Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[GhostHost1000]

This is really getting frustrating. You think they would've released it if they knew this would be the end result?

They are a freakin fortune 20 company…they shouldn’t have ever been surprised this would be the end result.

THAT is the biggest issue all together. They don’t get it and it’s scary

 

[Disney Glimpses]

I did that. With a group of 4. Several times. Just refresh at times and things opened up ….because we could modify times unlike today and people did

Your primary complaint was how much time you have to spend on your phone with Genie+ and how much better FP+ was in this regard and here you are telling us how you had to refresh over and over with FP+ to get the reservations you wanted.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

They are a freakin fortune 20 company…they shouldn’t have ever been surprised this would be the end result.

THAT is the biggest issue all together. They don’t get it and it’s scary

I agree with you there but I am setting the record straight as if this was planned. It wasn't. The service is operating beyond even their worst projections.

 

[GhostHost1000]

Your primary complaint was how much time you have to spend on your phone with Genie+ and how much better FP+ was in this regard and here you are telling us how you had to refresh over and over with FP+ to get the reservations you wanted.

No. I never said I refreshed over and over. You made that up. I’m telling you my experience. If I went to try to modify my attractions which the old system allowed at times popular rides would pop up because others were moving things around too.

It’s not rocket science here. When they allowed modifications, modifications were made and times and availability moved around all day

 

[Disney Glimpses]

More people may have used FP+ but you also had didn't have 2 rides per park taken out of the FP+ inventory like you do now. That makes a huge difference in ride availability.

This is actually key. Not only is it removing inventory but it is not reducing Genie+ demand as it was supposed to. That was the primary reason for ILL. Of course they love the revenue but they knew that if those attractions were included in Genie+, once those reservations were gone - all of those thousands and thousands of people that purchased Genie+ just to ride Rise or Guardians would now be left to find reservations elsewhere.

 

[crazy4disney]

Advance FP selections were the primary complaint. You had to wake up at 7am, 2 months before your trip and decide when you wanted to ride Splash mountain. Dining is a different story. Most people had a couple of character breakfasts they wanted and grabbed them. And you didn't have to do that right at 180 days out. Dining is much easier to get. And walk up lists for dining is also bearable in most cases. It's not a must do.

But waking up early 2 months before your trip to pick 3 rides for every single day - having to think about where you will be, when you may be eating, what you may want to do that night. You had to consider park hours, firework shows, etc. You had to literally plan your entire weeks long trip to make those selections. Guests hated it.

I didn't hate it because I always plan my trips out anyways. Most people here do. But we (WDWMagic Members) are not most people. We are a fraction of Disney's guests. Normal non-Disney fanatics didn't understand why a vacation required so much work ahead of time. That being said, Disney has somehow managed to make it even worse lol

so waking up EVERY day was their response?!? come on now if that truly is the case and people buy that i have a couple bridges to sell them as well... and you Did NOT have to wake up at 7am 60 days out you were able to do them at your own leisure etc especially if you had a longer trip planned but either way you did them form teh comfort of your own home and most likely a computer/ipad vs your phone which i found easier but either way again only had to do this 1 time... and Dining to me was way harder to get vs FP before going down there... if you are dong character meals i can tell you again i never had an issue w FP yet there were multiple times i had NO dining for character meals heading down there or say a few days out and i was checking thruout day and used services that had alerts sent when things opened up... so your statement about dining vs FP to me is false based on my experience. Did i enjoy booking everything at once? i wouldnt ay i enjoyed it but i definitely didnt hate it and again you/others act like Disney is the ONLY place you have to plan your vacation to get the most out of it... thats the problem imo people may only vacation in Disney and have no comparison which can be a good or bad thing but to say planning your vacation is why they changed this the way they did to me is BS....

 

[Disney Glimpses]

No. I never said I refreshed over and over. You made that up. I’m telling you my experience. If I went to try to modify my attractions which the old system allowed at times popular rides would pop up because others were moving things around too.

It’s not rocket science here. When they allowed modifications, modifications were made and times and availability moved around all day

I am not saying you are lying but I spend something like 30 nights at these parks every year and I have never been able to secure E-tickets for large groups. Heck, I could barely find 2 that open at the same time. Sure I may get 1 or 2 here and there at 6:40PM but then another at 2:20PM. Having 6-10 line up for overlapping time slots, never.

