Disney’s Best Theme Park Innovations for 2022
Disney’s Imagineering team has established itself as one of the greatest creative organizations in modern civilization.
Each year, Disney’s tech somehow accomplishes the impossible yet again. And we never fail to be stunned by any of it.
Here are the best theme park innovations of 2022.
Car Locator
I’m not ranking these in any order, because each of these enhancements can make your Disney vacation better in some way.
Still, I admire the simplicity of Car Locator more than anything else on this list.
There’s nothing technologically challenging about Car Locator. It utilizes the location software that your phone already has.
So, you load My Disney Experience, go to the Car Locator section, and voila! When you park at Disney, the service marks your location.
When you leave the park, you pull up Car Locator again, and it’ll provide directions straight to your car.
For an entire generation of phone users raised on the internet, this isn’t ground-shaking by any stretch.
You could already take a picture of your car lot and find it later. Conversely, for those of us who visited the parks before the days of smartphones, it’s historic.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve helplessly roamed parking lots in search of my vehicle.
Folks, if you’ve ever hit the car unlock feature on your FOB to make it chirp and give you a hint about its location, Car Locator is your dream come true.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind
When Disney mentioned a “storytelling roller coaster,” nobody quite knew what that meant or what to expect.
What even is a storytelling roller coaster? And how is it possible?
The whole point of a coaster is that you race down the tracks at almost incomprehensible speeds. How could Disney tell a story at such a high velocity?
Well, we got our answer in 2022, and it’s quite remarkable.
On Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, the coaster tracks reside inside a building. Disney has retrofitted many of the interior walls of this building with digital monitors.
We’ve watched this technology gain prevalence in recent years at places like Space 220 and Star Wars: Hyperspace Lounge.
The themed wall projects an outer space excursion, adding to the immersion.
Cosmic Rewind does that for an entire ride, as a Celestial tries to squash your spaceship like a bug. You’ll never feel smaller than when this thing swats at you.
Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Galaxy appear and crack wise about your mortally dangerous situation.
This roller coaster feels like the future in that the story remains front and center everywhere you look. It’s set the bar for a new generation of immersion.
MagicBand+
For nearly a decade now, Disney guests have relied on MagicBands to streamline our park visits.
We use these devices to do everything from validating admission to paying for food and merchandise.
However, during this timeframe, the wearable industry has experienced many upgrades, while MagicBands has largely remained the same…until 2022.
This past summer, Disney unveiled its newest technology, the MagicBand+. Never has a technology deserved that plus symbol more.
The new MagicBands do everything that the old ones did, but they’ve added vacation-enriching enhancements.
For instance, the chips contained in these wearables can exchange signals with Disney landmarks.
So, Disney created a kind of scavenger hunt for its Disney Fab50 statues. You can wave your MagicBand+ and trigger an interaction with the statue!
Disney also introduced a new game, Star Wars: Batuu Bounty Hunters. It proved so popular that guests were still facing massive lines weeks after its release.
For many Disney fans, the highlight came at night, though. MagicBand+ contains illumination technology.
While you watch the various fireworks exhibitions, your MagicBand lights up in tandem with what’s happening!
In this way, Disney has brought the beloved Glow with the Show premise from several years ago.
If you’re like me and get obsessed by every glow-in-the-dark toy you see at Disney, MagicBand+ is ideal.
You’re always wearing something that can light up the night, but you don’t need to carry awkward toys around. This one’s already on your wrist!
Solar Farms
I’m cheating just a bit here, but I would have felt like I ignored something significant if I hadn’t covered this story.
Over the past few years, Disney has methodically added solar farms across the Walt Disney World campus.
The company’s plan here has involved removing its reliance on the grid and instead creating its own permanent power supply.
At this point, Disney’s solar farms provide at least 55 megawatts of solar power, enough to run 10 percent of all park operations on their own.
Disney’s commitment to this process proved prescient during the events of Hurricane Ian.
More than two million people lost power during one of the most powerful storms on record in the United States.
While Disney theme parks had understandably closed to avoid hurricane weather, the various resorts maintained power throughout the process.
Even as many Central Florida residents lost their power for days, Disney kept the lights on.
That’s a credit to its forward-thinking commitment to solar farms.
Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser
Earlier, I described Cosmic Rewind as setting the bar for the next generation of immersion, which it absolutely does…on a small scale.
We’re talking about one ride that takes the length of a rock song to complete.
Galactic Starcruiser functions as that experience writ large for two full days. I’m not even joking.
When you check in for your hotel stay, the theming starts immediately. You’re at a starport akin to a Disney cruise’s seaport locations.
That’s the concept in a nutshell. You’re an intergalactic traveler on a luxury cruise across the galaxy.
Disney sells that notion from the instant you arrive until you finally depart. Everyone on board is either an actual tourist or a cast member playing a role as a cruise ship employee.
Yes, they’re actual workers pretending like they’re different kinds of workers. It’s recursive, but the idea really works.
When Disney first announced the Star Wars Hotel, nobody knew what to expect. In the days leading up to its debut, many called it a disaster waiting to happen.
As always, people forgot the golden rule of tourism: never underestimate Disney!
When Galactic Starcruiser opened, the reviews were rapturous. Nobody could believe how authentic and organic the experience felt.
Not coincidentally, this resort was booked solid for its first six months in operation.
We still don’t know how sustainable this simulated cruise is long-term, at least at its current price, but we do know it’s historic in its level of constant immersion.
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Feature Photo: Disney at Work