Behind Disney's 'Experiences,' a Secret 3K-Person Team

Disney thought it scored a bargain cruise ship—then its secretive design wizards blew up the budget. The company paid $40 million for a half-finished gambling vessel, expecting to spend about $1 billion to convert it into a family ship. Once Walt Disney Imagineering took over, however, the retrofit turned into what one ex-"Imagineer" likened to transforming "a Honda into a Hummer." Engineers gutted the middle of the ship, punched through steel supports, enlarged kitchens, and made space for a Marvel stunt show and a dozen themed restaurants. The tab for the ship—now called the Disney Adventure—swelled to roughly $1.8 billion, and its debut in Singapore was pushed from last month to March, forcing mass refunds and rebookings.

The Adventure is the most visible example of the high-cost/high-reward bets made by Imagineering, the roughly 3,000-person unit quietly designing Disney's rides, lands, and ships. Long cloistered in unmarked buildings and bound by NDAs, Imagineers have delivered some of Disney's most enduring attractions—and some of its biggest delays and cost overruns. The division is at the center of Disney's future, and the company plans to pour $60 billion into its "experiences" business by 2033, from a new Abu Dhabi park to expanding its cruise fleet from seven ships to 13. That spending comes with new pressures. After years of projects opening late and over budget—Shanghai Disneyland and Orlando's Avatar world among them—current leadership expects tighter discipline, even as Disney insists most recent projects have come in under budget.

CEO Bob Iger and experiences chief Josh D'Amaro have turned back to a familiar figure: Bruce Vaughn, a respected Imagineering veteran who returned to lead the unit. He's decentralizing power so regional teams can move faster, bringing back retirees as mentors, and involving operations and marketing earlier so grand concepts don't collide with reality in the 11th hour. On the drawing board: free-roaming Star Wars and Frozen robots, new projection tech for animatronics, and AI tools built from seven decades of design work. Meanwhile, a Disney fan site reports on a debate over the Journal article, and how one ex-Imagineer is pushing back. More here.