Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Jeff4272]

4 day trip lowlights:

- flew out Sunday 11/21 in the am, no WiFi on plane, couldn’t book second genie+ when eligible at 10am until we landed at 11:30 and all good rides were gone at MK

- multiple mde glitches where it asked for passcode via email after kicking me out of app when trying to book

- up at 6:45am. not “holding” your selected time. Monday 11/22 HS day tried to book ROTR at 7:00:01 and had app say “selection no longer available” when clicked through and were sold out when I tried again.

- up at 6:45 am. Monday 11/22 at HS got SDD for 5:40pm return. Went to make second selection at 11am and every headliner gone for the day (got start tours as TOT, RNR, TSMM, all gone). Spent entire day refreshing on phone to see if something better came up and it didn’t.

- up at 6:45am. Tuesday 11/23. AK in am and Epcot at night. Got error message when booking FOP at 7:00:01 and got shut out. Booked safari for 10:30 Went pre rope drop for resorts guests after not getting ILL and got in line at FOP at 7:50 and waited 220 minutes to ride. Rode safari and all other genie + were gone so booked TOT for Epcot later and did but was during our visit Napoli reservation time. Tried to go single rider line on Everest and they closed it because the park was at capacity. We left after doing 2 rides and waiting 3 hours in lines.

-Tuesday 11/23 went to book second genie + for Epcot at noon and everything was sold out in Epcot so got spaceship earth. Stood in hour long line for soarin

-woke up at 6:45am. Had whole family trying for ROTR at 7:00:01 and got kicked out of app again and got nothing. Got TOT for 10:50 and bought space mountain for later so went back to bed. At 11am booked thunder mountain for 8:00 which overlapped with out Be Our Guest dining.

- deluxe only hours at MK the lines were still very long.

terrible trip

hate genie

Will not go back.

****edit*****
Forgot to mention. Went to replace my TOT genie+ with a different time when the 11:31 inventory drop occurred. I had to cancel what I had in order to get different one. Went to book different one after I cancelled and it said “not eligible until 1:01pm because it was reading my next available genie+ selection whe. It should have been reading it as a replacement. Then all TOT were gone. Had to go to guest services and that took an hour because they were so busy but they did give me back an anytime use for TOT

 

[wutisgood]

How the hell did deluxe only hours have long lines? I thought the number of people would be noore than a limited after hours.

they need an “any ride, any time” pass system for me to return. Will never do that again.

VIP has been a thing for a long time.

 

[Trauma]

4 day trip lowlights:

- flew out Sunday 11/21 in the am, no WiFi on plane, couldn’t book second genie+ when eligible at 10am until we landed at 11:30 and all good rides were gone at MK

- multiple mde glitches where it asked for passcode via email after kicking me out of app when trying to book

- up at 6:45am. not “holding” your selected time. Monday 11/22 HS day tried to book ROTR at 7:00:01 and had app say “selection no longer available” when clicked through and were sold out when I tried again.

- up at 6:45 am. Monday 11/22 at HS got SDD for 5:40pm return. Went to make second selection at 11am and every headliner gone for the day (got start tours as TOT, RNR, TSMM, all gone). Spent entire day refreshing on phone to see if something better came up and it didn’t.

- up at 6:45am. Tuesday 11/23. AK in am and Epcot at night. Got error message when booking FOP at 7:00:01 and got shut out. Booked safari for 10:30 Went pre rope drop for resorts guests after not getting ILL and got in line at FOP at 7:50 and waited 220 minutes to ride. Rode safari and all other genie + were gone so booked TOT for Epcot later and did but was during our visit Napoli reservation time. Tried to go single rider line on Everest and they closed it because the park was at capacity. We left after doing 2 rides and waiting 3 hours in lines.

-Tuesday 11/23 went to book second genie + for Epcot at noon and everything was sold out in Epcot so got spaceship earth. Stood in hour long line for soarin

-woke up at 6:45am. Had whole family trying for ROTR at 7:00:01 and got kicked out of app again and got nothing. Got TOT for 10:50 and bought space mountain for later so went back to bed. At 11am booked thunder mountain for 8:00 which overlapped with out Be Our Guest dining.

