Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Fido Chuckwagon]

August.. so it’s been almost a month

If it’s worth the $20 to you, I’d call. That’s not that long ago and I bet at worst they’d give you a credit towards future Disney purchase.

 

[arich35]

Is there a way to see pricing in advance?

 

[newf709]

Is there a way to see pricing in advance?

Yea in the app you can now see prices for a range

 

[gorillaball]

Is LL selling well at WDW?

We just got back from 5 days at DL and didn’t even bother with it, the standby lines were all relatively short and the LL lanes were completely empty, I’m guessing this wasn’t what Disney had in mind when they envisioned everyone buying LL as a replacement for DAS.

“They envisioned everyone buying LL as a replacement for DAS”. Got anything credible for that or internet social medita conspiracy repeated enough it’s assumed as true by the masses?

 

[Purduevian]

Is there a way to see pricing in advance?

Yea in the app you can now see prices for a range

Only up to 21 days in advance though which I think is the longest out anyone can actually buy it (7 day advance reservation+14 day park ticket)

 

[DisneyCane]

This WSJ article from yesterday indicates Disney averaged $250MM/year from 2021-2024 for what was known as Genie+. (Doesn't say if that includes what we now know as LLMP and LLSP combined. Doesn't say which parks.)

I was previously told that combined domestic Genie+ and ILL revenue was between $500 to $800MM annually, and I'm still comfortable with that as a ballpark.

The other thing to take into account is that the average number of LLMP uses per guest remains below 3. Three rides. Three. Per family per day.

This pass is talking about all the rides in one or two parks - a use increase of 500%.

So Disney's going to risk:

• $500 to $800MM in annual revenue
• VIP tour revenue
• Other high-end products

And put more 500% more people in the LL, thereby making it worth less?

Let's say Disney sells 70 VIP tours per day across WDW and DL combined, at $4,000/each. (I think that's absurdly low, but work with me.) That's another $100MM in annual revenue.

So we're looking at $600 to $900MM in annual revenue in their line-skipping programs.

How much ... how much money would they need to charge for Premier Pass to mitigate the risk to that $600-$900MM?

The alternative would be a pass with such limited quantities that it doesn't materially affect any of the above. So that's a possibiilty.

If you use a number in the middle of your range and figure $750MM then, if the average price was $250 per day, they'd have to sell around 8,200 per day. If we randomly select a 70/30 WDW to DL split then lets say 5,800 per day at WDW.

If you had that many and figured out some kind of split between the parks, would the LL be able to handle that many people able to ride everything with very low waits while keeping standby moving at a reasonable rate? You would be much more qualified to answer that then I would. Of course, that would have to be the average sold per day. Obviously, some days would be higher and some lower depending on how busy it is. I guess on the busy days they could theoretically charge even more.

 

[lentesta]

If you use a number in the middle of your range and figure $750MM then, if the average price was $250 per day, they'd have to sell around 8,200 per day. If we randomly select a 70/30 WDW to DL split then lets say 5,800 per day at WDW.

If you had that many and figured out some kind of split between the parks, would the LL be able to handle that many people able to ride everything with very low waits while keeping standby moving at a reasonable rate? You would be much more qualified to answer that then I would. Of course, that would have to be the average sold per day. Obviously, some days would be higher and some lower depending on how busy it is. I guess on the busy days they could theoretically charge even more.

I mean, making some assumptions, and keeping in mind I did not have my afternoon coffee:

Let's say that comes with 18 LLs, which is enough to cover almost all of the MK (or 1/2 the MK and everything worth doing at EPCOT - you get the idea).

And let's assume you could *get to* all 18 rides in a day. (As I said upthread, I've done 16 and it's harder than it sounds.)

That's 18 rides per day x 5,800 guests = 104,000 guest-rides per day. And that would be hard to achieve.

The Magic Kingdom's ride capacity for the 20 LL-enabled attractions over an 11-hour day is roughly 285,000 rides, give or take:

So this would be 104/285 = ~36% of the park's total capacity for these passes.

That's defintely doable. Recall that in the old FastPass+ days, roughly 80% of the ride capacity was dedicated to FP. And that included things like character greetings, which are not in here. So we had 20% of the ride capacity for standby.

You could price it so that 30% of the ride capacity went to these passes and 30% of the ride capacity went to the current LL program, and you'd still be setting aside more ride capacity (40%) for Standby than we had under FP+.

