An interesting product placement deal from Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), where its phones will now become part of the Disney’s theme parks from now on, thus extending beyond its deal with Disney-owned ESPN (NYSE: DIS). As part of this new deal, VZW phones will have the ability to find restaurants, see where Disney characters are hanging out, or check on the availability of attractions in the Disneyland or Disney World resorts, reports DJN. Visitors can also get SMS from the characters, and access special Disney mobile games.

At first, these will be on specially developed VZW handsets, but will eventually be more interoperable across all handsets for the carrier. The two are also working to get standard park information such as show times to all mobile phones regardless of carrier, which could be a mobile site or app. Initially the app will only work for Walt Disney World in Orlando, and Disneyland in Anaheim, CA and will add more resorts later.

This is an exclusive multi-year deal, and also as part of it, Verizon has agreed to boost network capacity and coverage within the Disney theme parks to ensure optimal coverage and performance of its service, reports News.com, which sounds like a bit of favoritism to me and probably won’t please other carriers.

Not that this will help add any major additional VZW subscriber base, but at least will get existing users using more of their phone service, and perhaps even help in trials which result in conversion down the line…

Photo Credit: OneofThem