Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[fgmnt]

If you are a family of 4 in the US, and your kids are between 4 and 8, go to Anaheim instead of Orlando for a Disney trip; the genie+ product actually works there and you can prepay it.

If you are a family of 4 and your kids are between 9 and 14, take them to Universal instead of WDW. Buy one deluxe room or 2 value rooms—the product there is a lot less difficult to understand.

Disney has made using their park products such a hassle. I’m a complete dyed in the wool sicko with longtime friends on staff at WDW. I cant imagine going otherwise.

 

[Patcheslee]

Haven't we been speculating this has been coming for a while now? I'm not surprised, always thought $15 was low! (for Disney)
We will just be more picky on what days we actually want to use Genie + on our trip.

I do hope they allow people to see ahead of time what the price is going to be for their trip, helps us budget. Telling people to just check price that morning is kind of annoying.

(the worst part about this is the coming onslaught of Bob Paycheck joke posts )

Hopefully well see head of time that's a variation of $7.45/person. I'd end up budgeting on the higher end just to be safe, but then it looks awful for cost.

 

[GhostHost1000]

In a Disney conference room:
“Genie+ isn’t well liked and too many are trying to use it because they feel like they have to in order to experience the parks like they used to which makes it less beneficial. How can we fix genie+?”

Disney suits:
“Oh I know…easy…just raise the price!”

 

[JohnD]

Genie: And now for my next trick, I'll make your money disappear!

 

[G00fyDad]

Today. Here's the official wording for Walt Disney World -

"Check the My Disney Experience app for today’s pricing. Prices vary by date."

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/genie/lightning-lane/

So we find out day-by-day and no one knows in advance? Good job Disney! Maybe they can all get together in a room again to see how much more they can charge us for the little things. Oh, wait, I am sure they are already in that room doing just that.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Food price increase - I can understand with supply chain things and all (within reason)

Genie increase- just taking more money. Did the cartoon Genie need more pay?

I don’t buy Genie so this shouldn’t bother me, but here we are

It should bother you because Disney has carved out and monetized what was and should be part of the base experience. A decent attractions per guest per hour should be Disney’s baseline goal, not something extra people have to further buy into.

The price increases make sense to me because demand is pushing the G+ experience to be a lot less great, especially on peak days.

What I wish would have happend is that this would have rolled out along with a revamp of how it works to make it less frustrating to use.

The Genie+ experience is always going to get degraded over time because it is set up for failure and is not a solution to the root problem.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

…so much magic

 

[HauntedPirate]

The Genie+ experience is always going to get degraded over time because it is set up for failure and is not a solution to the root problem.

BuT tHaT jUsT cReAtEs MoRe DeMaNd...

 

[GhostHost1000]

How I envision Chapek every time prices are raised in some way

 

[HauntedPirate]

"Just look at all the MAGIC!!! you get with your MAGICAL!!! Walt Disney World Resort vacation! The opportunity to purchase Genie+, Individual Lightning Lane purchase opportunities, and we have more activations and purchase opportunities coming soon! It's all part of the MAGIC!!!"

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The price increases make sense to me because demand is pushing the G+ experience to be a lot less great, especially on peak days.

What I wish would have happend is that this would have rolled out along with a revamp of how it works to make it less frustrating to use.

The price increase is to help a company with a lagging stock price and not enough capacity to handle its crowds

That’s it. It’s not a chapter in a a microeconomics textbook.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

BuT tHaT jUsT cReAtEs MoRe DeMaNd...

Wait…the Unibomber runs Disney? I’m confused

 

[Notes from Neverland]

Truly magical to not know the price of Genie+ until you open the app for the day. Great for planning.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Wait…the Unibomber runs Disney? I’m confused

The Unibomber had too much hair. And at least a semblance of a clue.

That's the argument that some use whenever adding capacity is mentioned. "It just creates more demand". Well, not if you add capacity that isn't an over-hyped, over-marketed E-ticket.

 

[drizgirl]

"Just look at all the MAGIC!!! you get with your MAGICAL!!! Walt Disney World Resort vacation! The opportunity to purchase Genie+, Individual Lightning Lane purchase opportunities, and we have more activations and purchase opportunities coming soon! It's all part of the MAGIC!!!"

MAGIC EVERYWHERE!!!

 

[HauntedPirate]

The price increase is to help a company with a lagging stock price and not enough capacity to handle its crowds

That’s it. It’s not a chapter in a a microeconomics textbook.

Let's see how the market reacts to their price increase news. So far, the stock has taken a dive this morning, down far more than the overall market.

 

[mikejs78]

Were you hoping for pre-booking to return? With the way it works now pre-booking is probably not coming back.

While I would like that, there's numerous other things they could do to make it better:

• Make it easier to refresh the attraction you want to get to get the return time you want
• Allow return time selection
• Lock in the time you select so it doesn't slip after you hit confirm (this is worse for ILLs that you pay for a specific return time, but it's also a G+ problem...)
• Allow modifying without having to cancel/rebook

And in regards to pre-booking, I don't think going back to 3 is in the cards, but the 7 AM thing is awful, and other proposals (night before, park opening, in the park) are also not ideal for a number of reasons.

• Get rid of the 7 AM wake-up. Allow first LL selection 1 week before your trip (resort guests length of stay)

 

[GhostHost1000]

While I would like that, there's numerous other things they could do to make it better:

• Make it easier to refresh the attraction you want to get to get the return time you want
• Allow return time selection
• Lock in the time you select so it doesn't slip after you hit confirm (this is worse for ILLs that you pay for a specific return time, but it's also a G+ problem...)
• Allow modifying without having to cancel/rebook

And in regards to pre-booking, I don't think going back to 3 is in the cards, but the 7 AM thing is awful, and other proposals (night before, park opening, in the park) are also not ideal for a number of reasons.

• Get rid of the 7 AM wake-up. Allow first LL selection 1 week before your trip (resort guests length of stay)

YES!

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Let's see how the market reacts to their price increase news. So far, the stock has taken a dive this morning, down far more than the overall market.

The 15 year bubble is collapsing.

Perhaps like never before. It was one thing to gamble on houses…what’s the harm in that? It’s much more of a basic thing now. For a financial experiment, since school started, I’ve been writing down the price of things in the grocery store that has gone up by the week…sometimes multiple times.

There isn’t enough money to pay for the things Where business can claim they’re making money.

And they know it. It’s a societal thing. It’s way out of control.

Wdw is a canary in the coal mine in many ways. For years I’ve said recessions are important price control points…or they’ll collapse things on themselves. Now we get to watch.

By the way…what would the money machine D+ Be costing me in 3 weeks when that intro offer ends? Might need a part timer for that, no?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Prebooking is gone…

God…did somebody whine about that again?

Easy, Elsa