Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

Jrb1979

Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
crazy4disney said:
which is another awful feature of genie and if they ever went to express pass. w/o 2 options like uni has... this is also yet another mindboggling thing. There were many many times i would have a FP for a top attraction and then during day be able to get another one for the same ride so on and so forth yet w genie its a mad scramble and these disappear and become non existent
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A lot of that would be fixed if they just capped sales. Too many people have it each day.
 
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crazy4disney

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Jrb1979 said:
A lot of that would be fixed if they just capped sales. Too many people have it each day.
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again ill go back to my FP analogy... the entire park had it and FP was NEVER really an issue including day of rides... i know people keep saying well it is because genie is paid vs FP being free but i cant take that as fact and i doubt people can say that as fact as well..., maybe being able to choose return times is what made FP work better OBVIOUSLY losing the ILL rides creates an issue w less capacity...maybe a simple quick early trial is just to increase this to say $25-30 & say every ride is available and then also allow people to chose a ride time when booking.... i dk the answer but i do Know MORE people used FP vs Genie and FP was infinitely better than Genie is every way shape or form...
 
mikejs78

mikejs78

Premium Member
Purduevian said:
Universal always states the express pass line is half of the standby wait. I would say they usually beat this, but I did wait like 30 minutes in the Spiderman express line once. Standby was posted at 75 minutes.
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That doesn't seem like a great option to me. If a ride is 180 minutes but the express pass makes it 90, that's not great. At least with Genie the wait is usually 5-10 min.
 
T

Touchdown

Well-Known Member
mikejs78 said:
That doesn't seem like a great option to me. If a ride is 180 minutes but the express pass makes it 90, that's not great. At least with Genie the wait is usually 5-10 min.
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Except waits are rarely 180 min at Universal because they have a much better ride capacity vs attendance numbers. I generally am so spoiled there I get annoyed with a 15 min wait.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
Jrb1979 said:
You give those guests express pass and you can't offer it to anyone else as there isn't enough capacity for it to work.
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Yes, this is the standard argument against giving a express pass like product to folks staying at deluxe resorts at WDW.
I still think there should be some kind of perk for folks at a deluxe resort. Perhaps throw them a couple of anytime LLs.
Its a bad situation all around no matter what resort you are staying in.
 
MickeyLuv'r

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
Disstevefan1 said:
You get free express passes when you stay at Royal Pacific, right? That's great!
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A more accurate wording would be to say Express Pass is included with a stay at Royal Pacific, HRH, and Portofino. Just as FP+ was included with the price of admission to WDW. not really 'free', but included in the package, also a bit like 'free dining' WDW promo wasn't really 'free' just no additional charge.
 
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crazy4disney

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
MickeyLuv'r said:
A more accurate wording would be to say Express Pass is included with a stay at Royal Pacific, HRH, and Portofino. Just as FP+ was included with the price of admission to WDW. not really 'free', but included in the package, also a bit like 'free dining' WDW promo wasn't really 'free' just no additional charge.
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granted depending on how you vacation but that "free dining' was one of the greatest promos and for me worked and saved me a ton considering we still do all our meals character and max out the snack credits value and then will order garden grocer for other snacks and drinks... last visit was the 1st time not having it in awhile and i felt that for sure lol...
 
Chi84

Chi84

Premium Member
Legacy FP and FP+ were free (or included, whatever) for 20 years because Disney knew WDW doesn't have the capacity to make a paid system work. Either someone forgot that or, more likely, the greedy folks in charge underestimated its impact.

I know people mean well by suggesting Genie+ can be fixed by simply denying a large number of guests the ability to purchase it or by making it so expensive that only a few can afford it. As incompetent as Disney management seems to be, they were surely aware of these alternatives and chose not to implement them.

Yes, $120 is affordable for a guest going solo, and $1,000 for 2 people for 3 days at Cedar Point (where there is nothing to do except go on ride after ride) both sound doable. But look around at all the families you see at WDW. Just using my group as an example, at $120 per day, our cost would have been $5,000 on top of the $4,700 we already spent on park tickets. It's not a matter of whether or not we can afford it; the value would not be there for us.

