Earlier this month, the Walt Disney World Resort announced a new premium option that will take park-hopping guests from one park to another via the backstage areas of the resort, for a fee of $15 a day.
Response has been so positive that Disney plans to add an ultra-premium option, that will transport guests not by bus, but by drone – effectively cutting their transit time in half.
“In theory, a guest could get off of Space Mountain, harness up to the drone, and be in line for Tower of Terror in 10 minutes,” said Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III, Vice President of Disney’s Drone Transportation Division. “It’s a colossal time saver.”
Disney has been testing using drones to carry guests for a few years now in what was known internally by the codename “Project Asphalt.”
“There was quite the learning curve until we finally figured out how big the drones must be to carry the size of the average adult,” said Brian Boudreax, Vice President of Logistics for Project Asphalt. “In hindsight, we probably should not have started with the height tests before the distance tests.”
Boudreax is referring to the many lives lost when the weight of the test subjects caused the drone to release the harness in order to satisfy the drone’s first objective: Save Thyself Before Others. The drones were programmed to survive intact in the event of a failure, even at the expense of human life.
“Actually, Project Asphalt wasn’t the original name of the project,” said Boudreax. “We came up with that name after scraping many carcasses off the asphalt when the drone’s system malfunctioned.”
Boudreax insists, however, that the drones are ready for operation and can support even the fattest human being for a great distance.
“I can assure you that we’ve worked out most of the kinks and are ready for operation,” concluded Boudreax.
The cost of the drone service is expected to be $30 for a one-way trip, but Geronimo did hint that there may soon be a per-weight fee added in the future.
