Just came accross some interesting analysis from a non-Disney person on a website I frequently read. Mark Rosewater is the head designer for a trading card game called Magic the Gathering and he recently went on his first
Disney cruise with his family. Here are some of his comments. I like seeing the occasional "outsiders" view to allow me to know that I am not completely brainwashed
Sorry if this isn't really the place for it but I figured if I found it interesting some of you might also.
Lesson #1 Know Your Audience
In the end, we found only two cruise lines that seemed to cater at all to families: Disney and a cruise line I'll call Cruise Line X. (This was several years ago, so there is some chance some other cruise has stepped up to the task.) Disney was a little pricier, so we opted for Cruise Line X. All in all, we had a good time. I felt Cruise Line X did a decent job providing for families. That is, until I took a Disney cruise.
Lesson #2 Have Something for Everyone Inside Your Target Audience
To Cruise Line X, a kid was a kid. They treated them as a single commodity. Disney divided up children into six age groups (0-2, 3-4, 5-7, 8-10, 11-13, and 14-17), each with their own play space, their own counselors, and their own schedule. The activities that Adam and Sarah (age 5) participated in were completely different from the ones Rachel (now 8) attended. The ship also had activities for the parents, including areas on the ship where children weren't allowed. In addition, there were activities planned for families with the intent that the parents would participate in them with their kids. For example, Sarah and I competed as a team in a Disney trivia game show. (We would have won if we only knew Donald Duck's middle nameFauntleroy, if you're interested.) The point here is that part of what made the cruise such a pleasant experience is that they anticipated our needs as a family and then provided them understanding that different members would require different things.
Lesson #3 Understand Your Brand
Disney has worked hard to play up its key brand points: 1) It is family friendly, 2) It is customer-service-oriented, and 3) It provides the upmost of quality. The cruise did nothing but reinforce each of those points.
Lesson #4 The Details Matter
Every night, when our steward would turn down our room, he would leave little chocolates on our pillow. The chocolates had a picture of Sleepy (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs). The sign in the bathroom asking you to reuse your towels to help cut down on pollution and preserve the ocean had Ariel from The Little Mermaid on it. The French restaurant on the ship was called Lumiere's after the animated candelabra in Beauty and the Beast. The whistle they used when they needed to make a ship-wide announcement was the first few bars to "When You Wish Upon a Star," Disney's theme song. Disney never missed a beat to instill Disney wherever they could. That dedication to their theme strongly contributed to the overall effect of the cruise. The cruise made you feel a part of something bigger and it was very comforting.
Lesson #5 - Find Solutions for Problems, Not Reasons
The ship has three restaurants (actually many more than that if you count all the different places on the ship to get food, but three main dining areas for dinner). The way dining works is that you rotate what restaurant you are in each night, but your wait staff and dinner companions always move with you. The first night I was in Lumiere's, I was served a Coke. Now, I'm a bit of a Coke snob, and I'm extra sensitive to fountain mixes of syrup and carbonation. The mix was off, and it was not enjoyable to drink. I reported this to the person who handled my drinks.
Within a minute I was talking to her boss, who was very interested in why I didn't like my Coke. Then within another minute I had a can of Coke and a glass of ice sitting in front of me. While they took their time investigating what was wrong, they wanted me to have a Coke that I was happy with. Once they realized that the problem was not something that could be fixed on the ship, they made sure that every time I ate in that restaurant all my Coke came from cans.
A common mistake in this circumstance would be to explain to me why the Coke tasted bad. That's a mistake because it wouldn't address my problem. I didn't really care why I didn't have the drink I wanted. I cared that I didn't have the drink. The staff was well trained to make me happy rather than provide me with answers about why I was unhappy.
I copied and pasted the relevant parts from the article rather than just linking it because he then relates each point to game design but just to be careful not to break any copyright laws here is the actual link to the article.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/72
Happy Monday All
. My husband has had it for two weeks now and it just won't go away. I also started physical therapy for my foot. That is coming along faster than I thought. I hope to start up on the treadmill in another week or so.
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