Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Yes this.

If it’s at normal park opening you have all the early entry guests who weren’t ready & waiting 30 minutes before early entry (which is probably the majority) already in line.
Then add the regular rope droppers and it could very easily be up to an hour or more - especially if they got let through the tap stiles 10 minutes early.

FYI…it was the resort entry from boardwalk…not the standard.

It also wasn’t worth it really…as 30 minutes does nothing and at that time there was heavier resistance to buying genie out in the Twitterverse so more early risers

 

[pdude81]

Other than boosting sales.

Which is 100% true…because the idea Disney can’t lie to us as much as they want is one of the dumbest old fans have ever adopted. They think the SEC is gonna raid iger’s office and perp walk him out to the 5 like Charlie sheen in Wall Street

Other than the obvious…they’re also trying to bandaid their awfully mismanaged capacity…

Do they want everyone on slinky or rat? No…they’re discouraging you to go to tower, frozen, test track, etc…etc…
And inflating those to trickle you down to garbage like Imagination and Star Tours

I believe they are juicing the wait times, but I don't think they are specifically doing it for more revenue. The lack of capacity and the disdain for waiting for anything makes people buy Genie+. That's why most of the early times for popular rides are gone in minutes.

And I suspect now that people are paying for G+, the LL/SB ratio has gone way up to cut down on refunds. When it was free they couldn't care less if you had to wait 20 minutes in the FP line for Frozen. That's going to drive up times as well, though it shouldn't factor in for the first few mins of early entry.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

CMs walk people in to the park prior to early entry times. That's how it gets loaded up.

I track times on my WDW trips because I love stats. Last year in 2022, second week of December I entered Epcot at 8:35 (park open at 9am) at the international gateway, went straight to Remy. I got on line at 8:39, got on the ride vehicle at 9:40.

That’s 60 minutes and I bet the queue never said 60 Minutes

That CMs walk people in part is funny…so like 1,500 of them?…which is a typical Disneys rides throughput in an hour?
Cause that would be how many it would take to make the first sprinting peasant wait an hour in the first wave.

 

[nickys]

FYI…it was the resort entry from boardwalk…not the standard.

It also wasn’t worth it really…as 30 minutes does nothing and at that time there was heavier resistance to buying genie out in the Twitterverse so more early risers

I know they inflate times, that’s why Touring Plans is so useful.

But I was talking about IG. Same applies there. Unless you’re in the front of early entry the line will grow rapidly. The early entry guests heading for Remy from both gates will fill that line before regular park opening. That’s 60 minutes already.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I believe they are juicing the wait times, but I don't think they are specifically doing it for more revenue. The lack of capacity and the disdain for waiting for anything makes people buy Genie+. That's why most of the early times for popular rides are gone in minutes.

And I suspect now that people are paying for G+, the LL/SB ratio has gone way up to cut down on refunds. When it was free they couldn't care less if you had to wait 20 minutes in the FP line for Frozen. That's going to drive up times as well, though it shouldn't factor in for the first few mins of early entry.

It’s very plausible and likely they’re doing it for both…

This comes up in a lot of threads. They control the tip board and the upsells to avoid the times on the tip board. On what planet would they not used them against each other? It doesn’t make sense otherwise.

And they need money. This is a company not in good terms financially with one public snafu and failure piling up after another…

It closed at $90.50 again yesterday… Iger literally sold his soul to an activist hedge fund two months ago to boost the price and stave off a proxy fight…and a week after Christmas they’re sliding like the ***-end of the titanic into the cold winter water…again

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I know they inflate times, that’s why Touring Plans is so useful.

But I was talking about IG. Same applies there. Unless you’re in the front of early entry the line will grow rapidly. The early entry guests heading for Remy from both gates will fill that line before regular park opening. That’s 60 minutes already.

I was at the IG…and no one was covering 3/4 of a mile from park entrance ahead of us

It’s anecdotal…until you start watching and notice it’s standard

15 minutes was the wait…it was 90 on the board when i entered the courtyard.
Dont blame me.

 

[SamusAranX]

It matters not…they had 90 posted

There weren’t 90 people total over the bridge at that point

I’m talking 8:30 when I looked. FoP was listed at 145 minutes by 8:50z there’s just no way

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I’m talking 8:30 when I looked. FoP was listed at 145 minutes by 8:50z there’s just no way

That would mean 3,000 people entered the line at that point…not impossible…

IF they had all the screens going …and that is a source of contention about the wait times too.

 

[pdude81]

I’m talking 8:30 when I looked. FoP was listed at 145 minutes by 8:50z there’s just no way

This is fair, but understand that once the actual line wait is longer than the time left in early entry, the times would be wildly underinflated since standby turns into a parking lot at 9. And FOP line gets insanely long in the first ten minutes of early entry.

Again not saying they should do this, but I don't see a point in starting it at 5 and then adding 5 minutes to the wait every 30 seconds.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Again not saying they should do this, but I don't see a point in starting it at 5 and then adding 5 minutes to the wait every 30 seconds.

There is a benefit…transparency reaffirms consumer confidence. You’d rather see it rise…because some days it won’t as quickly…than have the fog of war around it. It gives value to what you’re spending…both the ticket and the genie.

You know what’s bad for Disney? This entire discussion for the last hour and a half. Both the optimistic and pessimistic. No business wants to spend time and resources continually defending a product. That’s not marketing.

