Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[KrzyKtty]

I sure hope so.

In the FP+ days, there was a site that had a FP+ availability calendar (I can't recall which site) where you could see what selections were gone and when. It was one of the most useful things for planning out FP+ selections ahead of time so that you didn't waste time on booking day trying to scramble to adjust your park schedule on the fly to accommodate FP+ availability.

We go often enough where we won't care to much if we can't do some rides, but we really want to try Tron, Tiana, and go on Guardians again. Luckily we are going to MNSSHP, so we might have a chance to do at least 2 of those during the party if needs must and all that.

I was checking out Thrill Data, but Disney wont' let me check selections that are available since my tickets aren't good yet. And I'm worried that since we are going for a short time, we will be at a disadvantage. But guess I shouldn't complain, international and offsite are even more disadvantaged.

 

[Purduevian]

I really don't understand the sentiment that this is somehow a more level playing field. It is the exact opposite in my mind. Everyone was treated the same under G+. With this if you stay on site you have an advantage over those that don't. If you have a longer stay you have an advantage over those with a shorter stay. If you get to the parks early you have an advantage over those that don't.

NONE of those advantages existed under G+, or at least not to the degree they do now.

Now if you think those people should get more for their money than others fine, but that is not a level field.

I don't have numbers, but this is just my theory:
Basically uniformed guests were getting 1-3 LLs while some users were getting 12+
I think now with LLMP, no one is getting 1-2LLs, but more people will get 4-6 than previously did because they can't physically get 1 or 2.

I have 0 proof of these numbers, just a guess of what LLMP might be doing, and why those used to getting 8+LLs a day will probably find the system worse.

I feel like the informed/power users lost some power, while the first time vistors gained some power.

 

[Saskdw]

I really don't understand the sentiment that this is somehow a more level playing field. It is the exact opposite in my mind. Everyone was treated the same under G+. With this if you stay on site you have an advantage over those that don't. If you have a longer stay you have an advantage over those with a shorter stay. If you get to the parks early you have an advantage over those that don't.

NONE of those advantages existed under G+, or at least not to the degree they do now.

Now if you think those people should get more for their money than others fine, but that is not a level field.

I think that has to be the whole point to this change. To give an advantage to onsite guests to fill their rooms.

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

I think that has to be the whole point to this change. To give an advantage to onsite guests to fill their rooms.

I agree to a point. My guess is that this was a factor but not the only factor. Like has been pointed out, they could have just modified Genie+ to allow the initial attraction of the day to be pre-booked 3-7 days out depending where you’re staying. To create a similar advantage, remove the 7 am pain point, but keep the overall system if it was better for the average guest.

To me, the decision to move back to the FP+ like system says that they believe the average guest found value in creating a schedule and walking into a park with multiple in hand, in addition to the advantage it gave on-site guests. In Disney speak, I bet they have data that guests will spend more under those circumstances.

 

[doctornick]

I gotta say... I'm surprised they didn't just keep the system as it was and let everyone pick 1 attraction and/or ILL for each day of their trip ahead of time and let the rest operate like before during the day

I think a main motivating point for this change was to guarantee everyone purchasing got at least three acceptable choices.

I’m under the impression that Guest Services had a lot of people complaining that they only got one or two decent picks with their purchase and let to a lot of guest recovery. I think the goal here is to make sure that everyone buying is at least satisfied that they got “enough” and to cut down those GS visits.

 

[easyrowrdw]

I definitely get that and certainly have similar mindset and want to maximize the value if I am spending

But if you figure an hour in MK costs about $12 (ticket price/total park hours), if LLMP is $29 you need to save like 2.5 hours of wait time to break even - more than that is bonus

Ah, I hadn't thought of it that way. I saw another comment that the system isn't really designed for you to use it on every ride, even as that's how I want to do it. We'll see how things shake out.

