Twelve days ago, Disney announced it had hired its first-ever Chief Technology Officer. The person taking the job is Karandeep Anand, who previously ran Character.AI. On the same day that the announcement went out, Disney’s Chief Legal and Global Affairs Officer sent his department a memo warning that the group would become “a much smaller organization,” citing plans to automate ...

If you have never understood the Annual Passholder magnet thing, it is worth explaining, because from the outside, it looks absurd. These are free promotional magnets. They cost Disney very little. They go on refrigerators and car doors and the side of a filing cabinet at work. And Walt Disney World passholders treat them like limited edition collectibles, tracking release ...

For the last two years, the first Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party date to sell out was opening night. That made sense. Opening night is the enthusiast purchase. It is the party bought by people who are not fitting the event into a vacation but building a trip around it, who want to be in Magic Kingdom for the first ...

There is a specific thing Disney sells that has nothing to do with rides. It is the feeling that everyone working there is delighted you came. The cast member who kneels down to talk to your kid. The one who notices it is your birthday. The person at the turnstile who says “welcome home” and somehow means it. Disney built ...

A new rule spotted inside Knott’s Berry Farm’s restrooms is generating plenty of conversation online, and for once, it seems like most guests actually agree with it. New signage inside the park’s restrooms now prohibits portable electronic devices, including phones and cameras, a policy that surfaced recently through a Reddit post asking whether other parks have started doing the same ...

Try to think of one place at Disney Springs where you can sit for an hour without buying something. Go ahead and count. There are benches along the water, and they are usually full. There is the occasional low wall. If you want to actually sit down in air conditioning for any meaningful stretch of time, you are buying a ...

Before anyone panics, this is a week over Walt Disney World closures. Seven days, in the back half of January, more than a year from now. The Disney Skyliner is not going anywhere, nothing is wrong with it, and Disney has already published the dates for the year after that too. This is scheduled maintenance on a piece of machinery ...

Oga’s Cantina should be the easiest recommendation at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It is a functioning cantina inside Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, with a droid DJ, exotic drinks, and the kind of theming that made people cry when the land opened. For a certain kind of Star Wars fan, walking into that room is the whole reason to visit the park. ...

Disney’s Hollywood Studios has never been an easy park for young kids, and that is not a new complaint. The headliners are thrill rides. Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog Dash, Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Smugglers Run. Most of them carry height requirements, and the ones that do not still skew older in tone. So when Disney ...

Almost every time I write about the Disability Access Service at Disney, the story is a bad one. Guests are denied after years of qualifying. Families rearranging entire trips around an interview outcome they cannot predict. People are being told, in one way or another, that what they need is no longer available to them. I have covered that repeatedly, ...