New toy buddy helps you around the parks
The new tour guide at Walt Disney World does not wear a plaid vest.
He may only be nine inches tall, but Pal Mickey reaches new heights for
the WDW visitor.
Pal Mickey is available for sale or rental at the parks and resort hotels.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
Pal Mickey reminds you about parade and show times, tells you where you
can meet his character friends, and entertains you with trivia, games
and really, really corny jokes as you wait in line. He's a new talking
toy available for rent or sale at the parks and resort hotels at Walt
Disney World. We purchased the toy on a trip to WDW in May, and put him
through his paces in all four parks during trips in May and June.
The toy is soft outside, hi-tech inside.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
The one-pound plush character is wired with touch sensors in his hands
and tummy, and a speaker box inside the head. An infrared receptor in
his hard plastic nose detects and reads transmitters strategically located
in the four parks. There are over 300 transmitters in the Magic Kingdom
alone; some are in plain sight, while others are very well-hidden. We
spent most of our first day with Pal Mickey trying to spot every transmitter
he reacted to.
A new Pal Mickey gets it's first upload.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
When you first purchase or rent Pal Mickey, a cast member activates and
updates his memory. He also receives an update each time he passes through
a main gate turnstile. The updates tell Pal Mickey where he is, and provide
him with the day's entertainment notes for that park. Pal Mickey can sense
where he is going, so the infrared sensor can read the transmitters.
Although Pal Mickey comes with a belt clip, we discovered that he's really
hard to hear when clipped to a belt. A new backpack purchased at the Emporium
provided the perfect solution — it had a D-ring on each shoulder
strap where we could comfortably clip him. It was much easier to hear
him from this position, and we were not constantly moving him from our
belts. Other Pal Mickey owners complained that the clip on their toy broke
or lost its grip after several days use.
Pal Mickey has three main operating modes: Information, jokes, and games.
When Pal Mickey detects a transmitter, he shakes and giggles. You squeeze
his hands or tummy within 15 seconds to hear what he has to tell you —
usually a factoid or trivia about something nearby. For example, as you
walk onto Main Street U.S.A., Mickey might tell you about the names on
the windows. Passing an exhibit at Animal Kingdom, he might encourage
you to head down a particular trail to meet a distant relative of his.
Strolling through the MGM backlot, he'll tell you if a character is signing
autographs nearby. Mickey repeats each message up to five times on request,
which is great if you are in a noisy area.
Pal Mickey receives signals from these transmitters, placed strategically
around the theme parks.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
One of Mickey's jobs is to warn you of height limits as you approach
a ride. As we walked through Tomorrowland, he said, "Say pal, if
you're 42 inches or taller, we can ride on Space Mountain," then
offered an alternative of the Rocket Jets for children who are too small
for Space Mountain.
He has a strong sense of self-preservation, and reminds you to put him
someplace safe when you get near water play areas, or on wet rides.
Mickey often has a comment after a ride. For example, he asks you to
make sure he didn't lose an ear to Emperor Zurg's laser after you ride
Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.
Pal Mickey is supposed to alert you to especially short wait times for
popular attractions, however, although we visited on several fairly quiet
days, we only experienced that particular feature once. As we were walking
to our car from MGM, Mickey told us about a short line for Star Tours.
We noticed one afternoon that the stand-by line for the popular Buzz Lightyear's
Space Ranger Spin was just 10 minutes, but Mickey never uttered a peep.
Pal Mickey might encourage you to pull on this rope near the Indiana Jones
stunt show entrance.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
Pal Mickey reminds you of upcoming parades and larger shows, and even
suggests ideal viewing areas. Some of these responses are triggered by
nearby transmitters. As you walk around the World Showcase, Mickey points
out several good spots to catch Illuminations. Of course, if Pal Mickey
is recommending a spot for viewing Illuminations to you, he is probably
recommending the same spot to everyone else who has him. This could cause
congestion and traffic issues in these areas.
Other comments seem to be set by a timer, and do not even require you
to be in the park. Fellow passengers were greatly amused when Mickey reminded
us that the parade was about to start, as we were sitting at Orlando International
Airport waiting to board our flight home. On our first trip, Pal Mickey
was fairly selective about what shows he told us about. He told us about
parades, but smaller acts — like the taiko drummers in the Japan
pavilion — slipped his attention. Since this is a toy for children,
we assumed that it really focused on princesses and character appearances.
On our second trip around Epcot a month later, Mickey chattered all day
about various entertainment offerings, including the taiko drummers.
Occasionally, Mickey just giggles because he wants to tell you a joke.
You can also prompt him to do so by squeezing a hand or his tummy. When
you're in a theme park, the jokes are area-specific. The jokes in Tomorrowland
or Epcot's Future World are often about astronauts and spaceships, while
the jokes in Animal Kingdom tend to be about animals and insects. When
he is not in a park, Mickey randomly chooses from his 200-joke memory.
