Disney News Quick Hits – New Disneyland App, Earnings & Anaheim Property

Three top of the news stories relating to Disney today to bring to everyone’s attention if you had not seen them yet:

New Official Disneyland App
Today Disney released a new Disneyland App for Android through the Google Play Store and Apple Devices through itunes. The app allows you to view park schedules, wait times, information on restrooms, dining, other services, plus purchase tickets and for most annual passes gain entry to the park, but it does not work for Premiere Passes yet. In doing a quick click through of Android version it was responsive and easy to use. I look forward to experimenting with it in the parks and seeing where Disney goes with it.

For a version one it has a healthy feature set. But is missing some helpful pieces.. such as current FastPass availability information. Also at times it is a bit hard to understand. For example if you go to the entertainment section it has show times. I am assuming those are for today. But it does not say that and I do not see a way to go to other days. (You can do this for park hours and block out days though). So not sure if this is user error on my part or missing features/UI design choices.

Next up Disneyland really needs to upgrade its bandwidth in the parks. Even on average crowd days it is becoming more of a challenge to get a good cell connection. Free wi-fi would be a definite plus.

3rd Quarter Earnings
Disney Third Quarter Earnings were released earlier today. They beat estimates on an earning per share basis but not revenue so in after hours trading the stock was down over 6%. Domestic Theme parks had record attendance.

• Here is a PDF of the full release
• A replay of the earnings call is available on the Disney investors website here
• Yahoo News Summary with links to other stories and current stock price information

New Disney Property In Anaheim
There have been a flurry of newspaper stories and blog posts talking about the property Disney has recently purchased across Harbor (off of Manchester). They have a large L shape now if you include the Pumba lot stretching from the Garden walk to behind the Carousel Inn then out to Harbor Blvd through the Carousel Inn. All indications point to the land being used for the much needed second large parking structure and then for backstage facilities to free up room expansion.

Here are a couple stories on it:
LA Times
OC Register