Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

flynnibus

Premium Member
That actually isn’t what I said at all, but it’s clear this is an issue where no middle ground is possible for some you, so I’m leaving it there.
“I'm deeply sceptical of the notion that planning for a WDW trip is a novelty or something that wouldn't have benefitted guests in the good old days”

literally the stuff people plan around trying to optimize today did not exist. No adrs except day of. No fastpass. No wait boards. No line apps. No early access or differing visitor hours. No dessert parties or dinner bundles to grab Crowd bypasses.

planning was like visiting other places. Know what you want to do, know what to avoid, know what you need, and have the tips on best ways to do things. None of this buy your way to the front, schedule hour by hour months in advance, or scrambling for line bypasses like they are gold that planning disney has become.

the loss of the equitable approach to guests is one of the biggest things people complained about when these changes started while the others happily bought they way… and now that is all we have.


Trust me… i know what ultra planning was at the time. We would keys to the kingdom passes that gave us virtually everything included. Three meals, snacks, all recreation. It was expensive so my father was keen to know if he was getting his money’s worth. So not only did he track all our spending, but we made sure we did every restaurant or show possible. Full slate of meals every day. Non of the DDP non-sense… the full on ‘everything is included’. A generation later it was cool because i can look back and know I experienced ALL of them and didn’t miss out. But even then it was excessive. But back then planning was getting a reservation first thing in the morning or buying a ticke

the kind of planning being discussed now doesn’t have any real bearing on Disney back then because literally the way guests visited and their opportunities were completely different.

people aren’t talking about “is it better to hit SSE in the morning or evening” in this hate over over planning
 

mikejs78

Well-Known Member
NextGen was supposed to be deployed at every Disney operated resort and they tried to sell the Oriental Land Company on it as well. Nobody else wanted it. MaxPass was a derivative of the work done for FastPass+. If it was just about minimizing costs and monetizing then it would have been less work to stick to the original plan and just charge for FastPass+.

Except they cannibalized the FP system to implement park reservations. So pre-pandemic you're right, it would have been less work to do that. Post-pandemic I'm not so sure...
 

LittleBuford

Well-Known Member
“I'm deeply sceptical of the notion that planning for a WDW trip is a novelty or something that wouldn't have benefitted guests in the good old days”

literally the stuff people plan around trying to optimize today did not exist. No adrs except day of. No fastpass. No wait boards. No line apps. No early access or differing visitor hours. No dessert parties or dinner bundles to grab Crowd bypasses.

planning was like visiting other places. Know what you want to do, know what to avoid, know what you need, and have the tips on best ways to do things. None of this buy your way to the front, schedule hour by hour months in advance, or scrambling for line bypasses like they are gold that planning disney has become.

the loss of the equitable approach to guests is one of the biggest things people complained about when these changes started while the others happily bought they way… and now that is all we have.


Trust me… i know what ultra planning was at the time. We would keys to the kingdom passes that gave us virtually everything included. Three meals, snacks, all recreation. It was expensive so my father was keen to know if he was getting his money’s worth. So not only did he track all our spending, but we made sure we did every restaurant or show possible. Full slate of meals every day. Non of the DDP non-sense… the full on ‘everything is included’. A generation later it was cool because i can look back and know I experienced ALL of them and didn’t miss out. But even then it was excessive. But back then planning was getting a reservation first thing in the morning or buying a ticke

the kind of planning being discussed now doesn’t have any real bearing on Disney back then because literally the way guests visited and their opportunities were completely different.

people aren’t talking about “is it better to hit SSE in the morning or evening” in this hate over over planning
I know what I wrote, and it still doesn’t bear any resemblance to what you seem to think I meant. As I said, I’m moving on.
 

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Except they cannibalized the FP system to implement park reservations. So pre-pandemic you're right, it would have been less work to do that. Post-pandemic I'm not so sure...
NextGen was rejected by all of the other parks years before the pandemic. TRON and Ratatouille were hurriedly approved to add capacity years before the pandemic. Disney was exploring the end of FastPass+ before the pandemic.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
Again, my post was a response to someone falsely claiming that using FP+ effectively required spreadsheets and online calendars. That's blatantly false.

well kudos for you for being able to memorize and optimize a park plan…
Inserting 3 FPs and
Fitting around the up to three ADRs you booked months before (you had those times memorized right?)
While…
Knowing all the travel times
Knowing all the park show times
Knowing what you booked for other days
And making it all fit on one or subsequent days of choice
And always winning the lottery with getting all the FPs you want on the days you already picked due to ADRs

and pray you don’t have to try to change what day you picked because of FP or dome other calendar conflict.

yeah… who doesn’t do all that in their head without notes


Also, Disney still isn't telling guests, "You better buy Genie+ or you'll be stuck in miserable lines all day."

yet as you already see in this thread… people actually consider their park hours based on when they can use LL. people are treating it as essential and actually changing their plans because of it. Its being elevated to essential By the guests
 

mikejs78

Well-Known Member
NextGen was rejected by all of the other parks years before the pandemic. TRON and Ratatouille were hurriedly approved to add capacity years before the pandemic. Disney was exploring the end of FastPass+ before the pandemic.

