5 Ways to Update a Classic Disney Theme Park Ride — Ideas Any Company Can Use To Refresh Itself
At Take Five, we take 5 minutes to share 5 random ideas to improve things we already love. This is our first post. So we thought it would be fun to choose something lots of us love whether we’ll admit it or not:
IT’S A SMALL WORLD!!!
That’s the name of this vintage animatronics ride (shown above) located in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida. But you can find one of these rides at several Disney theme parks around the world. To see the full ride, scroll down to the bottom.
There are so many reasons to love this ride. The colorful kitsch. The endearing optimism. The relaxing indoor boat ride to escape the heat.
But let’s face it, this ride is pretty ancient. The design is older than the park itself, which opened in 1971. The first “It’s a Small World” ride premiered at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. That makes it at least 55 years old!
The one at WDW is rumored to be refurbished soon, just in time for the park’s 50th anniversary in 2021. (It’s also rumored to be shut down and replaced with a “Tangled” ride featuring Disney Princess Rapunzel. So who knows?!)
Therefore, this might be the perfect time for us to tell Disney how we’d update this ride without doing a complete redesign or adding new interactive technology. So let’s go:
#1 — POLISH UP AN OLD STANDARD
The ride’s theme song “It’s a Small World” is a classic. It’s a cheerful message about peace and love for our fellow human beings throughout the world. It’s iconic. But it’s a bit grating after a while. At this point, whenever we hear it we think of the hilarious way it was spoofed in the “Shrek” film.
How about re-recording the song?
It could be done with children’s voices again. But this time it could be set to more contemporary music. Maybe even try a hip hop version.
Hopefully, Disney would re-record the song in different languages to play in the different continental sections as it already does. But it can update those versions with more contemporary world music. We can hear the Banghra version in our heads right now.
In today’s political climate and globalization, it would serve as a nice reminder that it is indeed a small world after all, musically and otherwise.
Business Takeaway:
Take a fresh look at your standard offerings and find ways to make them even better.
#2 — ENTERTAIN GUESTS WHILE THEY WAIT
FastPass or not, the lines at WDW can be long sometimes. “It’s a Small World” is no exception.
Give people something to see/read/do besides stare at their mobile devices while they wait.
Elsewhere in the Magic Kingdom and in other Disney parks (where the wait times can reach 60 to 120 minutes), people in line for a ride or show are occasionally treated to a pre-show while they wait. They can watch videos. They can answer trivia questions. They can even play with objects that are fun to touch.
For “It’s a Small World,” it could be as simple as a putting up a few monitors showing videos about the countries they’ll see represented on the ride. Even depicting various cultures on the surrounding walls would be great.
Business Takeaway:
Utilize wait-times to serve your clients with additional offerings.
#3 — LEAVE A LITTLE WIGGLE ROOM
The bottom line is: Our bottoms are bigger today. Squeezing into those boats with our kiddos can be rough.
Take a cue from a couple of the airlines and space out the seating rows.
Otherwise, Disney, you’re gonna need a bigger boat.
Sure, this presents a queuing theory issue. But the Disney Imagineers can figure that stuff out!
Business Takeaway:
Target for improvement the points at which your clients could be made more comfortable as they partake in your goods or services.
#4 — DOUBLE DOWN ON THE DIVERSITY
One of the most charming things about “It’s a Small World” is: after seeing the cultures represented in separate sections, the final section brings together all the previously-seen cultures and blends them.
It’s a wonderful sentiment and obviously the whole point of the ride. But they ruin it by bleaching the color out of all of the costumes on the animatronic characters. Worse yet, even the skin of the darker skinned characters are lightened. They probably did so to make it less “busy,” but it could be perceived as offensive.
Unfortunately, it’s a subtle messaging that everyone must somehow lose an aspect of their culture in favor of a homogeneous one.
The fix is simple tho:
Just bring back all the color!!!
Mix ’em up. Confuse us. But don’t bleach out anything.
And while we’re on this topic, it’s quite noticeable that the distinct cultures of multiple European countries are shown in great detail along the way. The African countries, not so much.
Just think about what the costume designers did to create “Wakanda” in the “Black Panther” film. Do that!
SPECIAL NOTE TO DISNEY: It would also be a good time to scrub out old stereotypes in clothing across all the cultures exhibited.
Business Takeaway:
Do more to embrace diversity than just invite diverse clients to partake in your offerings. Reflect that you recognize their differences.
#5 — GO OUT WITH A BANG!
We love that the term “goodbye” is written in multiple languages on signs at the end of the ride. We always try to read as many as we can. And we always realize we don’t know how to pronounce most of them!
Teach us how to say goodbye in different languages!
Why not help us out by providing audio? It could be rapid-fire style with authentic voices saying goodbye in their respective languages.
And while you’re at it, get rid of the signs altogether and do a giant multi-language “Goodbye” word cloud like the one above. It would look fresher. Actually, now that we think about it, maybe keep the signs there, but use a multi-language “Hello” word cloud on one of the walls in the ride queue! (See #2 above.)
