Insider's Look at Disney Cruise Line's BIGGEST Ship in the Fleet | We Call It Imagineering!

0:00 As you come in, you go through the secret passageway.

0:02 What I'm about to show you can only be seen.

0:05 There are a lot of challenges on this project.

0:07 We've been gone from home, all that time traveling.

0:10 You really want me to say I really cried like crazy.

0:11 It's like a therapy session, you got to go deep.

0:13 They've never actually seen it before,

0:15 but it makes them feel like they've always known it.

0:17 I have cried so much.

0:19 We’re behind the scenes for an insider's look at what's possible at sea.

0:24 We're on the Disney Adventure!

0:25 The biggest ship in the fleet!

0:28 So much energy and vibrancy.

0:30 This is San Fransokyo Street,

0:31 one of the most immersive venues in the entire ship.

0:34 A Disney ship should be both classic, but also should be modern.

0:38 We're here at the Disney Imagination Garden stage.

0:40 We're about to fly some performers.

0:42 Here we are at the Oceaneer Club,

0:44 where kids can be inspired to spark their creativity.

0:46 We're in the Web Lab.

0:48 This activator is unique to the Disney Adventure.

0:50 This is the Animators Palate restaurant.

0:52 6 billion pixels coming to this space.

0:55 We are on the upper deck seeing the Lion King, Celebration in the Sky!

1:00 How do you take a 90-minute movie and turn into an 11-minute fireworks show?

1:03 Stay tuned to find out.

1:05 We Call It Imagineering.

1:13 The Disney Cruise Line is entering into a new market in Southeast Asia.

1:18 In this area, we do not have a Disney Park.

1:20 This ship is the introduction to our Disney brand.

1:24 The first castle at sea.

1:26 We decided, as we were designing the ship,

1:28 to look through a lens of our theme parks.

1:31 What really worked so well.

1:34 And we brought that same guiding principles into this ship.

1:38 The way we did that was by splitting the ship into different areas.

1:42 As Disney Imagineers, we often have this blank canvas, but this time we didn't.

1:45 And this canvas was huge.

1:48 We had a ship that was half built.

1:50 That means there was steel.

1:51 There was floor, ceilings already.

1:54 Some of the boxes were drawn for us.

1:56 We had to figure out how to fit our stories into these spaces.

2:01 It was thousands of hours of research and working with our consumer

2:06 insight partners to tell us what this audience would love.

2:11 One of my favorite things about this project was I

2:13 was able to actually work hand in hand with my wife.

2:16 She's a project manager, leading logistics and owner supply,

2:20 being able to pull this thing together.

2:22 It's just an incredible opportunity for the future

2:25 to tell our families and our future kids,

2:27 hey, mom and dad brought a ship together!

2:29 And it's sailing out of Singapore.

2:35 Wing, first of all, thank you for being here.

2:36 You're looking quite dapper, I must say, as always.

2:39 Thank you.

2:39 I had the privilege of getting to oversee the design of two of our ships.

2:43 The Dream and the Fantasy.

2:44 But I couldn't have done it without all of the work

2:47 you had done prior on the Magic and Wonder.

2:50 I don't know that everybody remembers there was something before that.

2:53 The cruise business was developing in America.

2:56 One of the cruise lines came to Disney.

2:58 Can we become your official cruise line?

3:01 The sales and licensing agreement with Premier Cruise Line

3:04 for the Disney characters to be on their ships, and the boats are painted red.

3:09 They called it The Big Red Boat.

3:10 The Big Red Boat.

3:12 Michael Eisner, he was the chairman at that time.

3:15 He said, we at Disney, if we are going to get into the business,

3:18 we have to do our own thing.

3:19 Yeah, very much in the spirit of Walt Disney.

3:22 That's right.

3:22 Now at the time, you were overseeing

3:24 all of our hotels and entertainment experiences.

3:28 How did it end up on your lap, as it were?

3:30 I happened to sit next to Michael that day,

3:32 and he turned to me and said Wing, And let's have some fun designing some ships.

3:36 Well, I'm sure it's something you never thought you would do No!

