Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[mikejs78]

You can't have 2 rides in say MK, Epcot and HS and only have 1 in AK though otherwise the pressure will be MUCH greater to add more E ticket attractions

Why not? Disneyland is starting with two in DCA and only one in DL...

 

[matt9112]

This isn't that much of a stretch. If I remember correctly if you were staying on club level, and you paid to get extra fast pass selections, if your ride went down, that fast pass was converted to a open fast pass, any ride any time, you didn't get a refund.

I believe thats a different scenario from an optics point of view. That was such a sliver of people. This is something that is likely to be used by thousands even tens of thousands resort wide at a time.

It's all about noise. If theres alot of it disney will respond. If not than they wont.

 

[el_super]

Other large companies can handle holding/delaying transactions. Buying an ILL could simply work in a way that your card isnt charged until you tap in or your return time lapses. If the ride is down in your return time, you are given a new time or opportunity to cancel. If the ride is down for the rest of the day, the charge never happens.

They can't make it too easy to cancel because there needs to be some disincentive to ensure that people are not making reservations that they are only partially keen to keeping/paying for. If people book reservations they don't intend to keep, Disney ends up out of money at the end of the day, and other people who may have wanted a reservation are unable to get one. It's not really much different than the dinging reservation fees they had posted previously.

I do agree that a ride breakdown is a different scenario, but I can see that they are hard to program a process around. At the time that a breakdown starts, there can be a lot of uncertainty as to whether it will take 1 hour to resolve or 10 hours to resolve. So an automatic refunding wouldn't make sense either.

 

[mikejs78]

If enough people pony up, I could see them adding more and more attractions to ILL. It’s too easy of a cash grab for them to resist. The pay for play future has only just begun.

I don't think so. The demand for most ILL yesterday was low, outside of a couple. They're going to have to balance how much moving attractions to ILL will result in a loss of Genie+ sales.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

It shouldn't be the same because not everybody will pay for Genie+ or LL, which means all lines, paid or unpaid, should be shorter.

The lines will move faster, but there's no reason to believe they will be shorter. Not everyone will pay for Genie+, but the people who don't pay will just end up in the standby lines.

 

[MisterPenguin]

it is for your cash.

I've acknowledged in another post that I agree. It isn't cash. And if you never ever buy any Disney merch, food, or tickets ever again until the day you die, then you'll never be able to recover that nine dollars trapped in the form of a Disney gift card. It's horrible.

But you know, you should have read the fine print: Lorem ipsum.

 

[fgmnt]

They can't make it too easy to cancel because there needs to be some disincentive to ensure that people are not making reservations that they are only partially keen to keeping/paying for. If people book reservations they don't intend to keep, Disney ends up out of money at the end of the day, and other people who may have wanted a reservation are unable to get one. It's not really much different than the dinging reservation fees they had posted previously.

I do agree that a ride breakdown is a different scenario, but I can see that they are hard to program a process around. At the time that a breakdown starts, there can be a lot of uncertainty as to whether it will take 1 hour to resolve or 10 hours to resolve. So an automatic refunding wouldn't make sense either.

Oh, I think in this case you would not be allowed to cancel the initial reservation. You have doubly bound yourself to receive the service by getting the park reservation and the ILL, like how you agree to ride DC metrorail by tapping in then boarding a train, or ordering food from the chick fil app and checking in at the drive thru. If Disney can't provide the service at your scheduled time, that is the first time they should provide an off ramp to back out of the transaction. If you agree to an anytime return ticket, as long as the ride is operating at some point the rest of the day, no refund.

 

[LovePop]

Disney needs to charge more for RotR so that availability at least make it to early evening. That was the whole point of LL, to make high demand rides more available to guests all day long. Or even have a 2 tier option: in the morning, distribute cheap LL to people who get up early, but reserve some (20%) expensive ones that's available all day to guests who want to pay extra for it.

 

[mikejs78]

Oh, I think in this case you would not be allowed to cancel the initial reservation. You have doubly bound yourself to receive the service by getting the park reservation and the ILL, like how you agree to ride DC metrorail by tapping in then boarding a train, or ordering food from the chick fil app and checking in at the drive thru. If Disney can't provide the service at your scheduled time, that is the first time they should provide an off ramp to back out of the transaction. If you agree to an anytime return ticket, as long as the ride is operating at some point the rest of the day, no refund.

They should grant you an anytime experience to any attraction at any park for equal or lesser value - so if you, say, had dinner reservations at Epcot you could decide to do Rat instead, even though it's not equivalent. But that's your choice to accept or not. Otherwise, refund.

But yes, if Rise comes back and you don't use your anytime experience for something, you're out of luck.

 

[JohnD]

I think when the dust settles all the wait times will be the same as when we had FastPass +

The wait times when using DG+ and ILL will be the same as they were for FastPass + and the standby wait times will be the same as what they were with FastPass +

The only difference, Disney is now making money for something that was previously free.

