Disney boss tells people to stop doing this one thing at their theme parks

A top Disney boss has revealed what really annoys him about people visiting his theme parks.

Is it guests shoving past other people in line, or perhaps the ones wearing light-up ears everywhere, even on a dark ride and during fireworks?

Nope. The thing that Bruce Vaughn wants an end to is people getting their phones out constantly.

The chief creative officer of Walt Disney Imagineering said in a company Youtube video: ‘You’re there together with friends and family and people that you care about, and every time you have to look down at a device or a phone, it breaks that spell.’

To keep the magic alive, he has a novel solution: make the screen permanent, and constantly in front of your eyes.

As part of Disney’s partnership with Meta, he said they planned to make it easy for guests to use AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses, which use cameras in the lenses to analyse and give feedback on what the wearer sees.

‘If you can use extended reality, I never stop looking at the environment,’ he said. ‘I’m in awe at the people I’m with. It’s going to be less disruptive.’

‘The glasses can enhance the ways we tell stories for our guests, unlocking a world of information about the land that they’re in,’ Mr Vaughn said.

‘Just by looking around, I can ask questions about some of the architectural details, and I get the answer right in my ear.

‘Maybe I want to learn a little bit more about a merchandise item for my child. All I have to do is look at it and ask, tell me more information about it. And then right in my ear, I get all of the product information.’

He said it wouldn’t just be guests making use of the tech, but staff too, in particular when considering how to develop new areas of the parks, where construction has not begun but extended reality can allow visualisation of how it could look in future.

‘We’re not just using technology for technology’s sake. We’re using it in service of that story that we’re really going for,’ he added.

‘If we’re doing our jobs properly, all of the technology goes away and our guests get immersed in the story that we’re trying to tell.’

What Disney fans think of the suggestion

Not everyone was immediately keen on the idea.

Commenting on Facebook, Pam Logan wrote: ‘We don’t want that. We have enough issues with people dead stopping in the middle of a walkway. And for those of us who wear glasses, reading glasses, sunglasses….nope.’

Mark Ladisky added: ‘Disney: “we’ll get you off your phones.” Also Disney: “get the screen one inch in front of their eyes and make it the only thing they see their vacation through”.’

Others wanted to know if they would be able to hire the glasses at the parks, or buy a pair beforehand (the most basic model currently starts at £239).

While it may be true that too much time checking phones ruins the magic,, Disney themselves have made it difficult to get around without a smartphone.

You need it to check latest wait times for different rides, book fast track passes and scan the QR code, and order food and drink in advance to cut down the wait.

While these things can also be done by printing off a paper ticket, or just accepting the long queue, it’s going to make life harder than if you just accepted a degree of ‘ruining the magic’ by looking at your phone.

Use of VR and AI is not just going to just be about helping guests get immediate information about their soon-to-be-purchased chicken nuggets or Mickey Mouse baseball cap.

Disney also unveiled a robotic Olaf the snowman from Frozen last week, which will trundle around parks in Paris and Hong Kong from next year, interacting with guests.

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