Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[nickys]

Correct me if i am wrong, but the popular rides "sell out" at HS, EPCOT and AK early during busy times. And even if you get one, the chances are that it's at a preferable time are very slim. If i want to ride FOP and get to AK early and my return time is 4pm, thats what im talking about because i am usually gone from AK by 2pm...........

So what i mean is, 3 of the parks do not have enough capacity and not being able to pre select a return time really ruins a lot of touring plans

And that doesn't even take into account that stacking cannot happen any longer, the fact you have to be up before 7am and be on your phone all day. And anyone that says you don't is either lying to themselves or has never used it because it is 100% necessary to be on your phone all day long

For Flight of Passage you can select a time because you will be buying an ILL, not using G+

Stacking G+ rides can still be used as a strategy, it just takes a little more work. You need to check the return times before you book.

And now that the app tells you when you are eligible to book another G+ if you do decide to stack then you just need to set an alarm for 5-10 minutes prior to your next window and then put your phone away.

It all depends on how you decide to use G+. I can see us varying that depending on our park plans. Some days we will simply look for the next available time of the rides we want to do. Other days we will stack some for a second park or for just later in the day if we want a later start.

 

[nickys]

I wasn't commenting on/refuting your personal trip experience, I was trying to answer the question you asked. You asked, "What about [G+/ILL] doesn't work when the parks are busy?"

Getting both Slinky+Rise = winning the G+ lottery. Humans are hard wired to enjoy winning.

When the parks get busy, the odds of winning go down. G+ is less fun when you don't win.

I agree G+ works better on arrival day park going than FP+ did. Way back days ago, I said so in this thread.

Rise is an ILL, Slinky is G+

Have one person book the ILL and another book the G+ and the odds improve dramatically.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

Your experience is the blue lobster, EXTREMELY RARE

to the point where theres 12mm people per year that visit Epcot and if they all tried that, less than 5,000 would have even close to that success

In Epcot, getting even 2 of the 5 (GoTG, Remy, Frozen, Soarin, Test Track) is impossible 95% of the days so you got lucky on a slow day. You might get one for noon and a second for 8pm and thats it.

AK you would never get both FOP and Safari and you might get one of the others you mentioned

The important thing isn't crowds, or isn't just crowds, but the number of people who bought G+ in the park that day, at least I think that is what happened.

We experienced some variability. One day the standby lines were longer, but we saw considerably more G+ availability.

Another day, standby lines were shorter, but we got fewer G+.

Or maybe WDW manipulates the system.

But I think it also explains why G+ plus breaks down when the parks are more crowded. It isn't just that the park is more crowded, but ALSO that a higher % of parkgoers buy G+. So busy+ LOTS of people buying G+ = G+ gets bogged down.

 

[allgiggles]

Your experience is the blue lobster, EXTREMELY RARE

to the point where theres 12mm people per year that visit Epcot and if they all tried that, less than 5,000 would have even close to that success

In Epcot, getting even 2 of the 5 (GoTG, Remy, Frozen, Soarin, Test Track) is impossible 95% of the days so you got lucky on a slow day. You might get one for noon and a second for 8pm and thats it.

AK you would never get both FOP and Safari and you might get one of the others you mentioned

But it wasn't a slow day at EP. It wasn't a slow week/day anywhere that week. Standby lines were very long for most rides. I got GoTG, Remy, Soarin, and TT on a second day that week...stacking them for afternoon because we didn't feel the need to do rope drop. I don't think my experience is all that rare (I've seen plenty of other people accomplish the same or better this summer -- prior to mid-August.). I think some people either don't understand the logistics of G+ (I've seen lots of posts where people think if you book a 4:00 return time for something at 7:00 a.m. that you can't book another LL until after you tap in at that ride...among other things) or they're trying too hard to make everything "perfect" and constantly wishing that FP would return. That's a lot of wasted energy.

Also, it's not difficult to book FOP & Safari on the same day as one is ILL and the other is LL. Easy to get both at 7:00 a.m.

Maybe the thing that helped me is that we don't plan to do many ADRs during our trips (we have far better restaurants at home...but that's a whole different thread) and this past trip we ended up not planning any because we wanted to focus on making up for lost time on the rides. We also don't have young children (all of our kids are 17 and older) which means we don't have to be concerned with sleep schedules. So we have nothing that we need to plan around -- we can very much go with the flow.

I'm sorry that not every one is successful with G+. I was just sharing my experience to show that it *is* possible to use G+ effectively during a busy time (I'm not talking about holiday weeks) because it seems like only negative experiences get shared and believed.

