Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[pdude81]

I can see the perks being pretty beefy and for direct only. They have an uphill battle ahead of them re: selling direct points.

And they have little choice since they bought back so many contracts to prop up resale values.

 

[Jrb1979]

I don't care about DVC, tell me resort perks!

You get Genie+ and you get Genie+. You all get Genie+ with your stay.

As good as that may sound it will render Genie+ useless. If that many have it you will be lucky to get 1 LL a day.

 

[Vacationeer]

I don't think this is an issue, legally. They don't and won't guarantee any particular room other than the booking category you land in. And even then they can give you something "better" if they run out.

What I'm hoping for is that they'll finally give one of my short split-stays an upgrade to a bungalow at PVB. I think that's what we'll all hope for, and not get.

That a good point. No specific room is ever guaranteed. Still, it’s essentially removing the most popular rooms from the grasp of ’perkless’. Either those rooms are part of DVC or they are not; nobody can have more or less chance at them.

One day those Bungalows will happen! We have to believe, dream, wish and be the magic, lol.

 

[crazy4disney]

You get Genie+ and you get Genie+. You all get Genie+ with your stay.

As good as that may sound it will render Genie+ useless. If that many have it you will be lucky to get 1 LL a day.

everyone keeps saying/joking about this yet FP was a success for many and even to those who called it a failure were still able to get 3 fastpasses per day plus any add ons which no matter what you were able to get even if it was for less desirable rides... more than people can say about genie

 

[Purduevian]

everyone keeps saying/joking about this yet FP was a success for many and even to those who called it a failure were still able to get 3 fastpasses per day plus any add ons which no matter what you were able to get even if it was for less desirable rides... more than people can say about genie

I have yet to see a day where someone that started at park opening could not get 3 LL rides.
Of course people could not use the system and start at like 6pm, then yes you can't get 3 rides.

I'm also guessing there were some cases of people only using 1 or 2 FP a day. The big difference is you have to be on your phone at least 3 times vs 1 time for FP+

 

[crazy4disney]

I have yet to see a day where someone that started at park opening could not get 3 LL rides.
Of course people could not use the system and start at like 6pm, then yes you can't get 3 rides.

I'm also guessing there were some cases of people only using 1 or 2 FP a day. The big difference is you have to be on your phone at least 3 times vs 1 time for FP+

so you are saying you are able to get the same 3 quality type rides as you did with FP at the times you actually want? anyone who only used 1 or 2 a day was by choice...

 

[Purduevian]

so you are saying you are able to get the same 3 quality type rides as you did with FP at the times you actually want? anyone who only used 1 or 2 a day was by choice...

Nope

I have yet to see a day where someone that started at park opening could not get 3 LL rides.

I'm saying you can say exactly the same thing about Genie "everyone keeps saying/joking about this yet FP was a success for many and even to those who called it a failure were still able to get 3 fastpasses per day plus any add ons which no matter what you were able to get even if it was for less desirable rides... more than people can say about genie"

 

[crazy4disney]

Nope

I'm saying you can say exactly the same thing about Genie "everyone keeps saying/joking about this yet FP was a success for many and even to those who called it a failure were still able to get 3 fastpasses per day plus any add ons which no matter what you were able to get even if it was for less desirable rides... more than people can say about genie"

Okay. So we are in agreement the 3 FP vs 3 Genie are not the same even tho the quantity is the same? Bc your comment seemed to indicate thats what you were saying. Apologies if i am incorrect.

 

[Purduevian]

Okay. So we are in agreement the 3 FP vs 3 Genie are not the same even tho the quantity is the same? Bc your comment seemed to indicate thats what you were saying. Apologies if i am incorrect.

I didn't say that either. You simply said:

everyone keeps saying/joking about this yet FP was a success for many and even to those who called it a failure were still able to get 3 fastpasses per day plus any add ons which no matter what you were able to get even if it was for less desirable rides... more than people can say about genie

I disagreed with that saying you could can still get 3 fastpasses (lightning lanes) per day plus any add ons with genie


If you want to start a different discussion on the quality of the first 3FP+ vs first 3G+ we can do that. I think for the most part, peoples 2nd and 3rd G+ selection will be worse than their 2nd and 3rd FP+ selection because of the lack of ILL included.

The only time i used G+ at WDW my first 3 attractions were Splash (turned into a ME), Space and Pooh. compared to my 2019 trip where my first 3 where Splash, thunder, and 7D. The times don't really matter to me much because with either FP+ or G+ I was always trying to make the first one ~30 mins after park opening and the next one ASAP after that.

 

[crazy4disney]

I didn't say that either. You simply said:

I disagreed with that saying you could can still get 3 fastpasses (lightning lanes) per day plus any add ons with genie


If you want to start a different discussion on the quality of the first 3FP+ vs first 3G+ we can do that. I think for the most part, peoples 2nd and 3rd G+ selection will be worse than their 2nd and 3rd FP+ selection because of the lack of ILL included.

