Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[crazy4disney]

Allow pre booking for resort guests again and eliminate the daily 7am booking, its a complete joke......theres no way in hell people will pay the massive prices for deluxe resorts while not knowing if you can get on the rides you want without waiting for 90+ minutes

be able to choose return times instead of "next available"........is screws up too many peoples plans

start here

Bingo! Lets also add back the feature to modify and not cancel please.

 

[Jrb1979]

Allow pre booking for resort guests again and eliminate the daily 7am booking, its a complete joke......theres no way in hell people will pay the massive prices for deluxe resorts while not knowing if you can get on the rides you want without waiting for 90+ minutes

be able to choose return times instead of "next available"........is screws up too many peoples plans

start here

Here is a solution. Resort guests get to pre book 1 LL per day. Everything else is day of.

 

[Jeff4272]

They did cater to Deluxe guests by giving them Extra Evening Hours.

seriously? I have not heard on person that sees that as a benefit to the point they would book just based on that......

i's 2x per week and only at 2 parks..........some people miss it completely

its like free peanuts on a plane, nice to have but ur not going out of ur way to book based on it

 

[Jeff4272]

Here is a solution. Resort guests get to pre book 1 LL per day. Everything else is day of.

I think they need to go further......

Deluxe get 3, moderate 2 and value 1...............still have to pay...............still can book more after..............still leaves plenty of inventory for other guests

 

[crazy4disney]

50% of guests each day are not resort guests so why penalize them with FP+

Non resort guests were far from penalized so lets be real here a resort guest had better options as they should for staying on property not sure why this is such a hard concept to grasp. Almost every place you go on site has some benefits thats off site doesnt. This happened to be one if them and whats funny is again. Every insider has claimed FP biggest complaint was planning yet that still exist as today i had to choose where to eat 2 month inadvance. So if you felt choosing ridea were that important stay on property value is cheap enough to compare to other off site hotels.

 

[crazy4disney]

seriously? I have not heard on person that sees that as a benefit toe hte point they would book jsut based on that......

i's 2x per week and only at 2 parks..........some people miss it completely

Exactly 4 extra hours and unless you are staying at the cheaper deluxe swan / dolphin as pointed out to me or renting points. Staying at the high priced is unjustifiable for 4 hours extra.

 

[Jeff4272]

Non resort guests were far from penalized so lets be real here a resort guest had better options as they should for staying on property not sure why this is such a hard concept to grasp. Almost every place you go on site has some benefits thats off site doesnt. This happened to be one if them and whats funny is again. Every insider has claimed FP biggest complaint was planning yet that still exist as today i had to choose where to eat 2 month inadvance. So if you felt choosing ridea were that important stay on property value is cheap enough to compare to other off site hotels.

100% agree

 

[Jrb1979]

Non resort guests were far from penalized so lets be real here a resort guest had better options as they should for staying on property not sure why this is such a hard concept to grasp. Almost every place you go on site has some benefits thats off site doesnt. This happened to be one if them and whats funny is again. Every insider has claimed FP biggest complaint was planning yet that still exist as today i had to choose where to eat 2 month inadvance. So if you felt choosing ridea were that important stay on property value is cheap enough to compare to other off site hotels.

Yes there is still planning required. The only real planning is your park reservation. You don't have to book dining reservations.

All this thread does is go around in circles. Unless they announce FP+ is returning you won't be happy.

 

[crazy4disney]

I think they need to go further......

Deluxe get 3, moderate 2 and value 1...............still have to pay...............still can book more after..............still leaves plenty of inventory for other guests

Now you are creating yet another class system where imo its not needed but maybe 3 deluxe vs 2 everyone else would be acceptable like how the dining plan ended up going.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

FP+ worked amazingly for RESORT GUESTS and it worked good for off-site guests. It mostly sucked for day of guests.

50% of guests each day are not resort guests so why penalize them with FP+

If FP+ worked great for 50% of guests and was good for another large percentage of guests (I don't know what % of guests were off-site vacationers vs. locals), then it seems to me that it was a better system than what's currently in place.

As for why penalize off-site guests, the idea is to incentivize staying on WDW property since that creates more revenue than someone staying at an off-property hotel - so it's a safe bet that while it may have been a 50/50 split between on-site and the combined off-site/locals in terms of the number of people in the parks, it's not a 50/50 split in terms of dollars spent. It's less about "penalizing" anyone and more about rewarding/incentivizing on-site stays. That's not to say that the off-site guests and locals are worthless to WDW, but there's still a good number of on-site guests who only dine at WDW and don't venture off property for meals - and with more hotel rooms being added, there's an obvious need for Disney to make staying on-site more enjoyable (particularly if they want people to return often enough to make buying those future Poly DVC points worthwhile).

 

[Jrb1979]

If FP+ worked great for 50% of guests and was good for another large percentage of guests (I don't know what % of guests were off-site vacationers vs. locals), then it seems to me that it was a better system than what's currently in place.

