Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[jpeden]

Who have been very standoffish in recent years

You mean like in 2021 when I had to get into a full blown argument with a CM who refused to refund my ROTR ILL when the ride was down and it was our last day in the parks with a 16 month old?

Her suggestion was to just come back later and “hope it was up.” Yeah, let me just hope to come back with a 16 month old and a pregnant wife. Sure.

It took me asking for a manager (who never came out from the back) and 30 minutes of arguing, with me quoting a Disney PR spokesman who gave a statement to the Orlando Sentinel before they’d give me a refund (and by the way she tried to tell me whoever gave a quote to Orlando’s paper of record wasn’t authorized to speak on behalf of TWDC).

The real kicker was when she said “are you sure you want me to refund this? It will prevent you from using the ILL if it comes back up or buying another one for this ride?” Like I really was going to keep waiting after half an hour at guest relations. She was so rude and condescending I actually reported my interaction with her and did not feel bad about it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

You mean like in 2021 when I had to get into a full blown argument with a CM who refused to refund my ROTR ILL when the ride was down and it was our last day in the parks with a 16 month old?

Her suggestion was to just come back later and “hope it was up.” Yeah, let me just hope to come back with a 16 month old and a pregnant wife. Sure.

It took me asking for a manager (who never came out from the back) and 30 minutes of arguing, with me quoting a Disney PR spokesman who gave a statement to the Orlando Sentinel before they’d give me a refund (and by the way she tried to tell me whoever gave a quote to Orlando’s paper of record wasn’t authorized to speak on behalf of TWDC).

The real kicker was when she said “are you sure you want me to refund this? It will prevent you from using the ILL if it comes back up or buying another one for this ride?” Like I really was going to keep waiting after half an hour at guest relations. She was so rude and condescending I actually reported my interaction with her and did not feel bad about it.

…yeah…like that


But remember: unprecedented demand, no price limits, and you can’t resist it in the blue ocean

 

[Figgy1]

Right…but the UK travel packages are the most advantageous to wdw on earth. This comes up a lot. But most of the people in their are we ‘Mericans…

Enjoy it…it’s good to be the king…sorta

They may get great packages but almost always pay rack rates on rooms

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

They may get great packages but almost always pay rack rates on rooms

Doesn’t matter…it’s all really a game. They get a break on food and tickets…

Us packages take the discount out of the room but whacks you on tickets

Just accounting behind the scenes

 

[twilight mitsuk]

What’s next variable parking prices

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

What’s next variable parking prices

Standard or preferred?

 

[RSoxNo1]

Disney has done anything and everything to manipulate guests instead of simply building new attractions. The Next Gen budget, Genie+ budget, date based tickets and park based tickets didn't accomplish a distribution of guests as they envisioned. They've invested multiple billions in these endeavors when the simplest thing has been and always will be building new attractions to spread out the crowds.

 

[RSoxNo1]

It's comical that people genuinely think this will result in lower per-park prices. What on earth in recent Disney history makes you think you're about to see a price cut...

Exactly, DAK and EPCOT will be reset to the current price with MK, DHS and multi-park being a higher price point.

 

[RSoxNo1]

We’ve been contacted by a bunch of law firms about this.

The last time we checked, around 70% of posted wait times were higher than actuals. Around 25% were too low, and 5% were correct.

IMHO, that’s not enough to convince a court. Disney’s defense would probably be that it’s either impossible or infeasible to be more accurate.

My pet conspiracy theory is that Disney isn’t addressing excessive ride downtime because they’ve done the math and think it’s more profitable to have attractions like Rise be down for two hours every day (which is its actual downtime average in 2022 and 2023). I 100% believe that’s true.

Is it impossible to be more accurate? How do your predictions compare from an accuracy basis relative to Disney?

Is this a situation where you as a third party would be the expert testimony? Blink twice if I'm on to something.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Disney has done anything and everything to manipulate guests instead of simply building new attractions. The Next Gen budget, Genie+ budget, date based tickets and park based tickets didn't accomplish a distribution of guests as they envisioned. They've invested multiple billions in these endeavors when the simplest thing has been and always will be building new attractions to spread out the crowds.

That ship sailed years ago…when people supported Iger and his park tactics

Shoulda said no…shoulda resisted the upsells…should have cut back until shovels moved with needed regularity

Now they need more stuff…like yesterday…and have nothing even on the drawing board.

It’s a disaster from that perspective

 

[Splash4eva]

That ship sailed years ago…when people supported Iger and his park tactics

Shoulda said no…shoulda resisted the upsells…should have cut back until shovels moved with needed regularity

Now they need more stuff…like yesterday…and have nothing even on the drawing board.

It’s a disaster from that perspective

Realistically tho. Putting aside the past if a true new regime came in is this company in any financial shape to say build whats needed in a reasonable time frame as well? Like if they wanted/needed to. Can you see. Something being built in each park in a 12-18 month time frame and could they afford that type of investment?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Realistically tho. Putting aside the past if a true new regime came in is this company in any financial shape to say build whats needed in a reasonable time frame as well? Like if they wanted/needed to. Can you see. Something being built in each park in a 12-18 month time frame and could they afford that type of investment?

No…which is exactly why amusement parks need a consistent, scheduled reinvestment strategy…
Something Disney abandoned to chase unicorns

Now they’re stuck

 

[GhostHost1000]

No…which is exactly amusement parks beed a consistent, scheduled reinvestment strategy…
Something Disney abandoned to chase unicorns

Now they’re stuck

But just think of all the amazing attractions they might open 5 or 6 years from now

The Encanto splash pad will be such a hit

 

[Touchdown]

I hope the price does go up, enough that a bunch of people don’t buy it. Here’s why:

-Less people buying it makes it easier to get FL spots for the people who still do (win for those customers)

-Less people buying it means less people using FL, meaning more standby throughput at merges shortening the line for everyone else (win for the rest of the customers)

-Disney maintains (or possibly grows) revenue off G+ while also increasing guest satisfaction (win for them)

It’s literally win, win, win.