 

[doctornick]

In order for most rides to be sold out at 7 days out Disney would have had to sell a whole lot of the product….significantly more than genie+ days. So if sales really tank (as you have been suggesting) and lots of people decide not to buy the “terrible“ product then there’s no way most rides can be sold out. Can‘t be both ways.

Exactly. If inventory is running out, it is because people are buying a lot of the product. It’s the exact opposite of a product that people don’t want or wouldn’t pay for.

 

[Dranth]

I don't have numbers, but this is just my theory:
Basically uniformed guests were getting 1-3 LLs while some users were getting 12+
I think now with LLMP, no one is getting 1-2LLs, but more people will get 4-6 than previously did because they can't physically get 1 or 2.

I have 0 proof of these numbers, just a guess of what LLMP might be doing, and why those used to getting 8+LLs a day will probably find the system worse.

View attachment 803931

I feel like the informed/power users lost some power, while the first time vistors gained some power.

I feel the flaw in your numbers is due to the assumption that G+ users only got 1-2 rides. It was almost impossible not to get at least 4-5 once they changed the max number of people who were allowed to use it.

To only get one use, every last ride in the park would need to be out of slots for the entire day within two hours of park opening which was physically impossible. Even on days G+ completely sold out that didn't happen. To only get three uses the whole park would need to be out of availability within 4 hours of park open. Also never happened that I could find so if it did, it was EXTERMELY rare.

Now maybe some people purchased it later in the day and only got one but you could see what was available before you purchased in the app and the exact same thing would happen under the new system if you waited until that afternoon to buy into it and try and use it.

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

I feel the flaw in your numbers is due to the assumption that G+ users only got 1-2 rides. It was almost impossible not to get at least 4-5 once they changed the max number of people who were allowed to use it.

To only get one use, every last ride in the park would need to be out of slots for the entire day within two hours of park opening which was physically impossible. Even on days G+ completely sold out that didn't happen. To only get three uses the whole park would need to be out of availability within 4 hours of park open. Also never happened that I could find so if it did, it was EXTERMELY rare.

Now maybe some people purchased it later in the day and only got one but you could see what was available before you purchased in the app and the exact same thing would happen under the new system if you waited until that afternoon to buy into it and try and use it.

There’s somewhat of an underlying assumption to this that the average user is smart and strategic though. And to put it politely, disagree lol.

I agree that to have literally only gotten 1-2 rides on a regular kind of park day, is pretty hard to accomplish without some effort to get a bad result. 1-2 worthwhile attractions though - meaning they’re saving time, I can definitely see that happening especially at certain parks. I think there are a lot of people who don’t understand that 7 am means 7:00:00 not 7:00:43 or 7:02:00, etc. Those people start the day already behind and possibly missed out on the biggest time saving LL. And that’s assuming they actually do follow the 7 am instruction to some degree. Then we have to assume these same people understood the system enough to either book as soon as they tapped in, or set alarms for their subsequent bookings. We have to also assume these people understood their own park patterns enough to actually make it to their bookings, and we have to assume a baseline understanding of the parks so that they’re booking worthwhile LLs or at the least didn’t care that they were booking LLs that had no time saving value.

I have little faith in people, if that wasn’t already obvious from my unflattering assumption of how badly somebody could have done with Genie+, and I think there’s probably value Disney sees in making the baseline 3 attractions more clear to book. This also means people can have their travel agents actually book them, I believe, instead of just instructing them on the system.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

correct......Look 7 days out from today, tell me what is sold out....what if thats ur only day in that park?

Why is that so hard to understand?

You're literally contradicting yourself but either don't realize it or are so focused on making your preferences out to be "facts" that you don't care about having a consistent argument in this discussion.

As for what's available 7 days from now? I don't have a resort stay booked for next week so I can't see. I CAN see, however, that 3 days from now the only ride currently sold out at any park is TBA, so the other poster could absolutely get the 3 rides mentioned at AK and have a chance at booking Soarin' after using up their 1st LL.