What does it being rejected by all the other parks have to do with it? WDW is unique among the parks - I don't think that FO+ would work well for DLR, and probably any other park, but my understanding is that it was rejected by the other parks because it had a lot of operational challenges.

As far as Tron and Rat, What you're doing here, and what you've been doing all along, is taking disparate facts and protecting your own opinion onto them. What makes you think they were hurridly approved?

As far as exploring the end of FP+ before the pandemic, again, they were exploring paid FP. We have absolutely no idea what form that would take. Just that they wanted to monetize that.

All of your "evidence" that guests didn't like FP+ is circumstantial at best. The truth is that guests may have overwhelmingly loved FP+. They may have overwhelmingly hated it. They may have been split down the middle. You can no more say that FP+ was not popular than I can say that it was. We just don't have the info.
 

Chi84

Premium Member
well kudos for you for being able to memorize and optimize a park plan…
Inserting 3 FPs and
Fitting around the up to three ADRs you booked months before (you had those times memorized right?)
While…
Knowing all the travel times
Knowing all the park show times
Knowing what you booked for other days
And making it all fit on one or subsequent days of choice
And always winning the lottery with getting all the FPs you want on the days you already picked due to ADRs

and pray you don’t have to try to change what day you picked because of FP or dome other calendar conflict.
You forgot about having to find (and learn how to use) an online calculator to figure out the 60th day before the trip in order to get FP+.

Seriously, it wasn’t that hard. No prayer or lottery necessary.
 

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
What does it being rejected by all the other parks have to do with it? WDW is unique among the parks - I don't think that FO+ would work well for DLR, and probably any other park, but my understanding is that it was rejected by the other parks because it had a lot of operational challenges.

As far as Tron and Rat, What you're doing here, and what you've been doing all along, is taking disparate facts and protecting your own opinion onto them. What makes you think they were hurridly approved?

As far as exploring the end of FP+ before the pandemic, again, they were exploring paid FP. We have absolutely no idea what form that would take. Just that they wanted to monetize that.

All of your "evidence" that guests didn't like FP+ is circumstantial at best. The truth is that guests may have overwhelmingly loved FP+. They may have overwhelmingly hated it. They may have been split down the middle. You can no more say that FP+ was not popular than I can say that it was. We just don't have the info.
If FP+ was "overwhelmingly loved," Disney would have slapped a pricetag on it and called it a day.

I don't see why "operational challenges" would have caused the other parks to reject it, and I don't think any of our quite reliable insiders claim that was the case. Indeed, DLR would seem to have been much better situated to implement it since they had the capacity to do so.

Basically, you seem to be arguing not only against loads of circumstantial evidence but also against nearly a decade of insider reports.

Also, the reason there is some skepticism regarding the glowing nostalgia some have for FP+ is contrary personal experiences. I visited many, many times when FP+ was in place and tried to use it every time I was there. The system I experienced had almost nothing in common with the flawless boon certain folks on here seemed to encounter. Maybe I just "vacation wrong."
 

Chi84

Premium Member
yup and so many people never have waited more than 20min for rides. No idea why everyone is sweating this line skip stuff… when you only remember the best nothing is bad :)
It's not a matter of remembering good or bad. I'm sure people had valid reasons for disliking FP+ but it didn't require a degree in nuclear physics to use. You can break it up into 50 component parts if you like, but you're still talking about juggling a dinner reservation and three fastpases. Heck, my brother-in-law managed and he's an idiot.
 

mikejs78

Well-Known Member
If FP+ was "overwhelmingly loved," Disney would have slapped a pricetag on it and called it a day.

I don't see why "operational challenges" would have caused the other parks to reject it, and I don't think any of our quite reliable insiders claim that was the case. Indeed, DLR would seem to have been much better situated to implement it since they had the capacity to do so.

Basically, you seem to be arguing not only against loads of circumstantial evidence but also against nearly a decade of insider reports.

Also, the reason there is some skepticism regarding the glowing nostalgia some have for FP+ is contrary personal experiences. I visited many, many times when FP+ was in place and tried to use it every time I was there. The system I experienced had almost nothing in common with the flawless boon certain folks on here seemed to encounter. Maybe I just "vacation wrong."
I actually remember several insiders pointing to the operational issues of FP+ and the IT related challenges with it (because from a software perspective it was implemented so poorly).