- deluxe only hours at MK the lines were still very long.

terrible trip

hate genie

Will not go back.

Great job Disney another satisfied customer!!

Sorry your trip sucked but have a great thanksgiving.

 

[flynnibus]

terrible trip

hate genie

Will not go back.

Tell Disney with your blow by blow

 

[Jeff4272]

How the hell did deluxe only hours have long lines? I thought the number of people would be noore than a limited after hours.

VIP has been a thing for a long time.

I mean not costing me $20,000 for 5 park days

 

[flynnibus]

You keep ignoring the other side of the tradeoff. FP+ gave multiple-day guests an advantage over one-day guests..... which was bad for one-day guests.

I'm ignoring it because it's a misnomer in this scenario. One day guests didn't get 'first option' advance booking (60days). Well technically you could, but is booking a onproperty resort and only single day tickets really the population we really care about? No

And the one-day guest at park opening is kinda the baseline anyways - he's by definition disadvantaged vs people advance booking. This is not a question of 'advance booking' or not - it's a comparison of the booking window.

In FP+ you had 60+ day advance booking for multiple days - you had less people competing with you and you had multiple options
In Genie you everyone competing for the same day at the same time. It's compression.

Yes, the longer stays had more advantage in FP+ - but is that really a negative? That's what you want to encourage in the first place. And in practice except at the extremes, it generally still had reasonable availability for people at 60 days.

Now we have the RoTR virtual queue frustrations... but happening at many attractions with early sellouts.

 

[Jeff4272]

****edit*****
Forgot to mention. Went to replace my TOT genie+ with a different time when the 11:31 inventory drop occurred. I had to cancel what I had in order to get different one. Went to book different one after I cancelled and it said “not eligible until 1:01pm because it was reading my next available genie+ selection when It should have been reading it as a replacement. Then all TOT were gone. Had to go to guest services and that took an hour because they were so busy but they did give me back an anytime use for TOT

They should allow. “Switch” vs a cancel/replace so you don’t risk losing what you already have.

 

[bubbles1812]

People don't want it because Disney sat on their haunches and didn't keep up with demand. Any line-skipping system is just a means of hiding the fact that they are woefully below the needed capacity for the attendance of the parks and shuffling wait times between guests. I guarantee you if waits were consistently 20-30 minutes max because there was more than enough to do in the parks, no one would care if there wasn't a line-skipping system.

Yeah, this could be true but it doesn’t change reality now. They have under capacity rides for over capacity crowds. The line skipping system helps people navigate that reality.

Even if they announced 10 new rides tomorrow, that doesn’t fix the problem for many years to come. And they aren’t announcing 10 new rides tomorrow. Building things is expensive and they have multiple parks to manage. That focus is never just going to be at WDW.

So for now, we still have to work with what we are given. And I don’t think any sort of capacity increases would guarantee 20-30 minute waits across the parks. Not with the way attendance continues to rise.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Yeah, this could be true but it doesn’t change reality now. They have under capacity rides for over capacity crowds. The line skipping system helps people navigate that reality.

Even if they announced 10 new rides tomorrow, that doesn’t fix the problem for many years to come. And they aren’t announcing 10 new rides tomorrow. Building things is expensive and they have multiple parks to manage. That focus is never just going to be at WDW.

So for now, we still have to work with what we are given. And I don’t think any sort of capacity increases would guarantee 20-30 minute waits across the parks. Not with the way attendance continues to rise.

The line skipping helps some navigate that reality. It is not across the board and causes other issues elsewhere.

They’ve spent more trying to not build than build. The out of control cost to build is an internal problem. Having multiple resorts is unrelated as there are entire teams dedicated to managing just Walt Disney World.

 

[bubbles1812]

The line skipping helps some navigate that reality. It is not across the board and causes other issues elsewhere.

