Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Bea123]

Oh there’s no question in my mind that this new system will not be as good for my family as FP+. I had that down to an art form and we had our best, most relaxed vacations knowing we would be able to get the most popular rides at the times most convenient for us. And it was free.

But if you’ve followed the threads on FP +, it seems that many people hated the system and felt it did not work for them. They complained about the stress of having to plan so much in advance, the longer standby lanes and the limited number of free FP+. Many of those people would not have been satisfied with anything other than a pure standby system, likely because standing in lines is not a problem for them. Or maybe they weren’t around to experience the 90-minute waits for Splash and Space that preceded FastPasses.

In any event, Disney chose to discontinue FP+ and go to a paid system that is pretty widely used in other parks. It will take away the advance planning aspect and probably will allow express access to more rides. The question is how this system will work at a unique venue like WDW. I’m not ready to say how many people will use it or how many rides will be available at different times a day until it’s actually rolled out.

Sure, I take your point we need to see it in action before making final decisions about how good/bad it is. People who didn't like FP are not going to prefer this though because there will still be a FP lane (with a different name) so it won't reduce standby at all.

I guess the main issues I have with it are how it has been presented, rolled out, and on the back of various other changes that have diminished the guest experience. Only time will tell.

And tbh I am finding it harder and harder to separate how I feel about Disney (brand, ethos, experience) and the corporation (money, profits, and millionaire executive board).

 

[rkleinlein]

I confess that I have not read all of the previous 173 pages of posts so apologies if this has already been asked. I also confess that I know nothing about the logistics of shuffling people through queues at theme parks so this might sound stupid.

But I can't help but think that this new system is overly complicated (173 pages of questions, comments, and complaints).

Wouldn't it be simpler to just let everybody take a paper fastpass at the entrance to every attraction that has a current wait of over, say 15 or 20 minutes? If wait is 45 minutes, come back in 45-60 minutes. No standby line at all. (Would that be called a virtual queue?) Attractions with reasonable waits, everyone waits in standby.

And why limit the number of these to just one at a time? Why not let people have three in play at a time? Or even more than three? What would make that not possible? If I'm not jumping ahead of anyone who is already "in line" what difference would it make if I waited "in line" at multiple attractions at the same time? I understand that taking space in multiple lines means those lines become longer, but who cares how long the line is if you don't really have to wait in any of them?

 

[RSoxNo1]

The entire subplot of Westworld is how the parks became a huge data mining operation on the guests, with the value of that information surpassing the profit from just operating the parks

The project title for Star Wars was Project Delos.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Something of note here. The Individual Attraction Service and the DAS pre-selection are very likely to utilize the Fastpass+ infrastructure which will allow them to continue to depreciate that.

 

[jpinkc]

We all keep saying the Same things about VQ's and different (better IMHO) ideas than what G+ is doing. But it all boils down to Butts in Seats. They dont have enough Seats for all the Butts they want to shove into the Parks, and that fault lies SOLELY with TWDC!!! There is no reason after 50YRS that MK doesnt at least have ride Parity with Landlocked Anaheim!!! They can spend for Shanghai, DLP, Hong Kong and to some extent Tokyo (I know OLC owns it). But its a crying SHAME that the most visited Parks Disneyland and WDW have had so little for so LONG!!!! They should be the Banners and Showcase to the World of what Walt Disney used to do and do better than Anyone ELSE!

 

[MrPromey]

I dont know if disney cares about line length? I think they want raw profit...so sell enough as ****ible while not making the LL folks wait. I dont think theres any concern for impact to standby at all.

It's easy to think in pure hysterics on this one - I did when I first read about it but I'm sure there is some concern on their end.

Not saying it's a major concern or even a primary one but when the newest attraction in some of your parks is over half a decade old and you're still having trouble with line management of it due to it still being your "newest attraction", the optics on that look bad all the way around.

After all, you still have to consider that for the $15 bundle group of attractions, even the LL people will have to wait in lines since they can only get one of those at a time. People won't have the option to buy their way to the front of every line (at least without a VIP tour) so the majority of guests will still, and perhaps more so than with FP+ be waiting in some lines and they have to be ready to account for that.