The "circumstantial evidence" presented is very flimsy. It is colored by the biases of the authors.

I never once had trouble with FP+ and find it to be a vastly superior system to Genie+. You, apparently had trouble. That doesn't mean you vacation wrong or that I vacation right. That's not the point. The point is that you and I are only two data points. And even everyone on this board represents a tiny fraction of the WDW audience, and a fairly specific type of guest at that. To extrapolate from our own personal experiences and drawing universal conclusions that FP+ was or wasn't popular is not possible. We need more than personal biases and flimsy circumstantial evidence to draw an accurate conclusion on that.
 

LittleBuford

Well-Known Member
If FP+ was "overwhelmingly loved," Disney would have slapped a pricetag on it and called it a day.

I don't see why "operational challenges" would have caused the other parks to reject it, and I don't think any of our quite reliable insiders claim that was the case. Indeed, DLR would seem to have been much better situated to implement it since they had the capacity to do so.

Basically, you seem to be arguing not only against loads of circumstantial evidence but also against nearly a decade of insider reports.

Also, the reason there is some skepticism regarding the glowing nostalgia some have for FP+ is contrary personal experiences. I visited many, many times when FP+ was in place and tried to use it every time I was there. The system I experienced had almost nothing in common with the flawless boon certain folks on here seemed to encounter. Maybe I just "vacation wrong."
It isn’t nostalgia on my part. I had kind words to say about FP+ long before its demise. That doesn’t mean I ever doubted that others hated the system. Your penultimate sentence expresses the exact opposite of how I feel: the system I experienced had almost nothing in common with the dreadful scourge certain folks on here seemed to encounter. Does that mean one of us is wrong or lying? No. It simply means we viewed and experienced things differently. And that’s OK.
 
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gerarar

Premium Member
Watched the tip board starting from 7 AM today, and…

7:02 AM:
817A19FE-90E3-4FA9-91C3-EDAA38A5DDDB.jpeg


7:05 AM:
C16A03BC-9A8C-410D-851B-E020F6BB0DB9.jpeg


Both filled up pretty ‘quickly’, I would say.
I do note that SDD went back up around 7:13 AM for a 5:15pm return time, but that only lasted around a couple secs, which probably means someone cancelled and freed up their booking for SDD.

Edit: SDD reopened around 7:40 AM for 7:30pm return.

Unless you have the tip board and refresh constantly, it seems very hard to get these rides after they "initially" run out.
 

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Chip Chipperson

Well-Known Member
well kudos for you for being able to memorize and optimize a park plan…
Inserting 3 FPs and
Fitting around the up to three ADRs you booked months before (you had those times memorized right?)
While…
Knowing all the travel times
Knowing all the park show times
Knowing what you booked for other days
And making it all fit on one or subsequent days of choice
And always winning the lottery with getting all the FPs you want on the days you already picked due to ADRs

and pray you don’t have to try to change what day you picked because of FP or dome other calendar conflict.

yeah… who doesn’t do all that in their head without notes




yet as you already see in this thread… people actually consider their park hours based on when they can use LL. people are treating it as essential and actually changing their plans because of it. Its being elevated to essential By the guests

Why do you keep trying to make that all seem so confusing? FP+ didn't require half of what you're suggesting. If you had an overlap between reservations, the system told you when you tried to select a return time. Who needs to write down, "I really want to ride Slinky Dog Dash," to remember to try to book a FP+ time for it? The most planning we ever did was write down the days of the week and which park we wanted to hit each day. No spreadsheets or "online calendars" necessary. All the information you needed to track dining reservations was already stored on your MDE account and you could access it on the WDW website or in the app. When you book an ADR now, do you need spreadsheets and calendars to track it all so you remember what park to go to at what time with G+? It's literally no different remembering that information now than it was before. You're more than allowed to hate FP+, but please don't try to justify it by trying to convince those who liked it that it was actually some unbearable burden that we've just forgotten with the passage of time. My wife literally booked our return times in the passenger seat of our car while we drove to work. Do you think she had a laptop open with spreadsheets and notebooks scattered all over while she did it? And there was an obvious solution to avoid conflicts with ADRs for dinner. Book all 3 FP+ times for earlier in the day.
 

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
I actually remember several insiders pointing to the operational issues of FP+ and the IT related challenges with it (because from a software perspective it was implemented so poorly).

The "circumstantial evidence" presented is very flimsy. It is colored by the biases of the authors.

