Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[JMcMahonEsq]

Fair point. The regular folks working through travel agents, I presume the agent will tell them. Regular folks use social media too, if/when LL are selling out, the word will get out quick especially if regular folks have a bad experience at the parks because LL are sold out.

After thinking about it, I think Disney would not purposely lower the inventory to force demand, I think they just want to sell as many LLs as they can right now.

I think regular folks use social media, i just don't think the type of lightening rumors that people here are exposed to, because they are following 10+ Disney related pages or bloggers, is going to get out there to your average guest. Just from quick looks at the "official" WDW Instagram and x pages they don't seem to do those types of posts (admittedly this as a quick scan only.)

You might get some travel agents who would give you a generic "they could sell out" but in general, and i think this is a problem way beyond just WDW, people have a tendency to over estimate how wide spread niche information is disseminated, because our news/information/web based content now is so curated/user interest generated. People who like WDW are in these types of forums, follow bloggers who talk about WDW, follow their twitter feeds ect. We get bombarded with multiple sources from multiple parties and think that the information is widespread, since we are seeing it coming from every source we follow. But to the general public, its just not out there. Its the reason people on boards like this complain about WDW specials on ABC that talk about "new" rides or upcoming additions to parks, and say, come on we have been hearing about this for months. Sure the niche market has, but its really not until you start getting true mainstream advertising/announcements, that the majority of the market gets the news.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

This change of policy is probably a result of weeding out all the DAS people in the LL queues.

I didn't see anything in the information that mentioned the change in DAS, and how that factored into the old FP/LL and newest LL ratios.

We were previously told that DAS was a big % of LL usage, so if DAS usage went down, that would be part of any change between LL usage then and LL now.

 

[Chi84]

I didn't see anything in the information that mentioned the change in DAS, and how that factored into the old FP/LL and newest LL ratios.

We were previously told that DAS was a big % of LL usage, so if DAS usage went down, that would be part of any change between LL usage then and LL now.

How much would the change in DAS affect it though? It’s likely most of the former DAS people are now paying to access the LLs.

I believe the issue was that on some of the more popular rides, 3 out of 4 people in the LLs weren’t paying for them. It wasn’t necessarily too many people, but Disney didn’t have control over who was accessing them and when.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I didn't see anything in the information that mentioned the change in DAS, and how that factored into the old FP/LL and newest LL ratios.

We were previously told that DAS was a big % of LL usage, so if DAS usage went down, that would be part of any change between LL usage then and LL now.

You wouldn't see Disney saying "80% of LLs were DAS users and a majority of them didn't need it or were just scamming the system. And now that we changed how DAS was distributed, we have a lot more room for LLs to sell while at the same time, tinkering with how much people can pay to skip the line."

But, from our sources... that seems to be the case.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Yep - places where we could see the merge point without being in line, so most of Fantasyland, parts of Tomorrowland, Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land. And others.

Then we reached out to park ops friends and said "This is what we're seeing. Is this new?" And got that confirmation from multiple, separate sources.

Was there any confirmation about the actual distribution percentages of Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Premier Pass? Were those numbers dropped? Is this an effect of the reduced DAS usage?

 

[lentesta]

Was there any confirmation about the actual distribution percentages of Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Premier Pass? Were those numbers dropped? Is this an effect of the reduced DAS usage?

1) Take a look at the doc below, from IASW. The lower left seems to indicate the percent of ride capacity allocated to LL under different crowd levels.

2) AFAIK no - just the return ratios.

3) I definitely think this gave them room to do that.

 

[Purduevian]

1) Take a look at the doc below, from IASW. The lower left seems to indicate the percent of ride capacity allocated to LL under different crowd levels.

2) AFAIK no - just the return ratios.

3) I definitely think this gave them room to do that.

Can you explain the top matrix?

I'm assume there are markers in the line that cast members use to see how long the wait is from a certain point and based on LL usage?

For instance if standby reaches point 4 on a light LL usage day then the wait is approximately 15 mins

However if standby reaches point 6 on a heavy day the wait is approximately 35 mins?

 

[lentesta]

Can you explain the top matrix?

I'm assume there are markers in the line that cast members use to see how long the wait is from a certain point and based on LL usage?

For instance if standby reaches point 4 on a light LL usage day then the wait is approximately 15 mins

However if standby reaches point 6 on a heavy day the wait is approximately 35 mins?

That's my understanding.

