Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[nickys]

So you cant buy it as an ILL if you want to ride it today i have a few friends going and they were asking me. Thank you

Correct, there’s no ILL or standby option.

 

[Supertech65]

In the WdwMagic piece the paragraph describing 7 days in advance says for the length of their stay. The 3 days in advance paragraph says "for the total number of admission days on their ticket.

So a 14 day offsite guest can book 8 days earlier than a 2 day onsite guest. I think. When their windows end on the same day.


I think so.

That's what I'm thinking but either way my first 4 days of my trip I'm offsite anyway which means I wouldn't be able to start booking till 3 days before the start of my ticket. But if I'm allowed to book my full 14 day ticket from the 3 day start it would actually cover my on-site stays through the day that I depart. Dear God, why does Disney have to confuse things

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

TBA will be a T1 selection under MultiPass. It is currently a VQ.

It is also currently part of G+.

 

[GoofGoof]

That's a big assumption.

It would be very odd to require consecutive days. What if I have a 10 day ticket but choose to have a pool/break day after 5 park days, would I only be able to book the first 5 days then I’d have to wait until 3 days before the second 5 days I plan to use?

The details say this:
“Guests can purchase Lightning Lane passes for days they have valid theme park admission starting at 7:00 am Eastern Time on their first day of eligibility.”

That implies to me that the booking is tied to your park ticket and The the window opens either 7 days prior to check-in at an on property hotel or 3 days before the first day of the ticket. Once the window is open you can book as many days as your park ticket is valid for but since the ticket does not require consecutive days why would the bookings?

 

[GoofGoof]

@lentesta @DCBaker Any idea how they will handle split stays at resorts? Will you be able to book rides for all all days starting 7 days before checking into the first resort or will it be 7 days prior to each check in? For dining they consider it 2 separate reservations and make you wait until 60 days prior to the second checkin to book ADRs for the second half of the trip but I seem to remember FP+ let you book all your days at both resorts all at once as long as your park ticket and both room reservations were linked on MDE.

 

[arich35]

I thought I read this earlier but does the 7 day window open up on July 24th or can we buy and start planning on July 17th?

 

[nickys]

It would be very odd to require consecutive days. What if I have a 10 day ticket but choose to have a pool/break day after 5 park days, would I only be able to book the first 5 days then I’d have to wait until 3 days before the second 5 days I plan to use?

The details say this:
“Guests can purchase Lightning Lane passes for days they have valid theme park admission starting at 7:00 am Eastern Time on their first day of eligibility.”

That implies to me that the booking is tied to your park ticket and The the window opens either 7 days prior to check-in at an on property hotel or 3 days before the first day of the ticket. Once the window is open you can book as many days as your park ticket is valid for but since the ticket does not require consecutive days why would the bookings?

I think maybe the question related more to whether the window stays open for the full length of the validity of the ticket.

If it’s a 10 day ticket, valid for 14 days, for example. Can you book days 11-14 if you have only booked for six other days? Or do you have to wait a day before adding day 11, and another day to book day 12 etc?

 

[nickys]

I thought I read this earlier but does the 7 day window open up on July 24th or can we buy and start planning on July 17th?

No pre-planning until the 24th. But at least no one else can either.

Disney have a different definition of pre-planning to most guests anyway. Emails from Guest Services have elicited this classic: “you can start pre-planning on your way to the resort”.

 

[Ayla]

I thought I read this earlier but does the 7 day window open up on July 24th or can we buy and start planning on July 17th?

July 24th.

 

[RealBlast3]

July 24th.

So does that essentially mean that only people staying starting on 7/31 Will be using the new system? Because 7/31 is 7 days out. Or does genie plus stop working for those guests staying on property on 7/24?

 

[JAB]

It would be very odd to require consecutive days. What if I have a 10 day ticket but choose to have a pool/break day after 5 park days, would I only be able to book the first 5 days then I’d have to wait until 3 days before the second 5 days I plan to use?

No. The end of the booking window could just be extended by one day to {current date + 3 + length of ticket} each day at 7 am (with a max date of 14 days from the ticket start). So each day you'd be able to book one more day past the initial length of ticket days. This is similar to how FP+ worked for off-site guests - each day, the end of your booking window was extended by one day - the only difference is that under LL-MP the initial booking window would be # of ticket days instead of one day. There's plenty of evidence that G+ just modified the existing FP+ code, so it's not a stretch to think that LL-MP off-site booking could work similarly to FP+.

The details say this:
“Guests can purchase Lightning Lane passes for days they have valid theme park admission starting at 7:00 am Eastern Time on their first day of eligibility.”

That implies to me that the booking is tied to your park ticket and The the window opens either 7 days prior to check-in at an on property hotel or 3 days before the first day of the ticket. Once the window is open you can book as many days as your park ticket is valid for but since the ticket does not require consecutive days why would the bookings?

Again, you're making assumptions.

Off-property is length of ticket, but on-property is length of stay. So on-property guests can book non-consecutive days as long as they have a hotel booked for more nights than they have tickets. The scenario of the off-site guests who use their tickets non-consecutively is what developers would call an edge case (possibly even a corner case) and as such would be deemed not worth the effort and expense to accommodate.

The system has to set an end for the booking window. For on-property guests it's simple - check out date; but for off-property guests, the only real options would be a sliding window like FP+ based on the length of their ticket or a fixed 14 days from their ticket start date. They're not going to limit on-property guests to the length of their stay, but then give all off-site guests a wide-open 14 day window regardless of the length of their ticket.

