Disney Imagineering Labs App Opens Disneyland Doors for Guests to Test Experimental Experiences

Following the September shutdown of the Play Disney Parks app, Walt Disney Imagineering has rolled out the Disney Imagineering Labs app as a separate iOS download for Disneyland Resort. Available now to Magic Key holders age 13 and older who have a MyDisney account and an iPhone running a recent iOS version, the free app serves as a testing ground where guests try experiences still in development rather than polished final products.

Secrets of the Spire is the app’s first experiment, taking place within Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. Guests are abruptly blasted a message from Princess Leia Organa to their phones. Apparently, she has a suspicion that some encrypted Imperial messages are hidden in plain sight throughout Black Spire Outpost. These signals are the key to finding a concealed starpath unit, and the phone may be used as a sort of superpowerful binoculars to assist you find them. As you get closer to one of these signals, the phone begins to vibrate more powerfully, and once you’re within range, you can scan the area and watch the signal appear.

Then, with some skill, you can use your phone to ‘hack’ into the signal, but there are red warnings to ignore and you can only get so far away before the signal fades out. If you are successful in breaking the system, you may be able to trigger some real-life special effects in the park, such as lights or music, and you may even save your progress to resume where you left off the following day. The next big decision is whether to deliver the coordinates to a waiting Imperial officer and receive a reward, or to ship them to the Millennium Falcon to assist the Rebel Alliance. With real voice actors presenting the story rather than just a load of text, some early testers even noted that the AR glimpse of information you wouldn’t typically notice simply by lifting your gaze from the ground.

Disneyland’s Enchanted Guide is coming shortly to the same app, essentially an AI personal assistant that will answer any questions you may have, whether you ask them out loud or type them in. It has its finger on the pulse of your location, so it can tell you what’s nearby, which restaurants are worth visiting, and even how long the wait times are for all of the major attractions. It may also send you warnings when you reach a specific wait time or when a ride returns online after a break, and it has some memory, recognizing that you have children in your party and suggesting pleasant rides for them.

Plugging in a photo of a sign or landmark can also provide you with all of the information you require, and if you have Meta glasses or Bluetooth earbuds, you can get the answers you need on the go without having to take out your phone, though early tests revealed that the wake word did not catch it about half of the time. Just keep in mind that the Enchanted Guide is currently separate from your main Disneyland app, so it won’t be aware of any dining reservations or special pass items you’ve previously booked, and it occasionally directs you to the official app for extra information.

Asa Kalama, an executive with Walt Disney Imagineering, views the whole thing as an opportunity to receive actual feedback from guests while it’s still early, allowing them to change their ideas while they’re still viable. According to Kalama, how individuals use and respond to the technology will be important, as will the types of questions they ask and how frequently they use it. For the time being, the app is only available at Disneyland and to a subset of annual passholders, with experiments anticipated to come, modify, or disappear depending on how guests use them and what they report back. Magic Key holders who satisfy the prerequisites can download it from the Apple App Store today and start playing Secrets of the Spire, while the rest of the visitor base waits for the full launch, which is expected for early next year.
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