Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Disney Analyst]

Sorry - I’ve not been paying a lot of attention as I thought the only difference was pre-booking at WDW, and then being able to book a new ride once you use your first one.

But it sounds like the 2 hour rule is gone.. and it’s use one get one. Does that mean if you use your second pre-booked selection, you can then get a 2nd day of selection? Even if you haven’t used your first day of selection?

And does this mean if you cannot get any early times, and if modifying doesn’t help much, by the time you can use your first pre-booked selection, you may not be able to get much else?

 

[nickys]

Sorry - I’ve not been paying a lot of attention as I thought the only difference was pre-booking at WDW, and then being able to book a new ride once you use your first one.

But it sounds like the 2 hour rule is gone.. and it’s use one get one. Does that mean if you use your second pre-booked selection, you can then get a 2nd day of selection? Even if you haven’t used your first day of selection?

And does this mean if you cannot get any early times, and if modifying doesn’t help much, by the time you can use your first pre-booked selection, you may not be able to get much else?

Yes and yes.

But there are more drops through the day than there were with G+ . For example Tiana has several times through the day where more inventory is added.
Of course those aren’t guaranteed, but there are opportunities to get one.

 

[GoofGoof]

Full disclosure, I hate advanced bookings. It seems we're on the polar opposite of personal preference, but I'll try to take myself out of it.

How often does the average guest get 3 advanced Lighting Lanes that are worthwhile? Getting Slinky Dog, Tower and TSMM is the exception, not the rule.

By separating three of the four parks into Tiers, Disney is acknowledging that many of the Tier 2 attractions are there to add false value/capacity to the system. They can now say that every guest is guaranteed three attractions but we all know on here that not all attractions are created equal. Ironically, Disneyland and to a lesser extent DCA are better suited to handle 3 advanced bookings operationally, but their guests don't typically operate that way.

Genie +/ OG Lightning Lane was a correction on Fastpass+ because the ride count wasn't there to support 3 advanced bookings. Lightning Lane Multi Pass is a significant step backwards. It's a worse version of Fastpass+ because none of the Lightning Lane Single Passes are in the fold, and there's a price point.

Until Disney adds 4 marquee attractions to each of the four parks it simply cannot justify 3 advanced bookings per guest.

Your position on advance reservations is understandable. Some like it some don’t. I’m ok with it, but I get why some people don’t like it.

The ride capacity has not changed between this system and Genie+ so if it’s rare that most people can get 3 worthwhile reservations with this system it would have also been rare under Genie+. Without re-rides, in theory the capacity for each guest should be slightly better with this system assuming at least some people got multiples of the same ride under Genie+. Most people here seem to feel that under Genie+ it was very possible to get 3 or even a lot more worthwhile reservations. If sales don’t increase (which they might) then it should also be possible to get 3 or more worthwhile reservations under this system.

The key point is all of this is on average, it may be more casual guests will get 3 better reservations because of the pre-booking and some power users may get a lesser selection, but on average it should be the same. Just the distribution will be spread. With day of drops still being something the casual guest may not know about it’s still possible for power users to take advantage.

 

[GoofGoof]

Sorry - I’ve not been paying a lot of attention as I thought the only difference was pre-booking at WDW, and then being able to book a new ride once you use your first one.

But it sounds like the 2 hour rule is gone.. and it’s use one get one. Does that mean if you use your second pre-booked selection, you can then get a 2nd day of selection? Even if you haven’t used your first day of selection?

And does this mean if you cannot get any early times, and if modifying doesn’t help much, by the time you can use your first pre-booked selection, you may not be able to get much else?

The new rule of thumb is you can always carry 3 reservations at a time and no more than 3. Use 1 of your 1st 3 and you can add #4 and so on. You are correct that if your 1st 3 reservations were all later in the day you would have no ability to book any more until using a reservation. The system definitely does not favor a delayed arrival at the parks. In early reviews the modify option seems to be working just as well as Genie+ with most reviews I’ve seen having users able to modify into earlier times or different rides. As @nickys said the day of drops will help some as well. The evening stack plan is definitely dead.

It is a lower crowd time right now so hard to fully judge. It will be interesting to see how easy it is to modify at higher crowd times.

 

[Purduevian]

EDIT: APPARENTLY THIS IS WRONG.

Interesting side note from Mammoth's clubs new video. It does appear that you can only overlap LLMP by about 20 mins. She originally said that you should always have 3 booked and try to modify from there. However, she found a good exception to the rule in that having a less valuable LL can "block" you from modifying a different LL to a more valuable one.

The example in her video was something like:
Had a 4:30 Rat, 5:30 Soarin, and 7pm SSE

She was trying to modify the 7pm SSE into Frozen, but realized if Frozen popped up anytime between 3:50pm-6:10pm she wouldn't be able to book/see it because RAT and Soarin would block it from appearing.

So she canceled SSE and attempted to modify Soarin hoping Frozen would pop up, thus only being blocked from 3:50pm-4:10pm

 

[FigmentFan82]

I'm in WDW in about a week and my LLMP day is coming up soon, very curious to use the revised service. with 2 littles I'm glad to once again prebook 3 attractions, I feel it def lifts a weight knowing you've got at least those going into the day. Hopefully the service will work well on the day for additional experiences as well

 

[Epcot81Fan]

Amazing that people feel relieved to be able to pay in advance per person to book a couple of rides on top of their park admission.

Disney is truly succeeding in lowering expectations. That are laughing in our faces and people are lining up to pay them.

 

[GhostHost1000]

Amazing that people feel relieved to be able to pay in advance per person to book a couple of rides on top of their park admission.

