Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Purduevian]

What do the times look like at 7AM a week out for resort guests?

Thrill data (https://www.thrill-data.com/lightning-lane/wdw) is able to show 21 day out availability. For the biggest hitters though (if you booked today for August 7th)

Ride	Earliest return time if you booked at 7am today	Earliest return time if you booked now ~11:15am
Tiana	Sold out	Sold out
Remy	3:50pm	4:10pm
Frozen	11:55am	12pm
SDD	5:40pm	5:40pm
Navi	11:10am	11:20am

 

[Unbanshee]

From the video's I've seen on YT the further out you book the better the selections are. I hope that to be true.

Not only does that logically make sense, but it looks like that is the case in practice as well. Here are some data points from blogmickey for some of the most difficult to book rides

Top 10 Toughest Lightning Lane Multi Pass & Single Pass Attractions to Secure at Walt Disney World

In this article, we're going to cover Lightning Lane attraction availability and take a look at the top 10 toughest attractions to secure!

blogmickey.com

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

I think part of this is they need to fill rooms. They have taken away all the good perks for staying at an overpriced Disney resort.

The 7 days out booking is a huge perk. Also IMO the type of people willing to pay the cost of staying in the Disney bubble like to pre plan. They liked booking ADR's at 180 days out and booking FP+ at 60 days. It also gives them an easy promo opportunity to fill rooms if they want to. Free MLL with Deluxe resort booking!

They could have done this by letting resort guests book their first ride only and kept the best parts of genie but instead they now made it the worst version of line skip since its inception

 

[Saskdw]

They could have done this by letting resort guests book their first ride only and kept the best parts of genie but instead they now made it the worst version of line skip since its inception

One pre booked ride isn't good enough. It needs to be 3 to fill rooms.

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

100% agree. This is the fourth version of this in 10 years and this is the worst version of all 4. How do they keep getting it wrong? Why can't they just get it right?

Awful.

But this will change too. Sales will 100% be lower with this and they will change it. I'm convinced off that. I don't expect this to last to thanksgiving. My guess is we will have changes before the holidays because of how bad this is.

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

One pre booked ride isn't good enough. It needs to be 3 to fill rooms.

You obviously don't understand how it works 2 ILLs, first pre booked and a VQ would be 4 in advance.

If you could pre book ur first, eliminating the 7am wake up and then have 100% of the rides available to you at 10am when it's time to book your second

Vs


Booking 3 rides, none of your top choices

What would you select?

There's not one logical person that would pick the 3.

 

[Saskdw]

You obviously don't understand how it works 2 ILLs, first pre booked and a VQ would be 4 in advance.

If you could pre book ur first, eliminating the 7am wake up and then have 100% of the rides available to you at 10am when it's time to book your second

Vs


Booking 3 rides, none of your top choices

What would you select?

There's not one logical person that would pick the 3.

You don't understand what other people want.

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

How.... I don't understand this at all.... We rode every single ride we wanted using Genie Plus and rope dropping... It wasn't hard at all so I have a hard time believing your post.... It really wasn't hard at all......

Agree 100%......all you had to know was to book every 2 hours or after you used ur last genie.....how is that so hard?

and i got any ride i wanted in any park (as long as i got SDD at 7am)

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

We are happy to pay $$$ for premium experiences but this makes me think we will by LLMP a lot less than we used to buy G+ (which was daily). It’s not going to work on arrival day (with the possible exception of AK) to get more than one ride we’d actually want to use it on, and it doesn’t look that valuable for any other day that we aren’t (a) able to get selections for before 10AM and (b) able to get everybody out of the hotel and into a LL by 9ish. And this is during a slow period, right? If they don’t increase capacity, I presume the holiday crush will be a nightmare.

This is exactly the problem w this system..........and not only that, it hurts resort guests who do not go right to the parks first thing in the am........

Who does this benefit other than resort rope droppers? nobody

They took a product that needing tweaking and nuked it and made it a vastly inferior product that is worse for 90% of the users who buy it

 

[JMcMahonEsq]

They could have done this by letting resort guests book their first ride only and kept the best parts of genie but instead they now made it the worst version of line skip since its inception

Thats because the new systems (like the FP+ of old) wasn't intended to be a good line skip system.

No matter that Genie+ replaces FP+, at a fundamental level they were NOT the same thing, and didn't have the same goals in mind.

FP+ did several things. First it acted as an incentive to Resort guests, providing a free service that was better then what people not staying on property had. Second, it was a trip PLANNING system not a simple line skipping system. It was a reservation system that let you guarantee you were getting on X ride, at Y time, no matter the what the conditions were day of trip. It benefitted people who wanted to do pre-planning, who wanted to stay on property, but it lacked flexibility to take into account actual lines. You might pre-trip get a FP for a ride on Monday morning, and that day, it turns out the wait is 5min and you didn't need the FP to skip a line.

