Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[zappy]

Am I understanding this right.....next month on arrival day we are going to AK first and Epcot at night. My goal was to try and snag a LL in the evening for Remy but now I can't make that selection till at least 2pm?

 

[mikejs78]

Am I understanding this right.....next month on arrival day we are going to AK first and Epcot at night. My goal was to try and snag a LL in the evening for Remy but now I can't make that selection till at least 2pm?

Not quite. Now you can't make that selection until the return time for Remy is after 2 PM.

 

[zappy]

Not quite. Now you can't make that selection until the return time for Remy is after 2 PM.

Now I get it. Thanks!

 

[dreday3]

Can you buy a lightning lane for the second park at 7 am though? (resort guest)

Also, this doesn't bode well for getting rid of the 2 pm time restriction.

 

[mikejs78]

Can you buy a lightning lane for the second park at 7 am though? (resort guest)

Also, this doesn't bode well for getting rid of the 2 pm time restriction.

Individual lightning lane purhcases aren't affected by this change.

 

[dreday3]

Individual lightning lane purhcases aren't affected by this change.

Thanks!

 

[Vacationeer]

(Edited to re-link thread as Scott deleted and reposted)

Isn’t this going to make early day availability worse for mid tier?

 

[mikejs78]

Me: Disney can't make Genie+ any worse.

Disney:

 

[gerarar]

I fly JetBlue almost exclusively in the US. The merger should open up more routes and upgrade Spirit's planes and personnel.

Spirit airlines has a lot of newer planes than JetBlue. Spirit has a ton of A320 & A321's that they received in the late 2010's/20's. This merger will help JetBlue gain a lot of routes to help them expand their presence.

Average age of fleet:
Jetblue: 12 years
Spirit: 7 years

I'm hearing the iOS app still tells you when it is time. The Android app does not.

Android app never told the exact allowed time afaik. I was there December 2021, had two phones on me, and the Android version basically said not yet when trying to get another LL. iOS version gave an exact time.

I had a friend there around April 2022 and still same behavior. I just thought it was one of the differences between the Android and iOS versions of MDE, nothing more.

 

[pdude81]

On one hand, this suck if you want to book G+ selections for your 2nd park. On the other hand, it might make it easier for guests who are trying to book later times for their 1st park since the afternoon and evening times aren't getting gobbled earlier up by people in a different park.

The only group I see this helping is people who show up later in the morning and either don't plan to hop or only do it late in the day for fireworks.

I'm a constant refresher so I'll make this work, but it's going to make Genie+ more time-consuming and more frustrating for a lot of guests.

 

[pdude81]

I had a friend there around April 2022 and still same behavior. I just thought it was one of the differences between the Android and iOS versions of MDE, nothing more.

My android showed the time to next pass in April 2022 FWIW

 

[DCLcruiser]

Spirit airlines has a lot of newer planes than JetBlue. Spirit has a ton of A320 & A321's that they received in the late 2010's/20's. This merge will help JetBlue gain a lot of routes to help them expend.

Average age of fleet:
Jetblue: 12 years
Spirit: 7 years

Good to hear. JetBlue has updated all of their A320 and A321, plus they have A321neo planes now. The updated interiors on the old planes are very nice, and the extra legroom is always amazing. Even if you don't upgrade (which I do) the legroom is great. Not sure if Spirit flights have free snacks and tv/movies, but that is a must.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Curious, announced yesterday that uptake by guests on Genie+ is 50% of guests. At what percentage does the tipping point go back in favor of standby? Obviously if 100% of the guests are using Genie+ doesn’t standby becomes favorable. So question is where do you see the tipping point? Curious.

No, because the more people in a virtual queue system the more in strains everything outside that system.

This is quickly becoming FP all over again based on all the problems "insiders' claimed FP had but w/o the actual good features of FP... booking in advance... having 3 rides before you boarded a plane& entered a park ... being able to modify as opposed to being forced to cancel 1st... so on and so forth...

They’ve always been the same type of system.

 

[gerarar]

My android showed the time to next pass in April 2022 FWIW

Well that's good. Glad they patched that sometime after my visit. Guess it was just different versions of the app for my friend lol

 

[GhostHost1000]

I can’t believe they just made Genie+ even worse



…oh wait yes I can *facepalm*

 

[DCLcruiser]

Doesn't this change give people spending the whole day at a single park a better chance of getting their preferred afternoon LL, since Hoppers have to wait longer?

That seems like a benefit to single park people.

 

[gerarar]

Good to hear. JetBlue has updated all of their A320 and A321, plus they have A321neo planes now. The updated interiors on the old planes are very nice, and the extra legroom is always amazing. Even if you don't upgrade (which I do) the legroom is great. Not sure if Spirit flights have free snacks and tv/movies, but that is a must.

Never flew Spirit, but from all the jokes/memes I see about it, snacks/non-water drinks aren't included.

I do fly Frontier often and while I don't find it extremely bad as some make it out to be, it's cheap and gets the job done. Get what you pay for I guess lol.

It's a pretty sweet deal/merger. They are both Airbus-only airlines, so it's gonna save JetBlue a lot from maintenence and stuff.

 

[DCLcruiser]

Never flew Spirit, but from all the jokes/memes I see about it, snacks/non-water drinks aren't included.

I do fly Frontier often and while I don't find it extremely bad as some make it out to be, it's cheap and gets the job done. Get what you pay for I guess lol.

It's a pretty sweet deal/merger. They are both Airbus-only airlines, so it's gonna save JetBlue a lot from maintenence and stuff.

The snacks/movies on all JetBlue flights is a game changer. Years ago we got stuck on the tarmac for 6 hours due to weather on a JetBlue flight. They kept feeding us, and we kept watching tv or listening to XM (no longer available on most updated planes), and there wasn't a single crying kid on the plane. They were all entertained. Could have been so miserable.

 

[crazy4disney]

Doesn't this change give people spending the whole day at a single park a better chance of getting their preferred afternoon LL, since Hoppers have to wait longer?

That seems like a benefit to single park people.

i would agree and should in theory free up later ones as well bc now those single park people will be choosing earlier rides...

 

[JAB]

So basically, it sounds like they're just getting rid of the automatic bump to 2pm return times for hoppers.

At first I was upset about the change - partly because, true to form, you-know-who phrased their headline in such a way as to imply that selection wouldn't be allowed until 2PM, and partly because hop-stacking was a big part of why our touring strategy worked so well for us in May.

But after getting proper details, and thinking about our recent trip, I'm less bothered. Our typical hop-stacking strategy was to go for later times first (1. - those were usually the most popular and therefore most likely to book up LLs - and 2. - it gives you space to stack the most LLs), so our first hopping LL of the day was usually already past 2 by the time we booked it. There were only a couple of times during our 10 days in the park that this would have affected our LL selections.

For hoppers, this might limit stacking a bit, as it could push your booking time, and therefore your 120 min timer later, and it potentially adds a bit more time spent using the app since now you may have to keep checking until return times move past 2pm, rather than just "select and forget."

However, I also get why this is a positive for some. It makes afternoon LL selection a bit more "fair," and should add more 2pm-ish LL availability for non-hoppers.

In the end, while I can't say I'm happy about it, it is what it is, and those of us who obsess over touring strategies will just do what we always do - adapt and figure out the most efficient strategy.