Bob Weis has been shaping Disney parks for a long time, often from just out of view. If you’ve spent any time digging into the history of Tokyo DisneySea, Cars Land, or Shanghai Disney, you’ve already seen his influence without necessarily seeing his name.
Dream Chasing: My Four Decades of Success and Failure with Walt Disney Imagineering is his look back at that career. Part memoir, part behind-the-scenes history, it follows his path through four decades of projects, missteps, and big swings inside Walt Disney Imagineering.
PREMISE
Dream Chasing follows Bob Weis through four decades at Walt Disney Imagineering, tracing the projects and places that shaped his career. He moves from Anaheim to Orlando, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, and even the shipyards of Germany, offering a look at how Disney experiences come together in very different corners of the world.
As a member of the second generation of Imagineers (and later its president) Weis worked across design, leadership, and large-scale project development. His stories focus on the practical and creative challenges behind major attractions and parks, along with the setbacks that came with them. Throughout the book, he returns to a simple idea: big projects require big imagination, and the willingness to keep going even when the path isn’t smooth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
From the publisher:
Bob Weis is a dreamer who believes that if you can imagine it, you can do it. He was an Imagineer over a forty-year span, from 1980 to 2023. In those years, Bob worked on every Disney park and resort around the world. He was president of Walt Disney Imagineering from 2016 to 2022, and a Disney Global Imagineering Ambassador after that. His passion for storytelling and creative collaboration, new technologies, and for the vibrancy of the guest experience has driven him through projects from Tokyo Disneyland (and later its accompanying park, Tokyo DisneySea) and Disney Hollywood Studios to the reinvention of Disney California Adventure and on to Shanghai Disneyland. Weis also led the creative development of the new Triton class of cruise ships, the first of which was the critically acclaimed Disney Wish.Outside of Disney, Weis has served as a consultant to the Kennedy Space Center, Smithsonian, New York City’s Rockefeller Center, U. S. Navy, and Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.
MY REVIEW
As someone who is quite obviously very interested in Disney Parks history and details, I was excited to dig into this book. And for the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hearing about Weis’ career development and the lessons he gleaned from his different roles were the highlights for me; it’s amazing to see how many different hats he wore and how much creative development goes into into each project.
However, I will say the first half of the book was much more engaging than the second half. To me, it just felt like the first half went much more in-depth, and the second felt super rushed and a little more “corporate messaging for Disney” than Weis’ own perspective. But then again, maybe that’s unavoidable as someone moves up the ladder in a company and gets more and more “out of the weeds” with all things creative.
Overall though, I still recommend this book , especially if you have interest in other park projects beyond Disneyland and want to learn more about spaces that didn’t ultimately come to fruition, like “Disney Wharf” in Sydney, Australia.