Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[disneygeek90]

Not really IMO. You can get some G+ rides lined up for when you plan to arrive in the park.

I’m saying if you’re not worried about G+ you can still get a lot done in normal standby at the end of the night. Especially when they stay open past 8pm.

 

[LittleBuford]

They're tricking you all into thinking that theme parks can't function without a line-skip system. They absolutely can and should.

I know they can, but I for one don’t want to wait in long lines having experienced the parks without them. (And while I know we might debate how additional capacity could alleviate the situation, I’m talking about WDW as it actually exists, not as it might or should exist.)

 

[LittleBuford]

You know how much planning went into our honeymoon in 2000?

I made some dining reservations...something like 3 or 4. For an 11-day trip.

That's literally it. We didn't set any alarms. We didn't have an itinerary. We got up each morning and said "what do we want to do today?", made a choice, and did that.

ETA: Yes, it was at WDW. Hubby has always said it's the best vacation he's ever had in his life.

Even in the old(ish) days, there were busy times that absolutely necessitated planning unless you were prepared to spend hours and hours in queues. I have a copy of the 2001 edition of The Unofficial Guide (shout-out to @lentesta!), and a good portion of it is devoted to almost minute-by-minute planning.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

I know they can, but I for one don’t want to wait in long lines having experienced the parks without them. (And while I know we might debate how additional capacity could alleviate the situation, I’m talking about WDW as it actually exists, not as it might or should exist.)

That's the thing...we didn't wait in ANY long lines. We'd heard of "Disney lines" plenty of times, but that was the opposite of what we experienced on that trip.

Even in the old(ish) days, there were busy times that absolutely necessitated planning unless you were prepared to spend hours and hours in queues. I have a copy of the 2001 edition of The Unofficial Guide (shout-out to @lentesta!), and a good portion of it is devoted to almost minute-by-minute planning.

I have the 2000 edition.

I didn't read every page, but we wouldn't have known about paper FPs without it, or which restaurants we wanted to eat at (the Disney website was unbelievably sparse back then). We did make use of the paper FPs, but really, the parks were empty enough that trip that I really don't think we needed to as many times as we did. (With RnRC and Test Track being the two rides that we used them for most.)

 

[Chi84]

Even in the old(ish) days, there were busy times that absolutely necessitated planning unless you were prepared to spend hours and hours in queues. I have a copy of the 2001 edition of The Unofficial Guide (shout-out to @lentesta!), and a good portion of it is devoted to almost minute-by-minute planning.

This is absolutely true. My first visit to WDW was in 1984 when I was 28 and we have gone pretty much every year since. So we had nearly 15 years of experience with the parks prior to any type of Fastpass - the lines for the more popular rides were so long we often skipped them depending on the composition of our group. On the trips when it was just two of us, it was much easier. But honestly, one of the main draws of WDW is its ability to accommodate families. It was nice when we were able to arrange things in advance so we could be assured of getting our favorite attractions.

As far as planning is concerned, posters who didn't like FP+ made it seem like choosing dining and some rides in advance was too complicated to even comprehend. But following a schedule is pretty common for families with young children or older parents; it wasn't really a problem for us. As I said earlier, I had a chance to try Genie+ in October and I'm concerned about how this is going to work with our much larger group in April.

 

[lazyboy97o]

As far as planning is concerned, posters who didn't like FP+ made it seem like choosing dining and some rides in advance was too complicated to even comprehend. But following a schedule is pretty common for families with young children or older parents

That schedule isn’t set months in advance with different rules for different things. What parent has their kids meals planned even one month from now? That the system was complicated is evidenced by all of the people joining websites like this one to try and figure it out.

 

[Thepuma]

Once you book one, you can book the next one
Either
- when you tap in
Or
- after 2 hrs if the return time is after that (clock starts at park open).

Eg
7am - book 1st ride for 11:30
11am . book 2nd ride

And if you book for a park you don’t have a reservation for it will give you return times after 2pm. So you could hold at least 2, possibly 3 before you arrive.

Exactly...so if you book at 9am G+ and you end up having to rope drop the ride you missed out a LL+ for at park open...you end up missing the 9am G+ and the at 11am when you can book your G+, there's nothing available till late afternoon....HENCE, why it is a bad system as it leaves too many unknowns to plan.

 

[dmw]

Even in the old(ish) days, there were busy times that absolutely necessitated planning unless you were prepared to spend hours and hours in queues. I have a copy of the 2001 edition of The Unofficial Guide (shout-out to @lentesta!), and a good portion of it is devoted to almost minute-by-minute planning.

I've got you beat... I have the 1997 version of The Unoffiicial Guide and it also has the detailed touring plans section.

 

[Jeff4272]

We look at it the way we did back in the paper fastpass days.

Either you make the choice to get up and rope-drop (run for fast passes) or you sleep in and just be happy with what's left. We would do both on those trips and be happy with both choices.

I have to say in October it didn't seem to be the issue it is now? We didn't even buy ILLs for everyday and had a lot of choices for Genie no matter what time we woke up. I guess it's gotten worse.

I would be happy with allowing resort guests to have the option to purchase (because that's how it is now) their ILLs in advance - maybe 30 days. Less pressure while on the actual vacation. Yes, I'm favoring resort guests.

