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Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Nottamus
Well-Known Member
Yeah, same for last night at HS.
We saw Smugglers run at 15 minutes for a few hours, and RoTr was under an hour —-
As fate would have it, the same day my wife talked me into purchasing ILL for it. My first (& hopefully last) use of any genie anything
As we were leaving at 8:45, the wait time was 20 minutes! People jumping in line!
Parks were crowded all week until last night pretty much in our experience.
We saw Smugglers run at 15 minutes for a few hours, and RoTr was under an hour —-
As fate would have it, the same day my wife talked me into purchasing ILL for it. My first (& hopefully last) use of any genie anything
As we were leaving at 8:45, the wait time was 20 minutes! People jumping in line!
Parks were crowded all week until last night pretty much in our experience.
Well, Been coming to Disney parks for 5 years now 3 times a year and what I witnessed this morning has totally shown the depths Disney have sunk to.
Hollywood studios on a Monday....it has ALWAYS been that everyone heads to Rise and Slinky, the top rides..and ALWAYS TOT and RnRC have been practically walk ons first thing because of this.
Well..this morning at rope drop, RnR 35 mins and Tower was 60....I was confused as to why...well, I soon found out ...
RNR they were running empty cars every other ride!!!! Meaning the wait times were falsely inflating.....I overheard someone saying they do this early on so the time inflates and it means more people buy Genie+.....we then went to ToT...we also noticed they were not using all the lifts...thereby inflating the wait times so,you got it, more people buy Genie+
So it would appear Disney have been caught out inflating their wait times, embarrasing their brand...so now they are actually falsely making the times actually correct by purposefully slowing the lines first thing.
Honestly, I never thought Disney would sink so low and be so happy to purposefully wind people up and embarras their brand with dodgy tactics.
Oh well...it is what it is...theres nowt we can do.
The Disney Experience for us over the last 2 years has got so bad...we are genuinely unhappy in the parks now.....so for us we will never come back to Orlando...we got married here yesterday in Islands Of Adventure and that is the only reason we came back to Orlando this time...but from here on in, Disney has tarnished the time we spend in their parks and we are now longer willing to continue throwing our money at them.
Such a shame, Disney parks used to be so much fun...not any more.
Hollywood studios on a Monday....it has ALWAYS been that everyone heads to Rise and Slinky, the top rides..and ALWAYS TOT and RnRC have been practically walk ons first thing because of this.
Well..this morning at rope drop, RnR 35 mins and Tower was 60....I was confused as to why...well, I soon found out ...
RNR they were running empty cars every other ride!!!! Meaning the wait times were falsely inflating.....I overheard someone saying they do this early on so the time inflates and it means more people buy Genie+.....we then went to ToT...we also noticed they were not using all the lifts...thereby inflating the wait times so,you got it, more people buy Genie+
So it would appear Disney have been caught out inflating their wait times, embarrasing their brand...so now they are actually falsely making the times actually correct by purposefully slowing the lines first thing.
Honestly, I never thought Disney would sink so low and be so happy to purposefully wind people up and embarras their brand with dodgy tactics.
Oh well...it is what it is...theres nowt we can do.
The Disney Experience for us over the last 2 years has got so bad...we are genuinely unhappy in the parks now.....so for us we will never come back to Orlando...we got married here yesterday in Islands Of Adventure and that is the only reason we came back to Orlando this time...but from here on in, Disney has tarnished the time we spend in their parks and we are now longer willing to continue throwing our money at them.
Such a shame, Disney parks used to be so much fun...not any more.
MagicHappens1971
Well-Known Member
I’m not even going to get into half of the reasons that none of this is true. But for ToT the left shaft is down for maintenance right now.
G00fyDad
Well-Known Member
You are assuming Disney has shame. They don't. They do not care if you are happy. Only that you are paying big bucks to come to the parks over and over and buy every ILL for every person in your group every day. They only care that you spend all your money in the gift shops, food stands, restaurants, kiosks, etc. We have only one more trip in us at this point and it is a very shortened trip at that. We usually go for 10 days at the parks. We are now only going to the parks for 5 days and only because of the Star Wars stuff. Once our park days are done we are heading to Clearwater Beach for the remainder of the trip. After this we are taking trips elsewhere. And guess what? Disney does not care that we are not going back. We are going this one last time and that is all they care about. There will always be people going to Disney and Chapek knows that. Trust me, they are embarrassed about nothing they are doing. Full stop. Period. The end.