 

[GhostHost1000]

I hope the price does go up, enough that a bunch of people don’t buy it. Here’s why:

-Less people buying it makes it easier to get FL spots for the people who still do (win for those customers)

-Less people buying it means less people using FL, meaning more standby throughput at merges shortening the line for everyone else (win for the rest of the customers)

-Disney maintains (or possibly grows) revenue off G+ while also increasing guest satisfaction (win for them)

It’s literally win, win, win.

If only it were that easy.

Less people able to afford G+ won’t be a win though, it’ll be a backlash since it all used to be included without additional cost not long ago

They just need to build a lot of new attractions/people eater things in all parks.

 

[JD80]

Who have been very standoffish in recent years

I've had nothing but amazingly fast and pleasant interactions with guest services in my past 3 trips when I needed help cancelling ADRs, adjusting ILLs or getting refunds for them because of weather or downtime.

 

[dreday3]

In our case we don’t. It isn’t even the default option, there isn’t another option other than buying tickets from the US - and your base tickets cost more than our park hoppers.

But I do wonder what proportion of US guests who do buy park hoppers use them every day? I bet many don’t.

We do. But we stay in the Epcot resort loop, so we pop in and out of Epcot at least once a day with hoppers.

 

[JD80]

Let’s be real tho… we are talking about people taking vacations at wdw. Adding park hopper is not a day by day decision… you do it once per multi day trips.

This is splitting hairs over a hypothetical…. Not really what people are doing each day.

People add park hopping to multi day tickets once. Someone doing a one day ticket.. is far less likely to make a mid day decision to pay the huge ph add-on.

This is the issue in this thread. None of these scenarios are likely.

• The majority of people don't buy hoppers.
• The majority of people who do and also buy G+, will also buy the multi-park pass
• Most people who are hopping usually have an idea of what they want to do and will act accordingly when purchasing that pass in the morning.

Ultimately this is good for the consumer in a vacuum. You have more choice. You are more likely to save money if you are going to use G+ in EPCOT or AK. Disney also has the ability to limit G+ in MK making the product better (will never happen) while not impacting it's availability at other parks.

Still the system sucks from the beginning because of what @TheMaxRebo mentioned earlier. Disney is still asking you to do too much at the beginning of the day and mostly at 7am.

• Choosing G+
  • And now making the choice of G+ parks
• Choosing ILL
• Choosing VQ

This is more of a consumer psychology question because likely no one is tying these things together in an full ecosystem of guest experience. The more decisions a guest has to make in a day, especially when they are tied to money, the more stressed out they become. The less mental bandwidth they have to make other decisions like buying a fancy dinner or more merch. This is the reason why some people like the dining plan because on vacation they have to make less financial decisions during the fun.

So while the list of things you have to do at 7am isn't very hard and takes less than a minute to accomplish like @CaptainAmerica mentioned. Everyone here who has used the system knows that it's not hard.

The problem is that you've now made 2? 3? financial decisions that are likely costing you $100+ each before you had a cup of coffee or brushed your teeth EVERY DAY. Doesn't matter who you are, but that does not set up the day to be care free and fun.

Each system in of itself is fine and logically sound but CUMULATIVELY they stress the normal guest.

 

[The Mom]

What’s next variable parking prices

I may be misremembering, but I think they did have them. You could pay extra for a closer parking space (some programs, such as AAA, had it as a perk) Perhaps so many people were willing to pay it that it became the norm rather than the exception?

Please note that I'm talking about something that may have happened almost 40 years ago.

 

[the_rich]

This is the issue in this thread. None of these scenarios are likely.

• The majority of people don't buy hoppers.
• The majority of people who do and also buy G+, will also buy the multi-park pass
• Most people who are hopping usually have an idea of what they want to do and will act accordingly when purchasing that pass in the morning.

Ultimately this is good for the consumer in a vacuum. You have more choice. You are more likely to save money if you are going to use G+ in EPCOT or AK. Disney also has the ability to limit G+ in MK making the product better (will never happen) while not impacting it's availability at other parks.

Still the system sucks from the beginning because of what @TheMaxRebo mentioned earlier. Disney is still asking you to do too much at the beginning of the day and mostly at 7am.

• Choosing G+
  • And now making the choice of G+ parks
• Choosing ILL
• Choosing VQ

This is more of a consumer psychology question because likely no one is tying these things together in an full ecosystem of guest experience. The more decisions a guest has to make in a day, especially when they are tied to money, the more stressed out they become. The less mental bandwidth they have to make other decisions like buying a fancy dinner or more merch. This is the reason why some people like the dining plan because on vacation they have to make less financial decisions during the fun.

So while the list of things you have to do at 7am isn't very hard and takes less than a minute to accomplish like @CaptainAmerica mentioned. Everyone here who has used the system knows that it's not hard.

The problem is that you've now made 2? 3? financial decisions that are likely costing you $100+ each before you had a cup of coffee or brushed your teeth EVERY DAY. Doesn't matter who you are, but that does not set up the day to be care free and fun.

Each system in of itself is fine and logically sound but CUMULATIVELY they stress the normal guest.

For me personally it makes things easier. I haven't bought park hoppers in over a decade because we didn't use it enough. So I don't have to worry about which G+ to buy. For my upcoming trip I was only going to buy for HS and possibly MK. But if it's priced at like $15 then I could see myself buying it at AK and maybe Epcot.