Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[JD80]

On our recent Universal trip we spent 3 nights at our favorite resort Coronado Springs and we did one park day at AK our favorite park. I wanted to try the G+ out and just see how it worked to evaluate whether we would do an entire vacation at Disney.

I was able to figure it out pretty quick and we got to do everything we wanted. But, i spent a ton of time modifying times to get them when we wanted. I feel like on a busy day you have to get your first time in at 7am to start the process? I don't suspect you can roll out of bed at 10am and get everything you want?

This particular day wasn't that busy, so it might have worked out, but when you spend $15K on a 2 week vacation you aren't going take a chance on missing out.

The only value of G+ at AK is to secure a LL for Navi in the morning.

On a normal busy day (not a holiday busy day) there are only a few rides that "sell out" quickly for example here's MK today:

Only mine train is sold out at 9AM. And Space/Jungle Cruise/Pan are the rides that get pushed back into the afternoon on a regular basis. So if you were to wake up at 9am, instead of 7am, the only thing not available to you that day was Mine Train. And by waking up so late, you probably missed out on 1 LL unless you pick something you can easily check in for and then rebook the next LL.

 

[JD80]

I don't agree.
The reason they brought in FP+ in the first place was to accomodate and attract the vacationers like us who don't want to spend their vacation like a team of navy seals on a mission. They realized they were missing the boat on those people and those people typically the type who spend more money.

It was working fine and then they blew it up with G+.

G+ is not like navy seals on a mission unless you use it like that like @Trauma who micro manages everything down to the minute for perfect touring execution. But you don't have to. I've done both nutty G+ planning and relaxed and the results were nearly the same.

Also, the old FP system was literally a team of kids running around the park getting tickets. The newer FP+ system with refreshing was very similar to what Trauma is describing about micro modifying LL times.

Nothing is new here. All these systems can be used lazily or with intense functionality to get the most out of it. It's up to the user and their touring style.

Only difference is that G+ costs money now.

 

[JD80]

I’m probably going to try it on my DHS evenings on my next trip. If I can stack them so that I can hit most of the heavy hitters it will be worth it. It’s pointless in the morning at DHS and not needed elsewhere, provided you have EE.

Looking forward to those nights, can’t wait to see F! again and the studios is always more relaxed then am.

If it's not an abnormal day, you can. At 7AM prioritize Slinky then Rise. Then at the first 2 hour mark get ToT then Falcon then MMRR. Grab whatever time you can get and then modify it after if you happen to get something early in the day where you won't be there.

 

[Saskdw]

Not everyone likes to sleep in and some are just naturally up at 6am everyday anyway. I loved the FP+ system and I was very apprehensive of the G+ system but it worked very well for us. Even on the day we did sleep in we used G+ at MK and it worked well. We did not get to the parks until around 10:30ish and used G+ just fine.


You don't have to spend all day doing that. Ride a ride, refresh, choose a new ride, and put your phone in your pocket. And even if they did not have G+ the idea that you can go to the parks and not use your phone at all is a bit of a stretch. Aside from G+ we used phones to mobile order, scan various things in the parks, take photos, check upcoming weather, see where each other were in the parks with tracking apps, etc. Of course you could still go to the parks and not take your phone. That is a choice that you still have today. I wouldn't recommend it but you can still do that if you choose.


Then I doubt you'll ever be back to Disney again and will spend your time at Universal.

Our last full WDW vacation was in 2016. We were there for 2 weeks in early December.

Before we ever arrived we had our 3 FP+ scheduled for all day of our park days and our dining reservations made for each day. Trip was booked with "Free Dining" back when they actually had the full dining pkg with that promo.
The only reason I would need my phone would be to take photos.
All transactions were made with magic band. Some days I left the resort with nothing but my magic and a little cash in my pocket just in case I needed it. That was amazing to be able to vacation like that. Disney made it perfect.

Then for some reason they completely screwed it up.

I do agree it would be tough to not have your phone with you now. They want everything tied to your phone. I'm actually surprised they haven't cancelled magic bands.

 

[Saskdw]

G+ is not like navy seals on a mission unless you use it like that like @Trauma who micro manages everything down to the minute for perfect touring execution. But you don't have to. I've done both nutty G+ planning and relaxed and the results were nearly the same.

Also, the old FP system was literally a team of kids running around the park getting tickets. The newer FP+ system with refreshing was very similar to what Trauma is describing about micro modifying LL times.

Nothing is new here. All these systems can be used lazily or with intense functionality to get the most out of it. It's up to the user and their touring style.

Only difference is that G+ costs money now.

So if I roll out of bed at 10am I will still get a LL for RotR, Slinky, and G+ for all the other rides?

 

[JD80]

Our last full WDW vacation was in 2016. We were there for 2 weeks in early December.

