Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[GhostHost1000]

I think in general FP+ availability opened up for even the hardest to get attractions at about day 4 or 5. The LLSP attractions are pulled out of the system as are meet and greets, but the system is also paywalled and has more tiering.

If LLMP looks significantly worse than that, I’m thinking there has to be less inventory available. It shouldn’t be behaving that much worse, I wouldn’t think.

Thinking maybe using and them booking another… holding onto 3 LLs all day is what hurts availability during the day.

How are people doing using the modify function. Are they refreshing and finding most things pop up at some point

 

[Disstevefan1]

The fact that Disney brought back pre-booking due to guest feedback suggests that more guests prefer pre-booking.

We think Disney is responding to guest feedback.

Disney does what Disney does, most of the time NOT in response to guest feedback.

We do not know why Disney did this. My guess is the 7 day thing for onsite is a onsite perk to get folks to book rooms.

 

[JAB]

We think Disney is responding to guest feedback.

Disney does what Disney does, most of the time NOT in response to guest feedback.

We do not know why Disney did this. My guess is the 7 day thing for onsite is a onsite perk to get folks to book rooms.

This is a quote from the announcement...

"At Walt Disney World, guests have told us they would prefer to have the option to do more of their planning before their theme park day. So, this summer we will make changes to our Disney Genie+ service and individual Lightning Lane entry, including new ways to plan ahead."

Sure that could just be marketing spin, but regardless, Disney did actually say it was in response to guest feedback, so it's not just us speculating.

 

[Disstevefan1]

This is a quote from the announcement...

"At Walt Disney World, guests have told us they would prefer to have the option to do more of their planning before their theme park day. So, this summer we will make changes to our Disney Genie+ service and individual Lightning Lane entry, including new ways to plan ahead."

Sure that could just be marketing spin, but regardless, Disney did actually say it was in response to guest feedback, so it's not just us speculating.

Yes, Disney always says what they do is in response to guest feedback, like getting rid of Magical Express

Forgive me, my trust in the company is lost. It took many decades, but the trust is lost.

 

[lentesta]

That's not bad at all. I've seen Soarin' regularly have availability within an hour. We're going to need more than a week's worth of data to truly see the same day impact, but if they're tweaking availability to allow for more same day flexibility, I'll absolutely welcome that change.

I'd like to see @lentesta weigh in on this.

As I said last week, I don't think anything we saw then is what Disney intended.

I assume there's an all-hands-on-deck exercise going on now to figure out what capacity should be offered each day in advance. My guess is we'll see something in about a week. (And I have no special insight into what's going on behind the scenes.)

In anticipation of this, we've continued counting the number of guests getting in the Lightning Lane and Standby lines at various attractions. So we'll be able to measure changes pretty easily.

 

[Saskdw]

We think Disney is responding to guest feedback.

Disney does what Disney does, most of the time NOT in response to guest feedback.

We do not know why Disney did this. My guess is the 7 day thing for onsite is a onsite perk to get folks to book rooms.

I think they hit the wall for onsite guests.

They have been slowly taking away the perks of staying onsite for years while at the same time raising the prices. Now the resorts are empty and they are scrambling to come up with ways to fill them.

 

[easyrowrdw]

I was saying 7 days from your trip, as you start booking the new system, there will not be a lot of availability for the first seven days of peoples trips because people with 8+ day trips have already booked their full stay before most people will ever get to even see what is available.

The hope is that with less people using the system and no rerides eating up day of inventory this won't be as big of a problem.

I am not convinced of that yet but will gladly eat my words if it turns out fine.

If you can’t get decent bookings unless you’re on an 8+ day trip that will be absurd and I will retract every positive thing I've ever said about this system lol

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

Yes, Disney always says what they do is in response to guest feedback, like getting rid of Magical Express

Forgive me, my trust in the company is lost. It took many decades, but the trust is lost.

