Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

wutisgood

Well-Known Member
A friend texted me this morning: "Hey, I'm in Orlando. We're thinking about heading to the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday. What do I need to know?"
Always Sunny Fx GIF
 

nickys

Premium Member
Today's my first day at the parks, so purchazed Genie+ to test it out and finally got to see first hand how fast things go.

ROTR immediately sold out as usual. Slinky ran out within 2 to 3 minutes. FOP sold out around 7:50am. My park res starts at AK today, but plan to hop to HS at 2pm, so I booked my first LL there for MMRR. Return times for it are around 4pm+ now. Everything else at AK/HS has return times within the hour, so didn't think it's too important to book those rn. Rope dropped FoP and entered the queue at an 80min wait.

Honestly, this requires more thinking then getting a BG at 6am for ROTR in December 2019. Only caveat there was to getting to the park early on time, but at least that lasted minutes to sometimes hours.
Those 3 rides you mention first are not included in Genie+ though.

What you’ve demonstrated is that MMRR return times are later in the afternoon but all the other DHS and AK rides have standby wait times of less than an hour. Which I will take to mean that even on a high crowd day Genie+ isn’t actually of much benefit in those two parks. Which is actually quite an important piece of info.
 

nickys

Premium Member
Does this friend know you (re)write a book about this every year?
😁
A friend texted me this morning: "Hey, I'm in Orlando. We're thinking about heading to the Magic Kingdom on Wednesday. What do I need to know?"


I think at this point I’d just say “here’s a touring plan, have fun” and email him a suitable plan, optimised for the day in question.
 

gerarar

Premium Member
Those 3 rides you mention first are not included in Genie+ though.

What you’ve demonstrated is that MMRR return times are later in the afternoon but all the other DHS and AK rides have standby wait times of less than an hour. Which I will take to mean that even on a high crowd day Genie+ isn’t actually of much benefit in those two parks. Which is actually quite an important piece of info.
Yea, I didn't mean to imply that those rides were included with G+ . I wasn't going to buy any ILL's, just watch and note how fast they were going.

And now looking at the selections again, a lot of the original-within the hour return times are up to 2 hours now, with some in the evening to night hours.

Just got off of Kali, and the distribution was about 50 LL to every 5-10 standby.
 

wutisgood

Well-Known Member
Yea, I didn't mean to imply that those rides were included with G+ . I wasn't going to buy any ILL's, just watch and note how fast they were going.

And now looking at the selections again, a lot of the original-within the hour return times are up to 2 hours now, with some in the evening to night hours.

Just got off of Kali, and the distribution was about 50 LL to every 5-10 standby.
It sounds like disney is going to "improve" genie plus by upping the LL allocations so you are basically forced to buy it every day.
 

Waters Back Side

Well-Known Member
"You chose the wrong week. Take a left turn and go 16 miles down the road to USO."

Where I live (NJ) this week is school and work as usual until Thursday. Winter break starts Friday and through next week (week between Christmas and New Year) which is when we are crazy enough to be there. I guess many schools elsewhere have 2 weeks off? I do see the Genie + today shows rides booked almost as fast as Thanksgiving in many cases. I also assume next week will be even more crowded.
 
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Patcheslee

Well-Known Member
Where I live (NJ) this week is school and work as usual until Thursday. Winter break starts Friday and through next week (week between Christmas and New Year) which is when we are crazy enough to be there. I guess many schools elsewhere have 2 weeks off? I do see the Genie + today shows roses booked almost as fast as Thanksgiving in many cases. I also assume next week will be even more crowded.
3 weeks off here Southcentral Indiana. Few people are already out at work for the remainder of the year, only 1 traveling out of state to Tennessee.
 

Waters Back Side

Well-Known Member
ROTR immediately sold out as usual. Slinky ran out within 2 to 3 minutes. FOP sold out around 7:50am. My park res starts at AK today, but plan to hop to HS at 2pm, so I booked my first LL there for MMRR. Return times for it are around 4pm+ now. Everything else at AK/HS has return times within the hour, so didn't think it's too important to book those rn. Rope dropped FoP and entered the queue at an 80min wait

This is another example of giving up before even trying or having low expectations. SDD most definitely did NOT book up by 7:02 AM. I checked the tip board up until 7:25pm and while there were long stretches of no availability for it, there are times that also popped up several times. Same with Rise by the way. In fact there has not been a single solitary day that SDD has sold out by 7:02 am including Thanksgiving week. It is possible the times that showed up got booked so fast that you lose out. But to say it ran out in 2 or 3 minutes is not a true statement for either Rise of SDD.
 
