Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[UNCgolf]

You can add Genie+ *starting at 12:00 AM* of the day you visit.

If you plan to get up to grab your first DG+$ LL at 7:00 AM, set your alarm 5 minutes earlier and add DG+$ at 6:55 AM.

I'm sorry about the 5 minutes of sleep loss.

Yeah, as a person who thinks 7 AM is too early for booking and completely unnecessary for Disney operations... I don't get why it matters that you can add Genie+ at midnight. It's not going to be a 30 minute process.

The only way it would be a problem is if they were going to sell a limited number and thus could be sold out by 12:15. But that's not going to happen.

 

[TimeTrip]

I suppose I was under the impression that BG were pre-booked whereas the VQ happens when standby closed. But I think I may be confused because it doesn’t appear they will close standby lines irrespective of the length of queue. I think that may be where my confusion lies.

Virtual Queue at WDW is (currently) using boarding groups. DLP has a concept of "virtual standby" (officially "standby pass") where you sign up for a return time when physical standby is "full". As far as anyone knows, this is NOT in the cards for WDW.

 

[MisterPenguin]

The vast majority of rides that are IAS will have normal standby lines.

Indeed.

It seems there will be 8 rides that IA$LL can be used on, and you can only do two IA$LLs (different ones) per day.

Of those 8, 2 can be gotten on for free* if you win the BG lottery. The other six you can get on for free in the standby line.

If you're going to a park with a BG ride, try for the lottery and then rope drop the other.



*No extra charge

 

[flynnibus]

And for those that keep insisting it's like Maxpass, it's not. Maxpass had an alternative free version. This doesn't.

And the alternate to maxpass... wasn't maxpass! It was the legacy FP distribution. Hence, not maxpass. The references to maxpass here are how the digital maxpass/FP worked and was used. Just because you still had paper FP in the parks, doesn't change what maxpass was.

 

[rawisericho]

What’s going to happen when character meet and greets come back. They had FP for those - will that be a Genie+ thing too??

Definitely. I saw an early leak that ICP (Individual Character Pricing) will be as follows:

$5 per person/per character = Meet character for 1.5 minutes
$10 per person/per character = Meet character, get picture taken
$15 per person/per character=Meet character, get picture taken, you can also keep the picture
$20 per person/per character=All of the above but the character will whisper a secret in your ear

 

[doctornick]

Nope... just trying to explain what seems to be happening in the parks. I'm sure it's far more complicated than even I can comprehend.







What your both describing is close to what they're already trying to do: a tier system for attractions.

And yeah, in a way that was probably driving the decision to build the Little Mermaid ride, which is a great capacity attraction... but it hasn't really helped lower the line at Space Mountain.

Disney still has to build blockbuster attractions to keep people coming to the park, and whatever attraction they build is still going to have to have some form of queue management system.

Building Little Mermaid of course won’t lower the line at Space Mountain. The only realistic way to do that is to massively limit park entry (or cause lower attendance to happen with huge price increases for tickets)

No, the value in building the Little Mermaid is to improve people’s enjoyment of the parks, giving them more to do (and more options) and making it more likely that they won’t be as disappointed if they don’t ride Space at all or bothered if they have a long wait for it. It improves the value perception for the parks but making the experience better. Then people don’t feel as nickeled and dimed when paying for the tickets and Genie+

 

[MisterPenguin]

There's an existing thread about a 5th Gate and why it will only work under very narrow conditions:

Why Walt Disney World Needs a 5th Theme Park By 2025

Universal has beaten Disney to the fantasy genre by building the Harry Potter themed areas.

forums.wdwmagic.com

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Indeed.

It seems there will be 8 rides that IA$LL can be used on, and you can only do two IA$LLs (different ones) per day.

Of those 8, 2 can be gotten on for free* if you win the BG lottery. The other six you can get on for free in the standby line.

If you're going to a park with a BG ride, try for the lottery and then rope drop the other.



*No extra charge

Did they announce some change to the BG process? I've seen a number of people call it a "lottery." Is that new? I thought it was first come, first served.

Definitely. I saw an early leak that ICP (Individual Character Pricing) will be as follows:

$5 per person/per character = Meet character for 1.5 minutes
$10 per person/per character = Meet character, get picture taken
$15 per person/per character=Meet character, get picture taken, you can also keep the picture
$20 per person/per character=All of the above but the character will whisper a secret in your ear

Many people read these boards who aren't savvy enough to understand that you're joking.

 

[flynnibus]

Did they announce some change to the BG process? I've seen a number of people call it a "lottery." Is that new? I thought it was first come, first served.

While not strictly a lotto - it is in effect one because so many requests crowded in a short period means it's almost random what you get. Order or process is not in your control

 

[el_super]

You're hanging on semantics when you know the underlying point is still true. The park has more demand then capacity and that's what people are pointing out. Obviously they need capacity people WANT (duh) - but just pointing out they've added stuff while still falling behind in actual load capacity is just non-sense talk.

My reply was brief, but the point still remains: building more attractions doesn't fix the capacity problems. If building high capacity attractions was the answer, things like Navi River and Little Mermaid would have significantly helped alleviate stress on the system as a whole: it didn't. If just building new attractions period, was the answer, Pandora, Toy Story and Star Wars would have helped. But here we all are complaining again that Fastpass is broken, the parks are overcrowded and nothing seems to work.

People are just suggesting building new attractions because they WANT new attractions, not because they understand the intricacies of how capacity works. There's nothing wrong with wanting new attractions and sure people SHOULD be demanding them, but they are out a solution to resolving wait times system wide.

Actually there is one notable exception to this that I completely forgot: The double dumbo addition.

Has anyone actually done the math on New Fantasyland?

 

[doctornick]

I got used to it. The lines move, you're not seeing swarms of people pass you by, psychologically it feels better.

