A Disney Legend just gave major props to a Disney rival!

Universal Orlando’s Epic Universe will celebrate its first full year of operation in May 2026, and the new theme park has been lauded as a massive achievement in the theme park industry. While tons of people have already gotten to experience the new theme park, Disney Legend and famous Imagineer Joe Rohde has yet to visit(as of this writing). Still, Rohde got to sit in on a special panel featuring the park’s creators and left incredibly impressed!

Joe Rhode was a veteran executive at Walt Disney Imagineering and still maintains a high level of influence within the company, as well as the theme park industry as a whole. This Disney Legend was the executive designer and creative lead for notable projects such as Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Pandora — The World of Avatar, Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa, and Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout! — among having his fingerprints on several other big-time projects.

In November, Rohde took to Instagram and shared that he was invited by famous entertainment designer Bob Rogers to his annual legends dinner. He noted that “most of the participants in this dinner were the creative executives responsible” for Epic Universe.

“Eric Parr, Jody Keller, Katy Pacitti, Steve Blum, together with moderator Bob Rogers, did an excellent job of describing the management theory that underlay this impressive accomplishment. To be clear, I have not yet seen the park, but I was happy to just listen to them talk about their method.”

Rohde noted some talking points that stood out, such as the idea that each land was shaped like a cul de sac. He wrote, “A point I consider very important, which we tried to do with Disney’s Animal Kingdom, the simple notion that a Park is first a park… not a frantic highway of people rushing to and fro to try to ping off hyped up attractions. Not based on huge mega draws… but on a whole mixture of small intimate interactions, the value of which cannot be measured using typical metrics.”

The idea that if you promise something, you’d better deliver. A quote from the dinner included, “If you have a land about dragons there better be dragons.”

Rohde also wrote, “Regarding value engineering … several pointed comments around this … most importantly what exactly is value? The very rational assertion that the power to reallocate money to ‘engineer value’ should reside in the design team.”

He was also left impressed by the team management structure. “Many people are multitalented and most teams want multitalented people. So a truly integrated team messes with the silos by which we measure performance. Customize the treatment of each person … there is no such thing as a generic person, nor a generic method of design.”

Ultimately, the idea that creativity should reign supreme left a big impression on Rohde. “Refuse to stay in the boxes that HR wants you to.
*Our (executive) job is not to say no. Our job is to say How?”

Rodhe concluded his post, saying, “The audience was full of young people ready to listen. Someday they will be ready to act. And yesterday they got plenty of good advice.”

Have you visited Epic Universe yet? What did you think of the new theme park? Let us know in the comments, and continue to follow us here at DFB for all the latest Disney updates!

Disney Legend Joe Rohde Shares What Goes Into Creating a NEW Land at Disney World!

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