All that said, I'd still bet strongly that this "Permier Pass" thing not an actual product or project they're actively working on.

 

[DisneyCane]

I mean, making some assumptions, and keeping in mind I did not have my afternoon coffee:

Let's say that comes with 18 LLs, which is enough to cover almost all of the MK (or 1/2 the MK and everything worth doing at EPCOT - you get the idea).

And let's assume you could *get to* all 18 rides in a day. (As I said upthread, I've done 16 and it's harder than it sounds.)

That's 18 rides per day x 5,800 guests = 104,000 guest-rides per day. And that would be hard to achieve.

The Magic Kingdom's ride capacity for the 20 LL-enabled attractions over an 11-hour day is roughly 285,000 rides, give or take:

View attachment 815021

So this would be 104/285 = ~36% of the park's total capacity for these passes.

That's defintely doable. Recall that in the old FastPass+ days, roughly 80% of the ride capacity was dedicated to FP. And that included things like character greetings, which are not in here. So we had 20% of the ride capacity for standby.

You could price it so that 30% of the ride capacity went to these passes and 30% of the ride capacity went to the current LL program, and you'd still be setting aside more ride capacity (40%) for Standby than we had under FP+.

All that said, I'd still bet strongly that this "Permier Pass" thing not an actual product or project they're actively working on.

I agree with your bet. Maybe they will add some kind of ridiculously priced unlimited pass to replace the VIP tours and cut payroll. Something like $1,500 per day per person.

I also agree that actually riding that many rides in a day would be difficult. For a lot of rides, your ride rate would be slower than you'd think if you just kept going into the LL for the same ride as soon as you got off. For anything with a pre-show, the total cycle time and the time just to walk from the exit to the entrance and through the LL queue is going to be 15 minutes at least.

Riding different rides requires walking from one to the other. At some point you need a bathroom break and you probably need to eat and drink (although I guess if you brought food and drink you can do so while walking).

 

[Purduevian]

I agree with your bet. Maybe they will add some kind of ridiculously priced unlimited pass to replace the VIP tours and cut payroll. Something like $1,500 per day per person.

I also agree that actually riding that many rides in a day would be difficult. For a lot of rides, your ride rate would be slower than you'd think if you just kept going into the LL for the same ride as soon as you got off. For anything with a pre-show, the total cycle time and the time just to walk from the exit to the entrance and through the LL queue is going to be 15 minutes at least.

Riding different rides requires walking from one to the other. At some point you need a bathroom break and you probably need to eat and drink (although I guess if you brought food and drink you can do so while walking).

With 2 healthy young people in their 20s going from rope drop to around midnight with FP+, on my MK day we hit 16 rides (14 unique), 5 M&G, 2 shows, and the fireworks... So it is possible to hit an insane amount.

I do think the majority of people are waiting longer in lines due to fastpass... but I assure you I am not on my trips. I was in Disney actually exactly a year ago (so July 4th week) and managed to get the following fastpasses in 1 day each in the park.

MK (16): Splash, Thunder, Haunted Mansion, Pan, Pooh (x2), 7 dwarfs, Meet Tiana and Rapunzel, Meet Ariel, Under the Sea, Dumbo, Tea Cups, Buzz (x2), Meet Mickey & Minnie (they were meeting together) and Meet Tinkerbell.
--We also had time to watch the parade, meet Donald and Goofy, go on jungle cruise, Aladdin, pirates, Philharmagic, Small world, COP, and watch the fireworks

EPCOT (7): Soarin, Test Track, Frozen (x2), Nemo, The Land, Spaceship Earth. Also got a late night FP for Illuminations
--This was all in about 3.5 hours as we spent the entire afternoon and evening in World Showcase

DHS (9): Slinky, TSMM (x2), RnRC, ToT, ST (x3), and F!
-We also watched Frozen, Indy, BatB, Muppets, Star Wars show, Walked through Launch Bay, Met Olaf, road Alien, and had a sit down dinner at Prime time. This was before GE and MMRR opened.

AK(8): Navi River (x2), Fop (x2), Kilimanjaro, Everest (x3)
--We also watched Nemo and FotLK, did gorilla falls and the jungle trek. We also left that day around 3 because we were driving to a beach that night.