As a local I'm not going to be spending $15 for this. Perhaps if I'm with people from out of town or we plan to do a full day, but with no "AP" price it really is a waste of money if you visit more than a couple days each year. And for those that keep insisting it's like Maxpass, it's not. Maxpass had an alternative free version. This doesn't.

Oh this is definitely worse for APs. I think from Disney’s prospective that’s a good thing and honestly will make things (relatively) better for the higher paying day guests.

 

[UNCgolf]

My reply was brief, but the point still remains: building more attractions doesn't fix the capacity problems. If building high capacity attractions was the answer, things like Navi River and Little Mermaid would have significantly helped alleviate stress on the system as a whole: it didn't. If just building new attractions period, was the answer, Pandora, Toy Story and Star Wars would have helped. But here we all are complaining again that Fastpass is broken, the parks are overcrowded and nothing seems to work.

People are just suggesting building new attractions because they WANT new attractions, not because they understand the intricacies of how capacity works. There's nothing wrong with wanting new attractions and sure people SHOULD be demanding them, but they are out a solution to resolving wait times system wide.

Actually there is one notable exception to this that I completely forgot: The double dumbo addition.

Has anyone actually done the math on New Fantasyland?

Of course it does. Go back and read my earlier post why.

You're looking at the parks now and saying it didn't help, without understanding what the parks would look like if none of those rides existed. The problem is that they haven't added enough capacity compared to attendance increases, not that adding capacity at all is pointless.

Headliners are going to get long lines regardless, but that's not the point. The point is offering other things for people to do that don't have such long lines, so that they aren't spending the entire day in long lines. NRJ wouldn't get the lines it gets if DAK had several other things for people to do, because attendance isn't going to suddenly increase by 15,000+ people a day.

 

[aliceismad]

Definitely. I saw an early leak that ICP (Individual Character Pricing) will be as follows:

$5 per person/per character = Meet character for 1.5 minutes
$10 per person/per character = Meet character, get picture taken
$15 per person/per character=Meet character, get picture taken, you can also keep the picture
$20 per person/per character=All of the above but the character will whisper a secret in your ear

This does raise a point, though. There was FP for certain M&Gs. Will that be included in G+?

 

[dmw]

Many people read these boards who aren't savvy enough to understand that you're joking.

Wait! Are you saying that nothing we read on these boards is official from Disney?!?

 

[Midlife Mouse]

Definitely. I saw an early leak that ICP (Individual Character Pricing) will be as follows:

$5 per person/per character = Meet character for 1.5 minutes
$10 per person/per character = Meet character, get picture taken
$15 per person/per character=Meet character, get picture taken, you can also keep the picture
$20 per person/per character=All of the above but the character will whisper a secret in your ear

Was this leaked by a cast member who goes by the alias "Bob Paycheck"?

 

[doctornick]

While not strictly a lotto - it is in effect one because so many requests crowded in a short period means it's almost random what you get. Order or process is not in your control

Kind of. But it seems like people “in the know” can reliably get it any time they try. We got it the two times we tried on our recent trip without doing it before (by following suggestions on here) with BG 4 and then 21.

And it’ll change but the 1pm window has been opened long enough that anyone motivated to get one then could get a boarding group.

 

[flynnibus]

My reply was brief, but the point still remains: building more attractions doesn't fix the capacity problems. If building high capacity attractions was the answer, things like Navi River and Little Mermaid would have significantly helped alleviate stress on the system as a whole: it didn't.

They did - you're just taking isolated slices and trying to hold them in isolation and point them out as not... when everyone knows that's not how it works. You're also ignoring basics like 'if you are 25% behind, and add 20%... you're still 5% behind, not 20% ahead'.

Simple arguments like "they added stuff and lines still suck" is a statement made to serve a pre-defined conclusion, not one that actually assessed the need, the change, and the real balance point.

If just building new attractions period, was the answer, Pandora, Toy Story and Star Wars would have helped. But here we all are complaining again that Fastpass is broken, the parks are overcrowded and nothing seems to work.

Adding those attractions did help the other waits in the park. Again, just pointing at individual slices when it's an entire system in question is disingenuous. The point at which you are measuring is again, disingenuous.

People are just suggesting building new attractions because they WANT new attractions, not because they understand the intricacies of how capacity works. There's nothing wrong with wanting new attractions and sure people SHOULD be demanding them, but they are out a solution to resolving wait times system wide.

It's both - but you have to look beyond short term spikes and popularity gradients to draw real conclusions. Not simply say "see, star wars lines are big... adding attractions doesn't help!"

You also have to consider the attractions' capacity vs the demand it will generate to decide if the net will be a gain or a pain to the overall system. Disney has a recent track record of creating high demand attractions with low capacity ... obviously in those conditions the addition may actually cause more overflow elsewhere vs serve to pull demand away from other things. This is another area where Disney "is doing stuff" but still falling behind because "doing something" isn't necessarily the same as "fixing it".

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

We haven't seen any indication that Disney is planning such a thing. None whatsoever.

You’re not paying attention there…theres been no pricing set for rides…therefore it’s variable

 

[SamusAranX]

Yes sleeping make Slappie No Money!!! Sleeping not allowed under Genie's watch

Push notification:

“The genie has noticed its 4 am and you’re not awake. Mickey Waffles will perk you right up! Act now for 2.50 off your purchase! Limited offer, not combinable with other offers. Limit one per room. Not valid at Value Resorts”

 

[CaptainAmerica]

While not strictly a lotto - it is in effect one because so many requests crowded in a short period means it's almost random what you get. Order or process is not in your control

I've ridden Rise of the Resistance four times on two trips. It wasn't particularly difficult. I think a lot of the consternation comes from boomers not using their phones properly.