Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Chip Chipperson]

We are not talking about our vacation experience during our trip - we are here on a discussion forum talking about what models the company has used and their pros/cons. Fact remains many will judge and value only their individual experience over the whole.

OK then - I've experienced WDW with FP+, with Standby only (May 2021), and with G+ (December 2021). Wait times in May 2021 weren't any better (80 minutes for Slinky Dog Dash before the park even officially opened, for example) than they've been with either FP+ or G+. Is it possible that there are times when Standby-only would be better? Sure, it's possible but I'm not sure how often that would actually be given the lack of a real "slow season" at WDW anymore. If you think the average guest would rather wait on nothing but long lines for popular rides and maybe not have enough time to ride them all vs. being able to skip the line for a few and maybe not be able to ride them all then I'm not sure what would make you think that other than it's what you personally prefer. If that's the case then is that any different than people defending FP+ because their experience with it was better than without it?

 

[el_super]

If it’s really the case that there will always be unpopular long lines regardless of whether there is a line-skipping system, I can’t see how getting rid of such a system would achieve anything other than making more people unhappy.

I guess it ultimately depends on which side is more unhappy, or which side has more people in it. I think it's safe to assume that Disney wouldn't have tinkered with FAstpass+ if they felt it was sustainable for the long term, so it's just a matter of finding the root reasons why Fastpass had to be replaced. Specifically looking at what practices changed between Fastpass+ and Genie+ to get a clue where Disney thought the major failures of Fastpass+ were.

I have to assume that the biggest flaw was allowing people to book 60 days in advance.

 

[LittleBuford]

I guess it ultimately depends on which side is more unhappy, or which side has more people in it. I think it's safe to assume that Disney wouldn't have tinkered with FAstpass+ if they felt it was sustainable for the long term, so it's just a matter of finding the root reasons why Fastpass had to be replaced. Specifically looking at what practices changed between Fastpass+ and Genie+ to get a clue where Disney thought the major failures of Fastpass+ were.

I have to assume that the biggest flaw was allowing people to book 60 days in advance.

I would love to know what convinced Disney to replace FP+ with the current system, and what those who made and approved the decision now think about it.

 

[doctornick]

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when people are scrambling to get something because it is so scarce - they are going to sweat if you tell them you should give it up and ‘be happy to get what you get’ on a re-roll.

Okay, but isn’t that going to be exacerbated with Genie+ compared to FP+? If you miss out on a ride pass 1-2 months in advance, you can try to plan around it. If you are determined to ride Slinky today and you miss getting the G+ pass, it could potentially be more anxiety causing to try to pivot quickly in a day.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

I guess it ultimately depends on which side is more unhappy, or which side has more people in it. I think it's safe to assume that Disney wouldn't have tinkered with FAstpass+ if they felt it was sustainable for the long term, so it's just a matter of finding the root reasons why Fastpass had to be replaced. Specifically looking at what practices changed between Fastpass+ and Genie+ to get a clue where Disney thought the major failures of Fastpass+ were.

I have to assume that the biggest flaw was allowing people to book 60 days in advance.

Tinkering with the system provides the illusion of "making things better" in lieu of adding capacity in other ways. Yes, they're adding Tron and GotG in the coming year or two, but those are going to need to have some high capacity levels to move the needle very much. Hopefully they help, but it doesn't seem like Rat, Galaxy's Edge, or Toy Story Land have helped do much more than draw more people to the parks. They need things that hold a lot of people and aren't headliners, but the current management seems to think it's not worth building anything that doesn't bring more people to the parks (ignoring that stagnation, overcrowding, and excessive money grabbing could chase people away). Magic Kingdom needs something back in the abandoned Stich's Great Escape spot. Animal Kingdom needs something to replace Primeval Whirl and probably another attraction in Pandora. Hollywood Studios could use a 3rd attraction in Galaxy's Edge. And all of the parks need some more entertainment. And for God's sake, stop adding more hotel rooms until there is room in the parks for the added guests.

