Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Roy G. Dis]

Thank you for the two sensible replies in a row that remind us that most people visiting Disney World aren't diehards, don't visit that often, don't know all the in's and out's.... and ultimately would pay a little more for a better experience.

 

[Missing20K]

If I'm assuming here you mean Space Mountain? And that is "Tier 1" i.e. not part of G+. There isn't a situation where "G+ users have all the standby VQ reserved". G+ can't reserve anything. Why would standby close aside from park closing? The whole "VQ" was a possibility discussed from the DLP system, but hasn't been part of the WDW Genie announcement discussion at all AFAIK.

ETA: perhaps you are discussing Tier1 rides that would be *boarding pass* only, like RoTR. In that case, if all the passes are gone, and the "individual attraction" purchases are sold out, then yes.. too bad so sad... unless for some reason they get through everyone significantly before park closing that they open standby...

I think the line for Rise and Rat serve the same purpose as the Lighning Lanes for the genie plus rides. Only difference is people who got a BG or paid will be in that line. I could be wrong though.

The way I understand it is there is stand by and Lightning lane. For genie + rides you get in lightning lane if you paid the 15 for the day. For the headliner nin genie rides you pay for individually and get in their lighning lane. But that lane is not a combination of guests because they cant be chosenkke the genie Ligjtning passes.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

So there is no standby VQ?

They know current overall capacity is an issue. They’re just saying the quiet parts out loud now.

It allows us to best utilize our capacity — you can distribute demand much more effectively through your ecosystem.

-Josh D’Amaro

 

[jpinkc]

How do you see on Twitter and Facebook what people are posting about this mess on the Disney Parks sites. I am a totaly social media newb since this made me make an account to vent

 

[Hawkeye_2018]

So I imagine for ROTR, the demand is so high that even those who want to pay for it may be out of luck if they are not fast enough

 

[Missing20K]

ETA: perhaps you are discussing Tier1 rides that would be *boarding pass* only, like RoTR. In that case, if all the passes are gone, and the "individual attraction" purchases are sold out, then yes.. too bad so sad... unless for some reason they get through everyone significantly before park closing that they open standby...

Yes this. This is the situation I am questioning. Thanks for putting it more clearly than I did lol.

 

[G00fyDad]

60 days length of stay on site 60 days one at a time off

Well that settles it. We're staying on-site. I cannot risk not getting an ADR for all of the TS places we want.

What about good neighbor hotels? Do they allow ADR booking 60 days out? We've never stayed in one.

 

[corran horn]

So I imagine for ROTR, the demand is so high that even those who want to pay for it may be out of luck if they are not fast enough

Not if they're onboard the Haclyon like me!

 

[pixarprincess]

They've made this infinitely complicated to understand and that's going to play out in the parks.

If you get Genie+ you get to choose the next available lightning lane timeslot for a given ride. When you use that, you can choose the next one. That doesn't prevent you from going into standby lines while you're waiting for your lightning lane return time.

If you "pay" for lightning line (theoretically only available for rides with VQ and the two rides in each park that don't have Genie+ access) those people will also get a return window. It won't be an instantaneous thing unless those are the timeslots currently being passed out. In these cases, let's pretend they give out 100 LL passes for each hour long window. If 1000 people buy it first thing in the morning they may sell out very quickly.

All of these people will use the lightning lane (formerly fastpass line) to access the ride.

There will be no mixing of paid and genie+ people in a lightning lane because there are no rides that operate with both options. There will be a mixing of paid and VQ people for RoTR and Rat.

Genie+ doesn't guarantee you a lightning lane pass for any specific ride, but it also doesn't prevent you from going on any ride that offers standby (we know of two that don't, the ones with VQs).

The benefit that didn't exist before is that you can be a park hopper, finish your morning time at EPCOT and see that everest has a LL time of 5:15-6:15 pm. You can get that LL pass while still at EPCOT and make your way to AK to use it. This is a big difference from Fastpass, but just like Maxpass where you could switch between the two parks.

There are going to be infinite levels of confusion about all of this. But I'm super not looking forward to the people who get the next LL timeslot for a park they think they can walk to that is really about an hour away with bus times.

 

[Patcheslee]

People are still complaining about this yet they will still stump up to come

Has anybody on this thread gone and cancelled their trips after yesterday’s news?

We were looking at late 2022 possibly, but after discussing with DH the changes, his opinion is wait for rollout and reports, make plans for somewhere else, and don't put a deposit down just yet for Disney. Honestly if we had been planning this winter, yes he would have blown his top and said cancel it.

 

[Waters Back Side]

So there is no standby VQ?

They know current overall capacity is an issue. They’re just saying the quiet parts out loud now.

