Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[CaptainAmerica]

Neither of those is a clone of the originals.

"Near enough as makes no never-mind."

 

[jpinkc]

It's hard for me to give them credit for copying two rides from other places where they were successful at a more opportune time. Rode the updated JC and have no issues with that. I get the sense that D'Amaro gets it on nostalgia and park theming, but we'll have to see how things start moving now that the monetization is in place.

The only thing Moving for Disney is our MONEY to there bank accounts!

 

[rkleinlein]

Disney leans on their IP because that's what the guests want. I wish it weren't the case, you wish it weren't the case, @Sirwalterraleigh wishes it wasn't the case. But the fact is, guests want Iron Man and Cinderella and "Let It Go." They don't want Seabase Alpha, Tom Morrow, and "One Little Spark."

I wouldn't say all guests want "Let it Go" and Cinderella. My family certainly doesn't. We may be in the minority but we think that all of the IP attractions, especially so heavily focused on little girls, is overkill. In many cases, it's just plain annoying. This is one of the reasons my kids prefer Universal.

I think some of the best Disney attractions historically have been, and still are, the ones not connected with any IPs (Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Tower, Soarin', etc.). None of the new IP attractions (with possible exception of Flight of Passage and Rise) is as anywhere near as good as the old school, non-IP attractions. That's not to say there aren't any great IP attractions. Splash Mountain and Peter Pan come to mind. But the new ones are mostly not that good.

I think people want good attractions and care more about the quality of the attraction than wether or not it's based, yet again, on an IP.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Can we get back to how bad Genie+ is? (kind of half kidding, kind of not kidding)

Is there any insider knowledge or published feedback of how hotel sales have been going for the fall? I am expecting October to be somewhat busy with the 50th kicking off, but what about the other normal busier weeks like Thanksgiving, Christmas etc.?

I guess I am really hoping this becomes a colossal failure and management has egg on their face from trying to take advantage of their most loyal customers

Hotel availability is basically zero, but it's a complicated tale.

The rooms that are available are fully booked, but not all rooms are available. There are still entire hotels offline, and some of the hotels that are online don't have all of their rooms in inventory. Some people say this is a grand conspiracy because demand isn't there and Disney wants to convey the impression that they're full. Others say it's a COVID-driven labor shortage and that Disney can't get the staff to support opening everything now even if they wanted to.

 

[jpinkc]

I don't necessarily believe this to be true....Look at the Christmas event or whatever they are calling it....Not one date sold out yet......the Halloween event had multiple dates sold out by this point......


I think people are pushing back on the price gauging

I dont think that follows. In the past you didnt see Christmas stuff start to sell out til after Halloween. At least thats how I remember it. Maybe Marni or Lentesta could give us some historical reference?

 

[Jeff4272]

I dont think that follows. In the past you didnt see Christmas stuff start to sell out til after Halloween. At least thats how I remember it. Maybe Marni or Lentesta could give us some historical reference?

Was reading Bricker and he mentioned sales were light vs historical standards

 

[Muffinpants]

Hotel availability is basically zero, but it's a complicated tale.

The rooms that are available are fully booked, but not all rooms are available. There are still entire hotels offline, and some of the hotels that are online don't have all of their rooms in inventory. Some people say this is a grand conspiracy because demand isn't there and Disney wants to convey the impression that they're full. Others say it's a COVID-driven labor shortage and that Disney can't get the staff to support opening everything now even if they wanted to.

would love to see charts for rooms in use vs not. those kinda numbers would sway people to visit vs not I love having max info before I do something.

 

[el_super]

Dude, there are still big parks being built today that show you are absolutely wrong.

So you're saying it's only true for Disney parks?

The Magic Kingdom was designed for half as many people and has barely increased its capacity. In the case of dining, capacity is less than 30 years ago. Stuff like Stitch’s Great Escape, which does now sit abandoned, was a lousy experience.

So let's just cut to the chase: why is the MK the world's most popular theme park, if it keeps ignoring theme park convention so much? Either the conventions aren't all that important to the overall guest experience, or your understanding of them isn't complete.

The "MK is failing" arguments get old, every year they break new attendance records.

 

[Andy_0410]

I went back to the Disney Park Blogs page where they introduced Genie, mainly to see how many positive comments I could actually find on it. Encountered a bit of a problem. If you're based in the UK you can't access the page (or well I couldn't), it keeps redirecting you to the Disneyworld.co.uk site. I tried a number of differnet ways and devices and the only way I could in the end was use a US VPN connection.

The obvious conclusion I've come to is that Genie won't be something that will affect UK visitors. When we arrive we won't see Lightning Lane's, we'll merely see the Fastpass lane. Taking it on to the obvious conclusions, I'm assuming that the Magical Express will continue for us whilst Magic Bands will be given free to all resort guests and extra hours will be open to all resort guests, not just deluxe ones.

Or alternatively they don't want us to know about it yet which I'm not exactly sure why that is the case.