Before we ever arrived we had our 3 FP+ scheduled for all day of our park days and our dining reservations made for each day. Trip was booked with "Free Dining" back when they actually had the full dining pkg with that promo.
The only reason I would need my phone would be to take photos.
All transactions were made with magic band. Some days I left the resort with nothing but my magic and a little cash in my pocket just in case I needed it. That was amazing to be able to vacation like that. Disney made it perfect.

Then for some reason they completely screwed it up.

I do agree it would be tough to not have your phone with you now. They want everything tied to your phone. I'm actually surprised they haven't cancelled magic bands.

So you completely under-utilized FP+ only using 3. If all you wanted was three rides, you could get three rides easy and wake up at noon right now.

 

[JD80]

So if I roll out of bed at 10am I will still get a LL for RotR, Slinky, and G+ for all the other rides?

Maybe? Depends on the day:

I mean it's antidotal evidence, but my friend got a Slinky Dog 8PM+ return time in the early afternoon during his trip in early December the one day he checked since he was hopping to DHS.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I don't agree.
The reason they brought in FP+ in the first place was to accomodate and attract the vacationers like us who don't want to spend their vacation like a team of navy seals on a mission. They realized they were missing the boat on those people and those people typically the type who spend more money.

It was working fine and then they blew it up with G+.

Fastpass was a way of getting people out of line and into retail scenarios

Fastpass+ was a gamble on a distribution system using their IT that DID NOT WORK for Disney’s goals

Genie is damage control to try and gloss over their capacity issues


Fastpass+ is gone. It cannot and will not come back

I’m amazed at how we keep seeing it dug up.

THEY killed it. First real chance - in Disneys terms - they could do it. It’s not coming back. They don’t move “quickly”…and when something dies in 6 years…it was essentially DOA.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Yeah you “could” do things like this.

However if you want to actually experience the attractions you need to be refreshing every second of the day.

It would take me on average 15-20 minutes of refreshing constantly to move a ride time up to now. That would usually be done while walking towards it.

If you are trying to maximize G+ I can’t think of I single time after 9am you phone should be in your pocket unless you are on a ride.

I hear you…but it’s not quite that bad.

I think you can wiggle around this a little…but not much.

The other thing is sitdowns play into it heavily…blunted now because no dining plans stupidity.
If they bring that back…it won’t work. Which is probably why they haven’t

 

[Chi84]

Our last full WDW vacation was in 2016. We were there for 2 weeks in early December.

Before we ever arrived we had our 3 FP+ scheduled for all day of our park days and our dining reservations made for each day. Trip was booked with "Free Dining" back when they actually had the full dining pkg with that promo.
The only reason I would need my phone would be to take photos.
All transactions were made with magic band. Some days I left the resort with nothing but my magic and a little cash in my pocket just in case I needed it. That was amazing to be able to vacation like that. Disney made it perfect.

Then for some reason they completely screwed it up.

I do agree it would be tough to not have your phone with you now. They want everything tied to your phone. I'm actually surprised they haven't cancelled magic bands.

They wanted to monetize the system. FP+ was perfect for us too (for the reasons you stated) and I would have preferred if they just charged for it.

That said, I've used Genie+/ILLs on four trips now and it's still possible to have a pretty great time at WDW without the navy seals on a mission thing. Two things are non-negotiable under the new system though; you need to start early and you need your phone. The second of these two is society-wide and will never change. I have some hope that the 7 am start may get modified somehow along the way.

On our last trip (just two of us) we were able to do everything we wanted - I calculated that it cost us around $200 more in total to do what we used to do free with FP+.

How well Genie+ works for you depends very much on how you like to vacation - the same was true for FP+. It's hard for people to think outside their own experience, which is why people end up accusing others of being lazy (on vacation lol), wasting money, wasting time, etc. None of these systems is the end of the world; it's just up to the guest to decide if and to what extent they want to use them and whether or not they make a WDW vacation no longer worth it. The answers will be different for everyone.

 

[Saskdw]

They wanted to monetize the system. FP+ was perfect for use too (for the reasons you stated) and I would have preferred if they just charged for it.

That said, I've used Genie+/ILLs on four trips now and it's still possible to have a pretty great time at WDW without the navy seals on a mission thing. Two things are non-negotiable under the new system though; you need to start early and you need your phone. The second of these two is society-wide and will never change. I have some hope that the 7 am start may get modified somehow along the way.

On our last trip (just two of us) we were able to do everything we wanted - I calculated that it cost us around $200 more in total to do what we used to do free with FP+.

