Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Another thing this chart clearly indicates, IMO, is that Jungle Cruise is not long for this new Disney World. I assumed it had more mid tier capacity, but people are so inefficient in getting themselves into the boats, if that's in the ballpark... wow. Not even Peter Pan level. And the labor costs. No wonder there are these inklings that could lead to Moana going in there.

All the reasons given for scrapping 20,000 Leagues... apply to Jungle Cruise too. That it's lasted this long is remarkable.

But part of me still thinks they don't have it in them to remove it completely.
 

Tha Realest

Well-Known Member
All the reasons given for scrapping 20,000 Leagues... apply to Jungle Cruise too. That it's lasted this long is remarkable.

But part of me still thinks they don't have it in them to remove it completely.
It’ll stay in DL likely for historical reasons (same with their rivers)

I can see it becoming Moana land in WDW.
 

nickys

Premium Member
I thought it was always a 15 min grace period. Anything after that was up to the CM. The claim in the video is anything within 2 hours of the end time, the light just lights up green like you were on time.
Officially it’s a 15 minute grace period.

In practice though, the 2 hr grace period after the end time was in effect for G+ and is still in effect for LLs. And yes, the light turns green.
 

Purduevian

Well-Known Member
That’s what CMs will tell you. Or what Plan Disney might say. 😁
Gottcha, I did a quick google search and lots of planning sites give the 15 mins, but I couldn't see anything on it from Disney.
So:
Officially official: Be on time
Unofficially official: 15 min grace period
In practice: 2 hour grace period
Reality: Unlimited grace period at CM discretion
 
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co10064

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Used the new system today at DHS and have surprisingly been able to redeem all the multi-pass rides by now (1:45pm local time). I definitely prefer this to system to Genie+, but I may have had a different experience if I was staying off-property.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
FP and Genie+ has always been 5 minutes early and 15 minutes late.

The same for VQs and ILL.

EXCEPT... GotG:CR stopped caring how late you were for ILL or VQ. 2 hours. 5 hours. They didn't care. Even if other VQ rides did care. Especially TRON, which was super strict. Unless you started to cry in front of the CM.

Now?!... who knows. It's cats and dogs living together.
 

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
I suspect that loophole will now be closed.
I don't really see how they can close the loophole of allowing late LL use, at least not while:
1. they are still using BG
2. rides are unreliable
3. TS meal lengths are variable in a way that is unpredictable
4. we don't control our LL times.

When booking the 3 initial passes, users don't get to choose return times, they are assigned. users are allowed to shuffle the times, and you can make them a bit later if you want, but as soon as you try to change them MDE shuffles the return times in a way that is somewhat random, and gives you later/worse return times with every shuffle.

Once you are in the parks, you have no control over return times. Again, users can refresh, but the times assigned are random.

The earliest time I could get for Tiana's was 3:30pm, and that was booking LL's exactly at 7am at 7days out. I would have much preferred an earlier time. I really wanted to be out of MK. After agreeing, I attempted (7days out at 7:01am) to refresh for an earlier pass, and all I got was much worse times, like 7:45pm, and even late PM options dried up within a few minutes.
 

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
FP and Genie+ has always been 5 minutes early and 15 minutes late.

The same for VQs and ILL.

EXCEPT... GotG:CR stopped caring how late you were for ILL or VQ. 2 hours. 5 hours. They didn't care. Even if other VQ rides did care. Especially TRON, which was super strict. Unless you started to cry in front of the CM.

Now?!... who knows. It's cats and dogs living together.
Right, and since we don't know when our BG will be called, and we have so little control over our LL return times, WDW has to allow a significant amount of grace.

The day I was there Tiana's had some down time, so when it reopened we got in line, but we also had LL passes for 3 other rides. When we got in line for Tiana, according to the posted wait, we should have been okay to use our next LL, but then Tiana's took so stinking long, that we missed our next LL window entirely (SpaceMtn.?)

By the time we got off Tiana's, we were well into the time window of our NEXT LL, which I think was Pirates, so we used Pirates first.

It was afternoon in August, so plenty hot outside, and we had planned to take an afternoon break. Crossing the park twice wasn't going to happen.

This is just one example when something beyond our control caused us to miss a LL window entirely. Early on, I tried to change some of the LL times, but it isn't feasible because there's a dearth of availability.
 

wdisney9000

Truindenashendubapreser
Premium Member
Back in the original FP days I could rope drop Epcot, ride Soarin' and TT twice each. Grab breakfast at Sunshine Seasons after Soarin #2, ride SSE and leave by 11:30. I don't know if that's possible with the current LL system. If it is, now it costs extra while I used to do it for free.