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Jeff4272
Well-Known Member
I dont agree with most of your post, but what I do agree with is that the Experience is not just bad compared to what it was, we flat out did not enjoy our trip. It was exhausting and stressful and actually defeated the purpose of us being there
Edit....the left 2 lifts on ToT were not being used at rope drop, with 60 minutes wait time...I asked the staff and they said they are currently being refurbished...utter BS
To test this theory I am going to go on ToT later (once everyone has been conned into buying G+) and see if all 4 lifts are in use...that will be the real test of the theory.
To test this theory I am going to go on ToT later (once everyone has been conned into buying G+) and see if all 4 lifts are in use...that will be the real test of the theory.
ImperfectPixie
Well-Known Member
I could be wrong, but I seem to recall several posters around the threads commenting on ToT being refurbed, and that they keep one side open while they work.
It’s been documented for quite sometime and it’s expected to take most of this year.
Anteater
Well-Known Member
We're planning on heading to Florida in September. No WDW this time. We're going to Discovery Cove / Sea World / Aquatica. Thanks to everyone who suggested it!
I'd like to visit WDW again when they decide to start making their customers "guests" again. Under this regime, it ain't gonna happen.
pdude81
Well-Known Member
Please report the results
JMcMahonEsq
Well-Known Member
The absolute ease of use of Genie++ and what appears to be such a basic lack of knowledge or ability to use an app that my 10 year old can handle is mindboggling, but I hope continues as it makes our experience so much better.
This morning was our dining reservation day for our upcoming trip which includes 4th of July weekend. Using the new app and Genie++ interface, we set up our restaurant preferences on Sunday. Our trip includes 10 people spread across 3 households, and involved plans for sit down meals at each one of the parks across the length of the stay. We "cheated" slightly by calling ahead to Rain Forest Cafe for a reservation for 10 for lunch on our AK day, and they gave us the reservation more than 60 days out of our trip date.
The 10 year old was excited for today and woke up early before 6 to "help" dad with reservations. Its only an hour before he normally gets up for school so not a big deal in grand scheme of things. As the naval clock went to 6am we booted up our apps and I went right to MK for the 4th and managed to get not one, but two reservations for Cinderella's Royal table. Going back in time we hit up Epcott and got 2 reservations for San Angel Inn. We have always loved the Mexican Pavilion and 3Cab ride, so thought it would be a cool place to eat, get out of the mid July heat, and try some of the cool 50th anniversary deserts. Only disappointment (personal) was that we didn't' get reservation for 10 at Space 220, but as this is earlier in the trip, and we are going to want flexibility for LL for Rat and GotG, not a total loss.
Next we secured a reservation for 10 at Mama Melrose. This has become a family favorite at HS as it just has something for all our eaters, and doesn't take a long time to eat there. Again with indoor seating and AC, a benefit for a respite from the heat of the day. Now I had pre-loaded all these restaurants on my tip board that day prior so basically this entire process had taken maybe 5min. But my 10 year starts asking me if we can go to Olga's. Now I am a big fan of Olgas (the pettri dish gel shot drink with pop rocks is just insane.) But as it was not a first choice for our party of 10, I told him we would see after getting all of our main dinner/lunch reservations done. However as I was booking Mama Melrose, he looks at me and says "Dad we get to go to Olgas too." When I said I will check, he says, no I booked it already on Mom's phone. Sure enough he had logged into my wife's phone and booked the reservation for himself. DOUBLE win.
So, absent space, in 10mins time, without logging onto a computer or needing to get out of bed (although i did as to not wake up the afore mentioned wife) using the new Genie app we were able to book out a weeks worth of dining reservations for 10 people, including CRT on the 4th of July. Talk about a smooth and efficient system.
This morning was our dining reservation day for our upcoming trip which includes 4th of July weekend. Using the new app and Genie++ interface, we set up our restaurant preferences on Sunday. Our trip includes 10 people spread across 3 households, and involved plans for sit down meals at each one of the parks across the length of the stay. We "cheated" slightly by calling ahead to Rain Forest Cafe for a reservation for 10 for lunch on our AK day, and they gave us the reservation more than 60 days out of our trip date.
The 10 year old was excited for today and woke up early before 6 to "help" dad with reservations. Its only an hour before he normally gets up for school so not a big deal in grand scheme of things. As the naval clock went to 6am we booted up our apps and I went right to MK for the 4th and managed to get not one, but two reservations for Cinderella's Royal table. Going back in time we hit up Epcott and got 2 reservations for San Angel Inn. We have always loved the Mexican Pavilion and 3Cab ride, so thought it would be a cool place to eat, get out of the mid July heat, and try some of the cool 50th anniversary deserts. Only disappointment (personal) was that we didn't' get reservation for 10 at Space 220, but as this is earlier in the trip, and we are going to want flexibility for LL for Rat and GotG, not a total loss.