 

[Andrew25]

The problem with a paid service is that people assume it'll get you through the line in a few minutes. Fastpass was free, so you didn't bother waiting a bit more. But now the LL to Standby ratios are designed to have the LL queue empty.

Pair that with a lack of additional capacity to meet attendance demands and more common breakdowns...

 

[Disstevefan1]

The problem with a paid service is that people assume it'll get you through the line in a few minutes. Fastpass was free, so you didn't bother waiting a bit more. But now the LL to Standby ratios are designed to have the LL queue empty.

Pair that with a lack of additional capacity to meet attendance demands and more common breakdowns...

Agreed. With the free service, there was little or no expectations; nothing to lose.

Now with the paid service, we are paying for a worse service and have real expectations.

 

[nickys]

You know what’s bad for Disney? This entire discussion for the last hour and a half. Both the optimistic and pessimistic. No business wants to spend time and resources continually defending a product.

On the bright side no one’s used the phrase “paid shill” …..

 

[James Alucobond]

To you who doesn’t know any better it appears that way. To the analysis team who created and digests the surveys it is not.

Think of it this way, if you somewhat disagree with something, that means you don’t fully disagree. If you assign a percentage range to that, there could actually be significant percentage of that response that could be weighted as positive.

Using the example presented “I would use a paid system to lower wait times at attractions."
It’s a really simple example of how survey answers are manipulated.” If you somewhat disagree, it also means that under certain conditions you would consider using a paid system.

It’s the reason why you almost never see the binary option of agree or disagree.

Do you actually know how they're interpreting their data, or are you just guessing? I'd be interested if you have inside knowledge of the research team's practices.

Just because a question has more options for response doesn't mean they're all being weighted equally as in your 0-25-50-75-100 example. When rating on a 10-point scale with NPSt analysis, for instance, only 9s and 10s are considered promoters. 7s and 8s are considered passive and discounted, while 6s and below are all detractors. If everyone picked 6, you would actually report out the minimum score of -100.

 

[surfsupdon]

Agreed. With the free service, there was little or no expectations; nothing to lose.

Now with the paid service, we are paying for a worse service and have real expectations.

With the paid service, I also expect the ride to be working properly. I was issued a refund at Guest Relations because our rides on Guardians did not include music after the upward launch till the finale. We were not issued a re-ride option. So I asked, and was granted, a refund for our 4 ILLs. As I should have been.

 

[monothingie]

Do you actually know how they're interpreting their data, or are you just guessing? I'd be interested if you have inside knowledge of the research team's practices.

Just because a question has more options for response doesn't mean they're all being weighted equally as in your 0-25-50-75-100 example. When rating on a 10-point scale with NPSt analysis, for instance, only 9s and 10s are considered promoters. 7s and 8s are considered passive and discounted, while 6s and below are all detractors. If everyone picked 6, you would actually report out the minimum score of -100.

Oh you did a Google search and copy/paste! How extraordinary.

Disney has a proprietary method for analyzing and scoring their surveys. I would assume based on the structure of the questions that it is a hybrid implementation. None of this changes that Disney crafts the questions to leads respondents to their (Disney’s) desired answers.

 

[Andrew25]

With the paid service, I also expect the ride to be working properly. I was issued a refund at Guest Relations because our rides on Guardians did not include music after the upward launch till the finale. We were not issued a re-ride option. So I asked, and was granted, a refund for our 4 ILLs. As I should have been.

Interesting, did you mention it to a CM? On Hagrid, I was able to re-ride immediately when I mentioned that the onboard audio wasn't working properly.

 

[pdude81]

Interesting, did you mention it to a CM? On Hagrid, I was able to re-ride immediately when I mentioned that the onboard audio wasn't working properly.

I had this situation happen once on Remy when it was a LL before Guardians. Half the show scenes were frozen and not working, but I paid for the ride and it wasn't standby. I asked for a reride on the way out and they said to just talk to the person at the front gate to go back in. Got there and they said too bad. I had to go out to GR and they issued me an anytime pass for the next day since I was leaving at that point.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Ok, then early entry. I agree it's nuts to start with 90 as it won't get that high until the traditional park open and Genie+ mixes in.

However, they also have to play the customer expectations/satisfaction game. So is the line really 40 minutes at 8:59 and 90 at 9:00, or do they need to start jacking those times up quickly so you don't get in line when it says 25 minutes at 8:45 and wait 70?

I also think the post it for what it will be if you see that time then start walking and then get there.

obviously the people at the very front of rope drop and first in line won't be waiting that long - but if you were at the front of the park just getting in, so at the back of the rope drop line and see that wait time, but they time you actually get to the ride that is going to be closer to the wait time as the queues for the really popular rides fill really quick from rope droppers/early entry

 

[Disstevefan1]

With the paid service, I also expect the ride to be working properly. I was issued a refund at Guest Relations because our rides on Guardians did not include music after the upward launch till the finale. We were not issued a re-ride option. So I asked, and was granted, a refund for our 4 ILLs. As I should have been.

Excellent point! The worse paid system aside, now that we are paying there is a real expectation that rides should be working!!! And when I am paying for ILL I do not want to see B mode!!!

For free I am OK with B mode but not when I specifically paid for that specific ride with ILL!