Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[homerdance]

I recently renewed our families APs(I know what a sucker) and was once again told in early 2024 pre-booking would be made available.

I am sure the nice young lady who was helping had no other information than I do, but they are telling the customers it is coming still. But this is the only reason we renewed.

Every experience we have had with G+ has been terrible. Between being tied to our phones the entire day, the mad dash to get a ILL, VQ, and my first G+ selection at the same time, and the ridiculous amount of timeouts the app gives us, I don’t understand how/why normal people pay for this.

Paying more for a far inferior product is not what most people want or expect.

 

[pdude81]

I recently renewed our families APs(I know what a sucker) and was once again told in early 2024 pre-booking would be made available.

I am sure the nice young lady who was helping had no other information than I do, but they are telling the customers it is coming still. But this is the only reason we renewed.

Every experience we have had with G+ has been terrible. Between being tied to our phones the entire day, the mad dash to get a ILL, VQ, and my first G+ selection at the same time, and the ridiculous amount of timeouts the app gives us, I don’t understand how/why normal people pay for this.

Paying more for a far inferior product is not what most people want or expect.

I think it only looks inferior because you have to pay for it, but we can disagree on that.

The one thing you can count on though is that you'll still be looking at your phones all day to get around the park easily and manage the passes you do have.

 

[homerdance]

I think it only looks inferior because you have to pay for it, but we can disagree on that.

The one thing you can count on though is that you'll still be looking at your phones all day to get around the park easily and manage the passes you do have.

I don’t like paying for it. That is a pretty obvious for anyone. Do you want free or to pay.

My distaste isn’t just because of that. It is a terrible system. Terrible. If Disney could link all of your reservations together it would help, but they can’t seem to figure that out. I get most people here are diehards and don’t have a full agenda and don’t plan meals, our park days we hit it hard to maximize our time. So yeah, we have reservations outside of the rides that aren’t part of the genie plan. And if we miss something on one of the days chances are we won’t do it until our next trip, which are farther and farther apart.

If you need me to regurgitate the endless reasons the pick a future return time is bad I can, it’s been said before, many times, many ways. But having a few minutes to check any future plans before something disappears is stressful.

Sometimes we stay late and are up until 1 enjoying a party or and after hours event. And yeah, coming from. Later time zone staying up until 2 am then turning around and making park reservations at 7 ( up before then obviously) means at best 5 hours of sleep.

 

[ChrisM]

Thats not the Express Pass model......That the Express price gouge model

It's also the "handler required" model, which I have zero interest in.

I don't want or need a tour guide, or to be whisked around backstage.

 

[Purduevian]

Yesterday was a very light day at MK. G+ was worth it to us simply because holding a baby in line is rough ( we have a 24lb 10 month old). we hit the following with only 1 time of refreshing the app. Peter Pan, big Thunder, jingle cruise, Haunted Mansion, meet mickey mouse, buzz lightyear, and MMRR in the evening before fantasmic. We were only in MK from 8:20am to 4pm and also got the ride Pooh, Tron, Mermaid, small world, Tiki room, Pirates, watch the parade and get his first haircut standby/vq

 

[TQQQ]

Thats not the Express Pass model......That the Express price gouge model

The 2 best parts of Express Pass is, you get it included for every member on your hotel reservation AND it is for check in and check out day.

So if you plan to go to Universal for 2 days, you can book a qualifying hotel for 1 night (say for 6 people), even if you do not stay there, and get free express pass for all 6 people for 2 days (thats likely a $2,400 value when Express Pass costs $200pp, per day) and the hotel room will cost a fraction of that amount (probably in the $500-$800 range)

 

[Jrb1979]

The 2 best parts of Express Pass is, you get it included for every member on your hotel reservation AND it is for check in and check out day.

So if you plan to go to Universal for 2 days, you can book a qualifying hotel for 1 night (say for 6 people), even if you do not stay there, and get free express pass for all 6 people for 2 days (thats likely a $2,400 value when Express Pass costs $200pp, per day) and the hotel room will cost a fraction of that amount (probably in the $500-$800 range)

The difference is they can't give it to people with hotel reservations as there is too many rooms for that.

 

[drizgirl]

The difference is they can't give it to people with hotel reservations as there is too many rooms for that.

Correct. Universal is a theme park company with hotels. Disney is more like a hotel company that owns theme parks.

 

[TQQQ]

Correct. Universal is a theme park company with hotels. Disney is more like a hotel company that owns theme parks.

I agree.......But Universal doesnt give it to all hotel guests either..........WDW could tailor it to specific class of hotel guests

 

[nickys]

I agree.......But Universal doesnt give it to all hotel guests either..........WDW could tailor it to specific class of hotel guests

They can’t even give it to all Deluxe resort guests. So they’d have to split that category down even further.

 

[Splash4eva]

They can’t even give it to all Deluxe resort guests. So they’d have to split that category down even further.