They’ve spent more trying to not build than build. The out of control cost to build is an internal problem. Having multiple resorts is unrelated as there are entire teams dedicated to managing just Walt Disney World.

It still doesn’t change the reality that nothing changes the capacity issues tomorrow. So if the line skipping system helps, I’m gonna use it, even if it causes issues in the nebulous elsewhere.

I never would claim everyone is a super user though, same as with FP+. I always knew my 10-15 average was never the norm. I’m sure eventually we’ll figure out how to use G+ to the most advantage (and hope Disney tweaks it too), but the average layperson still isn’t gonna know all the tricks. Is that fair? No. But that’s how it’s always been from FP inception. Heck, even when it was standby only, knowing the parks well gave you an edge.

And I wasn’t trying to make a point about management at WDW v the other parks, only that they aren’t going to sink so much money into any one park/any one project the way we seem to wish. There is no 10 ride announcement coming next week. Yes they should have spent money on ride capacity v trying to avoid it, but they didn’t and that’s just facts.

The parks are profitable so at the high management levels, I doubt they are enthused about dropping another billion+ into WDW while their streaming service subscription numbers tanks their stock.

 

[JMcMahonEsq]

It. Doesn’t. Matter.

We are discussing whether the system is broken. Which it is. Not individual usage.

And I admire Lazys restraint about personal details on social media.

The hilarity of a small subset of message board warriors talking about how they think a system is broken in the face of ever increasing attendance and utilization of said system is amazing. Making it even more laughable is when they counter opposing views by claiming that counter opinions are based on individual thought, while discounting the underlying market data that shows people are utilizing the product (going back to FP, it’s too early to tell on Genie) and that attendance and market share continued to increase though the FP period

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Yeah, this could be true but it doesn’t change reality now. They have under capacity rides for over capacity crowds. The line skipping system helps people navigate that reality.

Even if they announced 10 new rides tomorrow, that doesn’t fix the problem for many years to come. And they aren’t announcing 10 new rides tomorrow. Building things is expensive and they have multiple parks to manage. That focus is never just going to be at WDW.

So for now, we still have to work with what we are given. And I don’t think any sort of capacity increases would guarantee 20-30 minute waits across the parks. Not with the way attendance continues to rise.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same behaviors over and over and expecting different results.

Genie+ is the THIRD line-skip system Disney has implemented at WDW, and it's failing right out of the gate. If we're generous, and allow $1 billion of the money spent to develop MM+ for infrastructure upgrades, that leaves $3 BILLION literally pi$$ed into the wind in attempting to artificially manipulate guest behavior and to avoid adding capacity.

Systems and data analysis are great, when they're not the sole thing driving decision-making. At this point, Disney leadership are addicts and systems and data analysis are their crack.

1) They KNOW they have crowding issues...but they're still spending a fortune advertising WDW specifically
2) They KNOW they have crowding issues...and have spent $3 billion trying to avoid adding capacity (not counting $1 billion for infrastructure that was needed anyway)
3) They KNOW they have crowding issues...and still have shuttered attractions and keep some dining locations closed or operating seasonally
4) They KNOW they have crowding issues...and rather than try to actually address the capacity problem, they keep attempting to manipulate guest behavior

On top of all of the above, they're taking away things that made the parks and resorts ridiculously popular and profitable to begin with. Introduced an obvious class system - check. Less staff at call centers - check. Ridiculously bad IT - check. No more transportation from the airport - check. No more fun Mousekeeping - check. Less spontaneous entertainment around the parks/resorts - check. Worse food quality - check. Less food options - check. People having their phone in their face all day - check.

ETA: And all this doesn't take into account the ridiculousness that is calling your parks and resorts a "luxury" experience while at the same time allowing them to become so crowded that the experience suffers in a huge way.

EDIT 2: And lets not forget reduced hours...less park hours available for regular guests...unless they're willing to pay for an after-hours event.

