Could Theme Parks Really Win the Line Battle?
It’s hard to have joy when you’re sitting in 110 degree heat next to 1,000 of your hot and sweaty fellow guests waiting to be “happy again.”
You’re walking through Diagon Alley and you come up to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes store front. You plant yourself in front of the window that houses a toilet bowl. You wave your wand in an upside down D motion while saying “descendo,” FLUSH! The flag sticking out of the toilet circles down the drain. You smile at your accomplishment and you move on to the next interactive wand destination.
“Alice, pull up my map of Diagon Alley.” In your view appears the map of Diagon Alley, it looks similar to the Marauders map from the movie.
“Alice, show me where the closest spell location is.” A large red arrow appears telling you to make a right after the Weasley’s store into Carkitt market. When you make the right the fountain in front of you is highlighted like a halo surrounds it. You point your wand at the fountain, perform the correct motion while saying “Aguamente,” and voila! Water comes out of the fountain for you to drink from.
Once you’ve made your way through the Carkitt Market, you want to hit Escape From Gringotts. Your glasses are automatically scanned for your express pass, and you walk right through. As your waiting in line, you decide you’ll want to grab some lunch afterwards.
“Alice, please make a reservation at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch.”
“Your reservation will be ready in thirty minutes. The line you are currently in is twenty minutes, so you may not have enough time to get to your reservation. Would you like to make a different reservation or keep the one you have now?”
Wait, who the heck is Alice, you’re probably wondering… I’ll get there don’t worry.
Expert after expert I interviewed for this book highlighted that lines and wait times remain the 800 lb. elephant in the room when it comes to theme parks. Jason Surrell, a Universal Creative Director, remarked that “We’ve known for years that waiting in line is one of the biggest dis-satisfiers in our guests’ day.” Will the agony ever end?
I believe that it will.
In fact, theme parks like Universal Orlando Resort are already working to combat this problem. Universal took a hint from airports and designed a system that allows customers to reserve their place in line ahead of time. At Volcano Bay in Orlando, Florida, upon arrival, customers receive a waterproof smart watch that acts as their ticket, credit card, and even their line concierge service. Say you’re looking to ride (insert name here), in advance you reserve your place in line and when it’s your turn, the watch notifies you to head over to the ride. Check out this video to see more about it! (But skip to 1:30)
My first thought after hearing about TapuTapu was, “that sounds great, but does it really work?” According to some reviews, it does not. The internet has deemed it CrapuCrapu, and one tourist commented that there were still waits of up to half an hour due to the fact that customers did not know either how to properly use their watches, or that now reserving ahead for the line was mandatory.
So, although Universal is certainly making a step in the right direction, the days of waiting in lines are far from over.
However, there is hope!
Alice! Or someone like Alice, is going to become the future load-balancer as each and every guest is given his or her own virtual tour guide to optimize our trip, and help give each of us a better experience.
I believe that smart wear technology definitely has the ability to eliminate lines forever. We are closer than you might imagine since smart wear is already being incorporated into the parks. In the future, I predict that every guest will be given a Google Glass of some kind and they will be able to use that technology as their own personal tour guides for the day. With their Glass, they will be able to do anything from booking lunch reservations to getting in line for rides and even to finding out secrets about the parks.
It will take time for people to adjust to the use of these technologies in parks. But, they’re coming nonetheless.
And please do buy the book at Amazon.com and if you’d like a signed copy, simply message me at mkelley2@wellesley.edu and I’d be happy to sign and mail the first fifty people who ask a signed copy.