The only time i used G+ at WDW my first 3 attractions were Splash (turned into a ME), Space and Pooh. compared to my 2019 trip where my first 3 where Splash, thunder, and 7D. The times don't really matter to me much because with either FP+ or G+ I was always trying to make the first one ~30 mins after park opening and the next one ASAP after that.

And to me thats the biggest issue w Genie times… along with plenty of others lol. Its almost impossible to get 3 solid attractions within a. 2 hour window and impossible to get 3 MK attractions of your choice all in the AM. You wanna pay extra and hope for a 7d early ride time and then a top tier attraction as your 1st so be it but now your cost just doubled…

 

[nickys]

That would be reducing value to other contracts, and I don’t think that ability is supported in the verbiage. Consistently contract language is in the spirit of first come first serve. Plus there’s no wording that says resale would get leftovers, for anything. DVC can only make changes that are seen to benefit the group as a whole. I’m no expert don’t think it is possible to offer room request advantage as a perk, paid or otherwise.

I don’t think there’s any mention of room requests in the contracts.

 

[matt9112]

More people holding more reservations requires a lot more capacity to be available, capacity that does not exist. FastPass+ was unsustainable because the parks inherently lacked capacity and that would eventually hit this crunch type of crunch point.

So the company ignored an underlying crisis and that crisis has now begun to damage other facets of the parks experience.

 

[crazy4disney]

More people holding more reservations requires a lot more capacity to be available, capacity that does not exist. FastPass+ was unsustainable because the parks inherently lacked capacity and that would eventually hit this crunch type of crunch point.

You & others keep saying this yet countless people have shared their experiences and success using this system you claim is/was flawed. Bottom line they have lacked capacity for years if not longer and basically have done nothing to alleviate that burden and attendance has risen which added to said problem. No matter what system they come up with none will work until they add capacity which we know is not even close to happening and imo wont happen until after Uni opens up their new park. They are gonna ride Tron and the other smaller additions and hope to get sloppy seconds from people going to Uni then maybe reassess when to truly expand. In their eyes if they provide capacity they may be afraid the demand to pay for a skip the line system is not gonna be needed…

 

[Vacationeer]

I don’t think there’s any mention of room requests in the contracts.

Exactly. How can they now add in that certain owners get priority?

 

[mikejs78]

Exactly. How can they now add in that certain owners get priority?

I think her point was that because it isn't in the contract, they can do whatever they want in regards to room requests.

 

[nickys]

Exactly. How can they now add in that certain owners get priority?

Actually I doubt it will, but not for that reason.

Room assignments are now done centrally, both DVC and non-DVC resorts. If they decide to give priority to certain guests, their reservations would need to have some kind of priority flag on MDE.

Even if they split the room assignments into DVC and non-DVC sections, those reservations would still need to be flagged somehow.

And then what happens when a priority guests makes a last minute reservation? It would be too late at that point to redo all the assignments. Cue one irate DVC member who’s paid for priority assignments and doesn’t get what they wanted.

 

[Vacationeer]

I think her point was that because it isn't in the contract, they can do whatever they want in regards to room requests.

I don’t think so. Let me mull over my contract but the spirit throughout is first come first serve and nothing that could potentially give priority to one owner over another outside of home resort and Riviera restrictions.

 

[nickys]

I don’t think so. Let me mull over my contract but the spirit throughout is first come first serve and nothing that could potentially give priority to one owner over another outside of home resort and Riviera restrictions.

People get priority all the time.

Lots of people make room requests. Some of those get met, others don’t. And of those that don’t, some of them might get lucky by asking at the front desk if there is an alternative.

There’s also nothing in the contract that talks about buying direct or resale. And yet there are of course perks for buying direct - not many but there are some.

None of these things are covered in the contract. I don’t know where you’re seeing anything about a first come, first served policy. Obviously for booking rooms that stands to reason, for example that the first one to click gets the coveted value AKL room.

 

[UNCgolf]

Actually I doubt it will, but not for that reason.

Room assignments are now done centrally, both DVC and non-DVC resorts. If they decide to give priority to certain guests, their reservations would need to have some kind of priority flag on MDE.

Even if they split the room assignments into DVC and non-DVC sections, those reservations would still need to be flagged somehow.

And then what happens when a priority guests makes a last minute reservation? It would be too late at that point to redo all the assignments. Cue one irate DVC member who’s paid for priority assignments and doesn’t get what they wanted.

This would be easy to avoid by requiring a time period for the priority requests. Something like they have to be booked at least two months in advance.

 

[nickys]

Now back to Genie+ and ILLs.

Seeing reports that there has been a major problem today with payments for ILLs being charged to credit cards but the booking not going through. Some people have had hundreds of dollars charged to their CC.

I suggest anyone who has been using their CC today, whether for ILLs, mobile ordering or whatever, to check their statements.