Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[LittleBuford]

You seem to often feel “persecuting” a lot based on what you want to spend.

I don't even know what this means, nor do I think anything rational can be spun out of it. You have no idea what I want to (or do) spend at WDW.

 

[mikejs78]

Past 3 was functionally useless…it was scraps or refreshing your phone constantly on long shot cancellations. Worked some on less crowded days…but it was less crowded so DUH.

This is what I mean by “backup quarterback”

Always the most populag uy on the team

It actually worked pretty well without custom refreshers at MK outside of it 7DMT. I routinely got eight or nine without a lot of refreshing and saved hours in line.

Epcot was also pretty good as they tended to drop FPs throughout the day.

DHS and AK we're definitely not as useful beyond the three, especially with tiering.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The difference between us is that I don't care how you spend your money at Disney. It's entirely up to you. The whole thing is a completely discretionary and frivolous matter anyway. We're not talking about tax dollars, or charity, or anything else that affects the running of society.

Moreover, I'm still not sure what you're criticising me for exactly. According to you, my enjoyment of FP+ and readiness to rope-drop were to the detriment of my fellow guests. Yet your decisions, which include actually purchasing Genie+ (something I've yet to do), are somehow sensible and selfless.

It's just a lot of hot air at this point.

My only “criticism” is the belief that it doesn’t matter what I buy or you buy. That is completely inaccurate with how that compound is priced or operated.

But I understand the belief/instinct…it’s what the great “capitalists” beat into you from birth.
The consumer only has power when they unite and have guardrails. If you want to have us all be “custom”…divide and conquer is the ultimate result.

A 3 month rejection of prices would flip the paradigm…but “me” won’t stand for that.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It actually worked pretty well without custom refreshers at MK outside of it 7DMT. I routinely got eight or nine without a lot of refreshing and saved hours in line.

Epcot was also pretty good as they tended to drop FPs throughout the day.

DHS and AK we're definitely not as useful beyond the three, especially with tiering.

How many of the 8 or 9 were things that did not have legacy fastpass? That’s a pretty important detail.

And you had to pound all day to do that as well…where as more standby/legacy didn’t require that commitment

 

[Jrb1979]

100%

That is the reality. And here’s where the “choices” have lead us here:
Capacity was a huge problem under fastpass+ too. It was obvious and daily.
Genie didn’t “start the fire”

But everyone paid more and more…for food…for Halloween parties…for rooms…for tickets…for timeshares…for “after hours” at 7 pm to GET AWAY from the crowds …

Our wallets made them “correct”…and they kept feeding us down the same road. Here’s where we are now.

I still think once Epic Universe opens it's going to have an impact on Disney. Super Mario is going to be a huge draw.

 

[LittleBuford]

My only “criticism” is the belief that it doesn’t matter what I buy or you buy.

None of us has claimed this. We're not stupid. If we stopped lining Disney's coffers, then of course things would change, just as they did in the 2000s when visitor numbers were (relatively) low.

My point is only that you are not in a position to preach, since you too are giving Disney your money (much more of it, I might add, than I am, based on information you yourself have shared in this forum). Your decisions are no less self-serving than mine are, and that's OK—it's a Disney holiday, and you are free to spend your own dollars as you wish on it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I still think once Epic Universe opens it's going to have an impact on Disney. Super Mario is going to be a huge draw.

If you’re a Disney fan…you better sure as hell hope so!

You need them to draw people away AND put pressure on to build to counter.

If Comcast hadn’t decided to go all in and do the potter stuff…wdw may have completely collapsed upon itself by now. I didn’t think at the time…but I never expected people as incompetent as chapek would be put In charge. What a joke board/leadership…

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

None of us has claimed this. We're not stupid. If we stopped giving our money to Disney, then of course things would change, just as they did in the 2000s when visitor numbers were (relatively) low.

My point is only that you are not in a position to preach, since you too are giving Disney your money (much more of it, I might add, than I am, based on information you yourself have shared in this forum). Your decisions are no less self-serving than mine are, and that's OK—it's a Disney holiday, and you are free to spend your own dollars as you wish on it.

You’re not stupid…but I wish I had $0.25 for everytime someone who knows better types “what does it matter what I BUY??” On one of our little chit chats.

It’s an easy answer. Our education system is failing bigtime.

 

[LittleBuford]

You’re not stupid…but I wish I had $0.25 for everytime someone who knows better types “what does it matter what I BUY??” On one of our little chit chats.

It’s an easy answer. Our education system is failing bigtime.

Again, you have no idea what I pay for as part of my Disney trips, so I'm not sure how you can judge the appropriateness or otherwise of my purchases.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Again, you have no idea what I pay for as part of my Disney trips, so I'm not sure how you can judge the appropriateness or otherwise of my purchases.

It’s not a peeing contest on who spends more (it’s me…by the way)…

It’s what prices/products/directions you support and where the next step laid out for the management is?

In reality…you and I may be 100% similar in what we tolerate. My point is when you say “I don’t care what anyone else does” is silly. Unless you just don’t like wdw the way you learned it to be? In which case is a different discussion altogether and I yield to you.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Basically the guests just have to accept it. They aren't adding enough capacity anytime soon to fix it and they refuse to limit availability. Basically they don't care.

