Disney World: Engineering Family Amusement

My family planned a vacation to Walt Disney World last week, and I was able to tag along. I'd only been to Disney World once before; I was at an age where I was old enough to know all the characters where people in costumes but not old enough to care. My goal for this trip was to get a picture taken with a Disney princess. Unfortunately, I did not achieve that goal; however, I did come to realize many of the clever details engineered into the amusement parks that I had previously overlooked.

Most people think of Disney in one of two ways: either they are some super-benevolent caring entity that can be trusted like a person, or they are an evil cold-hearted corporation that is only concerned with raising their stock price. I think of them more as a combination of those two ideas: a successful company in the market of family entertainment that is neither inherently good nor bad. They have become extremely efficient in providing family entertainment using several mediums over the years, and Disney World is their flagship enterprise. It has been optimized to maximize individuals' entertainment experience while minimizing cost. Thought has been put into practically every detail. The employees will offer assistance to any guest with a map open--even if they are otherwise preoccupied with collecting garbage or transporting merchandise. The parking lot markers have redundancy--each lane is associated with both a number and a character, but the numbers do not reset between characters so even if only one only remembers one parameter, one still has an idea where their car is. And careful detail is put into every square foot of the park: from the waiting lines to the walkways to the

The thing that amazed me the most was the actual layout of the parks. Last time I went, the Magic Kingdom (the central park) was very established, EPCOT had been around for a while but didn't have many attractions, and MGM/Hollywood Studios was still relatively new. Since then, a new park (Animal Kingdom) was constructed and both EPCOT and MGM/Hollywood Studies were improved to be more like MK.

Here's a map of Magic Kingdom:

As you can see, there is only one entrance/exit to the park (the Southern-most point) and a giant landmark (Cinderella Castle) in the middle of the park. Roads follows a basic "spoke" pattern, radiating out from the central landmark. This makes it easy to keep your orientation, as you can also orient yourself towards the castle. The parks are also divided into themed "lands". The first land connects the entrance to the central point, and it doesn't have any dedicated attractions (although it does have some roaming performers and plenty of souvenir shops). This gives visitors a majestic entrance, but encourages them to quickly spread out. Another land is devoted towards young children's' attractions to minimize traveling, but the other lands are very diverse to encourage traveling around. Any land will have at most two "major" attractions, and the park has several "major" attractions combined with various shows performed repeatedly during peak hours.

All four parks follow this basic formula. Each park and each "land" has a unique theme, but care is made so that each park has some things to interest visitors of any age or taste. The closest exception is EPCOT, which was originally constructed as more of an informational showcase than an amusement park. This has been addressed a lot, though: the park has been expanded to make Spaceship Earth closer to the center of the park and several attractions such as "Test Track" and "Soarin'" have been added to make it more appealing towards a younger crowd.

Overall, I must say I'm extremely impressed with Disney now. They've really refined their processes and now produce a quality product. I'm inclined to see if I can find a book about Disney to see in better detail some of the techniques they use; I think it would be insightful and fascinating.