Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[JAB]

We here would do well get away from calling things that are 'included with purchase' just that, instead of calling them free. Maybe we can shorten to IW/P or something.

FP, ME, and parking were never 'free' those too were included with purchase. You couldn't use ME if you weren't staying at a WDW hotel, for example.

Or "no additional charge."

 

[MrPromey]

Look at Uni’s EP. Somewhere around a buck thirty per person/day for two parks.

They don’t really want you to buy it. They want you to stay at their Deluxe hotels - where they’ll give it to you for free. They want the incremental revenue you’ll give them by staying on site.

Of course, if you want to shell out the cash without staying at the hotel - they’ll take that too.

This is exactly right!

People talk about how staying on-site is a no-brainer for their family of four because of what a deal the "free" pass is while failing to realize that Universal themselves sets the price of that ticket add-on and intentionally prices everything to make the resorts a “value” in that sense.

They could do away with the non-resort option entirely which would, one would guess, make the resort option even more valuable since it would truly be exclusive but without the high individual ticket price, there would be no anchor for anyone to attach a financial value to the offer and therefor, make it seem like a potentially less valuable benifit to staying on-site.

 

[UNCgolf]

For many businesses, this is the entire point of the "premium" option - to make the now middle option look more reasonable.

For anyone who's ever seen this three tier strategy and looked at the highest tier and wondered how they could justify the price they are asking for what seems like benefits that aren't worth it or which only would ever apply to a very small subset of customers, this is what's going on.

That top tier isn't the one they're trying to sell and any time they do, it's just gravy.

The term for it in marketing speak is anchoring.

I'm not sure that really applies to Disney's strategy here, only because they're really selling separate products. It's not like there's a Genie+ that operates exactly how the current version operates for the same price, and then a Genie++ that costs $50 a day and lets you book 2 LL times at once instead of and also lets you re-ride once per day.

The ILL selections aren't even included on the regular Genie+, so your only option to ride them is paying or waiting in (presumably) a long standby line.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

This is exactly right!

People talk about how staying on-site is a no-brainer for their family of four because of what a deal the free pass is while failing to realize that Universal themselves sets the price of that ticket add-on and intentionally prices everything to make the resorts a “value” in that sense.

They could do away with the non-resort option entirely which would, one would guess, make the resort option even more valuable since it would truly be exclusive but without the high individual ticket price, there would be no anchor for anyone to attach a financial value to the offer and therefor, make it seem like a potentially less valuable benifit to staying on-site.

And. That pass is only valuable for select rides or at certain times of the year. My Uni AP gives me Express after 4pm. Most times/most rides are walk-Ons or pretty darn close. I do appreciate it more on long weekends and holidays though.

 

[MrPromey]

I'm not sure that really applies to Disney's strategy here, only because they're really selling separate products. It's not like there's a Genie+ that operates exactly how the current version operates for the same price, and then a Genie++ that costs $50 a day and lets you book 2 LL times at once instead of and also lets you re-ride once per day.

The ILL selections aren't even included on the regular Genie+, so your only option to ride them is paying or waiting in (presumably) a long standby line.

Agreed.

I was responding to someone’s idea of them setting up a third tier.

At the same time though, current pricing does have a similar effect. When they charge $15 just for Rise and you can pay $15 for almost everything else combined, that makes the regular Genie+ seem like a bit of a bargain.

In the opposite direction, excluding the LL+ attractions and pricing them higher helps create the impression that they are somehow “premium” attractions even if some like SM are some of the oldest on property.

 

[dirtnap101]

I don't know if anyone's noticed, but the MK Christmas after hours events have started to sell out...so much for the Disney customer hitting their limits and turning away from it all

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

I'm not sure that really applies to Disney's strategy here, only because they're really selling separate products. It's not like there's a Genie+ that operates exactly how the current version operates for the same price, and then a Genie++ that costs $50 a day and lets you book 2 LL times at once instead of and also lets you re-ride once per day.

The ILL selections aren't even included on the regular Genie+, so your only option to ride them is paying or waiting in (presumably) a long standby line.

I agree with that. My original response was toward a comment of how Disney could control it by price. Seems to me it’d be easier by introducing another tier

But I also think there is a long game here. They’re going to evolve it. How? Is purely speculation at this point.

 

[runnsally]

Of course genie+ will be $20/pp within the next 9 months…

 

[danv3]

Of course genie+ will be $20/pp within the next 9 weeks…

Minor correction.

 

[G00fyDad]

Of course genie+ will be $20/pp within the next 9 months…

Come on now. You're acting like Disney is doing this purely to make profits without considering the guest's satisfaction.

 

[SpectroMagician]

I really just wish the bumped up the price of admission instead of the nickel and diming per ride. It just feels so dirty.

 

[GimpYancIent]

I really just wish the bumped up the price of admission instead of the nickel and diming per ride. It just feels so dirty.

Either way its slimy.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

I really just wish the bumped up the price of admission instead of the nickel and diming per ride. It just feels so dirty.

So does the price changing depending on the day.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I really just wish the bumped up the price of admission instead of the nickel and diming per ride. It just feels so dirty.