These jokes were apparently written with 7-year olds in mind. For example:
“Why did Dumbo leave the circus? Because they made him work for peanuts.”
They don't get much better — you have been warned.
When the toy speaks up in a store, it's usually just to point out something
interesting in the decor.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
When you squeeze both hands at the same time, Pal Mickey offers you a
choice of three games. In "That's Not Here," Mickey lists 20
shows and attractions, and you squeeze his hands to indicate if that show
or attraction is in the specified park or not. Again, when you are in
a park, the game relates to that park. Otherwise, Mickey randomly selects
a park for the game.
“Mickey Says” is a variation on Simon Says, where you squeeze
Pal Mickey's hands and tummy according to the spoken directions. During
“Fast Friends,” Mickey names certain characters, and there are
specified responses for each. For example, Pal Mickey may tell you to
squeeze his tummy whenever he says “Goofy,” and squeeze his
right hand whenever he names a character that can fly.
You can purchase Pal Mickey for about $50, or rent him for around $9
a day. Each resort hotel and theme park has a designated store equipped
to handle sales, rentals, returns and the occasional minor repair. If
your Mickey has “forgotten” where he is, or doesn't appear to
have been updated that day, you can take him in for a quick download.
You can also return a rented Pal Mickey to any of these stores —
no need to go back to the location where you rented him.
The toy needs to see where it's going, so you are encouraged to wear it
on your belt. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
When we first heard about Pal Mickey, the obvious image of horror-movie
dolls came to mind. At the very least, we expected Pal Mickey to remind
us that we had not purchased a churro in several hours, and beg us to
find him some nicer clothing at the nearby gift shop. [Cast members report
that Pal Mickey owners have already asked for pin lanyards and T-shirts
to personalize their doll, with rain ponchos being the most-requested
item.]
Indeed, one of the first things Pal Mickey told us about at MGM was the
giant figure of Gertie the Dinosaur, which just so happened to double
as an ice cream stand. After we completed our ride through The Land, Mickey
invited us to learn more about the greenhouses by taking an $8 guided
tour. Fortunately, Mickey really wasn't programmed as a sales mouse. Never
once did the words “pin trading” escape his plush lips, and
he pretty much ignores the shops. When he does pipe up inside a store,
it's simply to point out something interesting in the décor.
There are still a few problems with Pal Mickey. One cast member said,
“There are still a few Flicks and Attas in the system, if you know
what I mean.” The bugs are minor, and some of the things that users
report as problems are actually intentional. For example, Pal Mickey does
not react to the same information transmitter twice, with a few exceptions.
If you switch him off, you can reset his memory so he “forgets”
where he has been. He also resets after several hours in a park, when
you visit a new park, or when he experiences certain attractions. Because
his jokes are tied to a specific part of each park, he tends to tell the
same ones over and over again until you move to a new section of the park.
The same five jokes get really stale during a 90-minute wait for Rock
'n' Roller Coaster.
Take the mouse's advice - the behind-the-scenes tour at Epcot's The Land
is pretty interesting. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
Some attractions use infrared technology that can disrupt Pal Mickey's
operation. After riding Test Track for the first time, Pal Mickey refused
to function at all — he couldn't receive signals, tell jokes, or
play games. Fearing that he was somehow damaged, we turned him off and
on again, removed his batteries, and finally took him to the Pal Mickey
doctors. They gave him a new upload, and he was fine for the rest of the
day. When we rode Test Track the next day, Mickey needed almost 20 minutes
before he could speak again, and he did not know what park he was in until
we passed a transmitter.
The Tomorrowland Transit Authority (People Mover) also affects the toy,
but for a much shorter duration. On our return trip, Pal Micky not only
worked perfectly as we exited Test Track, but he even had a parting comments
after the ride.
Pal Mickey is not supposed to function on some rides, which might explain
his refusal to speak while on the People Mover. Yet he has no problem
telling jokes or announcing show times during rides like Ellen's Energy
Adventure or Alien Encounter. Pal Mickey also reacts to something inside
the American Adventure show — several owners have compained that
their toy was malfunctioning during the show. When we visited, Pal Mickey
giggled so much through the last 10 minutes of the show that we finally
turned him off.
Mickey can miss a transmission or even catch the wrong signal because
of some odd placement of transmitters. For example, while we walked through
Epcot's England pavilion, Mickey told us all about a statue in the Germany
pavillion, and then invited us to join Aladdin and Jasmine in Morocco
for storytelling. Mickey did not receive his update as we entered Animal
Kingdom, and did not know what park we were in until we reached the Harambe
section. Cast members said that Animal Kingdom is one of the more challenging
parks, and has several known problems.