 

[GhostHost1000]

This is actually key. Not only is it removing inventory but it is not reducing Genie+ demand as it was supposed to. That was the primary reason for ILL. Of course they love the revenue but they knew that if those attractions were included in Genie+, once those reservations were gone - all of those thousands and thousands of people that purchased Genie+ just to ride Rise or Guardians would now be left to find reservations elsewhere.

Yeah but all that did was shift to the next
popular ride in the parks. Not having those including in the standard genie+ just makes less sections available

One thing I don’t mind is the virtual queue option for the most popular attraction the day of so there isn’t a stampede there but having that, LL, and ILL all taking place at 7am is a dang circus

 

[crazy4disney]

No. I never said I refreshed over and over. You made that up. I’m telling you my experience. If I went to try to modify my attractions which the old system allowed at times popular rides would pop up because others were moving things around too.

It’s not rocket science here. When they allowed modifications, modifications were made and times and availability moved around all day

exactly... the amount of FP i would use during a day in every park especially MK was staggering

 

[Disney Glimpses]

so waking up EVERY day was their response?!? come on now if that truly is the case and people buy that i have a couple bridges to sell them as well... and you Did NOT have to wake up at 7am 60 days out you were able to do them at your own leisure etc especially if you had a longer trip planned but either way you did them form teh comfort of your own home and most likely a computer/ipad vs your phone which i found easier but either way again only had to do this 1 time... and Dining to me was way harder to get vs FP before going down there... if you are dong character meals i can tell you again i never had an issue w FP yet there were multiple times i had NO dining for character meals heading down there or say a few days out and i was checking thruout day and used services that had alerts sent when things opened up... so your statement about dining vs FP to me is false based on my experience. Did i enjoy booking everything at once? i wouldnt ay i enjoyed it but i definitely didnt hate it and again you/others act like Disney is the ONLY place you have to plan your vacation to get the most out of it... thats the problem imo people may only vacation in Disney and have no comparison which can be a good or bad thing but to say planning your vacation is why they changed this the way they did to me is BS....

I'm not defending their response. Their response stinks, to say the least. You seem to be disagreeing with me despite me agreeing with you. I liked FP+.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

Yeah but all that did was shift to the next
popular ride in the parks. Not having those including in the standard genie+ just makes less sections available

One thing I don’t mind is the virtual queue for the most popular attraction the day of, but having that, LL, and ILL all taking place at 7am is a dang circus

It just didn't reduce Genie+ demand at all. People want to skip the lines for their other non-ILL attractions just as much as they want to ride ILL attractions (if not more).

 

[crazy4disney]

I'm not defending their response. Their response stinks, to say the least. You seem to be disagreeing with me despite me agreeing with you. I liked FP+.

Im disagreeing with the logic you are claiming Disney is saying... whether that is coming from your opinion or insider sources i dont know but the reasons and responses simply dont add up....

 

[GhostHost1000]

It just didn't reduce Genie+ demand at all. People want to skip the lines for their other non-ILL attractions just as much as they want to ride ILL attractions (if not more).

Which we could do way more easily with the previous system

 

[Disney Glimpses]

Im disagreeing with the logic you are claiming Disney is saying... whether that is coming from your opinion or insider sources i dont know but the reasons and responses simply dont add up....

Again, you are viewing this through the lens after Genie+ famously blew up. In theory, Genie+ is a good fix. Key word: theory.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

I dunno how many people you travel with but if you're with 4, 6 or even 10 guests without a resort reservation, you were not getting E-ticket FP+ selections.

We were able to get FP+ - as a group- without a resort reservation, except in the early days of FP+ when FP was more limited.

Now, admittedly, it was hard to get the exact time we wanted and sometimes I wasn't able to get what I wanted, but we were able to get decent passes without using any automated software.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

We were able to get FP+ - as a group- without a resort reservation, except in the early days of FP+ when FP was more limited.

Now, admittedly, it was hard to get the exact time we wanted and sometimes I wasn't able to get what I wanted, but we were able to get decent passes without using any automated software.

So here's the big difference between FP+ and Genie+ (intended Genie+ that is):

If you walked into MK at 11am with your family and opened FP+, you were getting very little without significant effort. Genie+ was designed to allow guests to walk in at 11am, pay, and then have the pick of the litter.

