Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

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Purduevian

Well-Known Member
Welp 8/2 and another slow day at work... Challenge mode today playing in MK and DHS. I will just be editing this post as the day goes on

8:30am 5 refresh yields the following "prebooks"
ParkMagic KingdomHollywood Studios
Current "Booked" LLs [booked time]
  • 2:10pm Pirates [1:00pm]
  • 3:50pm BTMRR [10:40am]
  • 6:00pm Buzz [1:45pm]
  • ?? Everything else is either available right now of SDD (which hasn't come up)
  • 1:50pm RnRC [9:35am]
  • 2:50pm Alien [11:45am]
"Used" LLs, (Time it was used)|Standby wait when used [time it was booked]
  • Pooh (10:20am)| 20 mins [Booked at 8:30am]
  • SM (10:40am)| 60 mins[Booked at 10:20am]
  • JC (1:00pm) | 25 mins [booked at 8:30am]
  • HM (1:45pm)| 13 mins [booked at 10:40am]
  • MMRR (9:35am)| 50 mins [Booked at 8:30am]
  • TOT (10:20am)| 30 mins [Booked at 8:30am]
  • TSMM (11:45)| 45 mins [Booked at 9:35am]
  • MFSR (11:55am) | 40 mins [Booked at 10:20am]
Total posted standby time105pm165
I'm going to stop now because everything else in MK is under 10 mins
 
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Purduevian

Well-Known Member
So "playing" the game the last 2 days gave me a flow chart in my head.
Tier 1: Tiana. SDD
Tier 2: JC, BTMRR, SM, HM. ToT, TSMM, RNRC
Tier 3:Buzz, Pooh, Pirates. MMRR, MFSR
Tier 4: Barnstomer, dumbo, small world, speed way, Mermaid. Alien

When booking a new LL:

1. Is there a tier 1 attraction that is available to you? If yes book it
2. Is there a tier 2 attraction that is available to you in the next 2.5 hours? If yes, book it.
3. Do you have anything booked for the next 90 mins? If yes, move to 4.I f no, select the best ride available in the next 90 mins
4. Are any tier 2 available in the next 5 hours? If so book it. If no, move to 5.
5. Are any tier 3 available in the next 3 hours? If so book it. If no, move to 6.
6. Book the best ride available regardless of time.
 
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Fido Chuckwagon

Well-Known Member
Disstevefan1 said:
In my opinion its all about MONEY.

Disney doesn't care about the guest experience, they will tweak the system such that they can get the most people to purchase it.

My hope a side effect of the changes they they may improve the guest experience, but we must realize, the guest experience is NOT the priority for Disney.

The priority for Disney is MONEY when it comes to their them parks.
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TWDC, a publicly traded company caring about profits, and WDW caring about the guest experience are not mutually exclusive. Some of the changes they've made recently leading up to this were absolutely about the guest experience.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
Disstevefan1 said:
The priority is MONEY and if the side effect happens to be a better guest experience, we win too.
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In this case I think the better guest experience results in more money. LL is a paid upgrade. The more guests who like it the more who buy it and the more profits made. If it’s less popular they make less money. So while I agree that the priority is making more money I think in this case that is directly linked to guest experience.

That’s not always the case. For example adding an additional show or more meet and greets may enhance guest experience but wouldn‘t move the needle on profits.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
In this case I think the better guest experience results in more money. LL is a paid upgrade. The more guests who like it the more who buy it and the more profits made. If it’s less popular they make less money. So while I agree that the priority is making more money I think in this case that is directly linked to guest experience.
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Well, I sincerely think most guests think they MUST get LL to best use of their time in the park. LL is what LL is, and we use it because we must in my opinion.
GoofGoof said:
That’s not always the case. For example adding an additional show or more meet and greets may enhance guest experience but wouldn‘t move the needle on profits.
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I have no specific numbers to back this up, but at this point because of previous cuts they made, any addition of shows or meet and greets today is working toward getting BACK to what we had pre pandemic, no additional ones.
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
Disstevefan1 said:
Well, I sincerely think most guests think they MUST get LL to best use of their time in the park. LL is what LL is, and we use it because we must in my opinion.
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Based on Disney’s own reports only about 1/3 of visitors were using Genie+ so there is quite a bit of room for growth in sales and those sales are pure profit. There’s no extra cost if they sell 1 more unit.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
Based on Disney’s own reports only about 1/3 of visitors were using Genie+ so there is quite a bit of room for growth in sales and those sales are pure profit. There’s no extra cost if they sell 1 more unit.
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I gotta dig around for Iger quotes but I really thought it was WAY MORE that 1/3!!!