The daily upload provides Mickey with current showtimes, so he won't
inadvertently tell you about Fantasmic on a day when the show is not performing,
but he seem not to know about attraction closures. As we walked through
Fantasyland, Pal Mickey told us all about the Heffalumps and Woozels inside
the Many Adventure of Winnie the Pooh ride, which was closed for rehab.
If Pal Mickey loses his memory, you can take him for a quick upload.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
In the near future, Pal Mickey will be able to remind you of your Priority
Seating times. Guest Relations will be able to download your schedule
to the toy, and he will know how much warning to give you based on where
you currently are in the resort. Cast members said that Pal Mickey may
soon remind you of your Fastpass return times, alert you when you can
get another one, suggest things to do while you wait, and could even become
your Fastpass ticket: Just wave his nose at the ride entrance, and away
you go.
Mickey is currently learning foreign languages, and a Spanish-speaking
version should be available in about six months. By this time next year,
Pal Minnie and Pal Goofy should join Pal Mickey on store shelves. Expansion
plans for the transmitter network includes the monorail and the resort
hotels, and even the Disney cruise ships. If the program is successful
in Florida, it can eventually expand to Disneyland and the other Disney
resorts.
Although Pal Mickey is designed for children, a great many of the people
purchasing the toy are adults without children in their household. Some
buy the unit for grandchildren, but most are just playing with it themselves.
In the first few days after the toy was made available at the theme parks,
we saw dozens of couples carting around the plush, but only a handful
had children.
We were frequently stopped and questioned about the toy by park visitors.
The most common question was, “Does it get boring after a while?”
Honestly, we never reached a point where we wanted to stuff Mickey back
into his box. Even as Disney park regulars, Pal Mickey had enough interesting
material to keep us entertained during our week with him. We did, however,
start to ignore him on our third trip up Main Street. [Yes Mickey, we
know all about the Roy and Minnie statue…]
We discovered that Mickey is easier to carry and hear when clipped to
the strap of a backpack. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
After a few days, we began taking less-traveled paths through the parks,
trying to find a new transmitter, or something Mickey had yet to tell
us about. It seems that the toy's designers worked to avoid Mickey from
getting too stale too fast. If you were to play all of the prerecorded
statements in a Pal Mickey end to end, it would add up to over 2.5 hours
of talking, without repeating once.
Cast members say that Pal Mickey can also learn new messages via the
transmitters and through the update process in the stores. Mickey even
tells follow-up jokes, something that really surprised us when we encountered
one. And for a child's toy, Pal Mickey has a surprising sense of humor.
Llisten to him grouse about not having his name on a Main Street window,
or about daylight saving's time.
Almost everyone we spoke with wanted to know if we thought the toy was
worth it. In a word, yes. We spent a little over $100 for Pal Mickey and
related accoutrements: $50 for the toy, $40 for the backpack to clip him
onto, and $16 for those guided tour tickets, and we still found him worth
the investment. If you are touring the parks with children, Pal Mickey
can probably keep them entertained through the longest line, although
you may want to cringe at the jokes.
Disney employees, many of whom had only just learned about Pal Mickey
from their daily briefings, were anxious to see the toy in action. The
trainers on the Pal Mickey implementation team had been instructed to
solicit feedback from everyone they saw carrying the toy. We were approached
at every park, and most CMs made detailed notes of our comments.
Stacks of Pal Mickeys wait for their new owners.
Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
The biggest drawback to Pal Mickey is that he only provides one-way communication.
He is a true tour guide, and you are on his schedule. You cannot ask Mickey
where the nearest restroom is, or what the wait time for Splash Mountain
looks like, or if there will be fireworks tomorrow night. For that, you
still need a park map and a quick trip to the information board. We want
an adult version of Pal Mickey that will provide a truly interactive information
source.
When you rent or buy Pal Mickey, you join a small club of mouse-wearing
fans. Owners nod as they pass one another in the park, and compare notes
about what the toy can do. Some people brag about Pal Mickey like they
do their grandchildren. One woman swore that, after her third trip on
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, her Mickey announced “I really don't want
to go on that again!”
In fact, my Mickey did something that no cast member could explain. Walking
through the Morocco pavilion, I passed a Guest Relations cast member who
was carrying a Pal Mickey. I noticed that the cast member's name badge
said he was from Paris, France. I smiled at him as I walked past, and
he squeezed his Mickey's hand. My Mickey giggled and shook, and then told
me how to say “hello” — in French. Surprised, I
turned around and asked the cast member if my Mickey was reacting to his.He
just smiled and walked away.
Disney magic, or a poorly aimed transmitted from the France pavilion?
We may never know.
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