Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Jeff4272]

Maybe that's why refunds are apparently being issued in many cases. From the beginning the value hasn't been big in any park except MK. If it was pre-booked for every day, could there be problems issuing a refund for a portion of the trip?

You wouldnt need a refund if you could pre book Genie+ and your ride selections

 

[MisterPenguin]

5) There was one mention of Disney reducing capacity on rides but I think that was debunked vociferously by many on this forum including @MisterPenguin. He may have already called the DHS disinformation board!

That wasn't exactly me.

I pointed out that many of the rides can't be slow-loaded due to the way they are created. I think guests would be able to see and call out if Peter Pan's Flight was only loading every third ship.

Others can be slow loaded by not operating a second load station (e.g., just one coaster of Space Mountain).

Some may attribute maliciousness on the part of Disney for any such slow loading rather than the problem of bringing in the right number of staff for the right sized crowd.

With the park reservation system, Disney pretty much knows how much to staff a park for peak efficiency.

I don't know what you mean by "disinformation board."

 

[Disney Glimpses]

I know the advance planning was a common complaint among WDW guests but it sure as heck beats having to participate in the Hunger Games every morning at 7am.

 

[Jrb1979]

I know the advance planning was a common complaint among WDW guests but it sure as heck beats having to participate in the Hunger Games every morning at 7am.

Change it to when you enter the park and get rid of stacking.

 

[Jeff4272]

I know the advance planning was a common complaint among WDW guests but it sure as heck beats having to participate in the Hunger Games every morning at 7am.

Especially now that you have to have your park pre booked.........

 

[mikejs78]

Change it to when you enter the park and get rid of stacking.

Both are horrible ideas

 

[mikejs78]

Especially now that you have to have your park pre booked.........

Right, I could see the argument about spontaneity if you didn't have to pick your park in advance. But with Park reservations, why not just select your attractions?

 

[natatomic]

Yea. well my family of three APers NEVER made 7 days of FP+ 30 days out. It was usually having a look on Wednesday for a day trip on Sat. So at least we were not the APers that were eating up the Fast passes... Everybody wants to blame APers on everything, it's so easy!

Going forward, with such crappy WDW AP options, it may be not so easy to blame APers...

See, I never had an issue booking the fastpasses I wanted as a (then) CM, and we only had 7 days out! However, I never went on Saturdays, so that could be why you had more trouble than I did.

 

[pdude81]

IMO the resorts are filing now without perks. If you really want to get rid of the 7am rat race you limit sales like they are doing now but make it like MaxPass. Can't start booking til you enter the park

Now this is something they can do that would help resort guests without really making it so obvious that everyone else is SOL. The only problem I see is that if the product is limited, then it will still off X number of people that couldn't get G+ on a given day. If you can't get it, then it doesn't matter which time you can enter the park.

Very tricky regardless. You can make it so that people can't purchase until they enter the park, which might work. Then people who are rushing for short lines might forget or might just not care enough to bother. However, if it's only resort guests that get it, we still have an inherent unfairness issue with families with families who can't afford to stay on site. I'm still struggling with an acceptable way of figuring this out.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

Honestly, the best compromise above all would be the old paper FP in digital form. Go and tap your phone/MagicBand/ticket at the attraction entrance and it registers the return time on your phone. You don't like the time, you don't tap.

 

[mattpeto]

I know the advance planning was a common complaint among WDW guests but it sure as heck beats having to participate in the Hunger Games every morning at 7am.

This is not super hard:

7 Day lead time to book ILL and first Genie+. Keep the window open until your park day. If people get ToT at 3 pm (instead of their desired Slinky), at least they have time to plan the rest of their day. And it keeps them tucked in at 7 am during their actual vacation.

They are clearly not going in this direction with the changes that are coming, although I think the June change is a good one with potentially limiting Genie+ distribution.

Disney kind of put themselves in the corner a bit. They used "Tiers" to help balance out FP+ supply and demand. Now I'm guessing nobody is throwing LL out for shows anymore. This is actually making Disney have less functional FP/LL inventory. And if they reintroduce the Tiers, it makes Genie+ not worth any upcharge money. Nobody wants to pay Genie+ for a better or guaranteed seat.