Disney is truly succeeding in lowering expectations. That are laughing in our faces and people are lining up beginning to decline to pay them.

Fixed

 

[Purduevian]

Amazing that people feel relieved to be able to pay in advance per person to book a couple of rides on top of their park admission.

Disney is truly succeeding in lowering expectations. That are laughing in our faces and people are lining up to pay them.

Thats quite mean, different people have different values.

 

[Chi84]

Amazing that people feel relieved to be able to pay in advance per person to book a couple of rides on top of their park admission.

Disney is truly succeeding in lowering expectations. That are laughing in our faces and people are lining up to pay them

People who have vacations planned are moving on and dealing with reality. Not everyone has the time and energy for nonstop complaining.

No one is happy, relieved or too stupid to understand what’s going on. They’re just choosing a different way to deal with things as they are now. There’s nothing wrong with that.

 

[FigmentFan82]

Amazing that people feel relieved to be able to pay in advance per person to book a couple of rides on top of their park admission.

Disney is truly succeeding in lowering expectations. That are laughing in our faces and people are lining up to pay them.

Who is saying they are relieved to pay?
The pay system is here to stay whether you use it or not. I'm simply glad that if I use the service I can pre book 3, instead 1 at a time on the day of with Genie+.

No one is happy about paying for this, but I prefer the 3 prebooks to the way Genie+ was

 

[Epcot81Fan]

Who is saying they are relieved to pay?
The pay system is here to stay whether you use it or not. I'm simply glad that if I use the service I can pre book 3, instead 1 at a time on the day of with Genie+.

No one is happy about paying for this, but I prefer the 3 prebooks to the way Genie+ was

So Disney has lowered your expectation of what a day at a theme park requires and you are reinforcing their strategy by your purchase.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Amazing that people feel relieved to be able to pay in advance per person to book a couple of rides on top of their park admission.

Disney is truly succeeding in lowering expectations. That are laughing in our faces and people are lining up to pay them.

 

[Chi84]

So Disney has lowered your expectation of what a day at a theme park requires and you are reinforcing their strategy by your purchase.

Yes. Not everyone is willing or able to spend their day standing in long lines. What is your alternative if they’re going to WDW?

 

[Purduevian]

Yes. Not everyone is willing or able to spend their day standing in long lines. What is your alternative if they’re going to WDW?

 

[nickys]

Interesting side note from Mammoth's clubs new video. It does appear that you can only overlap LLMP by about 20 mins. She originally said that you should always have 3 booked and try to modify from there. However, she found a good exception to the rule in that having a less valuable LL can "block" you from modifying a different LL to a more valuable one.

The example in her video was something like:
Had a 4:30 Rat, 5:30 Soarin, and 7pm SSE

She was trying to modify the 7pm SSE into Frozen, but realized if Frozen popped up anytime between 3:50pm-6:10pm she wouldn't be able to book/see it because RAT and Soarin would block it from appearing.

So she canceled SSE and attempted to modify Soarin hoping Frozen would pop up, thus only being blocked from 3:50pm-4:10pm

Certainly on the day you can have 100% overlapping LLs. It seems like the overlapping rules get lifted along with the tiers and parks as soon as you tap in.

It’s also surprising to me how some of these bloggers appear not to have realised that you can get far more times than the ones you might initially be offered. If she was doing this in the parks she missed a trick. There again it was the same for FP+. - people just looked at the times that popped up and thought those half dozen times were all that they could choose.

 

[Purduevian]

Certainly on the day you can have 100% overlapping LLs. It seems like the overlapping rules get lifted along with the tiers and parks as soon as you tap in.

It’s also surprising to me how some of these bloggers appear not to have realised that you can get far more times than the ones you might initially be offered. If she was doing this in the parks she missed a trick. There again it was the same for FP+. - people just looked at the times that popped up and thought those half dozen times were all that they could choose.

Ok so it sounds like she was misinformed. I think it might be because her prebooks weren't allowed to overlap she assumed none of the LLMP could be overlapped throughout the day.

I still pity the first time WDW visitor that pre-books a 9am mission space, 9:40am RAT, and a 10:20am Guardians SPLL

 

[GoofGoof]

Amazing that people feel relieved to be able to pay in advance per person to book a couple of rides on top of their park admission.

Disney is truly succeeding in lowering expectations. That are laughing in our faces and people are lining up to pay them.

Both systems required you to pay. One of the major difference between Genie+ and this system is the pre-booking. So someone saying they feel relieved to have the 3 reservations in hand at the start of the day is a comparison to Genie+ and has nothing to do with the cost which is mostly the same. I doubt anyone is saying I prefer this system where I pay and get 3 advance reservations to the free FP+ service from 2019. Of course we’d rather pay less or nothing. What theme park exists these days that has a free line skip system? Is Universal laughing in our faces too when they charge for Express Pass?

 

[nickys]

Ok so it sounds like she was misinformed. I think it might be because her prebooks weren't allowed to overlap she assumed none of the LLMP could be overlapped throughout the day.

I still pity the first time WDW visitor that pre-books a 9am mission space, 9:40am RAT, and a 10:20am Guardians SPLL

Not sure what the problem is with those times, except they missed their 3rd one.

As soon as they tap into MS they could try and look for FEA. If it wasn’t available they could book anything that was and look to modify it. And again with Rat. Soarin would still be available, LwtL, SE and Nemo.

 

[FigmentFan82]

So Disney has lowered your expectation of what a day at a theme park requires and you are reinforcing their strategy by your purchase.

Nope. This is the reality of the current park system. Pay to play or don't. I've got littles that don't have the patience of older kids, therefore I'm using a service they currently offer.