A revamped premium in-park offering and a pair of attraction updates should help Disney’s theme park business.
It’s summertime, and this is a special time for Walt Disney (DIS -0.02%) and its domestic theme-parks business. Its gated attractions are open year-round, unlike smaller regional amusement-park operators with only seasonal availability, but turnstile clicks tend to surge when school is out. There’s a lot of time to visit Disneyland or Disney World this time of year.
Turning specifically to its massive resort in Florida, Disney has some new tricks up its sleeve to make a potentially strong summer even more financially potent. Two updated attractions at its most visited theme park and an upgrade to its premium program for expedited queues may provide a spark for the world’s largest theme-park company.
Disney can use the spark. It braced investors for flat operating income for its theme parks-helmed experiences segment in the fiscal third quarter that ends next week, based on a few factors including higher wage expenses and the timing of the Easter holiday. Disney will need a summertime boost to close out the fiscal year on a strong note, and three new rollouts at Disney World can help its chances.
Lightning strikes twice
On Tuesday, Disney announced an upgrade to its Genie+ service, through which guests currently pay between $15 and $39 a day in addition to park admission to make advance reservations for attraction queues that will let them do more on a park day. This method of paying for access to faster-moving lines will be rebranded as Lightning Lane+ come July 24.Â
Genie+ has its critics, largely from those reluctant to pay for the premium experience, but it is popular. Disney has said that as many as 50% of its day guests purchase the time-saving add-on, making it a financial success. It’s also a big reason guest spending per capita at Disney World is 40% higher than it was before the pandemic. One setback to the service in its present form, however, is that a buyer can start making reservations as early as 7 a.m. the day of use. Since the best Genie+ bookings go early, it’s not ideal that someone has to wake up early on vacation.
Lighting Lane+ changes that. Guests can now purchase the add-on three days ahead of time. More importantly, visitors staying at an on-site resort hotel can start even earlier. They can begin booking the new Lightning Lane+ a week in advance, squaring away initial advance reservations for the entire stay, up to 14 days. Guests have another reason to pay a premium to stay at a Disney resort instead of stay offsite, and that matters as rivals beef up their own gated attractions.
Image source: Disney.
Attractions gaining traction
Turning to the theme parks, Disney World’s Magic Kingdom has two updated experiences officially opening this summer. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will replace Splash Mountain this weekend. The ride it’s replacing is based on Song of the South, a problematic film that Disney hasn’t distributed domestically for several decades. Now the classic log flume ride is based on The Princess and the Frog, clearly a more marketable recent release. It opens this weekend, on June 28.
The second new attraction coming to the world’s most visited theme park is the July 17 reopening of the iconic Country Bear Jamboree. The show features singing audio-animatronic bears. It’s been updated to feature country version of popular Disney songs. The bullish catalyst here is also about marketability, as the new soundtrack is based on tracks featured in many of its animation studio’s films.
The introduction of Lightning Lane+, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and the updated Country Bears Jamboree are coming within the next month. They should help juice the financial performance of the leading entertainment stock in subtle but lasting ways.