Obviously it's easy to say FP+ is better. That's a no brainer at this point. But I still think Genie+ can be fixed to offer same day LLs without hassle.

 

[crazy4disney]

I think that the way Genie+ changes touring styles probably has something to do with it. For example, imagine Suzie Q Mom, planning for her family of 4. She decides to rope drop Frontier Land in the morning, hotel break with naps midday, and reserve her three fast passes for the afternoon. She wants them all in the same area of the park, so she manages to get 7 Dwarves, Pooh, and Small World. She decides to skip Peter Pan unless she seems an unusually short line around parade time, and go ahead and wait for Little Mermaid, Dumbo, and the carousel, because those are low wait times. She has an ADR for an early dinner at Crystal Palace that she knows won't conflict with her Fast Pass times. After dinner she might casually try the "refresh" strategy to see if anything good nearby pops up, but if not, no sweat, she has a good day on the books already.

Now look at Suzie Q Mom with Genie+. If she wants to rope drop, she literally has to start grabbing Genie+'s at the same time, if she chooses to use Genie+, because there is no option to just reserve times in the afternoon. So maybe she wouldn't have worried about it in the morning at all before, and saved her precious three Fast Passes for the afternoon, but now it makes no sense not to go ahead and grab whatever comes up. She gets a Genie+ for Thunder Mountain at 10:00 and rope drops Splash Mountain. Now it's 10:30 and the park is filling up. What makes the most sense, from her perspective, is to look for a short line and to go ahead and grab whatever Genie+ is available. Even if it's not what she really wanted, it's something, right? She zigzags across the park and gets a Genie+ for Little Mermaid and then does a short wait for the carousel. She probably would have waited in line for Little Mermaid before but, whatever, it was the only thing available, and she has this product, so it wouldn't make sense not to use it. She sees a Genie+ time open up for Small Word but it's in several hours and conflicts with her ADR. Frustrated, she uses Genie+ one more time for the Teacups even though no one really wanted to ride that, waits in line for Philharmagic, and goes back to the hotel, still scrolling for Genie+ times for the afternoon. The only thing that comes up is Tomorrowland Speedway so she takes that. By that evening all of the Genie+ times are gone and she can either wait in long lines or choose all of the less popular rides.

FastPass changed people's touring, to my mind, because:

- Your three "locked in" FastPasses were precious, and there was no incentive to overlap that with rope drop. To the contrary, it made more sense to skew towards the afternoon (a few people were so confident of their refresh skills that they wanted to use them all early, but not for most people). Now the opposite is true - you have no option to reserve times and you know Genie+ times are getting taken by other guests every second you wait, so everyone grabs what they can as early as they can pell mell.

- People with FastPasses later in the day couldn't start refreshing, and even if they could, a lot didn't think to do that. Many had already had the day they wanted to have anyways or didn't know about day-of Fast Passes. Genie+ is designed so that every single user is incentivized to get what they can when they can, so there's a lot of incentive to take a "whatever, it's better than nothing" ride. If you can wait thirty minutes for Little Mermaid in standby or twenty with Genie+, well, better than nothing I guess.

- Knowing when their FastPasses were encouraged people to fill in the gaps with other things, schedule-wise. "Oh, no FastPass then, let's plan on a snack / show / break / etc." A lottery system where you never know what might pop up when incentives people to be "on" all the time, always on the hunt for what might pop up.

Just my theory, anyways. I think this is a big part of the reason for limited availability.

so long story short the replacement system you agree is awful as well?

 

[Disney Glimpses]

FWIW, in some recent trip reports, I am seeing much more success with Genie+. I don't know if it's advance sales or just lower crowds but its a step in the right direction. They still have a long ways to go though.

 

[crazy4disney]

We were able to get FP+ - as a group- without a resort reservation, except in the early days of FP+ when FP was more limited.

Now, admittedly, it was hard to get the exact time we wanted and sometimes I wasn't able to get what I wanted, but we were able to get decent passes without using any automated software.

so yet another miracle guest at Disney that was able to get FP's as a non resort guest... Magical!

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

No. I never said I refreshed over and over. You made that up.

It is hard to have a good faith discussion when that happens, but you keep raising good points.