Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[crazy4disney]

FP+ was free...and what's worse, its miles better in every way to G+....so of course people will be annoyed, they are paying heavily ($900 for a family of 4 over a 2 week vacation), which YES, could affect a family decision financially to come or not) for something that is a worse product.

FP+ was free at point...G+ is not. Of course, I'm sure disney factored in part of the entrance fee for FP+...but they do that now anyway..I mean, have they reduced entrance fees since G+ came in?

Listen i LOVED FP+ if you have followed anything ive said over the past months it worked great for me prior to getting there and while i was there so you will not see me prefer Genie over FP ever… in your example if someone can afford a 2 week vacation anywhere 900 should not be a big deal at all to them and if it is cut your trip short by a day than… thats my response to that. And like i also said if another $300 is gonna make or break your life then maybe going away is not best option at that moment or find a way to save an extra $1 a day. Either way i do agree FP+ was head and shoulders better than Genie

 

[monothingie]

So 50% of current guests are buying it, but only 35% of future guests will buy it? That's the message? Like, I need to know more context here to know whether 70% is good or bad, right?

Disney Spin 101 always focus on the positive no matter how crappy entirety of the situation is.

Yay!! 70 percent of Genie Customers would by it again.

Boo! 65% of your total customers have no intention of ever buying into it.

But is the later a bug or a feature?

 

[DisneyDodo]

2) I could be wrong on the math here, but:

50% of guests buy G+ according to Chapek
70% would buy it again, according to Josh

So 50% of current guests are buying it, but only 35% of future guests will buy it? That's the message? Like, I need to know more context here to know whether 70% is good or bad, right?

This doesn’t paint the whole picture because there is also a percentage of guests who didn’t buy it now, but would in the future.

Any service will have some attrition over time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t experience growth. The 70% number here is kind of meaningless. Without anything to really compare it to, we don’t know if it’s good or bad, or whether we should expect G+ adoption to go up or down.

 

[homerdance]

I have been pretty vocal about the new system is. I took the survey that asked the question “will you purchase genie+ on your next trip” question. I answered yes, not because I like it, but because going to magic kingdom and riding 3 rides in 1 day sucks. But we also will never purchase it for every day/park. It has zero value at EPCOT and Animal Kingdom, and little value at Studios.

This is just a crap design with terrible results.

 

[Thepuma]

Listen i LOVED FP+ if you have followed anything ive said over the past months it worked great for me prior to getting there and while i was there so you will not see me prefer Genie over FP ever… in your example if someone can afford a 2 week vacation anywhere 900 should not be a big deal at all to them and if it is cut your trip short by a day than… thats my response to that. And like i also said if another $300 is gonna make or break your life then maybe going away is not best option at that moment or find a way to save an extra $1 a day. Either way i do agree FP+ was head and shoulders better than Genie

I dunno...$900 (or £825 to European guests) is a huge amount and definitely a big thing in the holiday decision.

Put it this way - our flight and Disney hotel for 10 days was £950 each. Now the unlimited Orlando park ticket is £900 each again....so to add yet another £900 for Genie is most certainly a breaking point for some...luckily not us, but there are lots of families who can just about afford the holiday as it is, to add another £900, to those from the UK after already paying for the flight, hotel and tickets, is a big ask.

 

[lentesta]

This doesn’t paint the whole picture because there is also a percentage of guests who didn’t buy it now, but would in the future.

Any service will have some attrition over time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t experience growth. The 70% number here is kind of meaningless. Without anything to really compare it to, we don’t know if it’s good or bad, or whether we should expect G+ adoption to go up or down.

Yeah, this is the thing I'm trying to figure out - is the trend a long-term sustainable thing, or are they eating their own seed corn?

 

[lentesta]

I dunno...$900 (or £825 to European guests) is a huge amount and definitely a big thing in the holiday decision.

Put it this way - our flight and Disney hotel for 10 days was £950 each. Now the unlimited Orlando park ticket is £900 each again....so to add yet another £900 for Genie is most certainly a breaking point for some...luckily not us, but there are lots of families who can just about afford the holiday as it is, to add another £900, to those from the UK after already paying for the flight, hotel and tickets, is a big ask.

I got an email last week from a long-time TouringPlans user - like, going back to 2005 - who'd not been to the park since 2012. 7 adults, 8 days at WDW.

Her question was like this:

My husband's doing the budget for our trip this December. We're staying off-site to save money. He said we need to set aside $1,800 for something called Lightning Lane. That can't be right. Can you look over his numbers?

My response was "Good news - he overestimated by $4."

 

[MrPromey]

This doesn’t paint the whole picture because there is also a percentage of guests who didn’t buy it now, but would in the future.

Any service will have some attrition over time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t experience growth. The 70% number here is kind of meaningless. Without anything to really compare it to, we don’t know if it’s good or bad, or whether we should expect G+ adoption to go up or down.