The problem with that philosophy is, paper FP was broken, thats why they changed it

This is 2 steps back when they should be going forward

 

[Jeff4272]

"Americans spend an average of 7 hours and 18 minutes in bed each night. They go to bed at 11:39 p.m., wake up at 7:09 a.m., spend 23.95 minutes snoring, have an average sleep quality of 74.2 percent, and rate their wake-up mood at 57 on a scale of 100"

https://www.sleepcycle.com/sleep-sc...out-americas-healthiest-happiest-best-rested/

Looks like on average, most people are NOT awake at either midnight or 7am lol

Thats exactly my point....7am is as ridiculous as midnight

 

[nickys]

Exactly...so if you book at 9am G+ and you end up having to rope drop the ride you missed out a LL+ for at park open...you end up missing the 9am G+ and the at 11am when you can book your G+, there's nothing available till late afternoon....HENCE, why it is a bad system as it leaves too many unknowns to plan.

Not sure what this has to do with your question about holding more than one G+ pass at a time.

I had tried to explain how you could hold more than 1 if you had far off return times - like if you park hop.
It is possible to get decent G+ but not necessarily at all parks.
Many people have found G+ works well with park going.

 

[Jeff4272]

If the argument was just "I don't want to" - I'd agree with you. But instead the poster keeps trying to make a 3minute task at 7am you can do from your bed sound like his whole family is being dragged out of bed and sent on a death march because they can't sleep in till 10am.

The size of the ask is trivially small. I get someone can say "I don't want to" - but you don't get to build it up to be this monster or exaggerate everything (like 7am is some egregious time) to support your belief.




But it's not like someone is asking you to make some huge sacrifice. It's also asking you to do something that is not extreme nor abnormal. It's not asking you to do some extreme thing. I mean, I can make the argument that having to walk to the food court to get food isn't something I want to do vs having food in my room. That situation is far more impactful and requires far more of a commitment to get food vs walking over to my pantry and getting some food. But know what, everyone accepts that going to a food court is a task that is not unreasonable.

Doing a 3min task on your phone (from anywhere) at 7am is not a huge ask. 7am is not considered extreme - most people are used to functioning at that time if they need to. "I don't want to"? Ok, but if you had to, don't ask like I'm asking you to cut your arm off.



In my view - they shouldn't have the early window at all.

The poster (me) did have to have my whole family up.........5 of us in a small hotel room, when one woke up, so did everyone else..........needed 3 of us to make Genie+ and ILL selections if we wanted to get on the headliner rides (which is why we went)


So yeah, my whole family had to wake up at 6:50 and it was exhausting and a huge pain and it turned our vacation into an awful experience

 

[Chi84]

What parent has their kids meals planned even one month from now?

We knew we wanted to experience a particular restaurant, all of which have pretty similar kid's menus, so we would just pick a time (that really doesn't change all that much) and figure out what we wanted to eat then. Again, not that hard. People who don't like a particular system make it sound like breaking rocks in the hot sun - they did it with FP+ and are doing it now with Genie+. There are many reasons FP+ worked for us (not you, probably because we vacation differently) and Genie+ does not work as well. As I said earlier, I hope the people who asked for this type of system are happy with it.

 

[Jeff4272]

City folk. I'm at paid work at 6am, up earlier with livestock.

i am too....thats why i dont want to be while im in disney

 

[Jeff4272]

That's also part of the thing a lot of people hated about the previous system. As @flynnibus said, you had to basically be prepared with your entire itinerary, wake up at a potentially awkward time based on your timezone, make all of your plans at once with no ability to take weather or other conditions that would require powers of prognostication into account, and still potentially be out of luck due to others being able to book things before you based on different lengths of stay.

Or you could have to do that every day vs just the once......

I preferred once

 

[Thepuma]

The problem with that philosophy is, paper FP was broken, thats why they changed it

This is 2 steps back when they should be going forward

Id say the opposite...FP+ was brilliant...it just needs to be charged at $50 per person per day..THEN the number of users will be half (or less) and therefore the times and rides available with improve over the previous FP+

 

[Thepuma]

Not sure what this has to do with your question about holding more than one G+ pass at a time.

I had tried to explain how you could hold more than 1 if you had far off return times - like if you park hop.
It is possible to get decent G+ but not necessarily at all parks.
Many people have found G+ works well with park going.

You can hold more than one AT ONSET of the day...but if you can't get to your FP at 9am becasue you've had to rope drop the LL+ you hoped to get...you've still only got one.

 

[Jeff4272]

If people are up with their kids at 7am they’ll be lucky if they make it in the parks till dinner. People love talking about “open to close” but I suspect a very very few can do it let alone every day or most days of their trip.

Arriving in the afternoon and staying till close is the new rope drop, imo. Of course that basically eliminates Genie+

exactly........this is one of the main reason that Genie+ %^&*#$s

 

[Jeff4272]

For me it's far more complex than FP+.....I need to try and make a strategy at 7am, while not knowing if the LL+ I want will be available in the morning...afternoon..evening...or not at all. Its a tough task as at 7am you are dealing with the unknown at park open.

FP+ was better in every single way...I cant even think of one thing that's better?

couldnt agree more....this system is so flawed is so many ways i dont think it can be fixed....


I think they need to completely scrap it and start over

 

[Jeff4272]

Genie+ wasn’t horrible for just the two of us. But we’re going in April with our kids and their families - total of 6 adults and 3 young kids.

I’m trying to keep an open mind, but families with kids are more inclined to keep schedules. It’s going to be interesting to see how this fly by the seat of your pants system works for us.

At least we’ll have some control over scheduling the paid rides if we can get them.

If you are going Easter week, you are in for a rude awakening........it was AWFUL on Thanksgiving week and this Easter is going to be worse............


was the worst trip we've ever taken, and that includes all vacations, not just Disney