3:38 When you went to architecture school and joined Disney.

3:41 We studied architecture.

3:43 Buildings don’t leave the spot.

3:44 They don't move.

3:47 So we asked Michael, what do you want?

3:50 He said, I think a Disney ship should be classic, but also should be modern.

3:55 Then he walked out.

3:57 It's not easy to find the perfect design.

3:59 The ship has to look tropical, Disney.

4:01 It should be so different.

4:02 Here we are.

4:03 That's a Disney ship.

4:04 All right, but I'm not sure.

4:05 It says it's a cruise ship.

4:06 Well, I tell you, that's tropical, alright?

4:08 But it doesn't look like a ship.

4:09 It's interesting.

4:10 It's modern.

4:10 It had to be Disney.

4:11 It has Mickey Mouse.

4:12 But that's not enough.

4:13 This is more like a super yacht.

4:15 I don't think it says Disney.

4:16 It's really colorful.

4:17 Too much.

4:18 We don't need that many funnels.

4:19 We've got, like, a cargo ship.

4:21 Well, this is beginning to look like a cruise ship.

4:23 It doesn't say, you know, Disney.

4:25 Finally, the sketch.

4:26 That's a Disney ship!

4:29 That was a lot of ships.

4:33 The classic part is the four Mickey Mouse colors.

4:35 The black, the white, the red and gold.

4:37 The most cruise ships.

4:39 They all painted white.

4:40 Yeah, like a shoebox.

4:41 We brought back the portholes and the horizontal railings and the modern taper,

4:45 the bow and the stern, sort of two funnels.

4:49 So some of these details give us a combination of both classic and modern.

4:55 You really set the design criteria of how we

4:57 can go forward with the uniqueness of the cruise lines.

5:00 Next one is the Adventure.

5:04 It's our biggest ship yet.

5:05 It's different because we didn't design it from the ground up.

5:09 You know, we went in and transformed it into a Disney ship.

5:13 It has some immersive moments because of its scale.

5:15 Yes, that we haven't done on our other ships,

5:18 but we're inspired to think about now.

5:19 And you set us up for such success.

5:21 We're never deviating that far from that classic profile,

5:25 because it's not easy when you design something,

5:27 to get it right, right out of the box.

5:29 And I think the design that you oversaw, it did that.

5:42 We were really inspired by this idea of what about

5:46 a place where all of our characters could live together.

5:50 So we created the Disney Imagination Garden.

5:53 The thing I love about the garden is that this is a parallel to a main street.

5:57 It's obviously not turn of the century.

5:59 Marceline, Missouri.

6:01 There's all of these little details that not

6:03 every guest is going to see right away.

6:06 It was the 100th anniversary of Disney

6:08 Feature Animation when we were building it.

6:11 And they released a special that was called Once Upon a Studio,

6:15 and it celebrated 100 years of Disney characters.

6:18 OK everybody, get together now!

6:20 One of the things that was very fun about that short was

6:23 all of these different characters sort of living together side by side.

6:31 Nothing really feels as Disney as a castle.

6:34 It's the logo that you see before any one of our motion pictures.

6:38 Every single one of our resorts has a castle park.

6:41 We thought, why not have a castle at sea?

6:44 We had to do a lot of thinking about what we wanted that castle to look like.

6:48 Was it a specific castle?

6:50 Was it going to be a realistic castle?

6:52 We ended up going with a pop-up book and a storybook,

6:55 and we wanted that sense in the garden that you

6:57 sort of feel like you walked into a storybook,

7:00 but it still was very clearly a Disney Castle.

7:04 I worked for years at Imagineering, and often we have to deal with budget,

7:09 but I've never had to deal with a weight budget before.

7:11 The heavier the ship is, the more fuel it takes to move it around.

7:14 And so we really had to keep that weight budget low.

7:17 At one point we were 100% over budget.

7:20 We estimated originally it was going to be 140 tons.

7:23 That was way more than we were allowed.

7:26 Through careful engineering and some material changes,

7:29 we were able to cut 70 tons of steel out of our design,

7:33 and that was a huge challenge and a real milestone for us.

