SteamboatJoe
Well-Known Member
From an operations planning and budgeting perspective, I would think they want as many people using it as possible.
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Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
DisDude33
Well-Known Member
I can confirm that most conversations with Media Relations end this way.
SteamboatJoe
Well-Known Member
I had a family member who worked for a chain style business and was promoted to "Labor Czar" at one point. His whole job was to build, refine, and run a matrix that basically told the company how to schedule as few people as possible while still maximing profit. To a degree it makes sense to want to be efficient, but its really easy to go too far with it and ignore the long-term negative consequences the service reduction (coupled with cheaper quality product) will have. That cow eventually stops giving milk but, hey, that's the next guys problem. This quarter looks great.
I never realized what Universals FastPass system was like compared to Disneys. HOLY 
! Disneys looks like it was designed by the same people who design health insurance plans....Universals looks like...a theme park. I cannot understand how having to do 6 months of pre-planning and pre-booking and deciding which ride you want to ride months before you ever get there is an acceptable part of a vacation. Disney has lost their damn minds.
! Disneys looks like it was designed by the same people who design health insurance plans....Universals looks like...a theme park. I cannot understand how having to do 6 months of pre-planning and pre-booking and deciding which ride you want to ride months before you ever get there is an acceptable part of a vacation. Disney has lost their damn minds.
the_rich
Well-Known Member
Firstly its 7 days not months. Secondly, universals pass is between 90 and 320 dollars per person. Way fewer people are using it.I never realized what Universals FastPass system was like compared to Disneys. HOLY
Why not simplify the process even more? 4 tiers of attractions for 2 of the parks, with the third having rotating tiers based on demand, and Animal Kingdom having just its one attraction. Regardless, I'm just glad I can give Disney more of my money before I arrive on property-gives you that magical feeling like you’re actually there spending money.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
A few things that aren't being emphasized but appear to be big deals / need clarification:
- It looks like the 120 minute rule is gone. To offset this, it looks like you will have 3 rolling Lightning Lanes per day
- Resort guests can reserve 7 days out + up to 14 days depending on the length of their trip. Non-resort guests can only book 3 days out with no "length of trip" extension. That means that for guests staying offsite they're still going to have to do the 7 AM wakeup call multiple times and some of those times are going to be on your trip.
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hopemax
Well-Known Member
Catching up on this thread, so forgive me if I repeat what others have said...
When I first saw the news, I thought, "This will be great for the people who already know the tricks and don't really need any more help, and it will come at the expense of people who don't "get" Disney before they arrive and have a steep learning curve when they get here."
What I disliked about FP+ is it didn't allow people to make mistakes. Paper FP, and Genie+ if you really mess up your first day. Pick the wrong rides, or the wrong times, or nothing, you could talk with a Guest Services person, learn, and tomorrow was a new day. 3 or 7 days is an improvement over 60 days, but it's still if you mess up your Day 1, your Day 2 and Day 3 will still be unsuccessful because you would expect the Tier 1 rides to be long gone.
I'm sure frequent guests have been giving Disney an earful about missing the ability to pre-book, but Disney's problems also include converting new guests to repeat guests, and IMO, this makes it harder for the first timers, more casual (not commando types) Disney wants to come back.
Unless you have a date-based ticket:
- Guests with date-based theme park tickets (which require the Guest to choose a start date at the time of purchase) can purchase 3 days before the first day of their ticket, for the total number of valid admission days on their ticket.
You're right about the ILL being able to be done in advance--confused myself. As for the other, the modifying times function of FP+ was abysmal. It was just random times picked from pools. You could keep refreshing to try to get something to your liking, but I like being able to track availability throughout the day so that I can understand what is running out and what isn't. "Stacking" LLs was a thing that was very convenient and it was easy to understand how to maximize what you could get. It had more visibility to it.
Disgruntled Walt
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
For someone who desperately wants to return to 2013 Fastpass, this doesn’t sound like an improvement. Am I wrong?
Waters Back Side
Well-Known Member
Forgove me if asked already, What happens if the 3 rides you pick 7 days on advance are all for late in the day? Suppose 5pm, 6pm and 7pm. Based on the new system you can only select another after you redeem your first ride. So you can't pick another until after the 5pm ride is redeemed? Seems the best way to get a 4th ride and 4th etc and for that mattera more popular first tier one, you'd need to make your choices for earlier in day. No?
It almost seems as though even though you get 3 guaranteed choices, eliminating the 2 hour rule cna have some disadvantages
It almost seems as though even though you get 3 guaranteed choices, eliminating the 2 hour rule cna have some disadvantages
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Marionnette
Well-Known Member
That's my take away. Without the 120-minute rule, you cannot stack LL for later in the day. You can have 3 LL at any given time but can't get another until you use the first one.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
Excellent, I didn't see that.
SingleRider
Well-Known Member
Which basically further screws over APs who they relied on when the parks reopened. Now even offsite day tickets have an advantage over us for every day beyond their first one.
Waters Back Side
Well-Known Member
Not to mention even if you did not want to stack, the current way even though 1 at a time I can pick a ride for 8pm at 7am and still get a choice 2 hours after the park opens.
The new system would be fine of they still allowed the 2 hour rule with 3 pre selected.
The new system would be fine of they still allowed the 2 hour rule with 3 pre selected.
Dranth
Well-Known Member
Yep, unless some information hasn't been released yet. So, you either pick early to start getting new choices right away or pick late morning and take advantage of lower standby lines before your selections kick in. Both methods worked very well in the past and I see no reason they wouldn't again.
If you are stuck with or purposely pick later times you are just screwed as there is no mechanism to add another until you use an existing one at which point there is unlikely to be much inventory left.
I think this may blow up in their face, rather spectacularly. Genie has been $40 before right? Family of 4 $120 a day people may cringe and press the button, but now you buy your 5 days all at once? That’s $600, that’s going to make a lot more eyes pop (human psychology and why everyone is moving to nickel and diming/subscription models) they may see less people booking this. I’m most interested to see the availability, if you can get 7-10 hits out of this I may start buying it. We’ll see how popular it is, the less people who buy, the more hits you get. Allowing rerides and/or ending ILLs would have made it much more palatable.