The Mouse House has put forward a futuristic idea that theme park visitors will love.
Visiting a Walt Disney (DIS) – Get The Walt Disney Company Report theme park may not be quite as magical as the commercials suggest. Sure, you may find yourself smiling with your kids as fireworks go off or having a chance encounter with Goofy, Donald Duck, or some other beloved character, but there are a lot of other logistical concerns as well.
Parents, or even adults not visiting Disneyland or Disney World with kids, often have to carry a lot of things with them. You may need an umbrella or poncho for the inevitable rain at Florida’s theme parks or multiple layers for temperature differences from early morning to evening.
Theme park visitors also have smartphones, which are well-integrated into the Disney experience, and keeping those charged requires batteries and cables. You may also accumulate souvenirs, popcorn buckets, and reusable drink cups over the course of the day. Add kids to the mix and the list of what you have to carry gets pretty complex.
And, of course, if you want to ride any of the rides, you can’t carry any of this stuff with you. Some rides literally require empty pockets. That means putting your stuff into a storage locker, which can create other problems due to the size of Disney’s parks.
You may opt to rent a locket and then literally find yourself half a mile (or more) away from it when you realize you need something in it. That’s a hassle and it wastes a lot of time.
Now, Disney may very well have a solution for this age-old problem.
David McNew/Getty Images)
Disney Files a Patent for a New Type of Locker
Since getting to your locker can be a challenge, Disney has filed a patent for a locker that will come to you. Yes, that sounds like something out of science fiction, but Disney explains how it would work in the patent application.
Embodiments disclosed herein include a mobile locker. The mobile locker can include a mobility unit to enable the locker to relocate from one location to another. The mobile locker is modular which allows the storage compartment to be detached from the mobility unit for storage, transfer via other means. The storage compartment can be coupled either the same or a different mobility unit. The mobile lockers can be recalled by a customer to either the customer’s location or to designated locations at the venue. The lockers can include any one of multiple locking mechanisms. The mobile locker can communicate with a monitoring center that oversees the deployment of multiple mobile lockers. Embodiments of the mobile locker can interact with customers through a display, microphone, and speaker.
It’s a robot locker that can walk to you. That solves a problem for theme park visitors but also adds to the Disney magic.
Disney Sees a Customer Problem
Disney wants its theme park visitors to have a good time. Having to endlessly go back to a locker in a fixed location can interfere with that. That’s something the company explained in its patent application.
“Patrons of large venues (e.g., amusement parks) pack and carry many items with them, but only need a few of those items at different points during the day. For example, lunch may be packed, but it is needed at only at one point in the day. Umbrellas or outerwear may be needed sporadically based on current weather conditions, but these items are currently carried all day,” the company explained.
Disney also explained that limited ability to carry items could limit how many purchases customers make.
“Conversely, in-venue purchases create a burden of carrying the items for the rest of the day or until a suitable storage locker is found.,” the company wrote. “Even in a shopping mall, for example, the need to carry purchases can limit the ability to continue shopping. Alternatively, items can be stored in physical lockers that may be difficult to access when the time comes to retrieve the items, especially if the lockers are located on the other side of the venue.”
In addition to offering lockers, Disney has experimented with delivering packages to theme park visitors hotel rooms. It also offers a child ride swap on some rides so one adult can stay with their stuff (and maybe a kid who does not want to or can’t ride) while the other adult rides, then switch places without waiting in line twice.
Seeing an army of walking lockers take over Epcot or Disneyland might be a bit much, but Disney has an idea here that would make visits to its theme parks more pleasant. That’s worth pursuing even if it’s not fully implemented.
