Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Purduevian]

This is why you'd never make it at McKinsey, @Purduevian.

Your high-growth, hot product, Lightning Lane, depends entirely on long wait times. Why would you add A-C capacity, which doesn't drive Lightning Lane revenue AND which would lower average wait times?

Put another way: why cure a disease when chronic care is a better business model?

THINK OF THE SHAREHOLDERS MAN! /s

Ahh, the real answer is to add Slighty's* slingshot ride (2 riders per vehicle, ~16 pph). Think we can milk 1k per LLSP?

*FYI Slighty is the lost boy that wears a fox costume and uses a slingshot... I had to look it up

 

[Disstevefan1]

In fact, I speculate in a billion years, Magic Kingdom won't even be there anymore.

Sooner than that I think, which reminds me of a story

Walt wakes in his room. He doesn’t know what day it is, what time it is; there are no windows in this room, and to Walt, it looks futuristic. “This room gives me some ideas for Tomorrowland”, he says to himself.

A man enters the room and takes a seat next to Walt.

“Hello Walt, my name is Bob Iger. For many, many generations my family has been running The Walt Disney Company”.

Walt’s eyes open wide, “generations? What are you talking about? The last thing I knew I was working on a new TV project that I wanted that kid Kurt Russell for, and working on EPCOT for the Florida project. As soon as I am out of here I must get back to work on EPCOT”.

The heart monitor alarm goes off; a nurse is in the room quickly.

The nurse said, “I told you this was going to happen.” The nurse gives Walt a shot and he calms down.

Bob says, “Walt let me try to explain. You have been, ah, in a coma, for a long time now. What year do you think it is?”

Walt says, “Are you kidding me, its 1966”

Bob says, “The year is 2171.”

Walt’s eyes open wide, he asks, “What about my family, what about, Lillian, Diane, Sharon, Roy?”

Bob says, “All gone, decades ago”

Walt’s eye’s fill with tears. He asks, “Why did you wake me?”

Bob says, “Frankly Walt, we need your help”

Walt asks, “Is there a problem with Disneyland; the Florida project?”

Bob says, “Well they no longer exist”

Walt asks, “What happened?”

Bob says, “Well that’s a long story. We need your help here”

Walt asks, “Where am I anyway?”

Bob says, “That’s the thing, long story short, Disneyland; the Florida project are gone because the Earth is gone. We are on Mars. All of human kind lives on Mars now.

Bob looks into Walt’s eyes and says, “Mars needs a Disneyland”

After a pause to take in what Bob has said, Walt eyes open bright. With excitement he says, “Let’s get to work! I have an idea about an attraction based on Song of the South.”

Bob accesses his meta implant in his head. In his ear the implant reports back “No data found for Song of the South, information was most likely was lost in the cyber wars of 2060.”

Bob says to Walt, “Hmm, I have ever heard of it. Whatever you say Walt, let’s get to work!”

 

[Dranth]

First Six Flags doesn't own Cedar Fair, they are just using the name as it's more well known.

Cedar had down years on their own so it isn't like things are all roses there all the time and let's face it, Six Flags was a disaster of a company which now this new company will have to deal with.

I put Universal right with Disney. In terms of running the parks into the ground, I'm not talking about investments and new attachments. I'm talking about how they squeeze every last penny out the parks now. All the nickel and diming and added upcharges.

My response was that Herschend which owns Dollywood, the Six Flags parks and Hershey have for the most part not tried to squeeze every last penny from guests. Yes they have paid Skip the line passes but they are limited so most guests don't have to pay extra to ride things like at Disney and Universal. Their extra events like Halloween and Christmas are included with season passes.

This sounds like we are forgiving the nickel and diming of paid line skipping everywhere except Disney because they didn't charge for it from the get-go. Changing to a paid line skip was a loss of value for most people but let's not pretend like FP+ was sustainable.

They HAD to reduce the number of people using the system and the only way to do that was charge for it or offer no line skip at all. I am fine with that second option, but I don't think most would be on board with that type of change.

I know Disney and Universal aren't the same as they are vacation parks but they do show you can have successful parks without all the nickel and diming

That certainly allows those two to charge more, criminally so in some cases, but if people keep buying it they will keep selling it.

Finally, I think the notion that Disney has made it so you HAVE to get LLMP or LLPP is a bit of a myth and mostly a residual of the 2016ish-2019 crowd level horror stories. I completely understand the people that just never want to deal with any line but for your average guest Disney lines aren't longer than anywhere else and likely shorter than most people realize.

 

[Splash4eva]

I wonder at what point do they make ( or go back to making) your park ticket only good for admission to the park and charge extra for each individual ride.

Too risky. Plenty of rides not worth paying for at any price

 

[JackCH]

Cedar had down years on their own so it isn't like things are all roses there all the time and let's face it, Six Flags was a disaster of a company which now this new company will have to deal with.


This sounds like we are forgiving the nickel and diming of paid line skipping everywhere except Disney because they didn't charge for it from the get-go. Changing to a paid line skip was a loss of value for most people but let's not pretend like FP+ was sustainable.

They HAD to reduce the number of people using the system and the only way to do that was charge for it or offer no line skip at all. I am fine with that second option, but I don't think most would be on board with that type of change.


That certainly allows those two to charge more, criminally so in some cases, but if people keep buying it they will keep selling it.

Finally, I think the notion that Disney has made it so you HAVE to get LLMP or LLPP is a bit of a myth and mostly a residual of the 2016ish-2019 crowd level horror stories. I completely understand the people that just never want to deal with any line but for your average guest Disney lines aren't longer than anywhere else and likely shorter than most people realize.

My first trip back in about 3 years was in November, I was surprised how moderate the waits were for major attractions. Only got LL for Cosmic Rewind to make sure we could do it.