After Obama’s inauguration, a new appreciation for Disney

Bashing “the Mouse,” or rather, Walt Disney World, is a favorite pastime of many travelers and members of the travel industry alike. And yes, Disney is big, expensive, and often inflexible from both a consumer and travel agent perspective alike.

But they do know how to do lines. And after last week’s presidential inauguration, I may never say an unkind word in a Disney line again.

Many people have now heard the basic story of last Tuesday morning: Some number of people with tickets showed up hours in advance, and did not get in through the the gates to see President Obama’s inauguration ceremony. That number, of which I was one, is easily in the tens of thousands, and maybe higher.

The good news: nobody died or was trampled. Though many people did require medical attention from cold and/or exhaustion. The D.C. police underestimated the number of ticket holders that would show up – hard to imagine with the tickets needing to have been picked up a day or two before, no earlier. And the Transportation Security Administration — yes, those same TSA agents we know and love from the airports — underestimated the screening time.

There also just weren’t enough gates. According to the Washington Post, there were 24 machines at each gate and each machine was capable of processing 400 people an hour. Sounds fine, except that gates were supposed to open three hours before the ceremony, and each gate was to process about 52,000 people. (Do the math. Scary.)

Over and over in the crowd, as we started realizing just how messed up the situation had become, you heard some variation on, “Couldn’t they have hired Disney?”

And yes, I must admit, the Disney line experience is the gold standard, for many reasons. First, they move people smoothly and have the lines usually set up in an orderly fashion. The D.C. lines were, quite simply, chaos.

Disney also usually adds entertainment to its lines. Whether it’s a pre-show or just something new to look at every few steps, they keep you distracted. In fact, there was nothing last week, in the “Purple Tunnel of Doom”, or the Silver, Blue, Orange and Yellow equivalents. (In the Blue line, however, we did at one point go through some rousing choruses of “99 bottles of beer on the wall.”)

But Washington had no Jumbotrons for those waiting in line, not even speakers. As it turns out, speakers would have allowed those in line after they closed the gates at least to hear the ceremony.

And Disney also tells you how long the lines are, and how long the wait is from a given point. Had ticket holders known that information, many of us might have resignedly decamped indoors to radios and televisions.

Admittedly, this inauguration was incredibly popular, with tight security required, and the 250,000 ticket holders totalled about twice what Walt Disney World’s four Orlando parks get on an average day. But it’s hard not to think Disney would have done it better. It’s only three years and fifty weeks until the next inauguration. Maybe it’s not too soon for Washington to send out a call to “the Mouse.”

Tagged as: Disney lines, inaugural ticket fiasco, inauguration tickets, lines, presidential inauguration, Purple Tunnel of Doom, Walt Disney World