So the choices would be to spend an exorbitant amount for Genie+ (in what would have to be a limited form because of lack of capacity) or stand in long lines all day. Worse yet, we would have to commit to the vacation not knowing if we would be able to buy Genie+ even if we wanted to spend the money. This latter concern would be an issue even if they kept Genie+ affordable and capped it. I wouldn't go not knowing if we would be able to buy it.

People here say Disney doesn't care if it loses guests like me because others will take my place. Maybe that's true, but I find it hard to believe. If that were the case, they would have adopted Universal's model without giving the passes free to any resort guests because "people will pay it." There's a reason they haven't done that and I don't think that will change. Nor do I believe they will keep Genie+ affordable and simply deny large numbers of guests the ability to purchase it. That's also something they could have easily done by this point but the dissatisfaction with such a system would be off the charts.

I'm waiting to hear what Disney is going to do to fix this mess, if it can be done at all. I think their only hope is to find the "sweet spot" where enough people can either afford it or decide on their own not to buy it. In the meantime, we decided on a non-Disney cruise for our family vacation next year.
 
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crazy4disney

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Chi84 said:
Legacy FP and FP+ were free (or included, whatever) for 20 years because Disney knew WDW doesn't have the capacity to make a paid system work. Either someone forgot that or, more likely, the greedy folks in charge underestimated its impact.

I know people mean well by suggesting Genie+ can be fixed by simply denying a large number of guests the ability to purchase it or by making it so expensive that only a few can afford it. As incompetent as Disney management seems to be, they were surely aware of these alternatives and chose not to implement them.

Yes, $120 is affordable for a guest going solo, and $1,000 for 2 people for 3 days at Cedar Point (where there is nothing to do except go on ride after ride) both sound doable. But look around at all the families you see at WDW. Just using my group as an example, at $120 per day, our cost would have been $5,000 on top of the $4,700 we already spent on park tickets. It's not a matter of whether or not we can afford it; the value would not be there for us.

So the choices would be to spend an exorbitant amount for Genie+ (in what would have to be a limited form because of lack of capacity) or stand in long lines all day. Worse yet, we would have to commit to the vacation not knowing if we would be able to buy Genie+ even if we wanted to spend the money. This latter concern would be an issue even if they kept Genie+ affordable and capped it. I wouldn't go not knowing if we would be able to buy it.

People here say Disney doesn't care if it loses guests like me because others will take my place. Maybe that's true, but I find it hard to believe. If that were the case, they would have adopted Universal's model without giving the passes free to any resort guests because "people will pay it." There's a reason they haven't done that and I don't think that will change. Nor do I believe they will keep Genie+ affordable and simply deny large numbers of guests the ability to purchase it. That's also something they could have easily done by this point but the dissatisfaction with such a system would be off the charts.

I'm waiting to hear what Disney is going to do to fix this mess, if it can be done at all. I think their only hope is to find the "sweet spot" where enough people can either afford it or decide on their own not to buy it. In the meantime, we decided on a non-Disney cruise for our family vacation next year.
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Exactly when people are going for 7-10 days its just not practical to pay ALL that extra money and i get why Disney doesnt want to lose this income & honestly cant blame them... But again the $ this generates should easily & logically reinvested into the parks with new rides and not all e tickets.... again FP worked well imo no system is going to be perfect... want to only sell it to resort guests as a "perk" so be it but to me it can easily generate the 1mm per day ive seen floated around here and that should basically pay for multiple rides per year and instead of crawling to build them it should make them want to build them quicker.
 
Chi84

Chi84

Premium Member
crazy4disney said:
Exactly when people are going for 7-10 days its just not practical to pay ALL that extra money and i get why Disney doesnt want to lose this income & honestly cant blame them... But again the $ this generates should easily & logically reinvested into the parks with new rides and not all e tickets.... again FP worked well imo no system is going to be perfect... want to only sell it to resort guests as a "perk" so be it but to me it can easily generate the 1mm per day ive seen floated around here and that should basically pay for multiple rides per year and instead of crawling to build them it should make them want to build them quicker.
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I thought one of the “problems” with FP+ was that it was unfair to non-resort guests because all the good attractions were gone before they could book at 30 days. (That wasn’t my experience at all - just repeating what’s been said here.) If that’s true, how would selling FP+ or Genie+ only to resort guests make any kind of sense? I don’t see this being done.
 