How well Genie+ works for you depends very much on how you like to vacation - the same was true for FP+. It's hard for people to think outside their own experience, which is why people end up accusing others of being lazy (on vacation lol), wasting money, wasting time, etc. None of these systems is the end of the world; it's just up to the guest to decide if and to what extent they want to use them and whether or not they make a WDW vacation no longer worth it. The answers will be different for everyone.

The phone part I understand. The days of leaving my phone in the safe at the resort are done. I can live with that.
They just need to find away to modify this system to make the 7am start unnecessary. Maybe they hold back availability to later times or something.

I'm surprised there isn't a way to "pay extra" to pre reserve a LL for rides like RotR.

The biggest problem is booking an expensive vacation and having no guarantee that you will get ride all the headliners without a 3 hour wait. With FP+ that was all handled long before we arrived.

We all agree the pricing is getting ridiculous, but you can't judge the value if you don't know for sure what you will get to do.

Expecting all resort guests to get out of bed at 7am doesn't seem like a good business model for a vacation resort.

 

[JD80]

With tiered FP+ at DHS you wouldn't have been able to get all the rides you wanted anyway.

 

[Chi84]

With tiered FP+ at DHS you wouldn't have been able to get all the rides you wanted anyway.

Sure you could, just not on the same day. As I said earlier, the value of different systems depends heavily on how you vacation.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

With tiered FP+ at DHS you wouldn't have been able to get all the rides you wanted anyway.

Our last family trip was January 2020. That was the crazy time when Tier 1 was all the rides and Tier 2 was all the shows I know our first 3 FPs were Slinky, Voyage of the Little Mermaid and the Frozen Sing a Long. After that, I know we got Tower (just for me and my husband) and Alien Swirling Saucers. Mix in breakfast at Hollywood and Vine and meeting a few characters, and my kids were done for the day. My poor husband didn’t even get to ride Rise because it was VQ and his number was never called Hoping this March is more successful!

 

[JD80]

Our last family trip was January 2020. That was the crazy time when Tier 1 was all the rides and Tier 2 was all the shows I know our first 3 FPs were Slinky, Voyage of the Little Mermaid and the Frozen Sing a Long. After that, I know we got Tower (just for me and my husband) and Alien Swirling Saucers. Mix in breakfast at Hollywood and Vine and meeting a few characters, and my kids were done for the day. My poor husband didn’t even get to ride Rise because it was VQ and his number was never called Hoping this March is more successful!

You can always pay for Rise.

 

[DCBaker]

The price for Genie+ has dropped back down to $17 today.

 

[nickys]

They wanted to monetize the system. FP+ was perfect for us too (for the reasons you stated) and I would have preferred if they just charged for it.

That said, I've used Genie+/ILLs on four trips now and it's still possible to have a pretty great time at WDW without the navy seals on a mission thing. Two things are non-negotiable under the new system though; you need to start early and you need your phone. The second of these two is society-wide and will never change. I have some hope that the 7 am start may get modified somehow along the way.

On our last trip (just two of us) we were able to do everything we wanted - I calculated that it cost us around $200 more in total to do what we used to do free with FP+.

How well Genie+ works for you depends very much on how you like to vacation - the same was true for FP+. It's hard for people to think outside their own experience, which is why people end up accusing others of being lazy (on vacation lol), wasting money, wasting time, etc. None of these systems is the end of the world; it's just up to the guest to decide if and to what extent they want to use them and whether or not they make a WDW vacation no longer worth it. The answers will be different for everyone.

Having now experienced it I’m even more in agreement with you on this. I personally loved FP+, and used it to get far more than the 3 initial rides on some (not all) days.

That said I made G+ work. We agreed the night before what our priorities were and I worked out what order we should book them in. Some days I relied on waking up which meant it was 7:30 or so before booking the first one. That was fine though because we are later park-goers. Other days I did have an alarm set to get certain rides (ILL or G+).

We often booked a G+ and pushed it later until it suited us. Just occasionally we missed that chance and the time would jump from say noon to 6pm. I set an alarm for the next booking time if we were stacking, otherwise we booked in the queue after tapping in or on the way out of a ride.

And whilst I preferred FP+ personally, I also recognise that for guests staying offsite or who booked last minute, FP+ was a less beneficial experience than it was for onsite, early booking guests.

 

[tanc]

I don't know if there's much to back up the claim, but I heard Disney apparently was replacing IT workers with contractors. Apparently they are contracted for 18 months and sort of explain some unmagical things about Genie.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

I don't know if there's much to back up the claim, but I heard Disney apparently was replacing IT workers with contractors. Apparently they are contracted for 18 months and sort of explain some unmagical things about Genie.

I don’t know about replacing, but I know there are currently new IT people that are contracted

 

[GhostHost1000]

Ok the 2 nighttime shows are going away and one being replaced by the previous better one, how much longer until FP+ returns? Asking for a friend