I suppose the VQ and guest who purchase the ride are combined. Lightning Lane for Rise is a combo of guests who purchased the ride or landed a BP. Lightning Lane for the Genie + rides are for guests who got a Lightning Pass with Genie +. But again, I could be wrong but I do not see how it would not work this way. And it also depends how much Rise really ends up being to purchase. If its only $24 dollars per person on the busiest of days many will purchase it (I used $24 since that was the example on the high end for the range suggested in the Genie plus announcement article). I see no scenario where any ride in WDW has 3 lines. There are 3/4 lines systems but only 2 lines on every ride from how I see it.

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

So two options:

1. Choose to go standby for all rides and use the Genie app
2. Purchase Genie+ in order to purchase Lightening Lane for i.e., RotR - is this a guaranteed chance to ride?

 

[flynnibus]

The fact that there is a viable solution in your eyes doesn’t mean that it is nevertheless a potential problem that will need to be addressed.

Yes, that's the very definition of a NON-ISSUE.

Do you normally get all wound up over stuff that is not really a problem? There are many solutions Disney can implement that will not cause friction. It's not a concern for someone worrying about the new system.

just because a refund can be issued doesn’t mean that that’s how Disney will attempt to solve the problem.

Occam's Razor dude...

All Disney needs to do is identify the impacted parties... which ARE ALL USING SMARTPHONES and PAID VIA MDE. Disney can easily hand them a code they can redeem for another LP... or the code could be a token to authorize a refund (when matched with a valid purchase on the backend)... or Disney could allow guests to request a refund in the App and then use the data in the backend to approve people based on redemptions, known downtimes, etc. And Disney can even do it automatically via the backend when there are wider impacting outages.

This is a non-issue. It's almost like people have forgotten they already did this for FP+... the fact there is money involved really changes nothing because its'a all within Disney's payment system.

It's a non-issue.

 

[jpinkc]

So two options:

1. Choose to go standby for all rides and use the Genie app
2. Purchase Genie+ in order to purchase Lightening Lane for i.e., RotR - is this a guaranteed chance to ride?

Unless the Ride breaks down that seems to be the concensus

 

[ImperfectPixie]

So two options:

1. Choose to go standby for all rides and use the Genie app
2. Purchase Genie+ in order to purchase Lightening Lane for i.e., RotR - is this a guaranteed chance to ride?

You don't have to purchase Genie+ in order to purchase Lightning Lane for the attractions not included in Genie+.

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

Unless the Ride breaks down that seems to be the concensus

So what does Genie+ give you if you don't intend to purchase LL rides? Sorry, this is a little confusing to me right now LOL

 

[DisneyDodo]

At any rate, my future vacations will involve mostly sitting on a beach in the Caribbean, or sitting around a pool at a vacation home-all with a rum and Coke in my hand and no thoughts of Disney theme parks.

*Ding* Genie Notification: "I see you're currently in the Caribbean. For an even better experience, consider booking a stay at our world-class Caribbean Beach Resort at Walt Disney World. In addition, with a Magic Kingdom ticket, you can enjoy a ride on the famous Pirates of the Caribbean attraction. You can even bypass the standby line using Lightning Lane with a Genie+ subscription!"

 

[flynnibus]

I don’t think this system is going to work well. Let’s say you buy genie+ for your day in HS. Now you have to wake up at 7am to make a selection. Just like old paper FP, everyone will book up the popular rides first.

At 7:15am, you get millennium falcon return time of 2pm because everyone else is thinking the same thing and it books up like old paper fast passes. So what do you do from park opening until 2pm? And after you ride at 2pm, all the other rides are sold out for the day. So for the $15 per person you get on one ride?

please explain how this is good?

You assume Disney will open all alotments at once and let them go until they are empty...

It doesn't have to be that way.

We have to wait and see how they manage LL availability.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

So what does Genie+ give you if you don't intend to purchase LL rides? Sorry, this is a little confusing to me right now LOL

There are 2 tiers of rides.

Genie+ gives you lightning lane access for all but two high demand attractions in each park.

The two high-demand attractions are what you would either get into the standby lane for, purchase a Lightning Lane pass for, or attempt to get a VQ (boarding group) for (there are only 2 attractions that use boarding groups - Rise and Rat).

 

[Wngo905]

So two options:

1. Choose to go standby for all rides and use the Genie app
2. Purchase Genie+ in order to purchase Lightening Lane for i.e., RotR - is this a guaranteed chance to ride?

No, you don't purchase the Genie+ at $15 per ticket to purchase RotR (that is a documented Individual pay ride). As for RotR, it will remain VQ and will also have the Individual Pay (while available) for those who don't get a Virtual Que at 7am (and maybe 1pm)

 

[flynnibus]

So the fact the current system on that ride is atrocious it means we forgive the atrociousness of this system?

It's called crying over spilled milk man... It's done, it's not changing, you either accept that baseline or walk away. When looking at what changed yesterday, we have more options then we did the day before.