphone, you must use the courtesy phones at some locations in the parks. This is so out-of-date.
Being able to check wait times and post photos of friends/family/sights is helping us get more out of the things we do. Not being able to have the experience with your device that you expect can make things much harder. I would love to be able to book a reservation in Disneyland from California Adventure on the fly if I have plans change, rather than have to leave the park to do so.
Being a luddite for yourself is one thing, but criticizing how others decide to get the most out of their experience is a whole other thing.
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If I remember correctly, maybe five years ago Disneyland had their own in-parks smart phone app, with official wait times and other useful information. I think it was originally for Verizon customers only, and then expanded to everyone. But last year when I tried to re-install it, I found that the app no longer existed. Does anyone know--was it because of the lack of data connectivity that Disney gave up on the in-park app?