Next we secured a reservation for 10 at Mama Melrose. This has become a family favorite at HS as it just has something for all our eaters, and doesn't take a long time to eat there. Again with indoor seating and AC, a benefit for a respite from the heat of the day. Now I had pre-loaded all these restaurants on my tip board that day prior so basically this entire process had taken maybe 5min. But my 10 year starts asking me if we can go to Olga's. Now I am a big fan of Olgas (the pettri dish gel shot drink with pop rocks is just insane.) But as it was not a first choice for our party of 10, I told him we would see after getting all of our main dinner/lunch reservations done. However as I was booking Mama Melrose, he looks at me and says "Dad we get to go to Olgas too." When I said I will check, he says, no I booked it already on Mom's phone. Sure enough he had logged into my wife's phone and booked the reservation for himself. DOUBLE win.
So, absent space, in 10mins time, without logging onto a computer or needing to get out of bed (although i did as to not wake up the afore mentioned wife) using the new Genie app we were able to book out a weeks worth of dining reservations for 10 people, including CRT on the 4th of July. Talk about a smooth and efficient system.
Chi84
Premium Member
What does the “new Genie app” have to do with booking dining reservations?
I haven’t been following lately, so if you’re kidding or being facetious, just ignore this comment
If not, good luck using the new Genie app to get on any rides that accommodate all those dining reservations.
pdude81
Well-Known Member
You can use genie to preselect rides and dining options for your "day". This is separate from Genie+ but the selections impact the order of things you see on your tip board. However, it has to be set up for a day that you have a park reservation or it won't work. Saves you the trouble of clicking "Check dining availability" and going through the sea of options if you only care about certain things. Otherwise you'd need to do this from a web browser when logged in on the page for a particular restaurant.What does the “new Genie app” have to do with booking dining reservations?
I haven’t been following lately, so if you’re kidding or being facetious, just ignore this comment
As for passes, if you have a dining conflict they've always let you on later if you show a receipt.
Jeff4272
Well-Known Member
Genie (-) has nothing to do with booking dining .........and its terrible, just admit how bad it is so we can all move on
Chi84
Premium Member
Oh, okay. I guess I was thrown off by the poster’s use of “++”. Thought he was talking about the paid service.
I’ve really never had an issue with dining reservations at 60 + 10 but I’ll definitely try this out for our next trip if we decide to return.
After using the paid Genie+ service last week I can attest to the fact that it was very difficult to work around anything else in our schedule. We booked an ILL for Rise at 1:05 only to have it jump to 3:40 before completing. Many of our favorites were gone early in the day or had windows much too late for us.
We never had a problem riding what we wanted when we wanted on past trips. This has us seriously considering not going back until Disney can do better for the way we prefer to vacation. I understand others vacation differently and it may work better for them.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I'm in the same boat -- I haven't been since pre-COVID, but I'm not sure I'll return until they do something to fix Genie+. It feels like I wouldn't be getting value for the admission price because it would be a serious struggle to do the things I want to do the way I want to do them.
Chi84
Premium Member
We didn't get to ride many of the rides we were easily able to ride in the past, but it's hard to accurately identify the reasons for this. For example, Rise went down for a short time while 4 of our party rode, but we did get to finish the ride. By the time the remaining 2 (who stayed with the kids) got in line, it went down again and everyone was kicked out of line. The ILL switched from 1:05 to 3:40 in the middle of booking it, so we couldn't stay later to wait for the ride to come online again - we had to leave the park to hop to Epcot for our dining reservation. FOP was down most of our AK day and when it came back we couldn't get it. We weren't able to switch to that park for another day. The park reservation system is not a good thing for us.
In fairness, we did take our grandkids (3 years, 9 months and 3 months) so we definitely had to work around their needs. But I'm pretty sure I would at least have had a fighting chance under FP+. In my experience, this new system doesn't work well for people who are not completely flexible or who divide their time between rides and other events such as dining and shows that need to be scheduled. And Disney is probably hearing from a great many of those people.
I received the lengthy survey Disney sends after each of our trips and I gave them an earful (pun intended). I rated virtually every aspect of the Genie+ system as "poor." I'm also working on a concise, straightforward email to the president's office detailing our specific issues with both Genie+ and the park reservation system. I've only written once before in our many years of WDW vacations (we were consistently inconvenienced by having our payment form disconnected from MDE due to credit card hold issues). That time, I received a call from someone with enough authority to give us two free nights at BLT. I have a feeling that this time I won't be hearing from anyone. But who knows.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
This is another reason I don't have any current plans to return -- the park reservations but most especially the park hopping limitations. That combined with Genie+ sounds like I won't be able to have the experience I want.