We'll have to wait and see how this rolls out. What's interesting is, they can always change the path of how this all works by playing with LL capacity in all attractions and playing with the ala carte pricing after the fact if they start out too greedy and it causes too much trouble or if they decide they didn't start out greedy enough.

This is one of those things they'll be able to play with and tweak a lot behind the scenes without making guests aware.

 

[TheDuke]

We all keep saying the Same things about VQ's and different (better IMHO) ideas than what G+ is doing. But it all boils down to Butts in Seats. They dont have enough Seats for all the Butts they want to shove into the Parks, and that fault lies SOLELY with TWDC!!! There is no reason after 50YRS that MK doesnt at least have ride Parity with Landlocked Anaheim!!! They can spend for Shanghai, DLP, Hong Kong and to some extent Tokyo (I know OLC owns it). But its a crying SHAME that the most visited Parks Disneyland and WDW have had so little for so LONG!!!! They should be the Banners and Showcase to the World of what Walt Disney used to do and do better than Anyone ELSE!

Capacity for new Disney rides has been pathetic for some time and that's part of the problem. Disney has no interest in reducing standby lines because ultimately they don't have the capacity to deal with number of people who come to the parks so they have to keep people in 2 hour lines all day.

 

[MrPromey]

From the outside... it just seems that decision has been moved on from and its yet to be seen if they are putting it all on 'sustaining' only and not making it a critical piece going forward.. but it sure looks like it. I think it will be interesting to see how the hotel access stuff is pushed going forward.. that seems the most immediate impact from Disney bailing on 'MBs everywhere...' kind of thinking.

The NFC chip is all they need to make that work and I'd be a little surprised if they needed to change much of anything for that.

Surely they had awareness of emerging standards when they installed all those door locks so there had to be some degree of future-proofing on the spec they went with.

As long as that remains a feature in modern phones and/or as long as they continue to issue physical "tickets" this isn't going to be a problem there. After all, you still need a way for the whole family to be able to come and go from the room and you can't expect everyone in the party to have a smart phone with an NFC chip and the Genie app installed and set up in every instance.

Same with gate entry.

In terms of hotel access goes in general, I can see a complete end to the check-in desk with a couple stations set up similar to the ones at IKEA that issues you your membership card and two or three castmembers standing around in the open lobby with iPads strapped to their wrists (like in the parks) to assist the dinosaurs that show up without a smart phone ready to go.

 

[Bea123]

I confess that I have not read all of the previous 173 pages of posts so apologies if this has already been asked. I also confess that I know nothing about the logistics of shuffling people through queues at theme parks so this might sound stupid.

But I can't help but think that this new system is overly complicated (173 pages of questions, comments, and complaints).

Wouldn't it be simpler to just let everybody take a paper fastpass at the entrance to every attraction that has a current wait of over, say 15 or 20 minutes? If wait is 45 minutes, come back in 45-60 minutes. No standby line at all. (Would that be called a virtual queue?) Attractions with reasonable waits, everyone waits in standby.

And why limit the number of these to just one at a time? Why not let people have three in play at a time? Or even more than three? What would make that not possible? If I'm not jumping ahead of anyone who is already "in line" what difference would it make if I waited "in line" at multiple attractions at the same time? I understand that taking space in multiple lines means those lines become longer, but who cares how long the line is if you don't really have to wait in any of them?

But then Disney wouldn't be able to charge you (Genie+) and then charge you again (Individual Lighting Lane Pass)

 

[TheDuke]

Another thought, don't know if it's been discussed before, but how do we think this will impact rope drop? With FP+ you could only get 3 a day so there was incentive to get them at higher traffic times like the afternoon. But with this if you payed for Genie+ there's no reason not to start using it and getting passes right away. So the point is it could really nerf the advantage you used to get from rope dropping if there are instant "fasspass backups" (different name, same thing) at the beginning of the day.

As I said before, the thought process here seems like it's trying to make lines always long where the only way you can skip them is paying Disney money.