 

[allgiggles]

If you got Soarin at Epcot for 1pm then I hope you've already scored 1-2 other passes already, but that's more of a distraction.

The current system is confusing but not difficult. It may be tough to figure out what the best choice is at the moment, but you're not agonizing over it months in advance and trying to guess whether you'll even be in the park that day. It also doesn't tell you to pound sand if one lightning lane is 40 minutes after another. All of the systems have required some research and understanding to do well.

I loved that feature!! We had several overlapping reservations. So nice to be able to stack several rides in a 2 hour window and just walk from one to the next. Very efficient.

 

[WDWmazprty]

But it wasn't a slow day at EP. It wasn't a slow week/day anywhere that week. Standby lines were very long for most rides. I got GoTG, Remy, Soarin, and TT on a second day that week...stacking them for afternoon because we didn't feel the need to do rope drop. I don't think my experience is all that rare (I've seen plenty of other people accomplish the same or better this summer -- prior to mid-August.). I think some people either don't understand the logistics of G+ (I've seen lots of posts where people think if you book a 4:00 return time for something at 7:00 a.m. that you can't book another LL until after you tap in at that ride...among other things) or they're trying too hard to make everything "perfect" and constantly wishing that FP would return. That's a lot of wasted energy.

Also, it's not difficult to book FOP & Safari on the same day as one is ILL and the other is LL. Easy to get both at 7:00 a.m.

Maybe the thing that helped me is that we don't plan to do many ADRs during our trips (we have far better restaurants at home...but that's a whole different thread) and this past trip we ended up not planning any because we wanted to focus on making up for lost time on the rides. We also don't have young children (all of our kids are 17 and older) which means we don't have to be concerned with sleep schedules. So we have nothing that we need to plan around -- we can very much go with the flow.

I'm sorry that not every one is successful with G+. I was just sharing my experience to show that it *is* possible to use G+ effectively during a busy time (I'm not talking about holiday weeks) because it seems like only negative experiences get shared and believed.

Do you like G+ better than FP?

 

[allgiggles]

I wasn't commenting on/refuting your personal trip experience, I was trying to answer the question you asked. You asked, "What about [G+/ILL] doesn't work when the parks are busy?"

Getting both Slinky+Rise = winning the G+ lottery. Humans are hard wired to enjoy winning.
o
When the parks get busy, the odds of winning go down. G+ is less fun when you don't win.

I agree G+ works better on arrival day park going than FP+ did. Way back days ago, I said so in this thread.

Yes, I'll admit that there is some joy that comes from getting what you're hoping for with G+, but getting Slinky and Rise at 7:00 am doesn't fall into that category for me. Rise is ILL and Slinky is LL. Two people can sign in to the account and both be ready to go at 7:00 a.m. -- one scheduling Slinky, one scheduling Rise....though I never had to have 2 people sign in at 7:00 a.m. I was always able to get what we wanted. But we weren't on any kind of schedule so it didn't really matter what return times we got most days.

 

[allgiggles]

Do you like G+ better than FP?

I do. I wish it was free like FP, but I still felt it was worth the extra cost and saved us a lot of time.

 

[GhostHost1000]

I do. I wish it was free like FP, but I still felt it was worth the extra cost and saved us a lot of time.

Regardless of cost, did you like G+ better than Fp+ and if so what did you like better about it?

 

[crazy4disney]

Rise is an ILL, Slinky is G+

Have one person book the ILL and another book the G+ and the odds improve dramatically.

Now 2 people get the joy of waking up before 7am on an already tiresome vacation. #winning lol

 

[TQQQ]

But it wasn't a slow day at EP. It wasn't a slow week/day anywhere that week. Standby lines were very long for most rides. I got GoTG, Remy, Soarin, and TT on a second day that week...stacking them for afternoon because we didn't feel the need to do rope drop. I don't think my experience is all that rare (I've seen plenty of other people accomplish the same or better this summer -- prior to mid-August.). I think some people either don't understand the logistics of G+ (I've seen lots of posts where people think if you book a 4:00 return time for something at 7:00 a.m. that you can't book another LL until after you tap in at that ride...among other things) or they're trying too hard to make everything "perfect" and constantly wishing that FP would return. That's a lot of wasted energy.

Also, it's not difficult to book FOP & Safari on the same day as one is ILL and the other is LL. Easy to get both at 7:00 a.m.