As for why penalize off-site guests, the idea is to incentivize staying on WDW property since that creates more revenue than someone staying at an off-property hotel - so it's a safe bet that while it may have been a 50/50 split between on-site and the combined off-site/locals in terms of the number of people in the parks, it's not a 50/50 split in terms of dollars spent. It's less about "penalizing" anyone and more about rewarding/incentivizing on-site stays. That's not to say that the off-site guests and locals are worthless to WDW, but there's still a good number of on-site guests who only dine at WDW and don't venture off property for meals - and with more hotel rooms being added, there's an obvious need for Disney to make staying on-site more enjoyable (particularly if they want people to return often enough to make buying those future Poly DVC points worthwhile).

Nobody here is saying Genie+ is better. For that matter both systems suck. Having return times is the dumbest part of it. I understand why they do it, to direct guests around the parks. IMO they should scrap the whole thing and move to an Express Pass system with only being able to use it once per ride. At the same time limit sales of it.

 

[Jeff4272]

No way.........its already happening.........second half of 2022 will be affected

funny Tom Bricker just put an article out

What Does Disney World Do During A Recession? - Disney Tourist Blog

A possible recession or economic downturn could impact Walt Disney World, especially as pent-up demand fizzles out, travel slows, and consumer confidence dips. This post tries to answer the titular question based on history, past precedent, and our expectations. (Updated November 19, 2023.)...

www.disneytouristblog.com

 

[Jeff4272]

Yes there is still planning required. The only real planning is your park reservation. You don't have to book dining reservations.

All this thread does is go around in circles. Unless they announce FP+ is returning you won't be happy.

If im flying 1500 miles and staying for a week i 100% need to book dining

 

[crazy4disney]

Yes there is still planning required. The only real planning is your park reservation. You don't have to book dining reservations.

All this thread does is go around in circles. Unless they announce FP+ is returning you won't be happy.

You dont have to plan on ADR’s? When was the last time you actually visited. I have an 11 day trip booked and there are places thats literally have ZERO availability my entire trip. If you dont book dining and want character dining Good Luck. Now granted ill admit things definitely pop up at times day before but do you really want to take that chance w children who want to experience that?!? Come on. Do i want FP back 100% or some version of it 100%. One of the major reasonswhy is bc Genie stinks. Its awful. If you provided a viable replacement so be it but they havent.

 

[Jrb1979]

You dont have to plan on ADR’s? When was the last time you actually visited. I have an 11 day trip booked and there are places thats literally have ZERO availability my entire trip. If you dont book dining and want character dining Good Luck. Now granted ill admit things definitely pop up at times day before but do you really want to take that chance w children who want to experience that?!? Come on. Do i want FP back 100% or some version of it 100%. One of the major reasonswhy is bc Genie stinks. Its awful. If you provided a viable replacement so be it but they havent.

For my family we don't do Character meals, and we don't have any must do dining that's in the parks.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Allow pre booking for resort guests again and eliminate the daily 7am booking, its a complete joke......theres no way in hell people will pay the massive prices for deluxe resorts while not knowing if you can get on the rides you want without waiting for 90+ minutes

be able to choose return times instead of "next available"........is screws up too many peoples plans

start here

Ok…fast pass + didn’t work.

That was 100% predictable…by the way.

 

[crazy4disney]

For my family we don't do Character meals, and we don't have any must do dining that's in the parks.

Im sure you are not alone either but lets face it majority of sit down places do require ADR's & honestly to me booking those were harder and more difficult than booking FP... after booking FP i pretty much had ALL my rides and time slots that i wanted vs meals which were a constant daily check and setting up alerts via other sites...

 

[Jeff4272]

For my family we don't do Character meals, and we don't have any must do dining that's in the parks.

well you are the exceptional b they are all sold out all the time

 

[Jeff4272]

Ok…fast pass + didn’t work.

That was 100% predictable…by the way.

FP+ did work.........as evidence that i went during FP+ and will not go again unless it changes............

we went Nov '21 and it was the worst vacation my family has ever been on..........

was truly a regrettable decision to go there

 

[mmascari]

This happened to be one if them and whats funny is again. Every insider has claimed FP biggest complaint was planning yet that still exist as today i had to choose where to eat 2 month inadvance. So if you felt choosing ridea were that important stay on property value is cheap enough to compare to other off site hotels.

There's a huge difference to planning a couple of meals and every single ride months in advance. We made exactly 1 dining reservation over 6 park days. Tried for 2, but I forgot at the 60 day mark and then it was gone.

We detested the park pass reservations on our trip. They were made all the worse by the 2:00 hopper restriction and the requirement to tap in at the reserved park first. My wife actually saw them turn someone away around 3:00 at DHS because they hadn't tapped in someplace else first. The guest was furious because they were meeting someone who was already there and now they needed to go on a pointless journey just to tap in and return to DHS 40 minutes later.

By the end of day 3 of our trip, we knew we didn't want to spend the day at the parks we had reserved for days 5 and 6. However, it was impossible to change them to anything else besides EPCOT, which was one we already had.