Name changes are nothing new in the theme park business. Sometimes, a park might lose its license to use a particular brand name. But many times name changes are just another marketing tool. Slapping a new name on something drives attention.
Disney has announced plenty of name changes across its theme parks in recent years. It’s even changing the name of an entire park with the impending switch of the Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris to Disney Adventure World. This week, Disneyland is changing the name of its Disney Genie+ service to Lightning Lane Multi Pass, as it tries to address enduring customer confusion over the rebranding of its former Fastpass service.
“Fastpass” had become such a popular brand name that it became an industry generic term for all theme park line-skipping services. But when Disney decided to start charging for access to alternate queues at its most popular rides, it — wisely — chose to rebrand those queues as “Lightning Lanes.”
Fastpass was a free service. Lightning Lane is not. Changing the name likely helped head off what would have been even more widespread opposition to — and confusion about — Disney’s switch. But then Disney fumbled the bag. It was tricky enough that Disney chose to sell access some Lightning Lanes on an individual basis while bundling access to others. Calling that bundle “Disney Genie+” made no sense. The new name — Lightning Lane Multi Pass — better describes what that service is.
Disney also would have done well to change the name of another way that people access those alternate queues. Last month, Disneyland changed its system for accommodating guests with disabilities. Change was needed, as Disney’s old implementation of its Disability Access Service (“DAS”) invited abuse by allowing people who registered for it an advance to get the equivalent of two free Lightning Lane admissions.