Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

Dranth

Well-Known Member
I think you have to assume you will get your initial 3 and then several Tier 2s before submitting your credit card info. If that feels worthwhile, then you'll be happy. Anyone thinking they will end up scoring all of the MK Tier 1s will end up angry. We will still need to wait in line. Express Pass lets you skip every line but it also costs hundreds of dollars for a family to use for a day.
Great, but the system they just got rid of gave those that used it a good chance of doing all the T1s. So we lose that so people can get two T2s ahead of time? Seems like a bad trade to me.
 

el_super

Well-Known Member
reduction in wait times because there is more for people to do... and are more spread out... across an individual park or multiple parks

The overall wait times don't go down though. They never have. Historically if a new ride opened with a 6 hour wait, the other attractions might have a shorter wait, but for the people electing to wait 6 hours, their overall average wait time stayed the same, or went up. Avg wait times would only go down if people elected to NOT RIDE the newest attraction.. right?

The same is still true today. Wait times exist because more people are lining up than capacity can accommodate. That only changes if people elect NOT to ride.

I guess Disney shouldn't build anything new with your logic.

You build more to increase your attendance. You build more to accommodate more people.

Can you name a point in history when a new ride resulted in power wait times?
 

el_super

Well-Known Member
Your time in the park on any given day is finite, though. There will be people who are willing to wait 2 hours to ride something new - so that's 2 hours where they aren't in line for something else.

Yeah so generally time is finite and where there are wait time increases (for new attractions) there ARE decreases for other attractions. But the decreases don't apply evenly to all attractions, they are weighted toward the least popular attractions. People would rather ride Tron or Space Mountain a second time than Carousel of Progress.

Which is the whole reason Disney tends to close attractions after new ones open. The demand drops off a cliff.

But really none of this changes the bigger point: you still need a line management options for the newest attractions.
 

Dranth

Well-Known Member
Which is the whole reason Disney tends to close attractions after new ones open. The demand drops off a cliff.
From 2010- 2019 MK went from 16 million people a year to 21 million with no net added capacity. They were trying to cram 5 million extra people a year into existing queues. At some point you HAVE to build extra capacity while also updating the under used attractions.

But really none of this changes the bigger point: you still need a line management options for the newest attractions.
Well, they don't NEED one. They could go all stand by and let people self select.
 

Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
You build more to increase your attendance. You build more to accommodate more people.

Can you name a point in history when a new ride resulted in power wait times?

As a tangential issue, some of us (okay, me), when we complain that Disney doesn't have sufficient "capacity" to accommodate all the DAS/ILL/G+ crowd without making things miserable for the rest of us, aren't saying WDW necessarily needs to build more rides. It's not a question of Disney's maximum capacity, but of Disney's choice not to ever use that capacity other than once or twice a year. The rest of the time, even during major vacation or holiday weeks, Disney deliberately understaffs attractions and runs them with a fraction of the ride vehicles they could be using, solely in order to increase profits.

I may be able to stomach waiting over an hour for Big Thunder Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean, on a day where the park is open 2-4 hours less than it used to be, in a line that barely moves at a crawl, while hundreds upon hundreds of impaired/ILL/G+ people are surging gleefully ahead of me in a neverending stream. What really pi$$es me off, though, is getting to the head of that line and seeing that Disney is only using one of the two loading areas, and thus more than doubling the wait for every single standby guest, on purpose! Unfortunately, that's become the standard operating procedure for every attraction where capacity can be manipulated.

WDW has sufficient capacity and operational ability to shorten wait times, just by running existing attractions with appropriate staffing and vehicle usage. It simply refuses to, and will presumably continue to do so with every new attraction it builds. What really needs a capacity increase is the small, shriveled hearts of WDW's corporate bean counters, because their desperate attempt to monetize the queueing experience and transform it into a caste system has diminished the in-park experience for everybody. Nothing about the newest rebranding and tweaking of paid FP+/G+ is going to address the root cause of that, any more than renaming a disease will relieve sufferers of their symptoms.

FP+ access that was part of every guest's ticket came with its own problems, but at least it felt fair. A paid skip-the-line system that is only accessible to the wealthy, disabled (x4), or dishonest, never will.
 
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ConfettiCupcake

Well-Known Member
As a tangential issue, some of us (okay, me), when we complain that Disney doesn't have sufficient "capacity" to accommodate all the DAS/ILL/G+ crowd without making things miserable for the rest of us, aren't saying WDW necessarily needs to build more rides. It's not a question of Disney's maximum capacity, but of Disney's choice not to ever use that capacity other than once or twice a year. The rest of the time, even during major vacation or holiday weeks, Disney deliberately understaffs attractions and runs them with a fraction of the ride vehicles they could be using, solely in order to increase profits.