No way Disney is giving this away to the people who are the ones guilty of paying most of these high prices for free

 

[jpeden]

While it would be nice to have re-rides I don't see how they can do it. There just isn't enough capacity for that to happen.

Let resort guests book 1 ahead of time so they can stop whining about 7am wake up. Leave the rest as is. They need to stop making visiting the parks complicated.

Personally I wish they would make everything standby and put the top 2 attractions in each park as LL.

I do not understand the logic that re-rides aren’t possible. They were allowed under FP and FP+ and anytime I look at the LL list on G+ there are a ton of returns times available immediately or within 10 minutes of the current time.

The capacity appears to be there to the average guest even if it isn’t. If I pull a LL for BTMRR or Pirates at 10AM for 10:15 and then later in the day at 3:30 I can get one for 3:40, the average guest (and rightfully so) believes that there is capacity to allow them to re-ride, but they can’t because of the way the system is set up. Under FP+ you could pick any ride once you exhausted your three pre-booked attractions and most guests still remember being able to access additional FP’s under the old system.

 

[jpeden]

Yesterday was a very light day at MK. G+ was worth it to us simply because holding a baby in line is rough ( we have a 24lb 10 month old). we hit the following with only 1 time of refreshing the app. Peter Pan, big Thunder, jingle cruise, Haunted Mansion, meet mickey mouse, buzz lightyear, and MMRR in the evening before fantasmic. We were only in MK from 8:20am to 4pm and also got the ride Pooh, Tron, Mermaid, small world, Tiki room, Pirates, watch the parade and get his first haircut standby/vq

Yesterday was a MVMCP night and MK is historically empty on party nights as people don’t feel like they get their “value” with no fireworks and a park close at 6 (although I’d argue you more than get your value from 7:30AM-6PM if you’re on site as in those 11.5 hours you can probably do everything you want twice and still have time left over).

I would not judge G+ efficiency and quality based on yesterday’s crowds. I was there as well.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

I do not understand the logic that re-rides aren’t possible. They were allowed under FP and FP+ and anytime I look at the LL list on G+ there are a ton of returns times available immediately or within 10 minutes of the current time.

The capacity appears to be there to the average guest even if it isn’t. If I pull a LL for BTMRR or Pirates at 10AM for 10:15 and then later in the day at 3:30 I can get one for 3:40, the average guest (and rightfully so) believes that there is capacity to allow them to re-ride, but they can’t because of the way the system is set up. Under FP+ you could pick any ride once you exhausted your three pre-booked attractions and most guests still remember being able to access additional FP’s under the old system.

Rerides should be permitted on Tier 3 rides. You should be able to ride IASW as many times as you want to. Rerides should not be permitted for Tier 1’s.

 

[nickys]

Rerides should be permitted on Tier 3 rides. You should be able to ride IASW as many times as you want to. Rerides should not be permitted for Tier 1’s.

If we really do end up going back to 3 pre-booked, and there are still LLs left for Tier 1 rides after you’ve used those, which there used to be with FP+, then I’m curious why you think we shouldn’t be able to re-ride.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

If we really do end up going back to 3 pre-booked, and there are still LLs left for Tier 1 rides after you’ve used those, which there used to be with FP+, then I’m curious why you think we shouldn’t be able to re-ride.

I meant Tier 3 in the general sense, not specific to if we go back to a pre booking system. Under the current system, if someone grabs SDD at opening, gets on it, and there is still SDD available for that evening, no, I don’t think they should be able to book it again. If we go back to prebooking the question is moot because this scenario will never happen.

 

[nickys]

I meant Tier 3 in the general sense, not specific to if we go back to a pre booking system. Under the current system, if someone grabs SDD at opening, gets on it, and there is still SDD available for that evening, no, I don’t think they should be able to book it again. If we go back to prebooking the question is moot because this scenario will never happen.

With drops of LLs through the day it could be possible, just like it was with FP+ Not with any certainty, but still possible.

But you didn’t explain why for the first scenario….

 

[jpeden]

I meant Tier 3 in the general sense, not specific to if we go back to a pre booking system. Under the current system, if someone grabs SDD at opening, gets on it, and there is still SDD available for that evening, no, I don’t think they should be able to book it again. If we go back to prebooking the question is moot because this scenario will never happen.

It absolutely should be allowed. If there are not enough purchasers in the ecosystem to use all of the available inventory those who have purchased should be allowed access to that inventory instead of it just sitting there un-used which is what currently happens.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

No reason really to not allow rerides if availability is left

At a minimum should let people rerides if still open after a certain amount of time. Like if after 4pm and rode MMRR earlier and still availability, why not? If that was a priority for people they would have selected it by then

But even that shouldn't be needed - if someone is able to get more than one for SDD then the park is pretty empty that day

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Not allowing Rerides on hard to get attractions allows more people who have purchased genie+ a chance to ride it once. Not allowing Rerides on Tier 3’s is dumb and likely due to lazy programming.