 

[TheDuke]

But then Disney wouldn't be able to charge you (Genie+) and then charge you again (Individual Lighting Lane Pass)

^someone who gets it

 

[TheDuke]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just let everybody take a paper fastpass at the entrance to every attraction that has a current wait of over, say 15 or 20 minutes? If wait is 45 minutes, come back in 45-60 minutes. No standby line at all. (Would that be called a virtual queue?) Attractions with reasonable waits, everyone waits in standby.

A lot of people dread the idea of all major rides being "scheduled" in a virtual queue. While I can see some benefits from that I do agree it would take some of the fun and spontaneity away and would be a hassle for large families. But it's still clearly preferable to this.

 

[Tha Realest]

Capacity for new Disney rides has been pathetic for some time and that's part of the problem. Disney has no interest in reducing standby lines because ultimately they don't have the capacity to deal with number of people who come to the parks so they have to keep people in 2 hour lines all day.

I agree with this. From a pure numbers standpoint, if they had a mirror show building for the "Star Destroyer" portion of ROTR, and could double its capacity, to the point where every visitor to the park that day could ride it, it would undoubtedly increase customer satisfaction. But what would be the cost for them to do so, both in terms of space and pure $$. Would it be worth it? I'm not sure. Could there have been a happy medium between a new show building and maybe running 2 extra trackless cars a run through? Perhaps.

 

[Wendy Pleakley]

Another thought, don't know if it's been discussed before, but how do we think this will impact rope drop? With FP+ you could only get 3 a day so there was incentive to get them at higher traffic times like the afternoon. But with this if you payed for Genie+ there's no reason not to start using it and getting passes right away. So the point is it could really nerf the advantage you used to get from rope dropping if there are instant "fasspass backups" (different name, same thing) at the beginning of the day.

As I said before, the thought process here seems like it's trying to make lines always long where the only way you can skip them is paying Disney money.

Hard to say as there is also the new 30-minute early entry for resort guests at every theme park every day. A lot of people who avoided EMH due to crowds may take advantage of that since it will no longer drive people to one specific park.

There's also the fact that resort guests can book their passes in advance at 7:00 AM. Some people don't like the idea of getting up early to do so. Personally, I'm fine waking up at 7:00 AM when on vacation at Disney, where time is money. I'd have no issue doing this at 7:00 and then leisurely getting ready, and not necessarily getting to the park for rope drop.

Getting those two passes ahead of time will offer the same flexibility FP+ did and I suspect people will follow their current preferences in terms of rope dropping versus sleeping in.

The new Genie will be a paid service, but I think a lot of people will accept the price as being negligible. I'm not going to worry about getting to the park an hour later and losing value from my $15 purchase, which really works out to close to a mere dollar per hour.

There's a lot of variables but my guess is minimal change on guest habits.

 

[flynnibus]

The NFC chip is all they need to make that work and I'd be a little surprised if they needed to change much of anything for that.

Yes, but moving away from the beacon+NFC to just NFC would have been a simple change Disney could have done without changing their posture towards MagicBands at all. Drop a feature.. but continue on their merry path and ensure every guest young and old is wearing magicbands. But in fact they have changed that posture and instead have moved to encourage BYOD and making magicbands more optional. Thus opening pandora's box with lifecycles, interoperability, and support.... while losing the near complete assumption they had with Magic Band availability.

Which is why I say the pivot isn't just because BYOD is an option now - they've moved on from blanketing the user base with MagicBands.

 

[MrPromey]

Yes, but moving away from the beacon+NFC to just NFC would have been a simple change Disney could have done without changing their posture towards MagicBands at all. Drop a feature.. but continue on their merry path and ensure every guest young and old is wearing magicbands. But in fact they have changed that posture and instead have moved to encourage BYOD and making magicbands more optional. Thus opening pandora's box with lifecycles, interoperability, and support.... while losing the near complete assumption they had with Magic Band availability.

Which is why I say the pivot isn't just because BYOD is an option now - they've moved on from blanketing the user base with MagicBands.

Interesting point...

