Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[JohnD]

We're going the week of Xmas... So much stress already being added.. Do we buy Genie+ in advance? Do we buy day by day? If you can buy day by day, why in the world WOULD you buy in advance? We've been there at xmas and had a really bad stretch of weather. I've already paid for the crazy expensive tickets... added hopper... and if I added Genie + (all for four of us) and then decided to miserable to go to the park, I'd probably go bananas.

So far reading... Looks like if you get up early and head to the parks, take a LL if you have an early one, otherwise wait for inventory to open up at 9. And if you accept a late in the day reservation, does that mean you're stuck doing nothing until then?

Just me, or does this seem like the worst of the worst? With the added benefit of now paying for confusion and all day button mashing?

I'd wait. Just show up, check wait times, and ride standby with reasonable wait times. If standby waits look like they're getting too long, decide on whether Genie+ is for you. But you could still hold out for the more popular rides until later in the day when guests start leaving and wait times go down. Good luck!

 

[mgf]

View attachment 594444

Impressive attention to detail there

Sometimes general counsel takes too long to respond so you just gotta give it to the intern to do....

 

[Jeff4272]

I'd wait. Just show up, check wait times, and ride standby with reasonable wait times. If standby waits look like they're getting too long, decide on whether Genie+ is for you. But you could still hold out for the more popular rides until later in the day when guests start leaving and wait times go down. Good luck!

I think Genie+ needs to be bought at 7am or not at all.....seems like Genie+ popular rides will be very limited and there will be no value in park hopping since all the better rides will be sold out by 2pm

 

[RoadiJeff]

I would gladly pay $15 for Lightning Lane at RotR instead of standing in line for over 2.5 hours like I did a week ago. Some of the others, such as Remy's, wouldn't even be worth $1 to me. I don't know why they even have a virtual queue for that attraction.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I would gladly pay $15 for Lightning Lane at RotR instead of standing in line for over 2.5 hours like I did a week ago.

You could just wake up early and wait 10 minutes for free.

 

[danv3]

We're going the week of Xmas... So much stress already being added.. Do we buy Genie+ in advance? Do we buy day by day? If you can buy day by day, why in the world WOULD you buy in advance? We've been there at xmas and had a really bad stretch of weather. I've already paid for the crazy expensive tickets... added hopper... and if I added Genie + (all for four of us) and then decided to miserable to go to the park, I'd probably go bananas.

So far reading... Looks like if you get up early and head to the parks, take a LL if you have an early one, otherwise wait for inventory to open up at 9. And if you accept a late in the day reservation, does that mean you're stuck doing nothing until then?

Just me, or does this seem like the worst of the worst? With the added benefit of now paying for confusion and all day button mashing?

One reason you'd buy in advance now is that you're betting the price of G+ will increase before your trip. Which wouldn't surprise me at all for a peak time like Christmas. Heck the base price might even increase by then.

 

[Jeff4272]

Where are you getting any of this information? Are G+ for Splash, Thunder, Test Track, Soarin, Safari, NRJ, Slinky, and Falcon all sold out?

No.......anticipating the demand based on first day only.......obviously a moving target but lets see whats available after 120 mins after park opening

 

[LovePop]

1. They need to increase the LL charge for RotR to, I don't know, $50 a day at least, maybe $100.
2. They need to change MM Railroad to Slinky Dog, which is likely more popular.

Generally, the LL charge should go to the rides with most wait time, and the cost should be dynamically arranged so that there will be LL available throughout the day, or at least during the first hour of park opening. If it can't even do that, it's too cheap. The price must go up to reduce demand. The LL inventory should be no more than 90% sold out throughout the day, and it can be controlled by dynamic pricing.

 

[matt9112]

And now it has 9:55 availability. It seems to bounce though the day...

I wonder if they have to manually refill the bucket or if system is working off of an algorithm. Think of a sunpass auto refill billing feature. Once your balance gets low it fills it up. Maybe when times fill up it than drops a bunch more and repeats thus theoretically spreading the lighting lane usage out all day vs selling out all of 9am for example.

 

[wdwmagic]

 

[G00fyDad]

1. They need to increase the LL charge for RotR to, I don't know, $50 a day at least, maybe $100.
2. They need to change MM Railroad to Slinky Dog, which is likely more popular.

1. No, they don't.

 

[Marriedatdisney]

I think Genie+ needs to be bought at 7am or not at all.....seems like Genie+ popular rides will be very limited and there will be no value in park hopping since all the better rides will be sold out by 2pm

Agree! Seems like maybe you get one ride out of it... the next one you get will likely be late in evening. Shocker these guys didn't run modeling to demonstrate real value. With data availability, the community will quickly show how little value this seemingly adds. The only real play is to 'buy' the ride or two you really want. Otherwise, go standby.

 

[pdude81]

I wonder if they have to manually refill the bucket or if system is working off of an algorithm. Think of a sunpass auto refill billing feature. Once your balance gets low it fills it up. Maybe when times fill up it than drops a bunch more and repeats thus theoretically spreading the lighting lane usage out all day vs selling out all of 9am for example.

I'm curious if it has to do with how many people have purchased Genie+ and more inventory shows up to handle the number of users.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Seems like maybe you get one ride out of it... the next one you get will likely be late in evening.

Again, where are people getting this information? You could have already done two LLs by now, and booking windows are currently in the early afternoon for your third.

 

[JohnD]

I think Genie+ needs to be bought at 7am or not at all.....seems like Genie+ popular rides will be very limited and there will be no value in park hopping since all the better rides will be sold out by 2pm

Right. Sold out. It doesn't mean that standby still won't be available. The great thing is that the tip board shows you what you need to know even if you haven't purchased Genie+.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Agree! Seems like maybe you get one ride out of it... the next one you get will likely be late in evening.

Please don't agree with unrealistic scenarios no one has seen yet. It's like agreeing that pink elephants are rather disagreeable.

Right now DG+ LL availability for most rides have been just one to three hours away, and will be so for the rest of the day. Remember, everyone who has grabbed a DG+ LL has to wait until their time to get on the ride (or two hours) have passed before they can get the next LL.

So, everyone that can grab a LL already has one and can't grab another until some time has past. This means all the LLs of the day won't be gone early in the day.

 

[JohnD]

I would gladly pay $15 for Lightning Lane at RotR instead of standing in line for over 2.5 hours like I did a week ago. Some of the others, such as Remy's, wouldn't even be worth $1 to me. I don't know why they even have a virtual queue for that attraction.

View attachment 594448

Or wait until later in the day, like I did, and ROTR was a walk on.

 

[LovePop]

Or wait until later in the day, like I did, and ROTR was a walk on.

I never noticed RotR to be a walk on. Sometimes the wait time is less, but never under half an hour.

 

[Jeff4272]

Again, where are people getting this information? You could have already done two LLs by now, and booking windows are currently in the early afternoon for your third.

Return times for the popular rides are already in the afternoon.....

If you dont wake up at 7am this will 100% not be worth it

If you dont rope drop this also likely not going to be worth it

It's like old paper FP, the good rides will sell out early and that takes away the value

If they staggered the drops for the popular rides it could help

 

[hopemax]

I think people will be able to get more than 1 Genie+ attraction per day. Maybe only 3 or 4 like FP+. But the kicker is it won’t be for the stuff people WANT most. There is value in knowing that when you walk over to Star Tours you can just ride because you already have a LL and not hit it right after an Indy show ended and the standby wait time jumped from 20 to 45 minutes. Just not as much value as being able to hop between Smuggler’s, SDD, RnRC in quick succession.