Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Jeff4272]

Let me guess the only solution is to bring back FP+.

If you cap sales none of your issues would be a problem. You wouldn't need to get up at 7am to guarantee you get something. Less people using it the more availability there is.

They are but if you cap sales the 7am wakeup would be much less of a problem.

No i dont need them to bring back FP+

But I will not pay all that money if i cannot guarantee i can get on the rides i want with a 2 hour wait

I want something simple............Something with no return times so we can tour the parks as we want

 

[mikejs78]

Let me guess the only solution is to bring back FP+.

If you cap sales none of your issues would be a problem. You wouldn't need to get up at 7am to guarantee you get something. Less people using it the more availability there is.

They are but if you cap sales the 7am wakeup would be much less of a problem.

I'd have to see it. How much would they have to cap sales to make it so it's STD was only booked until 10:00 or 11:00 before park opening?

 

[mikejs78]

Let me guess the only solution is to bring back FP+.

If you cap sales none of your issues would be a problem. You wouldn't need to get up at 7am to guarantee you get something. Less people using it the more availability there is.

They are but if you cap sales the 7am wakeup would be much less of a problem.

I don't think the answer is to bring back FP+.

I've said it before. If I were to design the system, I would take one of two approaches.

* Genie+ as it is today with the following changes:.
* Allow select time
* Allow modify
* No separate ILL.
* $35/person, capped.
* Only allow as a multiday ticket addon for length of ticket or purchase in advance as an AP.
* Book first attraction 14 days out. (14 + Length of stay for resort guests).

Or

* ExpressPass option at high price point, limited sales (maybe give resort guests priority to purchase this?)
* For non ExpressPass guests, opportunity to purchase a limited # of ILLs. (All attractions become ILL), but only if they are within proximity of that attraction.

 

[Jrb1979]

I'd have to see it. How much would they have to cap sales to make it so it's STD was only booked until 10:00 or 11:00 before park opening?

@disneyglimpses suggested to cap it at 40000 guests a day. Which is a lot less then what is using it now.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

@disneyglimpses suggested to cap it at 40000 guests a day. Which is a lot less then what is using it now.

Ideally it would be priced in a way that they would rarely need to cap it (or cap very late in the day). I don't know what that price point is and I don't even care to guess. $15 clearly isn't close. And if you add the ILL attractions in there, as I suggested, that minimum price point goes even higher.

 

[Chi84]

I think the price point has to work to limit people without an arbitrary cap. Maybe it’s just my opinion, but people are going to react very poorly if Disney offers a product they are willing and able to pay for and then tells them they can’t buy it. I would need to know how sales would be capped.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

I dont know about you but how many people do you truly know that go to Disney on a vacation from Mon-Wed? Lets be realistic. Now if you wanna say do a split stay and switch hotels so be it. We can go back & forth but deluxe hotels are ridiculously priced we know that & honestly if you are going for a week you are paying a couple thousand extra for majority of these deluxe resorts for 4 hours extra…. So yea i dont think the majority of deluxe guests are staying there because of that. Im not ignorant nor naive either to say others may do it but i cant see people sitting down saying this is what is making me spend all this extra $. Heck i dk what they are doing w crowds this year but the AH event past year every ride was literally a walk the night i went for Christmas “party”.

Not sure why you are angry.
Every week thousands of people split their week-long vacation between WDW and Orlando's other theme parks. It is not at all uncommon.


I provided exact pricing on how to get the extra magic hours for a very reasonable price, but even if I spend 7 nights, mid-August:
Swan $2227
AKL = $3338
SSR = 3133
AoA LM room = 1664
CB Preferred = 2384
CB st view = 2008

Upgrading from AoA to the Swan = $563.
Upgrading to SSR = $1469
but the post I responded to was about upgrading from a mod to a deluxe: CBR deluxe room to the Swan actually = $157 LESS.

Those are just the facts.