7:38 The space that we're standing in has guest staterooms on either side.

7:41 We don't have anything like this on any of our other ships,

7:43 so we had to design it completely from scratch.

7:47 When you look at it from the upper decks, it really still feels like a garden.

7:50 There's a little stream that runs through.

7:52 You can enter it from behind the castle,

7:54 or you can enter it from behind the stage.

7:56 It has to work from a lot of different angles.

8:03 This garden, which is not any one specific story,

8:06 it's probably meant to be your story.

8:09 We wanted it to be a place where your adventures could begin.

8:21 We're here on board the Disney Adventure at the Imagination Garden stage.

8:26 This kind of venue is going to give us an opportunity to really expand

8:29 the kind of storytelling and the immersion we're going to create for our guests.

8:33 We've got 5.5 million beautiful, individually tested pixels.

8:39 It's crazy that it's almost 30ft from here,

8:41 all the way to the top of the screen with a wraparound almost 50ft as well.

8:45 It's bigger than any screen we've done before on any stage in the DCL fleet.

8:49 It's different than all of our other ships too,

8:51 because we're inside the canyon space instead of the deck

8:54 stage where it's all up on the upper deck.

8:55 We had to completely start from scratch to redesign how the show looks,

8:59 while still wanted to honor those original design concepts

9:02 of how the show feels when you're watching it.

9:04 Oh yeah, look at that great transition right there.

9:07 We need something that will be it right during the day.

9:10 Durable enough to withstand outside conditions.

9:13 Heat, cold, potential rain.

9:15 All these variables we have to take into account.

9:18 sometimes confines limitations,

9:19 really come up with the most creative ideas and the most

9:22 clever solutions around the problem to create a show,

9:25 to find a fun solution to a difficult problem.

9:28 Exactly.

9:31 Most stages the speakers are on the outside,

9:33 but we wanted to do something completely different here.

9:36 We decided to go behind the screen so that we

9:38 could hide it and make it really magical and really immersive.

9:42 So this is our right array of speakers.

9:44 There's 27 modules in a total of 81,

9:47 and there's 2400 individual speakers, in all of them.

9:50 Takes up almost two decks of space.

9:53 On this frame that moves back and forth here behind the LED screen.

9:57 And it's what's called a mesh LED or a transparent LED,

10:00 where every other row of the pixels on the screen is not there,

10:04 giving the audio a chance to pass through the screen.

10:07 I mean, as you can see here,

10:08 every other row of pixels is removed, giving us that mesh LED look.

10:12 And it's kind of crazy how large the pixels are when you this close to it.

10:15 And the guests are none the wiser when they're that far away,

10:18 it just looks like a crystal-clear image

10:20 and the speaker is hidden right behind it.

10:22 It comes through all of those spaces, and it sounds really fantastic.

10:26 One of the really exciting challenges we had is the way the audio works,

10:30 because this place is different.

10:31 Having guests state rooms immediately adjacent to the stage,

10:34 we really wanted to be able to control the audio.

10:36 That's why we have such a specific beamforming set of speakers.

10:39 It's able to focus the audio exactly where we want,

10:42 but we also are using a system where

10:43 the characters and performers can wear headphones while we're rehearsing.

10:47 It's crazy to think how all this technology and storytelling came

10:50 from a literal napkin sketch created by an Imagineer and years later,

10:54 this is what it's turned into.

10:56 We say here at Disney, we make magic like,

10:58 this is the magic that we're making right now.

11:04 We're up here above the garden stage and we're about to fly some performers.

11:09 This technology was developed to fly

11:12 a performer anywhere in the garden stage area.

11:15 Our other ships can just do the 2D flight.

11:17 Right.

11:18 X Y axis.

11:18 That's it.

11:19 And we're like, no, no,

11:20 we want to get the audience involved, Especially with the balconies here.

11:23 The guests that are in those balconies can feel

11:25 like they're even more a part of that show.

11:27 It's almost like a meet and greet.

11:28 Yeah, they’ll all probably meet and greet in mid-air.

11:30 Yeah, in midair.

11:31 Yeah.