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gerarar

Premium Member
This is another example of giving up before even trying or having low expectations. SDD most definitely did NOT book up by 7:02 AM. I checked the tip board up until 7:25pm and while there were long stretches of no availability for it, there are times that also popped up several times. Same with Rise by the way. In fact there has not been a single solitary day that SDD has sold out by 7:02 am including Thanksgiving week. It is possible the times that showed up got booked so fast that you lose out. But to say it ran out in 2 or 3 minutes is not a true statement for either Rise of SDD.
I mean I was constantly checking and refreshing the tip board to plan my next LL, and it was greyed out after the timeframes I stated before. It certainly is possible that they popped up again, but the majority of times were pretty much gone I would say.

Regardless, going for any of the ILL’s (or slinky) wasn’t my objective this morning, so maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. But that already says a lot imo 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

Basil of Baker Street

Well-Known Member
This is another example of giving up before even trying or having low expectations. SDD most definitely did NOT book up by 7:02 AM. I checked the tip board up until 7:25pm and while there were long stretches of no availability for it, there are times that also popped up several times. Same with Rise by the way. In fact there has not been a single solitary day that SDD has sold out by 7:02 am including Thanksgiving week. It is possible the times that showed up got booked so fast that you lose out. But to say it ran out in 2 or 3 minutes is not a true statement for either Rise of SDD.
So...

Keep refreshing your app till some LLs get released every day multiple times a day.

vs

Getting on the app 1 time 60 days before your arrival day and book FPs for your entire stay.

I bet the FP hater party is losing members.
 

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
So...

Keep refreshing your app till some LLs get released every day multiple times a day.

vs

Getting on the app 1 time 60 days before your arrival day and book FPs for your entire stay.

I bet the FP hater party is losing members.
Plenty of people would constantly refresh their app trying to switch out FastPass+ selections made earlier and then for their additional passes.
 

Waters Back Side

Well-Known Member
So...

Keep refreshing your app till some LLs get released every day multiple times a day.

vs

Getting on the app 1 time 60 days before your arrival day and book FPs for your entire stay.

I bet the FP hater party is losing members.

I'm not disputing that the old way was better. The poster said there was no availability by 7:02 which is not the case. I'm buying Genie by choice so even with all its flaws and issues I'm gonna still make it try and work for me.

And the thing is..at 7am you are focused on one ride. Its not like you are juggling picking the priority rides on different days. You get 1 to start. Putting aside the ILL rides, you simply move the Genie + ride to the top of the tip board and its ALL you are focusing on. You are not worrying of the other rides are getting picked up. Most of them you have time for. And you cannot book another until 2 hours after the park opens so you do not even need to look at yoyr phone after because there is nothing you can do for a while, unless you get an early return time and then you look again after. Move SDD to the top of the tip board and watch it for 20 minutes.

I think most of us agree we should not have to do this each morning at 7am.

And in saying that, after an in depth conversation with my other half, and the fact one or both of us have to wake up at 7 anyway, I'm not going to attempt to get both SDD and Rise because of the hassle and lack of success of many . For our HS day, the 1st park day for us a week from today, we will early entry at 7:30 AM and walk right to SDD. We will buy Rise for 6pm right at 7am and focus on nothing else. That will be our last ride before dinner. We will Genie + MMRR after that. And studying it, it's better to wait until after 7:15 to get the earlier return time for that. We are shooting for 930-1030. Park opens at 830 to public. So at 1030 latest (sooner if we tap into MMRR) we will grab RNRC for around 5pm. We will at 1pm see if TSM or Alien availability is hanging around for a time of 8-9 for after dinner before park closing

7am -Buy Rise. Genie + MMRR after for anytime before noon (ideally 930-1030).
12-3 back to the resort for a refresher. RNRC booked for sometime between 4 and 6. Rise at 6. Possibly a smaller attraction after dinner. That's a productive day for us. I'd be satisfied.
 
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