Disney Tech

I have been impressed with the technologies used “behind the scenes” at Disney World.  Our park entrance ticket is a credit card with a graphic on it.  The one I’m holding has the Incredibles.  Are tickets worked for multiple days.  As we checked in, we swiped the card and touched a finger print scanner.  The scanner prevents multiple people from using the same card.

Most of the popular rides had FastPass stations.  By swiping an entrance ticket a FastPass card was generated.  Using the FastPass a rider could skip the normal queue for a ride and go right to the front.  If you have been to Cedar Point, they use hand stamps to do this.  This limits a rider to a total of two line jumps per day.  At Disney, the technology behind the FastPass lets a rider have more than two FastPasses per day and it does so in a fair way. 

Each FastPass has a one hour window when the short-cut is available.  There is also a time printed on the FastPass, usually an hour or two after the FastPass is issued, when the rider is eligible for another FastPass.

Another cool technology was the Photopass.  Disney is all about Disney characters.  There’s Mickey, Goofy, Donald and all those movie characters.  They are stationed at different parts of the park and at each venue there is a professional photographer.  Guests are free to take as many pictures as they like, but a Disney photographer also snaps a few with a high end DSLR and links your pictures to a Photopass (in picture above) using a 2D barcode.  Once you have a Photopass from on venue, any other Disney photographer (and they are everywhere) can snap your picture and scan your card’s barcode.  Over time, you can have photos taken all over the park linked to one Photopass.

When you get home, a URL and code on the card get you into all your photos.  The prints are expensive, but if you miss a shot of your daughter with the Little Mermaid, it might be worth it.