I rode everything I wanted, saw every show I wanted, sat and relaxed for all of my meals (even sat for breakfast in the parks each day), met every character I wanted to, and never waited more than 20 minutes (small world was my longest line of the whole trip). I can guarantee with the elimination of FP+ I would NOT be able to say the same thing. Sure standby waits would drop some if FP+ was eliminated... but I almost never stand in a standby line outside of shows (which FP does NOT save you time for) and Rope Dropping (where standby lines are short anyway).

 

[lentesta]

I agree with your bet. Maybe they will add some kind of ridiculously priced unlimited pass to replace the VIP tours and cut payroll. Something like $1,500 per day per person.

I wouldn't put it past them to look at payroll here.

On the other hand, suppose I'm raking in $100MM+ per year on VIP tours. Suppose my payroll for that is a single-digit percent, so under $10MM. That leaves $90MM+ per year for me in profit.

The absolute smartest thing I can do is hire someone at $500K per year whose only job is to slap me in my head if I try to change anything.

ETA: Stop sending me your resumes, you animals!

 

[Ayla]

I mean, making some assumptions, and keeping in mind I did not have my afternoon coffee:

Let's say that comes with 18 LLs, which is enough to cover almost all of the MK (or 1/2 the MK and everything worth doing at EPCOT - you get the idea).

And let's assume you could *get to* all 18 rides in a day. (As I said upthread, I've done 16 and it's harder than it sounds.)

That's 18 rides per day x 5,800 guests = 104,000 guest-rides per day. And that would be hard to achieve.

The Magic Kingdom's ride capacity for the 20 LL-enabled attractions over an 11-hour day is roughly 285,000 rides, give or take:

View attachment 815021

So this would be 104/285 = ~36% of the park's total capacity for these passes.

That's defintely doable. Recall that in the old FastPass+ days, roughly 80% of the ride capacity was dedicated to FP. And that included things like character greetings, which are not in here. So we had 20% of the ride capacity for standby.

You could price it so that 30% of the ride capacity went to these passes and 30% of the ride capacity went to the current LL program, and you'd still be setting aside more ride capacity (40%) for Standby than we had under FP+.

All that said, I'd still bet strongly that this "Permier Pass" thing not an actual product or project they're actively working on.

 

[Splash4eva]

“They envisioned everyone buying LL as a replacement for DAS”. Got anything credible for that or internet social medita conspiracy repeated enough it’s assumed as true by the masses?

So the “crackdown” may actually backfire and cost them money?

 

[Ayla]

@lentesta I'm not making fun of your post, that is what my brain did reading it!

 

[Purduevian]

@lentesta I'm not making fun of your post, that is what my brain did reading it!

Sometime our AI overloads can help if you ask it to explain like I am 5:

Alright, let’s break this down in a simple way:

1. Assumptions:
   • You have 18 Lightning Lane (LL) passes.
   • You can use these passes to go on 18 rides in a day.
   • There are 5,800 guests using these passes.
2. Calculations:
   • If each of the 5,800 guests uses their 18 LL passes, that’s 5,800 guests x 18 rides = 104,000 rides in a day.
3. Magic Kingdom’s Capacity:
   • The Magic Kingdom can handle about 285,000 rides in a day for the 20 LL-enabled attractions.
4. Percentage:
   • The 104,000 rides from LL passes are about 36% of the total 285,000 rides the park can handle (104,000 / 285,000 ≈ 36%).
5. Comparison to FastPass+:
   • In the old FastPass+ system, 80% of ride capacity was for FastPass+ and 20% for standby.
   • With the new system, you could allocate 30% of ride capacity to these new passes, 30% to the current LL program, and still have 40% for standby, which is more than the 20% standby capacity under FastPass+.
6. Conclusion:
   • This new “Premier Pass” idea is feasible in terms of capacity, but it might not be something they’re actively working on.

Does that help clarify things?

 

[Purduevian]

So.... I was watching An All Ears Video on LL and their 15th Tip/Hack was very interesting. Apparently now you have a 5 min grace period on the front, and a 2 hour grace period on the back. Couple this with the fact that you can book a new LL once your window expires, you can actually kind of stack if you leave the parks in the middle of the day and come back.

I don't think they mention this in video, but I believe you still must use at least 1LL earlier in the day before this loophole works.

 

[Ayla]

Sometime our AI overloads can help if you ask it to explain like I am 5:

I have zero interest in AI. I'll keep my brain the way it is, thanks.