I thought there was a Iger quote about how hugely successful Genie plus was???
 
wdwmagic

wdwmagic

Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
Original Poster
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
So increased to 50% during the peak holiday period which makes sense. That was still 2022 so could have been even higher by 2024 but the point is there was still a large number of people to sell to. This new system was rolled out in the hopes that sales would go even higher. They took away the biggest complaint they had with Genie+ related to 7am booking and no way to plan ahead.
 
TheMaxRebo

TheMaxRebo

Well-Known Member
Booked my LLMP for our trip that starts next Sat. Was booking for MK and DHS which days 5 and 6 of our trip - got what I wanted and with at least 1 pretty early LL

MK:
Pirates: 9:35
Tiana's: 10:35
Haunted Mansion: 11:35

DHS:
ToT: 9:30
TSM: 10:35
SDD: 11:35

I tried to modify Pirates that be earlier but earliest available now is 9:55. Mansion they have a 9:20 but it won't let me modify to that so guessing can't have overlap before "day of"

Someone wanted me to check for availability sooner in my trip so after booking these I checked for day 2 of my trip (so day after arrival) and at first everything was available but then Tiana's went before I booked it, so tried for BTMRR plus same as above and would have gotten it all with a first LL return time of around noon
 
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DisneyDreamer08

DisneyDreamer08

Well-Known Member
TheMaxRebo said:
Booked my LLMP for our trip that starts next Sat. Was booking for MK and DHS which days 5 and 6 of our trip - got what I wanted and with at least 1 pretty early LL

MK:
Pirates: 9:35
Tiana's: 10:35
Haunted Mansion: 11:35

DHS:
ToT: 9:30
TSM: 10:35
SDD: 11:35

I tried to modify Pirates that be earlier but earliest available now is 9:55. Mansion they have a 9:20 but it won't let me modify to that so guessing can't have overlap before "day of"

Someone wanted me to check for availability sooner in my trip so after booking these I checked for day 2 of my trip (so day after arrival) and at first everything was available but then Tiana's went before I booked it, so tried for BTMRR plus same as above and would have gotten it all with a first LL return time of around noon
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Thanks for sharing, did you book your MK day first? I will be booking next Saturday and only booking for MK and DHS. I’m thinking Tiana should be my top priority.
 
TheMaxRebo

TheMaxRebo

Well-Known Member
DisneyDreamer08 said:
Thanks. We check in on a Saturday and our MK day is Tuesday. Hopefully I’m successful!
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I just check MK for the Tuesday of my trip (our MK day is Wed, checking in Saturday) and everything was available and these are the times I could have gotten. And this is at almost noon so booking for today already open several hour

Screenshot_20240803-115702~2.png
 
C

C33Mom

Well-Known Member
TheMaxRebo said:
Booked my LLMP for our trip that starts next Sat. Was booking for MK and DHS which days 5 and 6 of our trip - got what I wanted and with at least 1 pretty early LL

I tried to modify Pirates that be earlier but earliest available now is 9:55. Mansion they have a 9:20 but it won't let me modify to that so guessing can't have overlap before "day of"
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I was able to get about 10-15m overlaps for some of my pre books during the initial pre-purchase shuffle, but now they seem to be holding the line on no more than 15m when I monkey around. Sometimes I’ve had to take a gamble cancelling one LL return so I can move another to a better time and then rebooking the one I cancelled. I wouldn’t do this for the hard to get headliners though. Most of my Tier 2s are throwaways.
TheMaxRebo said:
Someone wanted me to check for availability sooner in my trip so after booking these I checked for day 2 of my trip (so day after arrival) and at first everything was available but then Tiana's went before I booked it, so tried for BTMRR plus same as above and would have gotten it all with a first LL return time of around noon
Click to expand...
I check a few times a day since booking on Wednesday and have been able to get much better times for the few things I wanted to adjust EXCEPT Tiana’s —though I’ve been stymied by a mid-day TS reservation. I have see Tiana’s and Slinky come and go at 4/5/6 days out but they are later in the afternoon/evening times.
DisneyDreamer08 said:
Thanks. We check in on a Saturday and our MK day is Tuesday. Hopefully I’m successful!
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I don’t think you’re going to have any problem if you’re going during the next month slow season. We checked in Wed with MK on Sat (same spread), booked it first, and had a TBA return time before 1pm (I suspect it would be earlier if we didn’t have an 11AM brunch).
 
nickys

nickys

Premium Member
@C33Mom , once you tap in to your first ride you can then get bigger overlaps. It seems to be tied to the unlocking of tier restrictions.

MDE may still only offer 10-15 minutes overlap but you can modify and get a bigger overlap.,
 

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