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

You're literally contradicting yourself but either don't realize it or are so focused on making your preferences out to be "facts" that you don't care about having a consistent argument in this discussion.

As for what's available 7 days from now? I don't have a resort stay booked for next week so I can't see. I CAN see, however, that 3 days from now the only ride currently sold out at any park is TBA, so the other poster could absolutely get the 3 rides mentioned at AK and have a chance at booking Soarin' after using up their 1st LL.

You’ll actually have to work at Soarin’…. because it appears to hold at immediate entry on a day like today so you’d actually miss it if you’re at another park and book it upon using your first LL, lol. Modify, modify, modify!

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I’ve joked in the past that Disney should just go book to a ticket book but I think compared to the mess they’ve created now it may actually make sense.

$100 entry fee that includes A B C tickets and shows, D tickets are an extra $10 each, E tickets are $15-20 each.

A day with the train, tiki room, country bears, JC, PoTC ($10), HM ($10), BTM ($15), TBA ($15), IaSW, philharmagic, 7D ($10), Tron ($20), SM ($15), peoplemover… would be roughly equivalent to a current ticket price. If you want to be a power user and ride everything could add $100 to the total, if you just want a relaxing day in the parks it could cut $100 from the total. Everyone gets what they pay for though.

The only way to beat the capacity problem is to increase supply or decrease demand, no other scheme will ever work.

This would also limit AP use, they’d have to lower the AP price to compensate for the ride prices but you probably wouldn’t get APs going everyday just to go on 2-3 E-tickets and then head home.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I’ve joked in the past that Disney should just go book to a ticket book but I think compared to the mess they’ve created now it may actually make sense.

$100 entry fee that includes A B C tickets and shows, D tickets are an extra $10 each, E tickets are $15-20 each.

A day with the train, tiki room, country bears, JC, PoTC ($10), HM ($10), BTM ($15), TBA ($15), IaSW, philharmagic, 7D ($10), Tron ($20), SM ($15), peoplemover… would be roughly equivalent to a current ticket price. If you want to be a power user and ride everything could add $100 to the total, if you just want a relaxing day in the parks it could cut $100 from the total. Everyone gets what they pay for though.

The only way to beat the capacity problem is to increase supply or decrease demand, no other scheme will ever work.

This would also limit AP use, they’d have to lower the AP price to compensate for the ride prices but you probably wouldn’t get APs going everyday just to go on 2-3 E-tickets and then head home.

Keep the standby the same just for every single LL you pay at the moment to enter it, and the price is dependent on the wait time

25 mins? That is $5 ... 45? That will be $10, etc - just scan your MB to enter

So if you want to skip all the lines you can, but it'll cost you

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Keep the standby the same just for every single LL you pay at the moment to enter it, and the price is dependent on the wait time

25 mins? That is $5 ... 45? That will be $10, etc - just scan your MB to enter

So if you want to skip all the lines you can, but it'll cost you

As long as they lower the ticket price I’d be ok with that, I just want some value back, paying more for a ticket and then not having the same access to rides we used to is getting old though.

 

[Purduevian]

I feel the flaw in your numbers is due to the assumption that G+ users only got 1-2 rides. It was almost impossible not to get at least 4-5 once they changed the max number of people who were allowed to use it.

To only get one use, every last ride in the park would need to be out of slots for the entire day within two hours of park opening which was physically impossible. Even on days G+ completely sold out that didn't happen. To only get three uses the whole park would need to be out of availability within 4 hours of park open. Also never happened that I could find so if it did, it was EXTERMELY rare.

Now maybe some people purchased it later in the day and only got one but you could see what was available before you purchased in the app and the exact same thing would happen under the new system if you waited until that afternoon to buy into it and try and use it.

It was super easy to get 6+ LLs. However I got in the buzz LL around 630pm one night and we started talking to the nice group in front of us. They saw people using the LL all day and decided to but it. It was their first LL of the day.