Agree it is a bit odd they like us to book a year out by offering us things like dining plan (we have already seen the dining credit replace this)
One incentive is always offering us memory maker for free which I have as part of my booking for next year. Have checked today and this is still a perk though we know this becomes part of Disney genie now in potentially days
Hello Disney I know we can’t coke yet but please be selling us the correct options?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

To be fair, Six Flags needs to add a new ride every 1-2 years because they don't have much else going on for them to maintain attendance. Theming isn't their strong suit, but thrill rides are. The thing about thrill rides, however, is that eventually the thrill wears off and their customers are looking for another new fix to get their adrenaline pumping.

So do simulators, trackless and omnimovers…

there’s really only one “correct way”

balance. I’m not saying build coasters 5 times in a decade…but sitting on your thumb will cause chaffing as well

 

[lazyboy97o]

So you're saying it's only true for Disney parks?

So let's just cut to the chase: why is the MK the world's most popular theme park, if it keeps ignoring theme park convention so much? Either the conventions aren't all that important to the overall guest experience, or your understanding of them isn't complete.

The "MK is failing" arguments get old, every year they break new attendance records.

The whole reason TRON was dropped into the park is because the need for capacity had been pushed too far.

The Magic Kingdom is the park at Walt Disney World with the best capacity. It is the one that most follows conventions. It’s also the one that is also full of non-franchise rides that continue to draw that big audience.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The whole reason TRON was dropped into the park is because the need for capacity had been pushed too far.

Adding a new E-ticket that will likely be virtual-queue-only for two years is probably the worst possible thing imaginable from a capacity perspective.

We tend to talk about capacity as throughput-per-hour, and there's some utility to that. But really what we care about when we talk about capacity is crowding. To alleviate crowding, you need square footage to put bodies, not attractions that entertain guests for 60 seconds and then dump them right back on the footpaths to further clog up the Tangled/Peter Pan/Small World bottleneck. They need indoor physical queues that people are willing to wait hours in, and large theaters that can hold hundreds of people for 25 minutes at a time.

Animal Kingdom Kites and reopening Indiana Jones would do more to alleviate perceived crowding than TRON, which will almost certainly make crowding *worse,* not better.

 

[Ayla]

Wasn’t crowded at all. Nobody there.

just hot.

This should be the model for every single trip 'report'.

 

[flynnibus]

Neither of those is a clone of the originals.

Both are clones - just 'improved' and adapted to the different environments. At the end of the day, it's intended to be the same end-product, even if the execution differs.

 

[Hawg G]

Tron is an admission Disney will never make publicly:

parks just need rides. Period. It will never change.

they try to avoid it…explain it away…and have had success getting around it somewhat cleverly like RNRC, dopey train and slinky…

…but they don’t control the world to make things that are so “not so”.

tron is a straight up draw ride in a park where they haven’t built one in 10 years…20 if you want to point to a really good one.

But it would have been so easy to change the light patterns to actually MATCH the damn movie. And add the MCP and a Recognizer or two. Almost zero cost increase, but it would have made it a true TRON themed ride.

I just never thought I'd see the day when they would literally plop a coaster in a box 20 feet away from the original coaster in a box.

 

[dreday3]

Disney is planning an imminent launch of Disney Genie and Genie+​

Disney is planning an imminent launch of Disney Genie and Genie+

October 2021 is a big month for Walt Disney World.

www.wdwmagic.com

Ah. Should be working perfectly for our arrival on the 20th.

But at least now I know. Thanks for the info!

 

[Hawg G]

What other park has something quite like The Haunted Mansion? Even when it opened spook houses weren’t new or unique but The Haunted Mansion is uniquely Disney.

Damn near every park in Europe? Europa Park has an almost complete knockoff, elevator and all, but much more gruesome themed.

 

[el_super]

The whole reason TRON was dropped into the park is because the need for capacity had been pushed too far.

So you think Tron is going to fix the crowding issues at MK?

 

[jpinkc]

So you're saying it's only true for Disney parks?



So let's just cut to the chase: why is the MK the world's most popular theme park, if it keeps ignoring theme park convention so much? Either the conventions aren't all that important to the overall guest experience, or your understanding of them isn't complete.

The "MK is failing" arguments get old, every year they break new attendance records.

I think the reason attendance keeps going up is WDW, DL as well offer a break from the real world. People can go there especially when times are bad to try and see something positive in the world. I mean our Modern society seems to thrive on disaster for this or disaster for that, in some ways the constant Negativity in the world in the last 20years from all sources. Social Media, News, etc all make people need something positive whether they know it or not. DL and WDW offer something positive at least in Image. You can go to the park and hopefully escape! I think thats what drives people there as well as Nostalgia and the Walt Disney name and image it represents. Things are a pressure cooker and for some the idea of what Walt Disney and his parks do is for alot of people a release valve. Put simply people have decided its there happy place.

 

[JAB]

But it would have been so easy to change the light patterns to actually MATCH the damn movie. And add the MCU and a Recognizer or two. Almost zero cost increase, but it would have made it a true TRON themed ride.

I think you meant MCP.

Although, just to add more nitpicking, the lightcycle design used for the Tron coaster ride vehicles is from "Legacy," so the MCP wouldn't have been around any more. That doesn't change your point about making it properly Tron-themed, though; as I said, just being nitpicky.