I never once had trouble with FP+ and find it to be a vastly superior system to Genie+. You, apparently had trouble. That doesn't mean you vacation wrong or that I vacation right. That's not the point. The point is that you and I are only two data points. And even everyone on this board represents a tiny fraction of the WDW audience, and a fairly specific type of guest at that. To extrapolate from our own personal experiences and drawing universal conclusions that FP+ was or wasn't popular is not possible. We need more than personal biases and flimsy circumstantial evidence to draw an accurate conclusion on that.
What “operational challenges” are you positing as having prevented a supposedly massively popular system from being introduced in other parks.

The key point you don’t address is that, were the system massively popular, it would still exist, albeit in a monetized form. That’s not particularly flimsy evidence that it wasn’t causing guest satisfaction to shoot way up.

I’d also be curious for a theory as to how, exactly, line-skipping systems work in parks designed for standby. What compensated for the massive lost capacity?
 
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Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
It isn’t nostalgia on my part. I had kind words to say about FP+ long before its demise. That doesn’t mean I ever doubted that others hated the system. Your penultimate sentence expresses the exact opposite of how I feel: the system I experienced had almost nothing in common with the dreadful scourge certain folks on here seemed to encounter. Does that mean one of us is wrong or lying? No. It simply means we viewed and experienced things differently. And that’s OK.
The folks who describe its as a “dreadful scourge” are almost always looking at it from an overall operational standpoint - what did it do to the way the park works, and how did it effect the AVERAGE guest experience - whereas you and the other advocates almost always pull it back to a strictly personal level.

Also, if one person says “I was always able to get the Passes I wanted, even during the busy season for last minute trips,” while another says, “I could never book the more popular rides, even several weeks out in the low season,” some degree of clouded memory is taking place on one (or both) parts.

And a note from upthread - you frequently reply to claims that standby is the only system that really works in the parks as constructed by telling the story of your first, miserable visit to WDW during the standby years. But as you explain, you went during the most crowded period and did no preparation. I’d point out that had you taken the same trip, at the most crowded period and with no advance planning, during the FP+ era, your experience would have been just as, if not more, miserable. If there is one indisputable point, it is that FP+ made things worse for those who did no advance planning at all.
 

Chip Chipperson

Well-Known Member
The folks who describe its as a “dreadful scourge” are almost always looking at it from an overall operational standpoint - what did it do to the way the park works, and how did it effect the AVERAGE guest experience - whereas you and the other advocates almost always pull it back to a strictly personal level.

Also, if one person says “I was always able to get the Passes I wanted, even during the busy season for last minute trips,” while another says, “I could never book the more popular rides, even several weeks out in the low season,” some degree of clouded memory is taking place on one (or both) parts.

And a note from upthread - you frequently reply to claims that standby is the only system that really works in the parks as constructed by telling the story of your first, miserable visit to WDW during the standby years. But as you explain, you went during the most crowded period and did no preparation. I’d point out that had you taken the same trip, at the most crowded period and with no advance planning, during the FP+ era, your experience would have been just as, if not more, miserable. If there is one indisputable point, it is that FP+ made things worse for those who did no advance planning at all.

So you're just going to ignore all of the complaints about planning and how "difficult" it was to know which day you could start making your FP+reservations withoutsome fancy "online calendar?" Those have nothing to do with park operations and the impact on standby wait tines and everything dobwith "the system stunk for ME!" Let's not pretend that this is a debate between the virtuous and the selfish now, particularly when G+ doesn't seem to be improving guests' experiences since there's still the flying elephant in the room of not enough capacity to please everyone no matter what version of line skipping is used.
 

Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
What “operational challenges” are you positing as having prevented a supposedly massively popular system from being introduced in other parks.

The key point you don’t address is that, were the system massively popular, it would still exist, albeit in a monetized form. That’s not particularly flimsy evidence that it wasn’t causing guest satisfaction to shoot way up.

I’d also be curious for a theory as to how, exactly, line-skipping systems work in parks designed for standby. What compensated for the massive lost capacity?
Line-skipping systems work every where else. I would say all parks were designed for standby.
 

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
So you're just going to ignore all of the complaints about planning and how "difficult" it was to know which day you could start making your FP+reservations withoutsome fancy "online calendar?" Those have nothing to do with park operations and the impact on standby wait tines and everything dobwith "the system stunk for ME!" Let's not pretend that this is a debate between the virtuous and the selfish now, particularly when G+ doesn't seem to be improving guests' experiences since there's still the flying elephant in the room of not enough capacity to please everyone no matter what version of line skipping is used.
I mean, I think most of the “anti-FP+“ crowd would agree that the parks can’t handle any line-skipping system, in large part because of the lack of capacity. I’ve said repeatedly in this thread that both FP+ and G+ break the parks. It’s just that the conversation always returns to strictly personal experiences of FP+.
 

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