I may be able to stomach waiting over an hour for Big Thunder Mountain, on a day where the park is open 2-4 hours less than it used to be, in a line that barely moves at a crawl, while dozens of impaired/G+ people are surging gleefully ahead of me every moment. What really pi$$es me off, though, is getting to the head of that line and seeing that Disney is only using one of the two loading areas, and more than doubling the wait for every standby guest, on purpose! Unfortunately, that's become the standard operating procedure for every attraction where capacity can be manipulated.

In short, WDW has sufficient capacity and operational ability to shorten wait times, just by operating existing attractions with appropriate staffing and vehicle usage. It simply refuses to, and will presumably continue to do so with every new attraction it builds.

Extended park hours would be huge. I’m not sure people who started visiting in the last 5-10 years or so would believe what used to be included with regular tickets year round.
 

wedenterprises

Well-Known Member
As a tangential issue, some of us (okay, me), when we complain that Disney doesn't have sufficient "capacity" to accommodate all the DAS/ILL/G+ crowd without making things miserable for the rest of us, aren't saying WDW necessarily needs to build more rides. It's not a question of Disney's maximum capacity, but of Disney's choice not to ever use that capacity other than once or twice a year. The rest of the time, even during major vacation or holiday weeks, Disney deliberately understaffs attractions and runs them with a fraction of the ride vehicles they could be using, solely in order to increase profits.

I may be able to stomach waiting over an hour for Big Thunder Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean, on a day where the park is open 2-4 hours less than it used to be, in a line that barely moves at a crawl, while dozens of impaired/G+ people are surging gleefully ahead of me in a neverending stream. What really pi$$es me off, though, is getting to the head of that line and seeing that Disney is only using one of the two loading areas, and thus more than doubling the wait for every single standby guest, on purpose! Unfortunately, that's become the standard operating procedure for every attraction where capacity can be manipulated.

WDW has sufficient capacity and operational ability to shorten wait times, just by running existing attractions with appropriate staffing and vehicle usage. It simply refuses to, and will presumably continue to do so with every new attraction it builds. What really needs a capacity increase is the small, shriveled hearts of WDW's corporate bean counters, because their desparate attempt to monetize the queueing experience and transform it into a caste system has diminished the in-park experience for everybody. Nothing about the newest rebranding of paid FP+/G+ is going to address the root cause of that, any more than renaming a disease will relieve sufferers of their symptoms.
They artificially inflate wait times to sell Genie+

I'm shocked they haven't introduced more ways to take your money while in that hour long line for BTM.
 

Deadly Danson

Active Member
On the international front - the VPN bypasses I've used in the past no longer seem to work and it just states "you must be in the US or Canada" if trying to purchase Genie+. So having spent north of £2000 on a Disney hotel are they seriously saying that if I purchase Genie+ AT FULL PRICE of course I will be behind even the non Disney resort guests in the pecking order when i go in a couple of months? Because (in this context) that is pretty scandalous. I've never known a company who seem to work harder to frustrate their guests.
 

GhostHost1000

Premium Member
The overall wait times don't go down though. They never have. Historically if a new ride opened with a 6 hour wait, the other attractions might have a shorter wait, but for the people electing to wait 6 hours, their overall average wait time stayed the same, or went up. Avg wait times would only go down if people elected to NOT RIDE the newest attraction.. right?

The same is still true today. Wait times exist because more people are lining up than capacity can accommodate. That only changes if people elect NOT to ride.



You build more to increase your attendance. You build more to accommodate more people.

Can you name a point in history when a new ride resulted in power wait times?
you must be new here - I hope you aren't going by posted wait times to attempt to make your case


at the end of the day... the daily capacity of a new ride doesn't mean the number of additional guests in the park that day is always that or more.... therefore more attractions, things to do, places to go, etc. spread out the crowds

do you think TRON brought in a lot more daily visitors to the MK? No... but there are a lot of people in the line there (meaning people are more spread out - not in line somewhere else)
 

GhostHost1000

Premium Member
Stacking rides at 9 am, 9:45 am, and 10:30 am when you can add your fourth at 9 am, however, could allow for many LLs. The proof will be in the pudding, though. Are they really able to dedicate much more capacity with DAS diminished?
I like your thinking... we'll have to see how it all plays out I guess.
 

Saskdw

Well-Known Member
On the international front - the VPN bypasses I've used in the past no longer seem to work and it just states "you must be in the US or Canada" if trying to purchase Genie+. So having spent north of £2000 on a Disney hotel are they seriously saying that if I purchase Genie+ AT FULL PRICE of course I will be behind even the non Disney resort guests in the pecking order when i go in a couple of months? Because (in this context) that is pretty scandalous. I've never known a company who seem to work harder to frustrate their guests.
Interesting it says or Canada.
I'm hopeful this will work from Canada.
 

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