 

[Disstevefan1]

1) Take a look at the doc below, from IASW. The lower left seems to indicate the percent of ride capacity allocated to LL under different crowd levels.

2) AFAIK no - just the return ratios.

3) I definitely think this gave them room to do that.

If they made accurate measurements to populate the numbers in the chart, besides when there are breakdowns, this seems to be a reasonable way to estimate wait times to me.

When we as guests consider getting into standby what’s the first thing we do? Look at the queue.

 

[lentesta]

If they made accurate measurements to populate the numbers in the chart, besides when there are breakdowns, this seems to be a reasonable way to estimate wait times to me.

When we as guests consider getting into standby what’s the first thing we do? Look at the queue.

I think it's reasonable to do this.

My meds haven't kicked in yet this morning, so I'm wondering if this guide means there's not an automated way to estimate waits yet.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I think it's reasonable to do this.

My meds haven't kicked in yet this morning, so I'm wondering if this guide means there's not an automated way to estimate waits yet.

Well it could be old and no longer used and they just didn't remove it, or only used when the automation is down.

When will they use AI to calculate wait times?

 

[Purduevian]

Well it could be old and no longer used and they just didn't remove it, or only used when the automation is down.

When will they use AI to calculate wait times?

AI seems like overkill to actually make the wait time

1) number of people that have entered the line
2) number of people that have left the line
3) average throughput of the line over the past X minutes
4) add in whatever fluff calculations to artificially inflate based on time of day
5) add hysteresis so the number isn't constantly jumping

However, I could see face tracking/ person recognition cameras being trained with AI to make the actual counts for 1,2, and 3

 

[peter11435]

I think it's reasonable to do this.

My meds haven't kicked in yet this morning, so I'm wondering if this guide means there's not an automated way to estimate waits yet.

There are automated ways to record exactly how long guests waited for attractions. This can’t be used to post estimated wait times but is used to verify their accuracy.

 

[wdwmagic]

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track​

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

www.wdwmagic.com

 

[capndave]

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track​

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

www.wdwmagic.com

Lightning lane....Fast Pass with a fee! One of the worst things Disney has recently done! I'm waiting for Disney to start charging extra for the Standby Lane on certain popular attractions! They'll call it Enhanced Standby. This new tier is a step towards that. The greed knows no bounds. I'm done with Disney!

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track​

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

www.wdwmagic.com

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Lightning lane....Fast Pass with a fee! One of the worst things Disney has recently done! I'm waiting for Disney to start charging extra for the Standby Lane on certain popular attractions! They'll call it Enhanced Standby. This new tier is a step towards that. The greed knows no bounds. I'm done with Disney!

This isn’t a new tier. They just moved soarin from tier 1 down to tier 2 and put test track in tier 1. This system has been in place for almost a year.

 

[Purduevian]

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track​

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

Disney Updates Lightning Lane Tiers at EPCOT with Return of Test Track

www.wdwmagic.com

Wonder if this will make it easier to get a second one of Frozen/Remy now. This was basically the only LL combination that was nearly impossible to get at WDW (on average RAT is gone at 8:36am and Frozen is gone at 10:01am). No other combination of tier 1 attractions both sell out on average before noon.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Wonder if this will make it easier to get a second one of Frozen/Remy now. This was basically the only LL combination that was nearly impossible to get at WDW (on average RAT is gone at 8:36am and Frozen is gone at 10:01am). No other combination of tier 1 attractions both sell out on average before noon.

Can you not just “waste” a fast pass with Nemo and get in immediately to switch it to Frozen

 

[capndave]

This isn’t a new tier. They just moved soarin from tier 1 down to tier 2 and put test track in tier 1. This system has been in place for almost a year.

Doesn't make it any better. I was being a little sarcastic. But the way Disney is going I would not be surprised.

 

[Purduevian]

Can you not just “waste” a fast pass with Nemo and get in immediately to switch it to Frozen

I mean, yes it is possible to get both... however,

• 10:01am was the average for Frozen sell out time, that means half the time it sold out before this
• If you plan to rope drop something... doing that rope drop, then booking it to a "burner" LL by 10:00am is very possible, but isn't the smoothest easiest part of your morning.

Just as an example the 2nd most popular tier 1 (after Tiana) at MK is JC which sells out at 12:33am on average, at DHS its RNRC @ 2:06pm and AK its Kali @2:43pm which are all way easier to get that a 10:01am frozen