 

[DisneyCane]

I wouldn't put it past them to look at payroll here.

On the other hand, suppose I'm raking in $100MM+ per year on VIP tours. Suppose my payroll for that is a single-digit percent, so under $10MM. That leaves $90MM+ per year for me in profit.

Never underestimate the appeal of payroll cuts! I don't think they bother to do detailed calculations like that. Payroll is the biggest "controllable expense" and there are executives who are laser focused on controlling expenses.

 

[Touchdown]

I agree with your bet. Maybe they will add some kind of ridiculously priced unlimited pass to replace the VIP tours and cut payroll. Something like $1,500 per day per person.

I also agree that actually riding that many rides in a day would be difficult. For a lot of rides, your ride rate would be slower than you'd think if you just kept going into the LL for the same ride as soon as you got off. For anything with a pre-show, the total cycle time and the time just to walk from the exit to the entrance and through the LL queue is going to be 15 minutes at least.

Riding different rides requires walking from one to the other. At some point you need a bathroom break and you probably need to eat and drink (although I guess if you brought food and drink you can do so while walking).

If we count parades and fireworks I regularly do that at parties. 18/8=2.25 rides an hour which is easy to do when you know what you’re doing (and can knock off 6 rides after the fireworks.)

 

[hopemax]

I mean, making some assumptions, and keeping in mind I did not have my afternoon coffee:

Let's say that comes with 18 LLs, which is enough to cover almost all of the MK (or 1/2 the MK and everything worth doing at EPCOT - you get the idea).

And let's assume you could *get to* all 18 rides in a day. (As I said upthread, I've done 16 and it's harder than it sounds.)

That's 18 rides per day x 5,800 guests = 104,000 guest-rides per day. And that would be hard to achieve.

The Magic Kingdom's ride capacity for the 20 LL-enabled attractions over an 11-hour day is roughly 285,000 rides, give or take:

View attachment 815021

So this would be 104/285 = ~36% of the park's total capacity for these passes.

That's defintely doable. Recall that in the old FastPass+ days, roughly 80% of the ride capacity was dedicated to FP. And that included things like character greetings, which are not in here. So we had 20% of the ride capacity for standby.

You could price it so that 30% of the ride capacity went to these passes and 30% of the ride capacity went to the current LL program, and you'd still be setting aside more ride capacity (40%) for Standby than we had under FP+.

All that said, I'd still bet strongly that this "Permier Pass" thing not an actual product or project they're actively working on.

I'm coming back into this thread, on the last page so not really on top of the flavor of the discussion at the moment, but what a good page it is. I've always been curious about the ride slots per day. And while for a non LL analysis, this leaves stuff out like the AA shows, it's good enough to get some general ideas. However, it is insane to me that we are even talking about giving 36% of total ride capacity to 5800 people out of potentially 55,000 visitors (~10%). I agree actual usage would be lower, but it will come heavily from stuff like Magic Carpets and Laugh Floor and not the Mine Trains or Haunted Mansion. And 5800 people still represents potentially half of Peter Pan's daily capacity. At some point Disney needs satisfied bodies to keep the whole machine in motion, and 5800 people gorging themselves while the other 45,000 starve is not going to work long term, whatever some quarterly financial report says.

Another thing this chart clearly indicates, IMO, is that Jungle Cruise is not long for this new Disney World. I assumed it had more mid tier capacity, but people are so inefficient in getting themselves into the boats, if that's in the ballpark... wow. Not even Peter Pan level. And the labor costs. No wonder there are these inklings that could lead to Moana going in there. Laugh Floor also seems like prime real estate, but I go to the show so rarely, I don't know how full each show gets.

 

[DisneyCane]

If we count parades and fireworks I regularly do that at parties. 18/8=2.25 rides an hour which is easy to do when you know what you’re doing (and can knock off 6 rides after the fireworks.)

Back in the original FP days I could rope drop Epcot, ride Soarin' and TT twice each. Grab breakfast at Sunshine Seasons after Soarin #2, ride SSE and leave by 11:30. I don't know if that's possible with the current LL system. If it is, now it costs extra while I used to do it for free.

To hit that rate you've got to be in very short queues. For some rides like RotR, I've ridden 3x back to back during slow times (not using LL) but it takes almost 2 hours due to the queue length just to walk through, the few minutes waiting to get sent to the pre show followed by the 3 part pre-show with another queue before part 3.