They make a ton of negative changes when it comes to guest experience, but they’re almost always in the form of either cost cutting measures or new revenue generating activities, which I don’t personally think makes sense to categorize the change from G+/ILL to LLMP/SP under. If you do file this under one of those categories, I can see why it makes less sense to come to the conclusion that they’re doing this because they think people like it better.

This is why I think they must have reason to believe a prebooking system like this one is most desirable to most guests - or at least their higher spending guests. They could have tweaked Genie+ to allow a resort guest advantage without the ability to pre book and hold 3 at once. That they chose to forego those options and opt for the prebooked 3 instead tells me the likeliest scenario is they think a scheduled 3 leads to higher guest spending. So either guests happier with the system, or happier guests in general.

I don’t trust them either. When I say I think this change reflects guest satisfaction I don’t mean in an altruistic kind of way.

 

[burt+sal]

I just don't see how this new one changes much of that though which is where my confusion comes in. It looks like people are just more comfortable with it because it is FP+ part 2 instead of it providing any real benefit.

Look, it is the system we have so in that sense, yes, we should all move on and deal with what is in front of us but that doesn't change that it just made the trip experience worse for anyone who isn't in one of three very specific groups. The first being onsite, longer than 7 day stays. The second is what I would call "excessive planners" who need to have as much mapped out as possible. Finally, those that are just happy with 1 T1 and 2 T2.

Who knows, maybe those groups outnumber everyone else but it doesn't seem like it to me which would mean they just made it worse for guests who don't like to plan as much, are staying onsite for one week or less, are staying offsite, are day guests or locals (AP holders in particular). So, likely most of their visitors.

It seems like you still have to wake up at 7am to get a good time for SDD. It's just that now, you have to wake up at 7am a week before your vacation starts. I view that as an improvement to waking up at 7am on vacation.

 

[DCBaker]

I believe you can simply buy it without pre-booking any.

That’s what DVC member services are doing for international members.

On the guest side, you do have to select one from either Tier 1, or in the case of Animal Kingdom, any attraction, before the continue button at the bottom activates to purchase:

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Mammoth Club put out a great video showing how to use LLMP - to prebook and then utilize during the day

They booked 2 days in advance and got decent options (though more later in the day) but then day-of they used the modify feature and a ton more availability came up and they were able to get on a ton. Started at MK and then hopped to DHS

So I definitely feel like inventory for the preselection is a lot lower but they release a ton during the day and just keep checking on the modify screen (or "fiddle faddle" as they call it). Just don't get discouraged if the preselections look a bit sparse (obviously don't buy it if there is nothing there you really want)

 

[C33Mom]

The initial selections you see when pre-booking are held for you for 5 minutes and no one else can book them, so there should be no risk of losing them.

Apologies if this was covered earlier but if you’re on site for a week, do you purchase one day at a time or can you put them all in your cart and check out at once? Also does the next day forward just suddenly become available at 7AM or do you need to refresh the app, etc?

I think in general FP+ availability opened up for even the hardest to get attractions at about day 4 or 5. The LLSP attractions are pulled out of the system as are meet and greets, but the system is also paywalled and has more tiering.

If LLMP looks significantly worse than that, I’m thinking there has to be less inventory available. It shouldn’t be behaving that much worse, I wouldn’t think.

I think LLMP could be much worse for resort guests because before they had a 30 day head start but now they only have a 4 day head start, and offsite guests with long tickets can book 14+3 days out. As (high spending) on site deluxe resort guests with APs (who make several 3-5 day trips a year) I’m worried our options on our first days will be extreme slim pickings, and then I’ll either have to wake around 7 and spring out of bed to modify and/or rope drop. Nothing about this change appears very positive…but keeping an open mind with low expectations for our trip next month.

It seems like you still have to wake up at 7am to get a good time for SDD. It's just that now, you have to wake up at 7am a week before your vacation starts. I view that as an improvement to waking up at 7am on vacation.

For those of us on the west coast, we are waking at 4AM the week before our vacation (fine) but then we also have to wake early to rope drop and/or modify to get more than 1-3 good rides.