 

[Casper Gutman]

The hilarity of a small subset of message board warriors talking about how they think a system is broken in the face of ever increasing attendance and utilization of said system is amazing. Making it even more laughable is when they counter opposing views by claiming that counter opinions are based on individual thought, while discounting the underlying market data that shows people are utilizing the product (going back to FP, it’s too early to tell on Genie) and that attendance and market share continued to increase though the FP period

Cool, the very familiar and totally logical “popular equals good” argument. Clearly Venom 2 is a better film then Citizen Kane. And clearly nothing other then line-skipping systems contribute to increasing attendance. No need to look at the specifics of how the system works (or doesn’t) or evaluate actual evidence and data, just look at market share!

 

[ImperfectPixie]

It still doesn’t change the reality that nothing changes the capacity issues tomorrow. So if the line skipping system helps, I’m gonna use it, even if it causes issues in the nebulous elsewhere.

I never would claim everyone is a super user though, same as with FP+. I always knew my 10-15 average was never the norm. I’m sure eventually we’ll figure out how to use G+ to the most advantage (and hope Disney tweaks it too), but the average layperson still isn’t gonna know all the tricks. Is that fair? No. But that’s how it’s always been from FP inception. Heck, even when it was standby only, knowing the parks well gave you an edge.

And I wasn’t trying to make a point about management at WDW v the other parks, only that they aren’t going to sink so much money into any one park/any one project the way we seem to wish. There is no 10 ride announcement coming next week. Yes they should have spent money on ride capacity v trying to avoid it, but they didn’t and that’s just facts.

The parks are profitable so at the high management levels, I doubt they are enthused about dropping another billion+ into WDW while their streaming service subscription numbers tanks their stock.

So they should just allow the hole they've dug for themselves to continue to get deeper?

 

[hopemax]

The hilarity of a small subset of message board warriors talking about how they think a system is broken in the face of ever increasing attendance and utilization of said system is amazing. Making it even more laughable is when they counter opposing views by claiming that counter opinions are based on individual thought, while discounting the underlying market data that shows people are utilizing the product (going back to FP, it’s too early to tell on Genie) and that attendance and market share continued to increase though the FP period

And I think that had absolutely nothing to do with FP+ or what Disney did or didn’t build. That Attendance increased because in general more people have more discretionary income than in the 80s or 90s, and the kids from those eras are now old enough to have kids of their own. That’s it.

I think what the actual experience did was create two tracks, as demonstrated in that video presentation. A small group that it worked so well for that they bought APs, DVC and come back frequently demanding new stuff and preferred access. And a larger group of people that thought, this is not what I was expecting, glad we already did it so we don’t have to ever come back.

The things they did with Genie, LL and ILLs that are different than FP+… Disney did for specific reasons. They were reacting to something that was showing up in their satisfaction and retention data. Who was getting rides vs who actually was spending more. Something. If FP+ achieved Disney’s goals, they would have kept it. But as soon as the world gave them an out, they dropped it.

 

[bubbles1812]

The definition of insanity is repeating the same behaviors over and over and expecting different results.

Genie+ is the THIRD line-skip system Disney has implemented at WDW, and it's failing right out of the gate. If we're generous, and allow $1 billion of the money spent to develop MM+ for infrastructure upgrades, that leaves $3 BILLION literally pi$$ed into the wind in attempting to artificially manipulate guest behavior and to avoid adding capacity.

Systems and data analysis are great, when they're not the sole thing driving decision-making. At this point, Disney leadership are addicts and systems and data analysis are their crack.

1) They KNOW they have crowding issues...but they're still spending a fortune advertising WDW specifically
2) They KNOW they have crowding issues...and have spent $3 billion trying to avoid adding capacity (not counting $1 billion for infrastructure that was needed anyway)
3) They KNOW they have crowding issues...and still have shuttered attractions and keep some dining locations closed or operating seasonally
4) They KNOW they have crowding issues...and rather than try to actually address the capacity problem, they keep attempting to manipulate guest behavior

On top of all of the above, they're taking away things that made the parks and resorts ridiculously popular and profitable to begin with. Introduced an obvious class system - check. Less staff at call centers - check. Ridiculously bad IT - check. No more transportation from the airport - check. No more fun Mousekeeping - check. Less spontaneous entertainment around the parks/resorts - check. Worse food quality - check. Less food options - check. People having their phone in their face all day - check.