I'm not so sure. FP+ allowed every resort guest 60 days out and non-resort guests 30 days out to pick 3 FP+ reservations in advance then to add one rolling FP after the first three. Add all those up for every guest on every day. That's a lot of reservations prior to arrival. Is it any wonder that Standby was so long. Genie+ and ILL is only allowed day of. I don't think wait times will be anywhere as near as with FP+ but we could reasonably assume standby wait times would go up somewhat because there is a ride reservation system in place at all.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Disney needs to charge more for RotR so that availability at least make it to early evening. That was the whole point of LL, to make high demand rides more available to guests all day long.

Yes, that's the whole model. They'll need some time to adjust to demand and get better at forecasting it, and then the variable pricing will kick in.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I'm not so sure. FP+ allowed every resort guest 60 days out and non-resort guests 30 days out to pick 3 FP+ reservations in advance. Add all those up for every guest on every day. That's a lot of reservations prior to arrival. Is it any wonder that Standby was so long. Genie+ and ILL is only allowed day of. I don't think wait times will be anywhere as near as with FP+ but we could reasonably assume standby wait times would go up somewhat because there is a ride reservation system in place at all.

Standby lines will be almost exactly the same. They will *move faster* but there will be more people in them.

 

[JohnD]

Standby lines will be almost exactly the same. They will *move faster* but there will be more people in them.

Same as what? As just a few days ago before Genie+ or with FP+. Those wait times are like night and day. Standby would be up to three times as long with FP+.

 

[LovePop]

If enough people pony up, I could see them adding more and more attractions to ILL. It’s too easy of a cash grab for them to resist. The pay for play future has only just begun.

I don't believe Disney will add more attractions to ILL except for new and popular rides. Any attraction that isn't getting money from ILL will be be soon taken off and added to Genie+. Unfortunately, ILL may incentivize Disney to build new rides that are low capacity, forcing long lines and high ILL income.

 

[mightynine]

I've acknowledged in another post that I agree. It isn't cash. And if you never ever buy any Disney merch, food, or tickets ever again until the day you die, then you'll never be able to recover that nine dollars trapped in the form of a Disney gift card. It's horrible.

I'm starting to be concerned that some of you only go to Disney solo, because the amount that could end up being refunded is always spoken as just one person. And you know what? I probably wouldn't make a big deal over $7 to $15 - if it's just me.

But once you start talking about a family of 4 where you're now talking up to $60 (and higher for larger groups), on a vacation where I've already laid out a couple grand, and the company is charging me for access to something that used to be complimentary, yes - I might not be satisfied with the solution of "Here's a card so you can just give us that money again." At that point, I might not be in the mood to give you any more money than I already have.

But if you're fine with "I didn't get the service I paid for, but they gave me store credit so I can get a couple of ice cream bars or pay for half of my quick service meal", hey, you do you.

 

[Waters Back Side]

I don't believe Disney will add more attractions to ILL except for new and popular rides. Any attraction that isn't getting money from ILL will be be soon taken off and added to Genie+. Unfortunately, ILL may incentivize Disney to build new rides that are low capacity, forcing long lines and high ILL income.

They might not add any more but the parks will always have 2 and they will probably swap them between Genie + tier and ILLs based on demand, etc. I can see as soon as Christmas week them switching SDD and MMRR.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Same as what? As just a few days ago before Genie+ or with FP+. Those wait times are like night and day. Standby would be up to three times as long with FP+.

This is a myth that has been disproven over and over and over and over again.

If the average guest is willing to wait 45 minutes to ride Space Mountain, the Space Mountain standby queue is going to build up to 45 minutes until it hits equilibrium. It doesn't matter what other skip-the-line systems are in place.

 

[Jay & Sue]

Is anyone else as amused as I am that Disney expects you to stand in a line (at guest relations) to get a fake refund for something that was supposed to help you avoid standing in a line?

Maybe they could let you cut that line at guest relations if you are willing to settle for half of a fake refund.

Maybe Disney will have a LL at guest relations that you pay extra for to get your refund. Of course, you would have to pay say $10 to get your $7 refund.

 

[LovePop]

I don't think so. The demand for most ILL yesterday was low, outside of a couple. They're going to have to balance how much moving attractions to ILL will result in a loss of Genie+ sales.

Disney needs to move all ILL with low demand to Genie+, and move all Genie+ rides with high demand to ILL, regardless of where the rides are located, or how many ILLs there are. And charge ILLs by exactly how high the demand is. Disney is worried about hurting a park's feelings if it doesn't have enough ILL rides compared to another park, but that worry is unfounded because the parks are different anyway. Some parks have far more rides than others, nobody is judging the parks by how many ILLs they have, or how expensive the ILLs are. If the ILLs are properly assigned, both guests and Disney can get the most out of the system.

 

[LovePop]

The lines will move faster, but there's no reason to believe they will be shorter. Not everyone will pay for Genie+, but the people who don't pay will just end up in the standby lines.

By "shorter" I mean shorter wait time, not necessarily the lines themselves.