Perhaps a wristband "key" could still be in the works?

They already offer the cheapo ones for gift cards for things like Food and Wine to make swipe-to-pay easy for the people too inebriated to fumble through their wallets. I can't imagine the the costs would be much in having a simple rubber band bracelet with the same NFC chip they have in the cards, embedded in a part of it.

Then again, if they were going to go that route, they probably wouldn't have even announced anything about the Magic Bands - they'd have just rolled these suckers out as the "new" ones and not talked about the loss of the radio signal - although things like the automatic photos on rides and stuff would (and are going to be) an issue so maybe there would have been some optic issues with that obvious regression.

 

[jpinkc]

Another thought, don't know if it's been discussed before, but how do we think this will impact rope drop? With FP+ you could only get 3 a day so there was incentive to get them at higher traffic times like the afternoon. But with this if you payed for Genie+ there's no reason not to start using it and getting passes right away. So the point is it could really nerf the advantage you used to get from rope dropping if there are instant "fasspass backups" (different name, same thing) at the beginning of the day.

As I said before, the thought process here seems like it's trying to make lines always long where the only way you can skip them is paying Disney money.

It sounds to me that Rope Drop will be Rope Stampede and I have seen days like that already. People sprinting off from the entrance to grab a spot in line for a ride before it gets to long. Hell I have been that person once because my Dear Wifey wanted to make sure we got on Peter Pan First thing for the kiddies when they were young. The day prior we didnt get on with over 90 wait and meltdowns happening LOL

 

[DisneyCane]

It sounds to me that Rope Drop will be Rope Stampede and I have seen days like that already. People sprinting off from the entrance to grab a spot in line for a ride before it gets to long. Hell I have been that person once because my Dear Wifey wanted to make sure we got on Peter Pan First thing for the kiddies when they were young. The day prior we didnt get on with over 90 wait and meltdowns happening LOL

Don't they do that now with the standby only system?

 

[jpinkc]

Hard to say as there is also the new 30-minute early entry for resort guests at every theme park every day. A lot of people who avoided EMH due to crowds may take advantage of that since it will no longer drive people to one specific park.

There's also the fact that resort guests can book their passes in advance at 7:00 AM. Some people don't like the idea of getting up early to do so. Personally, I'm fine waking up at 7:00 AM when on vacation at Disney, where time is money. I'd have no issue doing this at 7:00 and then leisurely getting ready, and not necessarily getting to the park for rope drop.

Getting those two passes ahead of time will offer the same flexibility FP+ did and I suspect people will follow their current preferences in terms of rope dropping versus sleeping in.

The new Genie will be a paid service, but I think a lot of people will accept the price as being negligible. I'm not going to worry about getting to the park an hour later and losing value from my $15 purchase, which really works out to close to a mere dollar per hour.

There's a lot of variables but my guess is minimal change on guest habits.

I thought we could only get ONE G+ pass at 7AM had to wait till you used that pass before you could get another? I have also seen people I think who are confused saying we only get 2 Genie+ passes per day. I think they are getting LL and G+ mixed up or am I wrong?

 

[Waters Back Side]

I thought we could only get ONE G+ pass at 7AM had to wait till you used that pass before you could get another? I have also seen people I think who are confused saying we only get 2 Genie+ passes per day. I think they are getting LL and G+ mixed up or am I wrong?

You get to choose one at 7am. If the one you choose is for availability only later in the day (say 5pm for ex.) You can still get another 90 minutes later at 830. Same applies if your 2nd choice is much later in the day etc. That's *IF* they are going by the same rules as MaxPass. In this scenario you would have 2 at once and not one at a time. We do not know yet.

From all indications there is no limit on how many Genie + rides you can pick during the day if they are available, one at a time and you can fit them in. 2 is not the limit unlike the headliners (2 per park).

I have a hard time believing of we are paying for it that late arriving guests at the parks will lose out on the better Genie + rides but time will tell. I do not see how someone would be forced to lose out if they chopse their first ride and its next available is later in day. Or even of they waitnintil 9am to choose their first ride so that it is later in the day.