11:32 Being able to fly the performer in any range

11:34 out from the garden to the stage area is impressive.

11:37 Yeah, and new for us.

11:41 I think the biggest challenge was the physical aspect of it.

11:45 The winches for this are huge.

11:48 It doesn't fit through any door.

11:49 So something we had to do is kind of peel off the ceiling,

11:52 kind of like a tin can of tuna and drop

11:54 the winch in there and then seal it back up.

11:57 There is potential for expanding the system later.

12:00 However, if we decided to put it another winch,

12:02 we have to do that all over again.

12:04 Need tension on it first...

12:05 right?

12:05 Another one of the challenges we had was when you do rigging,

12:08 the deeper your bridle is,

12:10 the less weight is being pulled on the facility, on the winches, etc.

12:15 and as you pull that bridle up higher, it puts more attention on there.

12:19 For an example where the bridle is at its highest,

12:21 we're putting 500% of the performers weight on each leg.

12:25 So we had to design a system that could withstand that.

12:28 And going into that performer, our first thing that we always factor

12:31 into all these systems is performer safety.

12:33 Yes.

12:34 It was probably a year and a half from design and testing,

12:38 and then we got into installation,

12:39 and then it was another six months of installation, testing, stress testing.

12:45 It's been a very long process, very challenging, very rewarding.

12:49 And it's been so cool to see performers and technicians working on this system.

12:55 I'm really excited to see this in full show,

12:57 and hopefully we can expand on this in the future.

13:02 The things I love, we're very multi-generational focused as a company.

13:07 The cruise ships do it in a way that is unique.

13:10 A typical cruise, they may have a little baby-sitting room,

13:13 could be six months old to ten year old kids.

13:15 We said with Disney we will create different age groups.

13:18 The first two ships that we have four kids clubs.

13:20 But then we realize from 12 years up to 17, that's a huge gap.

13:24 So we said we need to break it again, divide it again.

13:27 To Tween Club and the teen.

13:33 The Oceaneer Club is where all of our younger guests and as Imagineers,

13:36 when we set out designing all of these spaces,

13:39 I think we really thought about how could

13:41 we bring to life and build these really immersive,

13:43 fun places that let you just step into their favorite story.

13:48 We always think about what really makes the Disney

13:51 difference of quality and really a good touch for detail.

13:55 Ugh, just a Ranger today, but hopefully I'll be a cosmic hero soon.

14:01 In the Walt Disney Imagineering Lab, kids can spark their creativity.

14:05 We've built spaces for kids to collaborate

14:07 with one another and be inspired by it.

14:09 Some of our own props that we use in our parks worldwide.

14:12 The Imagineering lab, that is exactly where you would have found me.

14:15 I grew up on those Imagineer That!

14:17 specials, and this is like stepping right in to one of those yourself.

14:22 This is one of our largest Oceaneer Clubs in the fleet.

14:25 We cannot wait for our guests to see all of our hard

14:28 work and dedication and love for detail that we put into it.

14:37 As you guys know, Black Panther is one of my favorite superheroes,

14:41 so I was super excited to get into this because,

14:44 this activator is unique to the Disney adventure.

14:46 We don't see it on any other ships.

14:49 What brought us to create the storyline was

14:51 how we can get our young guests to be part of the Wakandan Outreach unit and how

14:56 would we eventually incorporate Black Panther King T’Challa himself.

14:59 So we got with our scriptwriter and decided we're going to do some lab testing.

15:03 Throughout the room, there's going to be these boxes that are hidden

15:07 and the kids have to find them and inside is a crystal.

15:11 So I'll put them all together,

15:12 which will then activate the activator and turn on all the lighting.

15:17 The activator as a whole is fully pixel mappable and RGBW controlled,

15:22 but one of the challenges we were having was figuring out

15:25 what the glyphs were going to look like in the space.

15:28 We only had blueprints at the start,

15:31 so we weren't sure what obstructions we may or may not have in the space.

15:34 So we went through multiple tests regarding

15:36 how the light source would impact those projections.

15:43 The combination of your lighting elements, along with audio design,

15:47 the aural landscape that's going to really enhance things,

15:50 to really kind of make this pulse and ignite.

