Walt Disney World, much like Disneyland before it, was never meant to be a museum. Walt’s vision for his parks made them a place where new technology and new stories could be introduced on a near-annual basis — changing the face of those parks regularly. Nostalgia was important, but not so important that it could override Walt’s greatest love of all: progress.
And, to their credit, the Walt Disney Company has followed that mission throughout the years, even when it wasn’t always popular. The Disney Parks are everchanging — none more so than Walt Disney World.
Over the last 15 years, Walt Disney World has changed pretty dramatically. And yet, those changes haven’t only been seen within the parks. The entire resort is vastly different from what it was just after the turn of the millennium, when the optimism of the Disney Decade faded away and was replaced by careful iteration.
Let’s look at some of the biggest changes in that time.
The food
Image: lorenjavier, Flickr (license)
You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger identity shift within Walt Disney World than with its approach to food. For a long time, the centerpiece of Disney’s approach to dining was its character meals — bland buffet offerings that came with a healthy dose of character interaction. But as time went on, and as Disney started attracting a broader clientele, the company’s culinary strategy saw an abrupt shift.
While guests used to be sated with soggy burgers and limp french fries, the modern foodie needed much more than that to truly be happy.
And so, in the mid-late 1990s, Disney shifted its strategy to also offer high-end dining at places like California Grill at the Contemporary Resort and Victoria and Albert’s at the Grand Floridian Resort. But even those offerings weren’t enough to actually make Disney a true foodie paradise.
The biggest shift at Walt Disney World, with regard to food, hasn’t been about making the best food on property even better. Rather, it’s been about making the most average food on property even better.
That mission is why you’re able to find more creative and unique food offerings at all of Disney’s culinary spots, from the quick-serve deliciousness of the lobster roll at Columbia Harbour House to the reimagined brilliance of Sunshine Seasons at The Land, high quality food with fresh ingredients isn’t walled off behind a monied curtain. Disney has pushed to make it available at every stand in every park and resort. That’s a big shift from the days of old.
DVC is king
Image: christiantlambert, Flickr (license)
While Disney Vacation Club was launched at the dawn of the Disney Decade in the 1990s, it wasn’t that era’s focus. Then-CEO Michael Eisner changed the Orlando tourism landscape by building a dozen hotels, each with its own unique theme and ambiance. Fans and guests gobbled up each new resort, with some becoming beloved classics in their own right.
But with the opening of Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort in 2004, the company decided on an abrupt shift in strategy. In the time since, Walt Disney World has welcomed exactly one new hotel to its collection in Orlando — the wonderfully charming Art of Animation Resort.
Instead, Disney has decided to focus its construction efforts on DVC — with largely successful results.
Like a real estate version of the classic cinematic reboot, Disney has opened several DVC properties at its already popular deluxe resort hotels, such as Disney’s Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary and Disney’s Polynesian Village Villas and Bungalows. These DVC resorts have been highly lucrative for the company, which offsets the cost of construction with the upfront contracts DVC members pay. Because of the ability of DVC members to rent their ownership points out to non-members, Disney has allowed a shadow hotel marketplace to form on its property — largely due to just how profitable DVC projects can be.
The next pure hotel on the horizon for Walt Disney World is, of course, the Star Wars hotel announced to coincide with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. But, since that hotel will be a highly themed luxury experience, we don’t yet know when the next traditional Disney resort hotel will make its appearance in Orlando.
Upcharge this!
Image: harshlight, Flickr (license)
A long time ago, it was free to enter the Magic Kingdom. Guests would purchase ticket booklets good for each ride, but some wouldn’t require a ticket at all.
We’ve come a long way since then.
Even 15 years ago, a ticket to a Walt Disney World park basically guaranteed you would experience everything that park had to offer. It was shockingly egalitarian in a way — eschewing the pay-more/get-more systems of other regional parks. It was this world the Epcot International Food and Wine Festival was born into, but which is now seems strangely vestigial from.
In the time since, Walt Disney World has perfected and scaled up a concept it made popular in 1998 with its Fantasmic Dinner Package, which guaranteed the best seats to guests who paid to have dinner at one of Disney’s Hollywood Studios’ high-end restaurants. That concept is, of course, the upcharge.
While Disney did launch it in the 1990s, only in the last few years has it truly become a core part of Disney’s business. From Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party to dessert parties during fireworks shows to after hours events that exist without a theme, only to provide a more empty version of the most popular theme parks on Earth — upcharge events are more prevalent and important than ever.
It’s a recent development, but that promise of one egalitarian ticket has never been so far away at Disney. And, with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and its personalized adventures coming soon, that shift doesn’t seem to be going away.
Theming is more important than ever before
Image: christiantlambert, Flickr (license)
Disneyland became a cultural touchstone because of its commitment to intricate theming — designs used to teleport guests into the world of a story. That idea was so radical that it helped build the Walt Disney Company into an unparalleled amusement behemoth.
But, Disney’s house style viewed thematic immersion as something fluid. Guests didn’t need to always be overwhelmed by the thematic environment — rather, it was OK if some spaces weren’t as intricately designed. The eye sometimes needs a break, and more drab designs can make the more intentional architecture stand out that much more. That was why you had Tomorrowland’s aesthetic originally exist as a stark futurist vision. The goal wasn’t to make you feel like you were in a spaceport, only that you were in a place meant to feel like a spaceport. Once you boarded the ride, the immersion would increase — thereby heightening the anticipation.
But then, in 2010, that concept changed forever — and it knocked Disney on its butt.
When Universal debuted The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, audiences got a glimpse of a kind of thematic verisimilitude that had been unfathomable up until that point. When they finally realized it was possible not just to ride a ride through Hogwarts Castle, but to actually explore its hallways and wander through Hogsmeade, that changed everything.
Now, it’s not enough for Disney to simply build things like it used to. Now, there’s no time for visual rest. Even the bathrooms in Fantasyland need to have an immersive theme — thus, they’re now Tangled-specific. Guests are demanding more and more from Imagineering and, amazingly, Imagineering is delivering on it.
Pandora: The World of Avatar showed the tip of the iceberg for what Disney can do in this kind of thematic space. But in 2019, we’ll get to see just how deep that iceberg goes when Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge debuts.
But look how far we’ve come. If you showed the concept art from Galaxy’s Edge to a Disney fan back in 2003, they’d have laughed in your face at how unrealistic it all would sound. But here we are. And, perhaps most excitingly of all, we could just be at the beginning of yet another bold change.
Where will we be 15 years from now? I’m not sure, but it would probably seem impossible to us now.
