Walk into Walt Disney World this month and the first thing you might hear is something the company tried to erase three years ago: the phrase Ladies and Gentlemen.
Disney has quietly restored gendered greetings to its park announcements, specifically on the Magic Kingdom Express Monorail, according to visitors who caught the change and posted video proof to X earlier this month. No press release. No announcement. The company just did it.
Park visitor @GreenCheetah99 shared a clip on April 7 noting the greeting was back. The post explained that it had been removed around 2021 when Disney moved to strip gendered language from park interactions in the name of inclusivity.
That 2021 decision became public in 2022, when journalist Chris Rufo obtained internal Disney employee meeting recordings. In one clip, Vivian Ware, then serving as the company’s diversity and inclusion manager, explained what Disney had done. Staff were retrained to use Hello, everyone or Hello, friends instead of the traditional greeting, Ware said. She also discussed removing the word princess from cast member interactions with young guests, framing the change as a way to avoid assumptions about gender identity.
Disney backed the shift with an official statement that year, saying it aimed to cultivate an environment where all people feel welcomed and where diverse views and ideas are sought after as critical contributions.
That language is quietly gone now. Disney has released no statement explaining the reversal.
The video went viral fast. Elon Musk commented that he was glad the change happened. Libs of TikTok called it a sign that the world is healing. One commenter said sanity had returned to the Magic Kingdom, arguing that the woke experiment failed and that Disney had finally heard parents who wanted magic for their kids, not lectures.
Disney has been walking back several progressive initiatives over the past year as attendance numbers softened and box office returns disappointed. This latest shift came with no fanfare. They just changed it and hoped nobody would notice.