Mammoth Club put out a great video showing how to use LLMP - to prebook and then utilize during the day.

Where would one find such video? YT? Insta?

 

[JAB]

Apologies if this was covered earlier but if you’re on site for a week, do you purchase one day at a time or can you put them all in your cart and check out at once? Also does the next day forward just suddenly become available at 7AM or do you need to refresh the app, etc?

From everything I've seen, it's a separate transaction for each day. You can buy LL-MP and both LL-SPs for a day in one transaction, though.

Where would one find such video? YT? Insta?

Mammoth Club on YouTube.

 

[GoofGoof]

It seems like you still have to wake up at 7am to get a good time for SDD. It's just that now, you have to wake up at 7am a week before your vacation starts. I view that as an improvement to waking up at 7am on vacation.

And it’s one time at 7am a week before your vacation instead of every day at 7am. So if you have a 10 day park ticket that’s 9 less days on the app at 7am booking stuff. Big improvement there.

 

[Splash4eva]

$39 is the high end of the range. If it’s that high, it’s an incredibly busy day. Some Genie+ users got less than even 3 those days, proof being Disney’s own disclaimer they had to add on.

I agree with you, it’s terrible. $39 for Genie+ and LLMP are both a turn off for me. They have a desirable capacity issue and they’re attempting fix the bottom and average experiences by shifting things around. That in no way means any of it is all that great.

I will say this anyone who used Genie+ on ANY given day and were only able to get 1-2 rides are not breathing the same air the rest of us are….

 

[Doberge]

There's been some overlap discussion. I've had the same experience as others that system does not allow overlapping when it spits out an initial recommendation for times, but modifications are immediately allowed before even confirming and paying. The best time to modify is before paying because all three selections can be modified together faster, but if making changes after buying then modifications can only be made one at a time.

When modifying it appears that max overlap for pre-planning is 15 or 20 minutes. Unsure if this holds same-day.

And something to consider...

I learned that dining and LL systems are not on the same level. The dining system is more rudimentary and does not scan for other non dining reservations like LL but the LL system *does* cross check for other reservations. You'll get flagged for trying to book two dining reservations too close together but not for booking dining close to a LL.

In practice this means that when one has a dining reservation then the LL system will not offer LL times for at least 60 minutes after the dining reservation time. In my experience it was a 70 minute block. Before a reservation it looks one may be able to book a LL as soon as 40 minutes before a reservation. I wasn't able to book closer but we may be able to group think this eventually to figure out the buffer for LL before/after a dining reservation.

But in reverse when one has a LL booked first and then later one wants to add a dining reservation that would overlap, that should *not* be an issue.

Was this a thing with Genie+ as well? I don't remember.

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

I will say this anyone who used Genie+ on ANY given day and were only able to get 1-2 rides are not breathing the same air the rest of us are….

Yeah it certainly would have taken work to be that terrible at every park on any given day. I think it’s probably a perfect storm of a high crowd day, poor understanding of the system, specific parks being worse than others, and group specific factors that restrict flexibility on both times and attraction choices (ie. Mission Space is a no go). I also think Disneys disclaimer of 2-3 likely was referring to desirable attractions, because a poor understanding of the system probably wasn’t poor enough for someone to be jazzed about Imagination availability lasting all day. If someone was actually getting 1 though, I imagine it has a lot to do with availability being pushed way late in the day and not being able to make what they managed to book.

At the end of the day though, that poor understanding of the system was vital for other people to have a good day.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Where would one find such video? YT? Insta?

 

[C33Mom]

OMG, it’s 90m…it might actually be everything anybody could ever possibly need to know.

 

[Dranth]

What % of people do you think actually go for 10+ days like we do?
I will be surprised if rides are sold out at day 6 or 7 of a trip most times of the year.

A few will be sold out or at least have bad times.

As for what percentage, I really don't even have a good guess except it has to be a minority given how many of WDW guests are from the US which averages less vacation time than other countries and locals which wouldn't be going for longer stays nearly as often.