 

[doctornick]

I get that. But I don't see G+ solving the problem. They replaced the 2-way Stop signs with a flashing yellow light and put a toll booth at the turn lane.

This is where I’m at. All the bickering about FP+ in recent pages seems pointless to me. Some people liked it, others hated it, some feel it was unfair or stressful or whatever. it’s gone and now there’s something new

But the ultimate point to me is that Genie+ still has many of the same problems as any of the past systems, maybe has some aspects that are better or worse, but basically is overall just as “problematic”. And we have the honor of paying to use it.

At this point, I’m interested in seeing what changes are in store for Genie+ (as has been hinted) because IMHO it looks like it sucks and I can’t imagine guests are happy with it

 

[aaronml]

Genie was announced in the summer of 2019. There is really no question as to whether or not fastpass plus was going away. They were able to use the fastpass fields already in existence because they were going to be transitioning to something else anyway and it would allow them to make far fewer modifications to code for implementation of park reservations given they weren't going to reopen with FP+. This is not direct knowledge on my part. It's common sense.

When Genie was announced in 2019, it was not intended as a replacement for FP / FP+. My understanding is that the Genie that launched is quite a bit different from what was announced back then / originally planned by Disney.

Disney worked with OLC to deploy the digital FastPass system (the same one that powered FP+ and MaxPass) at TDR in Summer 2019. They would not have done that if they were imminently planning on replacing FP with something else (to be clear, LL is built on a brand new system. The original FP+ system still exists, but is only used for Park Pass).

Though to be clear, I’m talking more generally about FP, not specifically FP+. Multiple insiders on this site has indicated that the plan was to monetize a portion of FP inventory, as well as to sell “bundles” of FPs. IIRC, some folks found code in the MDX app a while back that supported this.

In short, pre-COVID, Disney wasn’t going to eliminate FP / FP+, though changes were definitely in the works (most definitely some level of monetization, among other things). Chapek has spoken openly about how the pandemic allowed Disney to make changes that they otherwise would have had to do more gradually or not at all. My understanding is that the decision to kill FP/FP+ rather than partially monetizing it was one of those changes.

 

[flynnibus]

I mean, it's been stated by insiders that this was the case, so...

its a comment that 100% is something people who don’t know the details were told and repeated and distorted. Someone tried to either dumb it down or really had no clue.

Warning: tech talk ahead

First, let's say they repurposed the APIs. Now MDE is using the APIs for FP+ for park reservations - and they repurposed classes within MDE that were used for FP for FP.

But you don’t reuse an api if both the client and backend need different things from what the original offered.

what is more likely is things like dependent services were modified in ways that broke backwards compatibility or just dropped the old use cases. So the real message is the old service can’t simply be turned on with the current implementation because FP depends on elements that have been extended/modified to support park reservations.

maybe they reused some data models in way that make the old fp tracking invalid.

basically extending/redefining data or queries in ways that break the FP use cases. Example… an eligibility check…

but instead of saying “the old client workflows no longer work because we changed the backend and didn’t design for the systems to coexist” - it got dummied down to “we repurposed fp+ to make park reservations” and people hear that and next thing people think the old stuff no longer exists like it was a old car stripped for parts.

while us in software development know its more about the difficulty of reverting just part of a system across a boundary that wasn’t built for backwards compatibility. The old systems still exist… they just aren’t deployable with the current environment.

speeding park reservations at the expense of FP+ by not supporting both use cases makes sense… and creating compatibility issues in doing so. If you never planned to go back….

 

[RSoxNo1]

I suspect that the single ILLS will remain the new normal following the holidays. It may revert back to two immediately after, but as a trial I think this is something that should be explored.

Even though they've built several new things recently there simply isn't the capacity to justify the 3 Genie+/LL selections in non-MK parks right now. To me that leaves two long term options if they still want a component of this to be an upcharge:

1. Eliminate the ILLS entirely and have all attractions included as part of the Genie+ / LL offering.
2. Eliminate the cost of Genie+ / LL portion and only have a cost associated with the ILLS portion.