 

[GhostHost1000]

someone explain to me how this new paid system is broken because too many people are using it when only choosing 1 attraction at a time but when the FP+ system was free and most everyone chose 3 attractions in advance it was not this bad?

 

[Vacationeer]

Interesting. SSR is the easiest DVC resort to find availability a few months out. Next is OKW/AKL because they're huge as well. I can see why WDW is trying to fill rooms early in the week with EEH.

Points can be rented $20 each, so $600 for 2 nights gets access to both EEHs.
Still open full month of August.

For DVC people using Early Entry and night EMHs, they don't have to rely on ILL's much at all. $15 on Genie+ is an easy choice for them.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

someone explain to me how this new paid system is broken because too many people are using it when only choosing 1 attraction at a time but when the FP+ system was free and most everyone chose 3 attractions in advance it was not this bad?

You're confusing two concepts:

1. Yes, FP+ is much more desirable than Genie+.

2. Genie+ as a product (in a world where FP+ never existed) is broken because of excess demand. Compared to FP+, you're absolutely right.

Genie+ isn't a GSAT disaster though because guests "miss FP+" or "FP+ used to be free." It's a disaster because people can't find attractions. Not because they can only pick one at a time. Heck, at this point many people can't even get one!

 

[Disney Glimpses]

If tomorrow Genie+ limited inventory to 20,000, for example, GSAT would sky rocket.

FP+ being better doesn't make Genie+ bad. Just like HEA being better doesn't make DE bad. DE is good and the complaints arise when compared to HEA. Same exact concept here.

 

[GhostHost1000]

You're confusing two concepts:

1. Yes, FP+ is much more desirable than Genie+.

2. Genie+ as a product (in a world where FP+ never existed) is broken because of excess demand. Compared to FP+, you're absolutely right.

Genie+ isn't a GSAT disaster though because guests "miss FP+" or "FP+ used to be free." It's a disaster because people can't find attractions. Not because they can only pick one at a time. Heck, at this point many people can't even get one!

I'm still not getting something. The number of attractions now isn't much different (and in some cases may even be more) than we had with FP+, so why is it broken because of demand for Genie+ now but not broken with the demand for FP+?

 

[Jeff4272]

I don't think the answer is to bring back FP+.

I've said it before. If I were to design the system, I would take one of two approaches.

* Genie+ as it is today with the following changes:.
* Allow select time
* Allow modify
* No separate ILL.
* $35/person, capped.
* Only allow as a multiday ticket addon for length of ticket or purchase in advance as an AP.
* Book first attraction 14 days out. (14 + Length of stay for resort guests).

Or

* ExpressPass option at high price point, limited sales (maybe give resort guests priority to purchase this?)
* For non ExpressPass guests, opportunity to purchase a limited # of ILLs. (All attractions become ILL), but only if they are within proximity of that attraction.

I think option 2 could work........

 

[Jeff4272]

I'm still not getting something. The number of attractions now isn't much different (and in some cases may even be more) than we had with FP+, so why is it broken because of demand for Genie+ now but not broken with the demand for FP+?

Great question

 

[Disney Glimpses]

I'm still not getting something. The number of attractions now isn't much different (and in some cases may even be more) than we had with FP+, so why is it broken because of demand for Genie+ now but not broken with the demand for FP+?

Been through this as well. Resort guests took more than 80-90% of the FP+ inventory at 60 days out. Same day inventory was not good, especially with E-tickets. As for demand? When you pay for something, you expect an immediate and continual return. FP+ was free. Guests didn't frantically refresh to get attractions. They are now because they just spent $15 a person for their entire family on a vacation they probably already overspent on and are getting nothing in return. When you charge someone for access, they are going to make sure they get access. There is a lot of psychology behind this.

Guests paid and they are taking inventory even if they don't like that inventory. They paid for it and are determined to get something (and often as much as possible) in return from park open to close. My family has experienced this. Because of Genie+, we rode attractions we'd normally never ride.