Genie+ did other things. First it was a day of service, treating day guests and long term stayers equally. Other than a slightly earlier booking opportunity for your first ride, it also treats on property guests and off property guests equally. Finally it didn't let you reserve/plan out rides in advance, rather your selections were being made day of, based upon line times and availability. It was geared toward being able to choice to skip a line as it existed that day, not preplanning a time in the future when you could schedule a ride.

I always thought Genie+ was a fairer, more equitable system. But as someone who like planning trips, thinks spontaneity is just laziness, and who always stays on property, subjectively FP+ was a better system (not taking into account one was free and the other was paid.) It appears based upon the data WDW has that 1) more/better benefits for staying on property are needed and 2) people like pre-planning their ride times as opposed to the simple skip whatever line i can at the time model. So its not that the new system is a worse version of Genie+, its that WDW wants the new system to do different things.

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

You don't understand what other people want.

you want 3 crappy rides for $39pp? (said nobody ever btw)

well thats what you got!

 

[GhostHost1000]

you want 3 crappy rides for $39pp? thats what you got!

then you're not using it right

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

Then Genie would have been just as effective by stacking them during the day… and in theory you could have stacked 3 tier 1 rides where now you cant. So to me Genie was good for everyone sans the 7am part which last i checked is still there lol… anyone who wanted to stroll in later could have had at least 4 rides booked via Genie if you get to park after 3pm and if you came at 5 you could have 5 booked not counting ILL. So you can walk in park at 5pm and literally have 6 rides booked to enjoy with zero hassle. Now you cant so

and they could have easily eliminated the 7am thing, giving a clear advantage to resort guests by allowing their first ride pre booked while preserving the best parts of Genie+ that are VASTLY superior to this system that not one person could debate otherwise.....


I don't know one person who would have 3 crappy rides vs 3 tier 1 rides.....not one....and if you say you do, you are lying

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

Agree 100%......all you had to know was to book every 2 hours or after you used ur last genie.....how is that so hard?

and i got any ride i wanted in any park (as long as i got SDD at 7am)

If everybody used all the tips and tricks to the fullest you no longer would have been able to get the results you did.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand a finite capacity where demand outpaces supply. There is no best system from the perspective of all guests because of this. Somebody has to give up LLs for somebody else to get them. They quite literally only work the way they do for power users because a contingent of users could not or would not use the system like a power user.

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

FWIW, I think this kind of touring works nicely with the LLMP style system. It’s basically the ideal style of touring for it (a midday break). Move through your first 3 quickly in conjunction with rope drop attractions, maybe grab 1-2 more before you leave, and have 3 booked somewhere for your evening with the bonus of having your afternoon break to refine things using drops and such.

I’d argue it’s better than Genie+ for that (Genie+ does better with a late entry to the park or no exit at all IMO) but YMMV.

what if you are one of the 90% of guests who do not rope drop? its worse for 90% of guests, day or resort

90 vs 10? i dont think anyone would be able to argue that's better

 

[Purduevian]

Noonish check on 7/31 (first day people were able to book 7 days in advance!)

Ride	Normal return time	Best return time within the 5 refreshes
Big Thunder	Sold out
Buzz	4:35pm
HM	8:25pm
Jungle Cruise	Sold out
Pooh	8:35pm
Pirates	5:20pm	1:55pm
SM	6:20pm	5:30pm
Tiana	Sold out
Frozen	Sold out
MS	8:30pm
Remy	Sold out
MMRR	3:45pm
MFSR	2:45pm
RnRC	7:00pm	4:30pm
SDD	Sold out
TSMM	Sold out	2:40pm
ToT	Sold out	8:15pm
EE	1:40pm
Kali	4:50pm
Navi	4:55pm

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

Multiple reports and YouTube videos have pointed out that “sold out” is not necessarily a final state at any given time of the day.

Playing the slots/refresh game has so far worked to get LLs for some rides that were showing as no longer available.

what about all the people that go to buy it and see sold out and have no clue about drops (prob 90% of the users buying it)? they will never buy it

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Anyone figure out what the problem
With rides is yet?

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

I am definitely one of them, especially can mined with the 7am booking, it just made for stressful mornings. Not just having to do it at 7am but not knowing what you would be able to get and what time it would be for. And then then at times you would get whammies by clicking on it when it says one time, but by the time confirmed it was a lot latter

I was able to make G+ work really efficiently for us but was much more stressful and took up more brain energy than a FP+ type system - so hoping for similar with this system

you could have had both....no 7am AND a much more efficient genie.....why do people not understand this?

 

[Jrb1979]

If everybody used all the tips and tricks to the fullest you no longer would have been able to get the results you did.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand a finite capacity where demand outpaces supply. There is no best system from the perspective of all guests because of this. Somebody has to give up LLs for somebody else to get them. They quite literally only work the way they do for power users because a contingent of users could not or would not use the system like a power user.

Agreed. Cause the majority of guests are happy with 3 LLs a day as the majority don't go to Disney to ride attractions all day. This system works the best for the majority of guests.

IMO power users are the minority of users. Most don't go to the parks at rope drop and stay til close.