I used the system in combination with DAS on my last family trip and my preference across the board would be as follows:

Free MaxPass.

 

[GimpYancIent]

I would love to know what convinced Disney to replace FP+ with the current system, and what those who made and approved the decision now think about it.

Bottom line up front. Money, as in $$$$$$. The decision approvers think they are pretty smart, that is until there is no $$$$ as in profit from the system.

 

[doctornick]

Bottom line up front. Money, as in $$$$$$. The decision approvers think they are pretty smart, that is until there is no $$$$ as in profit from the system.

Yep. I think it was all about charging for front of the line. And they felt they needed to change some aspects of it in order (name, functionality) to differentiate it from the past system so people wouldn’t directly compare them - “it’s just like Fastpass only we have to pay!”

 

[TikibirdLand]

In my opinion you dramatically and vastly overstate the amount of stress/anxiety involved in both planning and changing plans when necessary. Most people have those life skills. Disney does not need to concern itself with the hypothetical people described in your posts because they’d be dead of a heart attack before they ever got to the park.

stop with the insults at people who don't plan as you do. Very disappointed in you. There are other, VALID, points of view. Glad you're in the parks enough where missing certain attractions aren't a big deal. Others visit so infrequently that an attraction may be gone the next time they visit.

 

[el_super]

Tinkering with the system provides the illusion of "making things better" in lieu of adding capacity in other ways.

They've tinkered with the system, in order to manage it. They are working in a scenario now where the line skip service itself, has become so desirable, people are buying into it at a pace that I don't think they intended. I'm definitely leaning toward believing the whole idea needs to be scrapped and we just need to go back to physical queues.

As for capacity, in the short term they will add more. More shows and entertainment. It won't help though. The bottleneck will always be the most in-demand attraction, and it will always be the reason people have to be up at 7AM and fight for those reservations.

I know I butchered this explanation probably a dozen times now, but think of it like the Mona Lisa. There's always a crowd of people surrounding it, and the Louvre has always suffered trying to manage the crowds. No one would dare suggest that the answer to the crowds around the Mona Lisa would be to add more paintings to the Louvre. If everyone going wants to see the Mona Lisa, the Louvre could have the largest art collection on the planet, and no one would care.

The biggest problem they have right now with their attraction portfolio, as it relates to Genie+, is the huge disparity between their Tier 1 attractions and Tier 2 attractions. They need a way to do more with the capacity they have.

 

[Joel]

That keeps getting brought up and makes zero sense from a software development perspective.

Yeah, I've never really understood this claim either. OK, they used code from FP+ to create the park reservation system, mangling it beyond all recognition in the process. So what? Are they not using literally any version control at all? I doubt it.

Would bringing back FP+ be more involved than simply copying old code? Sure, but this is not some intractable issue where the only solution was to start totally from scratch. And while starting from scratch is a frequent temptation in software development, it very often results in more problems than it solves. As we're seeing now.

Disney was never going to just bring back FP+, but it wasn't because resurrecting an old, kind of crappy system was more difficult than creating a new, even crappier one.

 

[DisneyHead123]

stop with the insults at people who don't plan as you do. Very disappointed in you. There are other, VALID, points of view. Glad you're in the parks enough where missing certain attractions aren't a big deal. Others visit so infrequently that an attraction may be gone the next time they visit.

Agree. I don’t understand the rationale that if people are Type A, perfectionist, or a bit OCD they will somehow drop dead of a heart attack before making it to Disney. I know a LOT of people who struggle with these things. It’s not a good thing, no, but in 2021 I think saying “Type A OCD people don’t really even exist!” is a stretch.

 

[JMcMahonEsq]

stop with the insults at people who don't plan as you do. Very disappointed in you. There are other, VALID, points of view. Glad you're in the parks enough where missing certain attractions aren't a big deal. Others visit so infrequently that an attraction may be gone the next time they visit.