This is the biggest thing Disney didn't forecast: the amount of demand that charging for it would actually create.

Remember: the goal of the daily charge was to reduce demand. It had the opposite effect. It's actually kinda fascinating.

 

[Jeff4272]

Been through this as well. Resort guests took more than 80-90% of the FP+ inventory at 60 days out. Same day inventory was not good, especially with E-tickets. As for demand? When you pay for something, you expect an immediate and continual return. FP+ was free. Guests didn't frantically refresh to get attractions. They are now because they just spent $15 a person for their entire family on a vacation they probably already overspent on and are getting nothing in return. When you charge someone for access, they are going to make sure they get access. There is a lot of psychology behind this.

Guests paid and they are taking inventory even if they don't like that inventory. They paid for it and are determined to get something (and often as much as possible) in return from park open to close.

This is the biggest thing Disney didn't forecast: the amount of demand that charging for it would actually create.

Remember: the goal of the daily charge was to reduce demand. It had the opposite effect. It's actually kinda fascinating.

This is the most upsetting thing. Aren't they the experts? how did they get this so wrong? They have no clue how their own parks run?

this is another reason why WDW BLOWS right now

 

[mikejs78]

If tomorrow Genie+ limited inventory to 20,000, for example, GSAT would sky rocket.

Then why aren't they doing this yesterday? I just looked at what's available at Epcot. Frozen, test track, Remy, even turtle talk with crush are out of LL's for the day. Before 2:00 p.m.

They need to do something to stop The bleeding now, not wait until 2023.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

The 7AM thing is bad but exasperated when people are already cranky and groggy and then can't reserve something because of a park pass hiccup (where it doesn't think you have a reservation at that park) or you simply can't get the ride you wanted and you spend an hour refreshing to no avail. And that hour spent after you just paid them $60 for the privilege to refresh for an hour.

The 7am aspect would also be more tolerable except:
WDW breakfast starts at 7am
AK opens to onsite guests at 7 or 7:30am and HS and Epcot open to onsite guests at 8am.
Getting to the parks from most hotels via WDW transportation takes at least 30minutes. Even the closest walking CR to MK takes 10-15min.

So between 7am and 7:30am/8am WDW expects us to: buy G+, book G+, book ILL, wait in line for breakfast, eat, wait for a bus, ride bus to park, walk bus stop to gate/past security/tapstyle to an attraction.

On top of all the problems you describe.

Another aspect is that nobody answers if you try to call or use the texting service at that hour.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

Then why aren't they doing this yesterday? I just looked at what's available at Epcot. Frozen, test track, Remy, even turtle talk with crush are out of LL's for the day. Before 2:00 p.m.

They need to do something to stop The bleeding now, not wait until 2023.

Good old fashioned corporate greed.

 

[GhostHost1000]

Been through this as well. Resort guests took more than 80-90% of the FP+ inventory at 60 days out. Same day inventory was not good, especially with E-tickets. As for demand? When you pay for something, you expect an immediate and continual return. FP+ was free. Guests didn't frantically refresh to get attractions. They are now because they just spent $15 a person for their entire family on a vacation they probably already overspent on and are getting nothing in return. When you charge someone for access, they are going to make sure they get access. There is a lot of psychology behind this.

Guests paid and they are taking inventory even if they don't like that inventory. They paid for it and are determined to get something (and often as much as possible) in return from park open to close. My family has experienced this. Because of Genie+, we rode attractions we'd normally never ride.

This is the biggest thing Disney didn't forecast: the amount of demand that charging for it would actually create.

Remember: the goal of the daily charge was to reduce demand. It had the opposite effect. It's actually kinda fascinating.

so what you're saying is if they simply charged $15 more for tickets for everyone and kept the old system "free" (so to speak), things would work much better, they'd have less guest relation nightmares (and blue tents all throughout the parks), and they'd probably be making more money too and they didn't think of this?