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crazy4disney

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Chi84 said:
I thought one of the “problems” with FP+ was that it was unfair to non-resort guests because all the good attractions were gone before they could book at 30 days. (That wasn’t my experience at all - just repeating what’s been said here.) If that’s true, how would selling FP+ or Genie+ only to resort guests make any kind of sense? I don’t see this being done.
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trust me i agree i dont have a huge sample size but everyone i know who had to wait for the 30 day window seemed satisfied with the selections they had and day of we all were in the same boat.... but people keep insisting too many people are using genie which again i just DONT believe and think its propaganda to raise prices eventually (hot take?) using this as a justification. i 'suggested" it to play along w the overselling of genie saying okay keep it to resort guests 1st....
 
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Purduevian

Well-Known Member
mikejs78 said:
That doesn't seem like a great option to me. If a ride is 180 minutes but the express pass makes it 90, that's not great. At least with Genie the wait is usually 5-10 min.
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Yeah, but at Universal, you get to get in whatever express lane you want, all day, without a return time. I actually went to MK with G+ on a Saturday then USO the next day. At MK I skipped Jungle, Pirates, Carpets, Big Thunder, Mansion, Pan, Mermaid, Pooh, Tea cups, Space, Buzz. (rode other things, but this is what I used G+ on)
At USO I had significantly less of a wait on Forbidden Journey (x3), Hippogriff, Hogwarts express, River adventure, Kong, Hulk, Spiderman, Cat in the hat, Seuss Trolley, Gringotts, Men in black, Simpsons, ET, and Despicable me. We also rode Hagrid's that day without the skip
Disstevefan1 said:
Yes, this is the standard argument against giving a express pass like product to folks staying at deluxe resorts at WDW.
I still think there should be some kind of perk for folks at a deluxe resort. Perhaps throw them a couple of anytime LLs.
Its a bad situation all around no matter what resort you are staying in.
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Why should there be an extra perk for deluxe guests? The hotels are filling up right now. The hotel, location, transportation seems to be enough. Especially with DVC being included in deluxe and them already being locked in for 50 years not matter the perks.
 
Patcheslee

Patcheslee

Well-Known Member
Purduevian said:
Yeah, but at Universal, you get to get in whatever express lane you want, all day, without a return time. I actually went to MK with G+ on a Saturday then USO the next day. At MK I skipped Jungle, Pirates, Carpets, Big Thunder, Mansion, Pan, Mermaid, Pooh, Tea cups, Space, Buzz. (rode other things, but this is what I used G+ on)
At USO I had significantly less of a wait on Forbidden Journey (x3), Hippogriff, Hogwarts express, River adventure, Kong, Hulk, Spiderman, Cat in the hat, Seuss Trolley, Gringotts, Men in black, Simpsons, ET, and Despicable me. We also rode Hagrid's that day without the skip

Why should there be an extra perk for deluxe guests? The hotels are filling up right now. The hotel, location, transportation seems to be enough. Especially with DVC being included in deluxe and them already being locked in for 50 years not matter the perks.
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Not to mention they already get the EEH which separates them from the rest.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
Purduevian said:
Yeah, but at Universal, you get to get in whatever express lane you want, all day, without a return time. I actually went to MK with G+ on a Saturday then USO the next day. At MK I skipped Jungle, Pirates, Carpets, Big Thunder, Mansion, Pan, Mermaid, Pooh, Tea cups, Space, Buzz. (rode other things, but this is what I used G+ on)
At USO I had significantly less of a wait on Forbidden Journey (x3), Hippogriff, Hogwarts express, River adventure, Kong, Hulk, Spiderman, Cat in the hat, Seuss Trolley, Gringotts, Men in black, Simpsons, ET, and Despicable me. We also rode Hagrid's that day without the skip

Why should there be an extra perk for deluxe guests? The hotels are filling up right now. The hotel, location, transportation seems to be enough. Especially with DVC being included in deluxe and them already being locked in for 50 years not matter the perks.
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This is just my opinion, the folks in deluxe are paying big bucks to stay there and DVC owners buy in for decades. These folks deserve a perk like this.
 

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