15:54 Black Panther has created a core memory for me,

15:57 and I'm hoping it does so for all of these kids.

16:05 Another innovation was the rotational dining.

16:08 Yes, it's a typical experience.

16:10 Then, your table is always assigned that table for the entire cruise.

16:14 But we had Disney.

16:15 We make a Disney restaurant.

16:16 Well that's it.

16:17 We're trying to create the magic.

16:18 And we also know what our parts that are cast members are among the highest,

16:21 if not the highest rated part of a Disney theme park.

16:24 We found that the crew, especially the ones who serve at the restaurants, yes,

16:27 do the same thing on the ships

16:29 because you might go to three different restaurants.

16:30 Yes, but your server follows you.

16:32 Exactly.

16:32 That’s a first!

16:33 They get to know you the first night,

16:35 and then they're with you on the journey the whole time.

16:37 It's that high touch moments with our cast members,

16:40 because they're just so good at what they do.

16:42 Yes!

16:42 That detail is classic.

16:46 One of the great things about Animator's Palate is that families

16:49 can come in here and sit and have a meal,

16:52 but also to enjoy animation and participate in animation.

16:55 When the guests first walks into the restaurant,

16:57 they're presented with a placemat says draw your own character.

17:00 The waiter will pick up all the drawings

17:03 and they're taken into what we call the vetting room.

17:05 We scan them in thousand per seating,

17:08 and then they'll see your character come to life on the big screen.

17:12 We could read the zones.

17:13 We know where people are going to be,

17:14 so they're always going to see their drawings.

17:17 The characters are animated by actual Disney animators.

17:20 We simply are replacing the drawing that was originally

17:23 there with the drawing that, that the guest makes.

17:26 When the guest draws on the placemat, it becomes an extension of themselves.

17:29 They get to star next to their favorite Disney character.

17:33 These are just what I need to whip up a little animation magic.

17:38 It's amazing how much technology behind the walls

17:40 and we managed to make it disappear.

17:43 Fiber cables.

17:45 Control cables.

17:46 More than 100 monitors, 24 video tracks, 1.96 billion pixels!

17:51 Each TV can be color adjusted individually, remotely.

17:54 So this is one is for this restaurant.

17:57 There's so many servers,

17:58 there's so many screens across the entire restaurant that everything

18:01 has to be in perfect sync at all times.

18:03 Add a touch of a button,

18:04 we can control what the overall look of the restaurant is.

18:08 When you walk in everything just looks like a gallery.

18:11 But by the end of the show, whoa!

18:13 Then you have this big transformation.

18:16 Wow!

18:17 I started back in 2011 when we're building Fantasy at that time.

18:21 Fantasy was the first time, Animation Magic, the show, be introduced to public.

18:26 Back then the technology was limited.

18:28 You essentially you have 16 types of information.

18:31 Newer technologies make you feel like you're a part of that feel.

18:35 Completely immersed.

18:36 It’s a unique combination of eating and drawing and animating.

18:41 And at the end of the meal, they see their drawings from the life.

18:43 And it's a very emotional, and fun experience.

18:47 Every show on every class of ship we have is a different, unique experience.

18:54 It's been very gratifying working on this project for so long.

18:57 It started 20 years ago when we first went

18:59 to New York and came up with this idea.

19:02 To see it evolve, and hopefully will continue to evolve in the future.

19:11 Fireworks are so quintessentially associated with Disney.

19:15 We're famous for our Kiss Goodnight at the Parks.

19:18 We know that the Kiss Goodnight is so much part

19:21 of a Disney experience as defined by our theme parks.

19:24 I could hear everybody going, we have to have fireworks, right?

19:27 But it's on a cruise ship.

19:29 You all pioneered on the cruise ship.

19:31 The fireworks.

19:32 And we were the first ship ever.

19:33 We were still the only.

19:34 Yeah, we are always reminding ourselves.

19:37 Right?

19:37 Whatever we're doing.

19:38 What else can we add?

19:39 What else, to complete their journey.

19:43 We are on the upper decks.