Yup - they are trying to make $ and this is working for them so not about to change.

As a guest have to decide if still enjoy going. Personally we still do so will accept it and still go and give them out $ (though will adjust what we spend on and do less of something, etc)

If it ever changes and we flat out don't enjoy it we will stop going but not about to deprive ourselves of high levels of enjoyment just b/c it isn't quite as high as it used to be (in some ways, more in others) or just to "send a message" or something

 

[LittleBuford]

My point is when you say “I don’t care what anyone else does” is silly.

I don't care because I recognise that we all put value in different things. I enjoy having dinner at Cinderella's Royal Table because I love interacting with the princesses, but others view it as a huge waste of money. Some spend top dollar to stay at a Disney hotel, whereas I'm never in the room long enough to feel that it's worth it to me. And so on and so forth.

These are personal, discretionary decisions, and the real silliness lies in thinking that you are the arbiter of some supposedly objective standard that we should all subscribe to.

 

[Chi84]

A 3 month rejection of prices would flip the paradigm…but “me” won’t stand for that.

It would have to be the same 3 month rejection of prices by everybody. How do you propose that happens in the absence of some type of consumer "unity"? Or maybe you could stop going for several 3-month spans and see if that works.

 

[Patcheslee]

Hey quick coaster knowledge question. King's Island in Mason Ohio, been there? We aren't much into looping coasters anymore. Am I correct in that this park has a good amount of wood coasters? And non loop steel ones?

(Sorry off-topic)

They have 5 woodies and 4 nonlooping coasters now. 2 coasters with inversions

 

[mikejs78]

My only “criticism” is the belief that it doesn’t matter what I buy or you buy. That is completely inaccurate with how that compound is priced or operated.

But I understand the belief/instinct…it’s what the great “capitalists” beat into you from birth.
The consumer only has power when they unite and have guardrails. If you want to have us all be “custom”…divide and conquer is the ultimate result.

A 3 month rejection of prices would flip the paradigm…but “me” won’t stand for that.

After trying to get tickets to see Springsteen a couple weeks ago, I no longer think of Disney as being overpriced.

 

[Chi84]

These are personal, discretionary decisions, and the real silliness lies in thinking that you are the arbiter of some supposedly objective standard that we should all subscribe to.

I have nothing to add. I just think this needed to be said twice. While I'm at it, I'm also going to randomly quote your phrase "vague moralizing about the common good." (One of us may have misspelled a word there )

 

[Jrb1979]

Yup - they are trying to make $ and this is working for them so not about to change.

As a guest have to decide if still enjoy going. Personally we still do so will accept it and still go and give them out $ (though will adjust what we spend on and do less of something, etc)

If it ever changes and we flat out don't enjoy it we will stop going but not about to deprive ourselves of high levels of enjoyment just b/c it isn't quite as high as it used to be (in some ways, more in others) or just to "send a message" or something

I'm not expecting them to add capacity or people to stop going to send a message. My whole point is there are things they can do to make Genie+ work better without completely changing the system. They really need to limit availability of Genie+ to really make it worthwhile but they don't want to as it those who get priced out will stop going.

I do know guest satisfaction is near it's worst due to Genie+.

 

[GhostHost1000]

I'm not expecting them to add capacity or people to stop going to send a message. My whole point is there are things they can do to make Genie+ work better without completely changing the system. They really need to limit availability of Genie+ to really make it worthwhile but they don't want to as it those who get priced out will stop going.

I do know guest satisfaction is near it's worst due to Genie+.

and this is a problem Disney has completely created themselves

Some Disney suits who never tour the parks like real guests may have thought genie+ was better than Fp+, but it was all a change due to wanting more $….that’s it. They could have just kept the old name, not spent money to change all the signage, and just charged for it as it was but they went with this to open it up to everyone on the same level playing field so all would purchase and just hand them more money for even less of an experience, flexibility, and enjoyability than before

Greed and being blind to the guest experience is going to keep biting Disney…hard…and I hope they feel it

 

[lazyboy97o]

and this is a problem Disney has completely created themselves

Some Disney suits who never tour the parks like real guests may have thought genie+ was better than Fp+, but it was all a change due to wanting more $….that’s it. They could have just kept the old name, not spent money to change all the signage, etc but they went with this to open it up to everyone on the same level playing field so all would purchase and just hand them more money for less of an experience than before

Greed and being blind to the guest experience is going to keep biting Disney hard

The issues with Genie+ are because of the bigger park wide operational issues inherent to virtual queue systems. They would be worse with FastPass+. When demand significantly exceeds supply there is no way that increasing demand will make the situation better for the demand side.

 

[GhostHost1000]

The issues with Genie+ are because of the bigger park wide operational issues inherent to virtual queue systems. They would be worse with FastPass+.

I agree with what you’re saying but one could argue the experience with FP+ was WAY better than this…but resort guests had the advantage there. This new system has everyone playing the gambling craps table at 7am each day hoping a ride and a time they can do will show up. It’s just a ridiculous way to do it…BUT it has a lot of people buying it. Job well done internally and someone got a big bonus for implementing it somewhere.

Yes more attractions or less people using it would help the system, but the old system was much better in so many ways.

They basically took a broken system, made it worse, changed the name, and charge for it now