What someone could do, what people should do, and what people actually did are 3 different things. I'm assuming the group was probably not happy with their purchase.

I think most people got 3+ for sure

 

[GoofGoof]

You’ll actually have to work at Soarin’…. because it appears to hold at immediate entry on a day like today so you’d actually miss it if you’re at another park and book it upon using your first LL, lol. Modify, modify, modify!

For the 4th reservation can‘t you pick the return time? Or is it next available time?

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

For the 4th reservation can‘t you pick the return time? Or is it next available time?

Oh duh, oops! I’m still in Genie mode apparently

 

[seabreezept813]

They are trying to fill rooms with this new version. The value is for guests who book their resorts and get the 7 day advantage and piece of mind knowing they already have 3 to 5 rides booked each day of their trip.

Do we think the inventory and options will be there for resort guests or will that also be limited?

 

[Dranth]

It was super easy to get 6+ LLs. However I got in the buzz LL around 630pm one night and we started talking to the nice group in front of us. They saw people using the LL all day and decided to but it. It was their first LL of the day.

What someone could do, what people should do, and what people actually did are 3 different things. I'm assuming the group was probably not happy with their purchase.

I think most people got 3+ for sure

1-2 worthwhile attractions though - meaning they’re saving time, I can definitely see that happening especially at certain parks. I think there are a lot of people who don’t understand that 7 am means 7:00:00 not 7:00:43 or 7:02:00, etc. Those people start the day already behind and possibly missed out on the biggest time saving LL. And that’s assuming they actually do follow the 7 am instruction to some degree. Then we have to assume these same people understood the system enough to either book as soon as they tapped in, or set alarms for their subsequent bookings.

I think both of you are describing guest issues and not system ones. That is the type of stuff that happened under all the various system's they have used and will be the case with this one as well.

What I thought was nice about G+ and goes back to my personal belief it was the most "fair" was newcomers could learn how to best use it over the course of their trip and adjust. Sure, someone might have a bad day, but they will have another chance their next park day and be that much more informed. With this, if you don't do it right up front, you are potentially giving yourself a bad day, every day of your trip. There is a very limited ability to fix on the fly and there is no fresh slate each day.

Didn't know to grab FoP or SDD at the 7-day mark for the end of your trip first, oh well, you lost your chance unless you want to sit on the phone all day potentially before and during your trip and hope an opening appears. Didn't know that some T2s are really popular so are gone immediately? Enjoy waiting in line! Didn't understand that getting one too early or late in the day is bad because you would have had a short standby anyway? Oh well, maybe if you visit again, you can get it right next time.

That insider knowledge is what made FP+ so amazing for people in the know and so bad for those that didn't and now we are heading right back to it. Most of us here will know which rides to grab first and what time drops happen and it will improve our experience at the expense of those that don't know. We will either eat up all inventory before they get a chance or at best, leave nothing but bad times for the normal folk to fight over.

To be clear, I don't expect it to be as bad as FP+ was because of no rerides and limited number of users but it is going to have similar problems, just to a lesser degree.

 

[doctornick]

I think both of you are describing guest issues and not system ones. That is the type of stuff that happened under all the various system's they have used and will be the case with this one as well.

Indeed. I think Disney realizes that most guest complaints could have been solved by more optimal usage but there’s not a whole lot they can do to have all guests better informed and efficient. I agree that G+ was more “fair” in the setup but the outcomes were seemingly more widespread that they should be with LLMP among different guests.

(It kind of reminds me of an equality vs equity debate. Outcomes vs opportunities)

So what they did to “solve” discrepancies and improve guest satisfaction for the purchase is to have a baseline of 3 attractions for everyone that purchases (no matter how poorly versed in the system they are) and having they know those options up front before buying. I suspect 3 short waits will be “satisfactory” for more purchasers and avoid those complaints at Guest Services and demands for refunds.

if it also incentivizes on property stays (and even table service reservations too) than all the better in Disney’s eyes.