19:45 I remember working with you on different ways of telling a fireworks story,

19:49 and we kept going back to The Lion King.

19:53 Why don't we just do only Lion King?

19:57 This is one of the very few times that we

20:00 will do a single story in a fireworks show.

20:02 The songs were chosen along with the narration and the themes of life,

20:08 the joyous birth, friendship, loyalty, love, deceit and then finally triumph.

20:25 This show has by far the most pieces fired off a ship.

20:29 The typical show has about 290ish pieces, where this one has about 650.

20:35 We go for about a three-minute show on all the other ships in the fleet.

20:38 This was about 12 minutes.

20:40 We came out here five months ago and started installing

20:43 those first bunkers to installing the last ones just three weeks ago.

20:46 So it was a long process, a lot of hard work.

20:49 It's the biggest ship in the fleet, which equals the biggest firework show.

20:52 The biggest crew doing it.

20:54 Just the biggest everything.

20:55 We go big here.

20:59 We can control the weather, in a way.

21:01 We can actually sail away from bad weather.

21:03 We can turn the ship.

21:04 So the wind is always blowing the smoke away from the audience.

21:09 Since the 90s, Disney Cruise Line has done fireworks.

21:12 Since I was a kid, seeing the fireworks to finally be able to do it.

21:15 It was pretty special.

21:16 to add to that legacy with the Adventure.

21:19 We both have our families here.

21:21 This whole project is kind of getting a little...

21:22 got me a little emotional.

21:23 My new child that that's here today,

21:25 and this is the first fireworks show he’s ever seen and something that created,

21:29 the medium of fireworks.

21:30 Everyone loves them.

21:30 It's just there's something about it that nothing else can really relate.

21:34 It's gorgeous.

21:34 It's emotionally impactful.

21:36 The music is the heart and soul of the show.

21:39 With the devices of orchestra and percussion and vocals

21:44 build those dramatic moments and the emotion and drive it.

21:49 And then you enhance that with the way

21:52 you used and arranged the Nouveau Youth Choir.

21:57 It's on songs that we've known for literally decades,

22:01 but we're hearing them in ways we've never heard.

22:03 How did we not do this before?

22:07 I've got a long history with The Lion King.

22:10 Started working on the original Broadway production as the assistant director.

22:15 This goes back 30 years,

22:16 so it's really meaningful for me to work with you and create

22:20 our own version of it after having that life changing experience.

22:24 And like you, it doesn't matter how many times I hear it.

22:26 It's always great.

22:28 It's a circle of life!

22:37 We have a lot of ambition for the Disney Cruise Line.

22:40 It clearly resonates with audiences around the world.

22:44 What you started has taken off

22:45 and has become a quintessential Disney experience.

22:52 The ability to go to parts of the world

22:54 where we don't have a theme park or a resort, a cruise ship can go there.

23:00 It's the qualification, all of us designer and builders.

23:03 of things we do, We don't want to rubber stamp every ship the same.

23:07 Our ship has its own personality.

23:09 That's the excitement of what we're doing with the cruise lines.

23:12 We have to make sure it's classic and triggers the memories that we

23:15 want to trigger and create the new memories for those who've never gone.

23:18 But always be modern and recognize who the passengers and guests are of today.

23:23 We continue to evolve that over time,

23:25 but you'll know it's of the lineage and it's going to have that silhouette,

23:28 much like our castles.

23:29 They can all have somewhat different shapes,

23:31 but when you just see their silhouette, you know that's a Disney castle.

23:34 The Disney cruise ships are very much the same.

23:37 I wish you all the best,

23:38 to you and to all the Imagineers and to the Disney Cruise Line.

23:42 We appreciate it, Bon Voyage!

23:43 Bon Voyage!

23:49 It has been an amazing ride.

23:52 This ship is incredible and our fleet is getting even bigger!

23:57 We are growing our fleet to 13 ships by 2031.

24:02 Right now alone, we have five ships in all phases of development.

24:07 From design all the way to construction.

24:10 Our Imagineers are redefining what's possible at sea.

24:15 We're always exploring and experimenting.

24:18 We Call It Imagineering.