Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[RoadiJeff]

You can check in as early as 6 AM. We checked in at 6:30 and made early entry rope drop.

Assuming you arrive there that early. As I said, I did not get to my hotel until around 5:00pm the day I arrived in Orlando.

Also, I previously did not include Hard Rock's $28/day parking fee, their $15/day microwave rental (??? - every hotel I've ever stayed at it was included in the room price, along with a mini fridge), and a 12% daily tax based on the room. So, for $70 per day at a Comfort Inn and $170 for an Express Pass I paid $240 plus whatever cost of ticket admission regardless of where I stayed vs close to $525 per day at Hard Rock when all their nickel and dime add-ons were figured in. For me, it was an easy choice.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Note you didn't say inaccurate - just sayin'

It’s neither accurate or inaccurate, it’s just vulgar. We can and should be able to have heated debate without being genuinely insulting.

 

[RobWDW1971]

It’s neither accurate or inaccurate, it’s just vulgar. We can and should be able to have heated debate without being genuinely insulting.

Putting you down as a "reluctantly accurate".

 

[lazyboy97o]

I don’t think they’re even “at capacity”.

They still have an annual pass program. Something that is used to fill in the “empty space”.

The day they have to turn away full price ticket holders is the day they need to add capacity.

We might feel Disney parks are too crowded and need more capacity, but I feel the company disagrees.

If Disney disagreed they wouldn’t have panicked and rushed to add TRON and Ratatouille.

 

[Patcheslee]

c) it’s safer if I lose the Caxton card than if I lose a gift card. Once reported lost, no one could use the Caxton card b/c it’d be cancelled. Never having used a gift card I don’t know how you put a stop on it.

The only way I know to prevent use if lost for Disney GC specifically, is to carry an empty card as well and have both registered on the Disney GC site. If you lose one, log on and transfer the balance to the empty card.

 

[dovetail65]

If Disney disagreed they wouldn’t have panicked and rushed to add TRON and Ratatouill

 

[Clamman73]

Tried lighting lane yesterday. Let’s go back to fastpass way of doing it. The way within the app to pick it is a little convoluted to start out with…then there were multiple times when I clicked on the time period it showed that there was one and by the time I hit it, it changed to some later time.

 

[peter11435]

Tried lighting lane yesterday. Let’s go back to fastpass way of doing it. The way within the app to pick it is a little convoluted to start out with…then there were multiple times when I clicked on the time period it showed that there was one and by the time I hit it, it changed to some later time.

Fastpass plus times would change or disappear if you weren’t fast enough too.

I’m not sure what’s convoluted about the tipboard screen. There’s a lot of changes to the app that are a mess right now but the tipboard screen itself is pretty straightforward.

 

[dreday3]

Fastpass plus times would change or disappear if you weren’t fast enough too.

I’m not sure what’s convoluted about the tipboard screen. There’s a lot of changes to the app that are a mess right now but the tipboard screen itself is pretty straightforward.

Agree. We figured it out the first morning (the Tip Board) and that's saying a lot for me.

I can say we never experienced issues with the app the entire 9 days we were there, but I realize others may have.

 

[vikescaper]

I am trying out this Genie+ thing today. I feel kind of stupid for spending the money on it…

 

[dreday3]

I am trying out this Genie+ thing today. I feel kind of stupid for spending the money on it…

I have to tell you....there is something about paying each morning we chose to use it that made me annoyed. Like I kept being reminded I have to pay for it.

I think, for no real reason at all, once people just start adding it on to their total cost for upcoming trips like park hoppers when booking a package, people will start to "forget" about the cost...

Maybe down the line they will start to add it as an incentive instead of resort discounts - free if you stay at such and such resort.

 

[Chi84]

I have to tell you....there is something about paying each morning we chose to use it that made me annoyed. Like I kept being reminded I have to pay for it.

I think, for no real reason at all, once people just start adding it on to their total cost for upcoming trips like park hoppers when booking a package, people will start to "forget" about the cost...

Maybe down the line they will start to add it as an incentive instead of resort discounts - free if you stay at such and such resort.

Well Disney just sent me a survey that absolutely reminded me of the individual costs. First, they asked the total amount we spent at WDW, then on the next page I had to break everything down (and it had to total the number I gave them on the previous page). As part of the breakdown, they asked how much I spent on Genie+ and the ILLs. It turns out I underestimated my initial total by about $700 or so (we spend way too much on food and wine lol.)

Once of the reasons we visit so often is the all-inclusive feel of the trips, and that has started to disappear. We did have a few issues with the new system - one because I was being stupid but the other was getting times outside of the window I selected and that was Disney's issue. I wasn't going out of my way to be negative, but my answers to this particular survey were not nearly as favorable as in the past when it came to overall enjoyment of the trip.

 

[nickys]

Well Disney just sent me a survey that absolutely reminded me of the individual costs. First, they asked the total amount we spent at WDW, then on the next page I had to break everything down (and it had to total the number I gave them on the previous page).

I have to say, at that point I would have given up on the survey! Or just given approximate sums to the nearest $100 for each category.

 

[Chi84]

I have to say, at that point I would have given up on the survey! Or just given approximate sums to the nearest $100 for each category.

I did that for everything except the room, parking and the Genie+/ILL questions. Those I could figure out easily.

