The other group that was cut loose from Al Weiss, and whom Meg Crofton won’t have control over, is the secretive Next Generation, or NextGen, organization that has been given a nearly limitless budget to remake the entire Disney theme park experience, at least for Floridians. The NextGen team is led by Jim McPhee (shown below), a well-liked senior leader who worked his way up from a host at the Tiki Room in the 1970’s to a Senior Vice President overseeing the NextGen skunkworks. NextGen, working closely with a team from WDI, has been manifesting itself in its early stages in some of the interactive queues popping up primarily in the Magic Kingdom with varying degrees of success. But the real NextGen goal is to remake how a visitor plans and experiences their stay at Walt Disney World, from pre-arrival to departure.
dThe core of the NextGen concept is something that currently has the working title of XPass, which is the next generation of Fastpass. XPass would work with the backbone of the current Fastpass and PhotoPass systems, but would go far beyond anything offered today as visitors would plot out each day of their Disney vacation weeks or months in advance with XPass. The system would schedule not just the big E Ticket return times for you, but nearly everything about your visit from lunch seating’s and Fantasmic! viewing to meet n’ greets with your kids preferred Characters to the smaller attractions and shows. The attractions that currently offer Fastpass to any park visitor, and plenty of attractions that don’t have Fastpass currently, would be converted over to XPass so that the only way to access a priority boarding slot at the ride would be to book your vacation with Disney and give your vacation plans over to the XPass system in advance.
An XPass card with an RFID tag in it and the visitors own smart phones (or a loaner unit from Disney) and the new QR codes they can scan would be necessary for anyone booking their trip through Disney. With the XPass RFID tag monitoring your every movement around property, every single on-ride photo or video capture device would know which vehicle you are in on rides, and once you walked out the exit it would offer instant picture previews sent to your phone for your purchase consideration through PhotoPass. XPass would seemingly know no bounds when it comes to planning your entire vacation and then shepherding you through day after day of pre-planned reservations and appointments and Character greetings and ride return times.
The entire NextGen and XPass concept is near and dear to Bob Iger’s heart, and the WDW planners hope to be rolling this all out by the middle of this decade. It’s a massive undertaking, and with this management overhaul Tom Staggs wanted the NextGen team to report directly to him instead of going through Al Weiss as it had done since its inception a few years ago.
Not surprisingly, an XPass concept could wreak havoc with many of Disneyland’s Annual Passholders who just drop in for a few hours at a time. DCA already dealt with a stream of enraged AP’s last June when they arrived to see World of Color for the first time and were told they should have been there that morning to get a Fastpass. The AP crowd has figured out how to schedule in a World of Color Fastpass, or purchase a dining package to get one, but it was ugly for those first few weeks last summer. The transition to an XPass type of preferred experience is something best rolled out in WDW, and most people in TDA are more than happy to let the Floridians have at it.
The beginning of the end in my opinion. I like to pack up and go last minute since I have an AP, now, not only will I have to book my hotel, but I'd have to rush online and see what times are left for Soarin the day I'm there. Its a fact I'll probably never ride that ride again.
My guess is the stand by lines will be known as the stand still lines as you watch hundreds of "preferred" guests pass you by.
This is a draconian business move from my perspective. They are attempting to turn each park into a quasi website... one that can track (and hopefully) control your every move. With every swap of the xpass you are setting a 'cookie'; one that you cannot delete. There is far more to this project then creating 'a better experience' for the guests. It's right up there with Magical Express where guests think they are getting a perk only to find they have just paid big bucks to be locked away in a kind of 'happy' prison for a week.
As for Nextgen's development of interactive queues, I have the feeling that they might have something to do with the so-called xpass. They seem over the top and outlandish now, but they might not when xpass is released. Imagine the fun for stand-by crowds; getting to stand outside and play with a pipe organ for 30 minutes before you move onto the next interactive for 30 minutes.
Sorry to sound so austere but this is what I feel Disney is working on in the long run.
And this is why RFID chips creep me out. Mythbusters did an episode on them and it got banned :look:
Mythbusters did an episode on them and it got banned :look:
So Disney has rolled out its first use of the NextGen tech to enhance the guest experience.
At All Star Sports they have installed RFID Chip readers in the soda fountians. And every cup will have to have an activated chip for the soda fountain to work. Every cup that you buy will have an RFID Chip that is activated for 90 mins. After that the fountian will not work. If you buy one of the refillable souvineer mugs, it will be activated for the number of days that you pay for.
So Disney can't fix the monorails or the Yeti, but they can spend $1.5 BILLION to stop people from getting too much soda and spam your phone with high pressure sales of on ride photos. Yeah, I'm really loving how this NextGen thing is kicking up the vacation experience.
So Disney has rolled out its first use of the NextGen tech to enhance the guest experience.
At All Star Sports they have installed RFID Chip readers in the soda fountians. And every cup will have to have an activated chip for the soda fountain to work. Every cup that you buy will have an RFID Chip that is activated for 90 mins. After that the fountian will not work. If you buy one of the refillable souvineer mugs, it will be activated for the number of days that you pay for.
So Disney can't fix the monorails or the Yeti, but they can spend $1.5 BILLION to stop people from getting too much soda and spam your phone with high pressure sales of on ride photos. Yeah, I'm really loving how this NextGen thing is kicking up the vacation experience.
100% agreed
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Very well said and 100% agreed too.
This system is designed to control the guests movements, hence also the new "hub" they have set up in the park as well. Too much crowd in Fantasyland? Dispatch a parade. Peter Pan's line too long? Ride suddenly breaks down, clear the queue. Its too much control.
So Disney has rolled out its first use of the NextGen tech to enhance the guest experience.
At All Star Sports they have installed RFID Chip readers in the soda fountians. And every cup will have to have an activated chip for the soda fountain to work. Every cup that you buy will have an RFID Chip that is activated for 90 mins. After that the fountian will not work. If you buy one of the refillable souvineer mugs, it will be activated for the number of days that you pay for.
So Disney can't fix the monorails or the Yeti, but they can spend $1.5 BILLION to stop people from getting too much soda and spam your phone with high pressure sales of on ride photos. Yeah, I'm really loving how this NextGen thing is kicking up the vacation experience.