I guarantee you that "length of ticket" was in the design requirements for off-site guest bookings, so if it were to be implemented the way you're speculating, someone would have had to ignore that design requirement to explicitly implement a fixed 14-day window for off site guests. However, testing would show that the end of the booking window and the max available date are always the same date in every scenario for off-site guests regardless of the length of the ticket and it would get flagged as an issue pretty quickly. If it actually gets implemented the way you think it will, several people messed up.

This is coming from nearly 30 years of development experience.

 

[Ayla]

So does that essentially mean that only people staying starting on 7/31 Will be using the new system? Because 7/31 is 7 days out. Or does genie plus stop working for those guests staying on property on 7/24?

The new system (and pre-booking) starts on July 24th for everyone.

 

[nickys]

So does that essentially mean that only people staying starting on 7/31 Will be using the new system? Because 7/31 is 7 days out. Or does genie plus stop working for those guests staying on property on 7/24?

The current system ends on the 23rd.
Those who are already part way through their vacation then will have to try the new system on the morning of 24th.

 

[RealBlast3]

The new system (and pre-booking) starts on July 24th for everyone.

So people who's staying starts on 7/24 Will basically be screwed and that they won't be able to make a reservation until 7:24 when the new system goes into effect. Because you obviously can't have two systems operating at the same time so they won't get the 7-Day window.

 

[osian]

So people who's staying starts on 7/24 Will basically be screwed and that they won't be able to make a reservation until 7:24 when the new system goes into effect. Because you obviously can't have two systems operating at the same time so they won't get the 7-Day window.

A bit like international visitors then, who will generally only be able to access the system on the day they arrive when everyone else has already had the 7 days. But at the start of this system, there will have been no earlier bookings made before the 24th.

 

[Ayla]

So people who's staying starts on 7/24 Will basically be screwed and that they won't be able to make a reservation until 7:24 when the new system goes into effect. Because you obviously can't have two systems operating at the same time so they won't get the 7-Day window.

Yes, they will...because everyone starts at zero on July 24th. No one is pre-booking anything prior to July 24th.

 

[bwr827]

So people who's staying starts on 7/24 Will basically be screwed and that they won't be able to make a reservation until 7:24 when the new system goes into effect. Because you obviously can't have two systems operating at the same time so they won't get the 7-Day window.

Nobody screwed in this case.

 

[GoofGoof]

No. The end of the booking window could just be extended by one day to {current date + 3 + length of ticket} each day at 7 am (with a max date of 14 days from the ticket start). So each day you'd be able to book one more day past the initial length of ticket days. This is similar to how FP+ worked for off-site guests - each day, the end of your booking window was extended by one day - the only difference is that under LL-MP the initial booking window would be # of ticket days instead of one day. There's plenty of evidence that G+ just modified the existing FP+ code, so it's not a stretch to think that LL-MP off-site booking could work similarly to FP+.


Again, you're making assumptions.

Off-property is length of ticket, but on-property is length of stay. So on-property guests can book non-consecutive days as long as they have a hotel booked for more nights than they have tickets. The scenario of the off-site guests who use their tickets non-consecutively is what developers would call an edge case (possibly even a corner case) and as such would be deemed not worth the effort and expense to accommodate.

The system has to set an end for the booking window. For on-property guests it's simple - check out date; but for off-property guests, the only real options would be a sliding window like FP+ based on the length of their ticket or a fixed 14 days from their ticket start date. They're not going to limit on-property guests to the length of their stay, but then give all off-site guests a wide-open 14 day window regardless of the length of their ticket.

I guarantee you that "length of ticket" was in the design requirements for off-site guest bookings, so if it were to be implemented the way you're speculating, someone would have had to ignore that design requirement to explicitly implement a fixed 14-day window for off site guests. However, testing would show that the end of the booking window and the max available date are always the same date in every scenario for off-site guests regardless of the length of the ticket and it would get flagged as an issue pretty quickly. If it actually gets implemented the way you think it will, several people messed up.

This is coming from nearly 30 years of development experience.

I’m not an expert, I honestly have no idea how this will work and I hope there isn’t an obvious loophole to exploit. I was just thinking the easiest way to apply this for date based tickets would be to open the window 3 days before your ticket date and leave it open for the length of the ticket use window (which would be 14 days for a 10 day ticket). So if I buy a 10 day ticket with a date of August 4th then my booking window would open August 1st and be open for any of the 14 days from August 4th to August 18th (which are the days my park ticket is valid to use) but I would be limited to making reservations on 10 of those days. I don’t think it would be a fixed 14 day window for any length ticket, that was just my example based on a 10 day ticket. If the ticket is valid for less days the window would be less.

It also works to just open a 10 day window with a 10 day ticket and then each day extend it another day until you reach 14 days. That’s just slightly more of a hassle, not that they are likely to care much about that.

 

[JAB]

The new system (and pre-booking) starts on July 24th for everyone.

It's going to be a mad dash for LL on the 24th.

At least for the people aware of the switch. There's probably going to be even more people who are just confused as to why they can't buy Genie+.

 

[RealBlast3]

Nobody screwed in this case.

I think you are screwed in the sense if you are already there in Disney World on vacation and you have however many days left on your trip, let's say 7, for example, your Vacation is now interrupted at 6:00 a.m. And you not only have to make reservations for one day for your family like you did with genie plus, But you have to interrupt your vacation to make reservations for like 7 days or whatever And that's super time consuming and time that is taken away from your vacation. Talk about ruining your morning. And yes everyone will be in the same boat but that doesn't make it any better, everyone who has a vacation in that unfortunate time frame that encompasses genie plus and the new system is going to have one hell of a morning having to make many many reservations all at once. They won't get the advantage of being able to make reservations from the comfort of their own home