This probably isn’t the right thread, but a number of posters have stated that Disney cares nothing about the guest experience. This is what we experienced at CBR:

We were scheduled to leave on Thursday afternoon but something happened at home on Wednesday morning (not serious) that required us to leave Wednesday afternoon instead. It was too late to cancel anything, so we just went to the front desk to check out. A CM approached us (one of the roving ones bearing iPads, probably a manager). We told her we needed to cancel that evening’s Mama Melrose reservation and that we would not be staying our last night.

We didn’t ask for anything. She waived the restaurant no show fee, said she felt sorry we had to leave early and gave us each a 1-day Park Hopper Plus ticket for our next trip. When we got our itemized bill there was no charge for Wednesday night even though we were not able to give them any kind of notice that we would be leaving early.

This doesn’t even fit the definition of guest recovery as commented on by @flynnibus. It was just unexpected, unsolicited kindness and very good business practice.

 

[dreday3]

I did that for everything except the room, parking and the Genie+/ILL questions. Those I could figure out easily.

This probably isn’t the right thread, but a number of posters have stated that Disney cares nothing about the guest experience. This is what we experienced at CBR:

We were scheduled to leave on Thursday afternoon but something happened at home on Wednesday morning (not serious) that required us to leave Wednesday afternoon instead. It was too late to cancel anything, so we just went to the front desk to check out. A CM approached us (one of the roving ones bearing iPads, probably a manager). We told her we needed to cancel that evening’s Mama Melrose reservation and that we would not be staying our last night.

We didn’t ask for anything. She waived the restaurant no show fee, said she felt sorry we had to leave early and gave us each a 1-day Park Hopper Plus ticket for our next trip. When we got our itemized bill there was no charge for Wednesday night even though we were not able to give them any kind of notice that we would be leaving early.

This doesn’t even fit the definition of guest recovery as commented on by @flynnibus. It was just unexpected, unsolicited kindness and very good business practice.

Agree customer service while there was great. Even our bus drivers were fun!

Also, we got upgraded to a suite for 9 nights!!! Thanks to the work of an awesome cast member. Our room wasn't ready so we went to desk and she was really fun, then she said let me see if I can find a room that's ready. She went off to side and we could hear her speaking to someone, saying it's our Anniversary, we are a nice couple and comes back dancing, saying we're getting a suite!!!

It was truly wonderful.

 

[Chi84]

Agree customer service while there was great. Even our bus drivers were fun!

Also, we got upgraded to a suite for 9 nights!!! Thanks to the work of an awesome cast member. Our room wasn't ready so we went to desk and she was really fun, then she said let me see if I can find a room that's ready. She went off to side and we could hear her speaking to someone, saying it's our Anniversary, we are a nice couple and comes back dancing, saying we're getting a suite!!!

It was truly wonderful.

Honestly, I think being nice and having a positive attitude works wonders at Disney. It’s also good for one’s mental health.

 

[homerdance]

I did that for everything except the room, parking and the Genie+/ILL questions. Those I could figure out easily.

This probably isn’t the right thread, but a number of posters have stated that Disney cares nothing about the guest experience. This is what we experienced at CBR:

We were scheduled to leave on Thursday afternoon but something happened at home on Wednesday morning (not serious) that required us to leave Wednesday afternoon instead. It was too late to cancel anything, so we just went to the front desk to check out. A CM approached us (one of the roving ones bearing iPads, probably a manager). We told her we needed to cancel that evening’s Mama Melrose reservation and that we would not be staying our last night.

We didn’t ask for anything. She waived the restaurant no show fee, said she felt sorry we had to leave early and gave us each a 1-day Park Hopper Plus ticket for our next trip. When we got our itemized bill there was no charge for Wednesday night even though we were not able to give them any kind of notice that we would be leaving early.

This doesn’t even fit the definition of guest recovery as commented on by @flynnibus. It was just unexpected, unsolicited kindness and very good business practice.

The best part of WDW are the cast members who make it special. They are truly the ones who make it great. Not the pay per ride or the other garbage that the management is devising to extract pennies from your wallet.

 

[mikejs78]

Fastpass plus times would change or disappear if you weren’t fast enough too.

I’m not sure what’s convoluted about the tipboard screen. There’s a lot of changes to the app that are a mess right now but the tipboard screen itself is pretty straightforward.

That wasn't my experience with FP+. Maybe times didn't just cycle through as fast, I don't know. You were presented with multiple times, you could refresh, and then if you selected one of the times you always seem to be given that slot. It's like they were holding the times for you for a short amount of time. Playing with G+ A little bit and hearing others experience, it seems that a large percentage of the time if you click on attraction off of the tip board, you end up presented with a different time.

 

[Clamman73]

That wasn't my experience with FP+. Maybe times didn't just cycle through as fast, I don't know. You were presented with multiple times, you could refresh, and then if you selected one of the times you always seem to be given that slot. It's like they were holding the times for you for a short amount of time. Playing with G+ A little bit and hearing others experience, it seems that a large percentage of the time if you click on attraction off of the tip board, you end up presented with a different time.

Yeah I always got the time presented when looking for a fastpass.…I think something that would help with the app now would be to have separate tabs for just Experiences, All attractions, Lightning lanes, and Individual lightning lanes.

On the Tip Board, having attractions with no lightning lanes and Dapper Dans as part of the list to look through means a lot of unnecessary scrolling looking for lightning lane attraction return times.

 

[Former Visitor]

The problem with being GREEDY is, It's Never Enough.