ETA: And all this doesn't take into account the ridiculousness that is calling your parks and resorts a "luxury" experience while at the same time allowing them to become so crowded that the experience suffers in a huge way.

All right… so what are you wanting Disney to do here? As I said, even if they announced 10 rides being built tomorrow (they aren’t), we wouldn’t likely see the total fruition of that for at least a decade, if not longer. All while still battling ever increasing crowds.

There is no quick fix, so the only solution I see to your problems *right now* are for Disney to continue to limit the number of people in their parks. Which is unrealistic. Thus… FP, FP+, G+.

No one can change the decisions they have made over the last 20 years. We can only look forward, and the way I see it, the line skipping systems are their workaround, whether we like it or not.

You can talk until you are blue in the face about the above, but the problem doesn’t go away tomorrow, next year, in five years, or even ten years. So I don’t begrudge people utilizing the FP systems to the best of their ability.

(Also, about that ‘class system.’ No offense meant here but people who pay more always get a better experience. #cAPiTaLIsM. The shifts by Disney to focus on their higher paying guests do not surprise me when looking through the lens of a business owner v being a fan. Do I love it? No. I can’t justify the cost of the deluxe resorts, but I get it. I’m just pragmatic that way)

 

[bubbles1812]

So they should just allow the hole they've dug for themselves to continue to get deeper?

Seems like that’s what they are electing for at the moment doesn't it? If you tell me that if I stop going, it’ll magically make them change their minds, then I’ll stop going.

I’m not trying to antagonize you here. I am mainly just accepting reality as is, for the moment, until I reach my line. I still enjoy the place, so sue me.

 

[lazyboy97o]

And I think that had absolutely nothing to do with FP+ or what Disney did or didn’t build. That Attendance increased because in general more people have more discretionary income than in the 80s or 90s, and the kids from those eras are now old enough to have kids of their own. That’s it.

I think what the actual experience did was create two tracks, as demonstrated in that video presentation. A small group that it worked so well for that they bought APs, DVC and come back frequently demanding new stuff and preferred access. And a larger group of people that thought, this is not what I was expecting, glad we already did it so we don’t have to ever come back.

The things they did with Genie, LL and ILLs that are different than FP+… Disney did for specific reasons. They were reacting to something that was showing up in their satisfaction and retention data. Who was getting rides vs who actually was spending more. Something. If FP+ achieved Disney’s goals, they would have kept it. But as soon as the world gave them an out, they dropped it.

If they had achieved their goals they wouldn’t have dropped in TRON and Ratatouille in a panic to add something as quickly as possible.

 

[lazyboy97o]

All right… so what are you wanting Disney to do here? As I said, even if they announced 10 rides being built tomorrow (they aren’t), we wouldn’t likely see the total fruition of that for at least a decade, if not longer. All while still battling ever increasing crowds.

If you make a wrong turn trying to get somewhere do you just keep going the wrong way because you’re already going the wrong way and it would take awhile to get back on course?

 

[ImperfectPixie]

(Also, about that ‘class system.’ No offense meant here but people who pay more always get a better experience. #cAPiTaLIsM. The shifts by Disney to focus on their higher paying guests do not surprise me when looking through the lens of a business owner v being a fan. Do I love it? No. I can’t justify the cost of the deluxe resorts, but I get it. I’m just pragmatic that way)

My point is that for decades, a guest was a guest. There were VIP tours if a person was so inclined, but there weren't literally fenced off areas of the parks specifically for guests willing to pay for them. They've created instances where a kid will see something and might ask "Why do they get to do that and we can't?"...that didn't exist before.