How does that work?

"Past performance is not a reliable indicator of..."

 

[Jrb1979]

Yeah, this is the thing I'm trying to figure out - is the trend a long-term sustainable thing, or are they eating their own seed corn?

IMO they are banking on the fact you need to buy it to enjoy the parks. How long that lasts I don't know.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

I don't think Disney actually sees Genie+ as a success. This was pure spin to avoid an investor freak-out. They'll revamp it a bit with Genie+ 2.0 and market it as "due to overwhelming demand from our guests regarding our incredibly popular Genie+ service, we are making the following 15 changes".

Correct. They see the idea as a massive success, but the implementation as a massive failure that can also be corrected. I will say, internally I have heard they have become less and less concerned about GSAT numbers regarding ticketing and possibly Genie+ due to the sheer amount of revenue they are generating. Which is really unfortunate to learn. There appears to be a bit of a tug of war happening across the teams with the revenue focused team basically saying that GSAT doesn't matter because the pool of guests is so massive (which many of you accurately suspected and I too often refuted).

 

[crazy4disney]

Correct. They see the idea as a massive success, but the implementation as a massive failure that can also be corrected. I will say, internally I have heard they have become less and less concerned about GSAT numbers regarding ticketing and possibly Genie+ due to the sheer amount of revenue they are generating. Which is really unfortunate to learn. There appears to be a bit of a tug of war happening across the teams with the revenue focused team basically saying that GSAT doesn't matter because the pool of guests is so massive (which many of you accurately suspected and I too often refuted).

so nothing will change other than a raised price like everything else that happens annually hence why i been preaching so long if they really wanted to fix issues they would have already and had nothing to do with people who bought already... i just want to know how i had 2 completely different experiences with the product basically 9 months apart & honestly the drops were not even a factor most days for me...

 

[Jrb1979]

so nothing will change other than a raised price like everything else that happens annually hence why i been preaching so long if they really wanted to fix issues they would have already and had nothing to do with people who bought already... i just want to know how i had 2 completely different experiences with the product basically 9 months apart & honestly the drops were not even a factor most days for me...

The reason you had 2 different experiences is due to the amount of guests in the parks. The less guests the better Genie+ works.

 

[Jrb1979]

Correct. They see the idea as a massive success, but the implementation as a massive failure that can also be corrected. I will say, internally I have heard they have become less and less concerned about GSAT numbers regarding ticketing and possibly Genie+ due to the sheer amount of revenue they are generating. Which is really unfortunate to learn. There appears to be a bit of a tug of war happening across the teams with the revenue focused team basically saying that GSAT doesn't matter because the pool of guests is so massive (which many of you accurately suspected and I too often refuted).

They continue to really show that money is the number 1 thing. It always has but before GSAT was right up there with it. Since the end of Covid they have completely changed the direction of the company.

 

[crazy4disney]

The reason you had 2 different experiences is due to the amount of guests in the parks. The less guests the better Genie+ works.

Well yes that is the obvious answer but when i say Genie was literally available for about 90% of the rides basically all within minutes im not even exaggerating… as i said my DAS was basically not needed…

 

[Jrb1979]

Well yes that is the obvious answer but when i say Genie was literally available for about 90% of the rides basically all within minutes im not even exaggerating… as i said my DAS was basically not needed…

That's the way it should work.

 

[TQQQ]

Hi. First post, new member. It's crazy that people still pay for Genie+ but I dont think thats any indication of customer satisfaction. Genie+ just doesn't work in any way. It has so many problems that it makes the parks no longer fun

 

[crazy4disney]

That's the way it should work.

Agreed and honestly this is basically how my experiences with FP was in the past that people stillargue to me about…

 

[crazy4disney]

Hi. First post, new member. It's crazy that people still pay for Genie+ but I dont think thats any indication of customer satisfaction. Genie+ just doesn't work in any way. It has so many problems that it makes the parks no longer fun

Listen im not a believer inGenie but as i said was there for 11 days got back Monday and yes parks were on the lighter side but it worked like a charm and was worth every penny i paid for it. With that being said the system/capacity cant handle any type of crowds imo based on my experience in November…

 

[aaronml]

There appears to be a bit of a tug of war happening across the teams with the revenue focused team basically saying that GSAT doesn't matter because the pool of guests is so massive (which many of you accurately suspected and I too often refuted).

I’d venture a guess that Chapek favors the “all that matters is revenue” approach given how he has shifted the public talking points away from GSAT and attendance numbers towards guest spending / revenue.

Even if attendance drops due to the current economic climate, they can launch some promotional offers / discounts, and/or resume AP sales to help with that.

 

[TQQQ]

Agreed and honestly this is basically how my experiences with FP was in the past that people still argue to me about…

So i think it works great when it's slow, but then do you even need it when it's slow?

It definitely does not work when it's busy and thats like 95% of the time it seems