To hit that rate you've got to be in very short queues. For some rides like RotR, I've ridden 3x back to back during slow times (not using LL) but it takes almost 2 hours due to the queue length just to walk through, the few minutes waiting to get sent to the pre show followed by the 3 part pre-show with another queue before part 3.
In Legacy FP days my brother and I did the same at Epcot rope drop (sans breakfast at Sunshine Seasons). We'd average 2 or 3 rides on TT and Soarin, SSE and usually 1 or 2 rides on El Rio Del Tiempo (now Gran Fiesta Tour) and head out of the park after getting lunch.

And we loved getting an extra FP each before getting lunch (usually at Electric Umbrella) and handing them to a random couple on our way out.
 

osian

Well-Known Member
Quick question - we know you can have three rolling LLs with MP, but you can only book a new one when you've used one up. So can you only get three rolling LLs if you've booked your three in advance? For example, if you've only booked one in advance then on the day when you're in the park can you book another two before you've used the first one?
 

nickys

Premium Member
Quick question - we know you can have three rolling LLs with MP, but you can only book a new one when you've used one up. So can you only get three rolling LLs if you've booked your three in advance? For example, if you've only booked one in advance then on the day when you're in the park can you book another two before you've used the first one?
You can but you will have the same restrictions as if you’d pre-booked them. Same park, little overlapping etc.

A strategy for just booking one would be a very early return time so that once you tapped in you could then book any tiers in any park.
 

DisneyCane

Well-Known Member
In Legacy FP days my brother and I did the same at Epcot rope drop (sans breakfast at Sunshine Seasons). We'd average 2 or 3 rides on TT and Soarin, SSE and usually 1 or 2 rides on El Rio Del Tiempo (now Gran Fiesta Tour) and head out of the park after getting lunch.

And we loved getting an extra FP each before getting lunch (usually at Electric Umbrella) and handing them to a random couple on our way out.
My favorite thing to do with legacy FP, was to start the day in Epcot and, right before we left around 11:30, grabbed another TT FP with something like a 6:25 to 7:25 return time. Then go to another park and return to Epcot in the evening and get a "bonus" ride of TT with barely any wait.

Those were the good ole days! With FP strategy we once took my sister-in-law to WDW for a single day and were able to ride all of the headliners at all 4 parks on a moderately crowded day.
 

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
Quick question - we know you can have three rolling LLs with MP, but you can only book a new one when you've used one up. So can you only get three rolling LLs if you've booked your three in advance? For example, if you've only booked one in advance then on the day when you're in the park can you book another two before you've used the first one?
Perhaps, but for now, when you go to book #2 and #3, you would most likely see limited availability. I'm not sure if the system makes you book all 3, but you can cancel your passes.

I played around with that idea a little bit, by canceling one of my prebooked passes to see if that unlocked any availability. Nope. The result was just that I gave up decent 11am pass for something later than 11am.

This was on a day when most of Epcot was near walk-on. Giving up an Imagination LL wasn't a big loss but it didn't change LL availability. It was still very limited. I thought giving up the pass might unlock availability, but it didn't. The only pass that did much of anything that day was our Remy pass. the others were fairly useless, and I was not able to add FEA. At one point in the day, SE had a 25min wait, but when I used mine, the standby wait was not that long.

If anything, in Epcot using LL's could well = extra walking over just doing standby all day. Looking at the total day, LL didn't really help us do more rides, it just coerced us into going where WDW told us to go. Without it, we would have gone where we felt like going.
 

Purduevian

Well-Known Member
Perhaps, but for now, when you go to book #2 and #3, you would most likely see limited availability. I'm not sure if the system makes you book all 3, but you can cancel your passes.

I played around with that idea a little bit, by canceling one of my prebooked passes to see if that unlocked any availability. Nope. The result was just that I gave up decent 11am pass for something later than 11am.

This was on a day when most of Epcot was near walk-on. Giving up an Imagination LL wasn't a big loss but it didn't change LL availability. It was still very limited. I thought giving up the pass might unlock availability, but it didn't. The only pass that did much of anything that day was our Remy pass. the others were fairly useless, and I was not able to add FEA. At one point in the day, SE had a 25min wait, but when I used mine, the standby wait was not that long.

If anything, in Epcot using LL's could well = extra walking over just doing standby all day. Looking at the total day, LL didn't really help us do more rides, it just coerced us into going where WDW told us to go. Without it, we would have gone where we felt like going.
So canceling a pre-book can open up availability, in a specific circumstance. Lets say you prebook Frozen, MS, and SSE at EPCOT but really want RAT, but it was sold out.

If you try to modify your Frozen to RAT, you will only see RAT availability that does not overlap with MS or SSE by more that 15 mins. So, if RAT is enough of a priority, it might be worth cancelling MS and SSE prepark visit while hoping some one cancels.

Once in the park it would be worth booking either SSE or MS, then making a burner LL for Nemo/Figment/Pixar at park open and tapping into it ASAP to eliminate this overlap issue.
 

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