Anyone remember scanning into DHS to hit Pixar 3D and Figment, to get the rolling going for better FP+?

 

[Disstevefan1]

See, I never had an issue booking the fastpasses I wanted as a (then) CM, and we only had 7 days out! However, I never went on Saturdays, so that could be why you had more trouble than I did.

BINGO, Saturdays!
Always MOBBED and that is why WDW really does not want APers in WDW on the weekends..

 

[GhostHost1000]

Honestly, the best compromise above all would be the old paper FP in digital form. Go and tap your phone/MagicBand/ticket at the attraction entrance and it registers the return time on your phone. You don't like the time, you don't tap.

No that just makes a digital rat race a physical one people rushing to certain attractions.

What if genie+ did what it was really advertised to do and let you pick the must do attractions and then it gives you a few time slots to choose for each

 

[pdude81]

This is not super hard:

7 Day lead time to book ILL and first Genie+. Keep the window open until your park day. If people get ToT at 3 pm (instead of their desired Slinky), at least they have time to plan the rest of their day. And it keeps them tucked in at 7 am during their actual vacation.

They are clearly not going in this direction with the changes that are coming, although I think the June change is a good one with potentially limiting Genie+ distribution.

Disney kind of put themselves in the corner a bit. They used "Tiers" to help balance out FP+ supply and demand. Now I'm guessing nobody is throwing LL out for shows anymore. This is actually making Disney have less functional FP/LL inventory. And if they reintroduce the Tiers, it makes Genie+ not worth any upcharge money. Nobody wants to pay Genie+ for a better or guaranteed seat.

Anyone remember scanning into DHS to hit Pixar 3D and Figment, to get the rolling going for better FP+?

What they could possibly do is only allow people to hold one of the Tier one fastpasses at a given time. So if you pulled a Slinky for 3pm, you can keep it, but you can' get a MFSR until that one is used up. However, I would strongly suggest they allow for changing based on availability rather than cancel and rebook if doing something like this. The lucky few who got an early one win out, but it would allow for some availability of decent fastpasses for guests who show up a little later in the morning. I'd couple this with making your first selection after tapping in.

 

[George]

You're referring to resort guests with planned vacations. I'm talking about people who showed up late in the game or were simply unaware of the booking windows. Big difference when you just find out about FP+ when you arrive to the park and find no availability vs. paying for it at the park and finding no availability.

And if you think that is uncommon, it's not. Tens of thousands of people still show up to the parks every day without a Park Pass despite it being plastered on every app and web page out there. Most people are informed with a fraction of the information we know.

To reinforce this very important point, I’m the lead on a 14 person family vacation this summer and not only do they not know organizational things, they sometimes don’t believe me initially. I really had to work to convince them park reservations were actually a thing. I haven’t even broached genie plus and ILL yet.

 

[Jeff4272]

Honestly, the best compromise above all would be the old paper FP in digital form. Go and tap your phone/MagicBand/ticket at the attraction entrance and it registers the return time on your phone. You don't like the time, you don't tap.

That makes ZERO sense

 

[mattpeto]

What they could possibly do is only allow people to hold one of the Tier one fastpasses at a given time. So if you pulled a Slinky for 3pm, you can keep it, but you can' get a MFSR until that one is used up. However, I would strongly suggest they allow for changing based on availability rather than cancel and rebook if doing something like this. The lucky few who got an early one win out, but it would allow for some availability of decent fastpasses for guests who show up a little later in the morning. I'd couple this with making your first selection after tapping in.

I think that will just devalue "Genie+". It's one thing if it's free, it's another if you are being charged to be forced to pick a Tier 2 show.

 

[GhostHost1000]

What if we pick 3 must dos, the time we plan to be in the parks that day, any dining reservations, and let genie+ schedule the FPs for us using all the data from others as well to spread out crowds. Then after 1 is used, you can manually schedule any other that is open

 

[pdude81]

I think that will just devalue "Genie+". It's one thing if it's free, it's another if you are being charged to be forced to pick a Tier 2 show.

Fair, but we need some combination of devaluing, limiting, and/or price increase to make this viable. If people know they have a limited shot of getting Slinky Dog for 15 bucks and a few random other things, then perhaps fewer people would buy it.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

That makes ZERO sense

Why?