They have bumped up admission prices MASSIVELY in the last five years - increased prices on most days by about 40%. It doesn't make a difference. Until people stop paying, they'll keep grabbing. The big change is that WDW feels less and less compelled to hide the greed.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

So does the price changing depending on the day.

Of course. Well, let me rephrase. Not by day per se. But due to seasonality, crowd level, demand, etc. We can't just say that Wednesday is going to be higher than Monday. But we can say Memorial Weekend will be higher than a random Tuesday in mid-January with as close to certainty as is possible.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

They have bumped up admission prices MASSIVELY in the last five years - increased prices on most days by about 40%. It doesn't make a difference. Until people stop paying, they'll keep grabbing. The big change is that WDW feels less and less compelled to hide the greed.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Yes. Prices are higher. But if you're on a multi-day pass and your blended daily is roughly $80 per day, then you add Genie + at $15 and buy an ILL at another $15. So $110 for a day at Disney. And yeah, I get it. A family of four is paying $440. Or ~$3k for a full week just on admission and rides. I mean, that's not terrible.

I'm more ticked about a Deluxe costing $700/night plus parking, and the ridiculous F&B increases relative to the degradation of quality - than I am about Genie +. But I do agree it stinks, and the optics on it are terrible. At the end of the day my biggest complaint about Genie is the need to micromanage it all.

 

[runnsally]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here. Yes. Prices are higher. But if you're on a multi-day pass and your blended daily is roughly $80 per day, then you add Genie + at $15 and buy an ILL at another $15. So $110 for a day at Disney. And yeah, I get it. A family of four is paying $440. Or ~$3k for a full week just on admission and rides. I mean, that's not terrible.

I'm more ticked about a Deluxe costing $700/night plus parking, and the ridiculous F&B increases relative to the degradation of quality - than I am about Genie +. But I do agree it stinks, and the optics on it are terrible. At the end of the day my biggest complaint about Genie is the need to micromanage it all.

yep...rack rate deluxe without housekeeping is the real crime here

 

[Cousin Huet]

I’ll believe that when I see it. Not holding my breat

So, we just did our fall trip. First day was no Genie and the other three had Genie. Just to see how it all worked we did it all, used all the features and full embraced it. It’s works well but it is costly (about $100 per day extra for our family of 3 and for something that was free). I’ll answer any questions and breakdown some below. We use the Armed Forces Salute tickets so I feel even worse for those paying full price.

So, we stayed at Shades of Green as we do every few years as I feel obligated to support it. This caused an issue as they did not have my wife or daughter on the reservation by name. So, once we checked-in they couldn’t change it and that meant they did not show a linked resort reservation. Here are the issues that caused….
-early entry wouldn’t scan band but the Cast Members allowed them to show their Shades room key.

-2hour extra hours wouldn’t scan band so same fix. No issues in this working out because it was a human making the call.

-the BIG issue was not being able to book INDIVIDUAL LIGHTNING LANE at 7am for anyone but me. No guest service person at the parks front or inside area could fix it and neither could Shades of Green. We were still able to get all 6 Individual lightning lane passes over 3 days but Rise of the Resistance was close to not happening as we had to wait until park openings to book those due to the resort reservation issue.

Everything else worked great, we Lightning Lane’d every attraction possible in each park, had food waiting on us and didn’t rush anywhere. Moved throughout the park with next to zero backtracking and it was nice.

One odd function is that when selecting a LL pass the time you select will change once the next screen opens so I selected 1pm once and once it opened it was 1:25pm. This also means that when an attraction you want to do next is showing 4pm but it’s 12pm that if you open it it could say 12:15pm if someone cancels. We figured this out and it helped a lot but WAY TOO MUCH TIME ON PHONE.

Also, canceling a LL isn’t super quick which causes issues trying to jump around but nothing crazy as that is rare.

No issues were had checking into a LL as the 5min and 15min early/late grace exists but others had issues and the usual folks that stop at entrances/exits and tops/bottoms of escalators still exist.

Too much to go over it all but that is our experience. We had a great trip with it but ultimately the ORIGINAL Fastpass system was the best and most fair to guests. They now have a way to raise the prices on rooms, tickets, food, merch, transportation, fast passes and experiences. It’s gross but it is what it is. Definitely makes the park easy like the OG gas pass but the $$$ and the phone time aren’t fun. I’ll go less with this system.

One thing I didn’t add here is that our Frozen Ever After LL got cancelled the night we were in Epcot. The others in my party rode it during the morning 30min period while I dealt with the resort reservation issue. They refunded it before we left the park and it was like 9pm.

 

[nickys]

I’m not sure if this has already been posted, but it seems Genie is calculating the ADR booking window incorrectly.

Lots of reports of people being told they can book now when they are still over 60 days from check-in. Only to be taken to the ADR booking page to find they can’t.

Instead of calculating 60 days out and for length of stay, it’s calculating it as (60 days + length of stay) before check-in. Classic misconception but now “official”.

 

[dirtnap101]

Did Test Track run out of Genie+ timeslots early this afternoon? When I checked about 1pm or 1:30pm EST it showed LL no longer available and still does. Remy also sold out of ILL fairly early today which I don't remember happening before.

Is it just that it's Saturday and Food & Wine?