South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Theme park characters mingle from safe distance
Meeting Orlando’s theme-park characters isn’t like it used to be. In prepandemic times, kids lined up to give a high-five to Buzz Lightyear at Magic Kingdom, pose for photos beside Spider-Man at Islands of Adventure or come eye-to-googly-eye with Cookie Monster at SeaWorld.
But coronavirus and social distancing have forced attractions to rethink how visitors interact with characters. That meant shelving the standard meet-andgreet format where folks queue up for quality time and a quick pic. Also suspended were the parks’ parades featuring dozens of performers.
“We came up with the idea of bringing the characters to the guests,” said Reed Jones, creative director for Disney Parks live entertainment. “You kind of walk through the park, and they are showing up everywhere.”
Their new stations tend to be nontraditional or unexpected. They’re usually elevated above ground level, and a good amount of distance from visitors and other performers is built in. Cinderella’s
mouthy stepsisters interact from stairs on the back side of the castle. Characters pop up atop the balcony over the entrance to the Country Bear Jamboree attraction, and Tinker Bell glides above the streets on a treasure chest that’s normally a float in the Festival of Fantasy parade.
At SeaWorld Orlando, “Sesame Street” characters stand on parade floats while meeting visitors. That’s in lieu of the indoor space where kids met Elmo and Cookie up close.
Universal Studios uses its parade floats, one unit at a time, to haul waving performers and characters around the park. For more stationary photo ops, Universal Orlando uses an “up and away” philosophy, said Deb Buynak, vice president of entertainment at Universal Orlando.
“Although we wanted to follow all social distancing guidelines by being away and distanced from our guests and each other, we also wanted to be up and visible in order to make that connection,” she said.
Universal visitors may see performers portraying Marilyn Monroe and Betty
Boop on lifted stages and behind barriers. All five members of the ScoobyDoo gang stand on individual podiums that are spaced out for health reasons and easy selfie sessions.
Universal team members scouted out fresh venues and angles for the interactions, Buynak said.
“We realized we had some amazing architecture that we could take advantage of … bridges, balconies and stairwells that made the perfect backdrop,” she said.
Denise Preskitt, owner of MouseSteps website, said the new, remote meet-ups remind her of the Disney Villains After Hours special event because there were no one-on-one encounters with the characters.
“You got to experience the characters, you just weren’t in line for them,” she said. “Some people actually want to meet all the characters, but I enjoy just kind of having the atmosphere.”
Preskitt said she also liked seeing Winnie-thePooh on a fenced-off grassy area of Epcot, armed with a butterfly net (“It doesn’t sound like it would work. … But it’s quite cute.”) and the surprising vantage points at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Characters there ride boats on the park’s Discovery River and wave to folks on shore. One vessel carries the drummers from Pandora.
The style of character processionals varies among the four Disney World parks. Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear and others ride in tricked-out cars at Hollywood Studios. There’s old-world charm with princesses in horse-drawn carriages around Epcot’s World Showcase.
Preskitt said she’d prefer to see more face coverings on people, be they performers or princesses.
“We have a few performers that are well over 6 feet from another person and are permitted to go without a face covering while in that location,” said Universal’s Buynak.
Disney’s Jones said social distancing is done on stage and that masks and more are used backstage.
“When you watch Mickey and pals dancing down the street, we’ve measured everybody. We know exactly how far they are from one another, as well as from the guests,” he said.
Before seeing visitors, the performers have their own space zones backstage, Jones said.
“They do wear masks as they travel around, and right before they go out they get into their safe performance zone to take their mask off,” he said.
Disney has continued to add character spots since the parks reopened in midJuly, he said.
“We didn’t know how the guests were going to respond, and we needed to really test the system,” Jones said. “We’ve discovered some really great things that our guests are loving that we think could fit into daily ops in addition to the normal way.”
There is no printed schedule, and the appearances are brief.
“The music just starts, and they show up. … We don’t do announcements or anything because what we’re trying not to do is gather crowds of guests on Main Street or sidewalks,” Jones said.
“I think part of the fun is you just never know what you’re going to see,” he said, “because there’s really not a rule book to this.”