Maybe the thing that helped me is that we don't plan to do many ADRs during our trips (we have far better restaurants at home...but that's a whole different thread) and this past trip we ended up not planning any because we wanted to focus on making up for lost time on the rides. We also don't have young children (all of our kids are 17 and older) which means we don't have to be concerned with sleep schedules. So we have nothing that we need to plan around -- we can very much go with the flow.

I'm sorry that not every one is successful with G+. I was just sharing my experience to show that it *is* possible to use G+ effectively during a busy time (I'm not talking about holiday weeks) because it seems like only negative experiences get shared and believed.

If you got all of them then it was a slow day

 

[TQQQ]

But it wasn't a slow day at EP. It wasn't a slow week/day anywhere that week. Standby lines were very long for most rides. I got GoTG, Remy, Soarin, and TT on a second day that week...stacking them for afternoon because we didn't feel the need to do rope drop. I don't think my experience is all that rare (I've seen plenty of other people accomplish the same or better this summer -- prior to mid-August.). I think some people either don't understand the logistics of G+ (I've seen lots of posts where people think if you book a 4:00 return time for something at 7:00 a.m. that you can't book another LL until after you tap in at that ride...among other things) or they're trying too hard to make everything "perfect" and constantly wishing that FP would return. That's a lot of wasted energy.

Also, it's not difficult to book FOP & Safari on the same day as one is ILL and the other is LL. Easy to get both at 7:00 a.m.

Maybe the thing that helped me is that we don't plan to do many ADRs during our trips (we have far better restaurants at home...but that's a whole different thread) and this past trip we ended up not planning any because we wanted to focus on making up for lost time on the rides. We also don't have young children (all of our kids are 17 and older) which means we don't have to be concerned with sleep schedules. So we have nothing that we need to plan around -- we can very much go with the flow.

I'm sorry that not every one is successful with G+. I was just sharing my experience to show that it *is* possible to use G+ effectively during a busy time (I'm not talking about holiday weeks) because it seems like only negative experiences get shared and believed.

On an average day you can’t do what you did. It def wasn’t even just average. It was slow.

 

[LSLS]

Man, sitting here watching people praise spending an extra $35 a person just to be able to ride attractions on top of their park tickets. Say what you want, Chapek won.

 

[lazyboy97o]

But it wasn't a slow day at EP. It wasn't a slow week/day anywhere that week. Standby lines were very long for most rides.

Crowding is relative and Disney works to ensure crowding, regardless of actual visitation.

 

[Nunu]

Today at MK, 5:30pm:

MDE app posted Standby Line wait for Peter Pan said 90mins. Actual standby wait time for me was 35mins.

Seems to me that they really are set on wanting people to pay extra for riding.

 

[crazy4disney]

Today at MK, 5:30pm:

MDE app posted Standby Line wait for Peter Pan said 90mins. Actual standby wait time for me was 35mins.

Seems to me that they really are set on wanting people to pay extra for riding.

Wait times were vastly overstated when i was there as well… borderline fraudulent & criminal lol

 

[LSLS]

Wait times were vastly overstated when i was there as well… borderline fraudulent & criminal lol

I will say, this is not exclusive to genie. I'll never forget that happening 3.5 years ago. 7 dwarfs had a 60 minute wait listed. The que looked super short (im pld enoigh to remember the coaster parks when we would know waits by resding the lines )so I said let's try it. We were on the ride in 15 minutes. Got off and the wait time now said 75.

 

[crazy4disney]

I will say, this is not exclusive to genie. I'll never forget that happening 3.5 years ago. 7 dwarfs had a 60 minute wait listed. The que looked super short (im pld enoigh to remember the coaster parks when we would know waits by resding the lines )so I said let's try it. We were on the ride in 15 minutes. Got off and the wait time now said 75.

Totally agree its been like this forever im no spring chicken either… i noticed it more towards park closure tbh where it was blatant. You would look at app for a wait time pass by ride to do something else & look at actual line & say are they kidding me. Happened every night. Every park. So to me thats an intentional pattern not an oops we made a mistake.

 

[allgiggles]

On an average day you can’t do what you did. It def wasn’t even just average. It was slow.

Well, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the crowd levels at the parks the week I was there. We've been there the same week 9 times in the last 20 years...it was as busy as it's been in the past. Standby lines were relatively long (similar to other years) for most rides. But apparently you have better crowd level information even though you weren't there. That's fine. I know what we experienced and I know not everyone had the same success with G+ that week as we did -- read all about it on the message boards and FB groups.

 

[G00fyDad]