Where is the insult in his quote?

He is voicing an opinion that people are overstating the levels of stress involved in using an app. He is coordinating this to basic life decisions people make everyday. Are their some eggshell people that may honestly feel deciding on which Genie plus ride they want is too stressful? Sure, maybe. But that is more their subjective issues rather than objective complexity with the decisions you make at a theme park, or any consequences that come out of those decisions. In either case there was no insult I could see, just a difference of opinion on stress levels from park decisions

 

[JMcMahonEsq]

literally there has been an entire industry spun up around this task. Consider why...

Note - you don't deny the conflicts and consequences - you just try to dismiss them as 'no biggie'.

Meanwhile you could spend years reading all the content and guidance people have put together for people to guide and coach them on this. Obviously it's not so trivial to many..

You could spend years reading books about stamp collecting, or the art of bird watching. Just because there is interest in a subject, or material written about it, doesn’t mean the choices involved in it are “stressful.” It also doesn’t mean it is all that complex. Sure there are always tips and tricks to try and maximize utilizing any service. But it doesn’t mean that a functional understanding of the basic service and how it works is all that hard, or stressful.

 

[Patcheslee]

Warning: tech talk ahead

First, let's say they repurposed the APIs. Now MDE is using the APIs for FP+ for park reservations - and they repurposed classes within MDE that were used for FP for FP.

Now - let's suppose that the backend code had hardcoded references to databases, other systems, etc littered throughout the code. Bad practice, yes, but I've seen it done. So now all the internal systems, databases, APIs, etc from FP are now used for Park reservations.

So now they are bringing back some form of line skip, - at minimum they need new APIs, new classes in MDE, and new database objects to hold all of the data. If their system is poorly architected and contains a lot of leaky abstractions, it could be a huge undertaking to reimplement the system.


It's also worth remembering that up until recently, Genie had more elements of FP+ in it (for example, the ability to schedule times). Apparently that was removed somewhat late, my guess is because they were behind, had a business goal to get Genie+ out by EOY on both coasts, and it made sense to share code already developed for DLR.

So in non computer talk: they made pasta, but then decided to add sauce, parmesan cheese, onions, etc. Someone decides they don't like onions, but chives is okay. With each addition it becomes harder to undo, and the simpler solution is to make new pasta?

 

[Chi84]

Where is the insult in his quote?

He is voicing an opinion that people are overstating the levels of stress involved in using an app. He is coordinating this to basic life decisions people make everyday. Are their some eggshell people that may honestly feel deciding on which Genie plus ride they want is too stressful? Sure, maybe. But that is more their subjective issues rather than objective complexity with the decisions you make at a theme park, or any consequences that come out of those decisions. In either case there was no insult I could see, just a difference of opinion on stress levels from park decisions

Yeah, that seemed a little bizarre. I thought the observation was accurate and quite fair. It was in response to what appeared to be straw man arguments based on an excessive level of planning that was neither necessary for (nor in my experience common to) an effective use of FP+.

I used both systems and personally found Genie+ to be more stressful than FP+ based on the way we vacation. I'm sure there are others who feel the opposite. But no system is going to work if people aren't willing and able to be at least a little flexible about revising their choices based on unforeseen circumstances - how much is acceptable is going to differ from person to person.

 

[James Alucobond]

So in non computer talk: they made pasta, but then decided to add sauce, parmesan cheese, onions, etc. Someone decides they don't like onions, but chives is okay. With each addition it becomes harder to undo, and the simpler solution is to make new pasta?

To play off your metaphor, it's more that the noodles or other pre-made ingredients you normally use for your dish are now physically altered in some way (perhaps because the manufacturer changed the formulation), making replication of the recipe very difficult because the component parts you're used to leveraging to get things to taste right simply aren't what they used to be.

If it's a matter of too many things being added over time, they can always revert back to a previous fork, as @lazyboy97o said. I'm still of the mind that the situation @mikejs78 describes is unlikely, though. It would be really, really bad practice.