Rumor WDW is considering a Universal-like Express Pass

[MrPromey]

That's the charge per hour for plaids with a minimum of 7 hours, I believe.

Plus gratuity

 

[Tha Realest]

So a question I have is how it would work. As I understood it from a friend that just did a Plaid in DL, they basically just entered the LL with their plaid. They didn’t jump ahead of anyone in any line.

Would this basically be “enter any LL at any time you want” pass? Or else they’d have to configure some way for them to pass both standby and LL lines.

 

[Joel]

Would this basically be “enter any LL at any time you want” pass?

Yes, although it is funny to think about Disney reconfiguring the queues to further segregate guests by class.

 

[GoofGoof]

So a question I have is how it would work. As I understood it from a friend that just did a Plaid in DL, they basically just entered the LL with their plaid. They didn’t jump ahead of anyone in any line.

Would this basically be “enter any LL at any time you want” pass? Or else they’d have to configure some way for them to pass both standby and LL lines.

I think it would have to work that way, similar to Express Pass. If a bunch of people jump in line at once or a ride breaks down and just reopened the LL line can get longer. I remember being at Universal and having Express Pass over Spring Break when Kong was the newest ride (I think it was open over 6 months so not exactly brand new) and we waited close to 45 mins in the Express Line. I think standby was over 2 hours.

Without time slots and reservations there is always the risk that LLs can get waits. Having no repeats of rides will help that a lot, but in the middle of the day when crowds are largest there will likely still be some waits at popular rides which won’t be popular for a family dropping a grand on this product. This is also why I think this type of system would have to be a replacement of LLMP as opposed to in addition to it. Imagine a ride like Tiana that goes down a lot spitting out a bunch of “return any time“ multipasses for people who had a reservation while the ride was down in addition to anyone who bought the premium product, when the ride re-opens the LL would get really long. Maybe they only re-open LL in that case until the line clears before re- opening the standby, but either way it’s a train wreck.

 

[GoofGoof]

People will do it for ONE day…which is problematic for the swamp

I think this is probably the main reason they didn’t go this direction already at WDW. Most parks just have a premium line skip service which is very expensive and those who really want it buy in and those who don’t ride standby. Most parks don’t sell multi-day passes that go out 10+ days. It’s not really likely that people would buy this for length of stay and people will be much less likely to buy at any park other than MK (maybe DHS but even that’s a stretch).

 

[Tha Realest]

I mean, my family of five would cost roughly $225-250/day for LL and whatever they call an ILL now. A plaid is around $7,000 or so on average, right? ($750/hr x 8 hours, plus tip). There’s not a lot of flexibility there per person (costs the same if it’s a party of one or a party of ten).

There’s a wide gulf between $250/day and day $5,000+ per day. I think they’ll exploit that for people willing to drop some serious coin but not VIP pass coin.

 

[runnsally]

I could see this as an add-on for folks staying club level similar to what they did back in the day with FP+.

 

[larryz]

YES

And I remember the days when you'd call looking for a room at the Contemporary or the Poly and had to shift your visit dates to find something available...

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

And I remember the days when you'd call looking for a room at the Contemporary or the Poly and had to shift your visit dates to find something available...

Rack rates, even adjusted for inflation, were significantly less back then.

 

[aaronml]

From my understanding, TWDC was considering doing something like this years ago (pre-COVID) for an “Ultimate FastPass”.

I think there was some leftover code in MDX related to this years ago that someone found prior to the announcement of G+ / ILL.

IIRC, it never went anywhere back then due to fear of cannibalizing VIP Tour sales. I wouldn’t be surprised if this also ends up being shelved, unless TWDC has somehow figured out a solution to that problem.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I could see this as an add-on for folks staying club level similar to what they did back in the day with FP+.

Nope…club level is NOTHING…it’s a few hundred rooms total

The problem with this thinking is there is a large elephant in the room…it’s about 10,000 dvc rooms…and growing

 

[WDWTrojan]

I would suspect they studied enough to find out that there's a large subset of guests who would be willing to shell out far more than the current $25 for LLMP, but who stop short of wanting to do the full VIP tour cost. Universal's model alone proves there's a market.

As far as VIP tours go, I'm sure they are aware that two things are true: there are enough guests who will continue to use the service for the convenience and other benefits (VIP Viewing, transportation, etc) that it won't matter this new offering exists. Even if they cannibalize 15-20% of the existing business, this would likely be more than made up for by the revenue from the new offering, since the larger volume of it would makeup for the dent in tour business.

Let's say they charge $249 for this service, which I think is likely, but cap the sales at a number they find doesn't materially impact the LLs. They're now tapping into a completely new semi-premium market.

Universal's Express is a good comparison obviously, but they also offer a non-private VIP tour option for groups smaller than 10, which is also a good intermediate level of luxury that Disney also does not offer.

I've mentioned this elsewhere but they could help stymie some of the "tour bleed" if they tried to improve the offering a bit. Universal's VIP tours gives guests 3 meals and takes them to the front of the lines. Disney's VIP tours offers guests a couple of packaged snacks, one snack from a park stand (pretzel, ice cream, etc) and bottled water. Universal also takes tours directly to the front of the lines, where as Disney requires tour guests to almost always stand in the Lightning Lane and wait through the pre-shows. That's a tall ask for $800/hour to spend 30-45 minutes in the LL + pre-shows at Guardians or FoP.

 

[SplashJacket]

I wouldn’t expect an unlimited Express type option either (though I’d personally prefer it).

Disney is selling a resort destination to their premium guests. That resort begins to crumble once you finish every ride at AK by 11 am and HS by 12. You can already get close to that without it, but that’s to the seasoned vet, not your family from Ohio staying concierge at Yacht & Beach.

If you’re not staying at the parks, you’re not shopping, dining, buying photopass, etc.

Universal is largely in the rides business (consider how little there is to do outside of rides) and Disney is in the holistic experience bundle.

Plaids are a good bridge between Express and LLMP, but they’re done on a limited scale at astronomical prices.

Overall, I think every park should satiate every category of guest desire for a full day, but currently, there’s parks, like AK, where it only provides a full-day experience if you do everything, not just rides.

Obviously, some imminent investment will help, but that’s all it’ll do, it’ll help, not fix it. An express pass would exasperate that problem.

With minimal effort, I could knock out AK, DHS, and Epcot’s attractions in a single day, so you have to price it to offset a loss of ticket clicks, so assuming a $150 park hopper, this would need to be more than that, but that’s before considering lost spend from stores, food, etc.

I’m not sure the GSAT would be that positive for such a service either, because while it’s much simpler, it makes the parks also seem far more one-dimensional.

 

[Splash4eva]

I'm sure there are. But 800-1000 a day for a family of 4 is insane to me and we don't even think about what things cost while at Disney. But would absolutely not pay that.

People pay for these sold out after hour events. Why wouldnt they do the same for a full days worth & a full slate of rides even if it does cost minimally more

 

[JIMMYEDDIE]

RUMOR: Walt Disney World to Debut Universal Express-Style Skip-the-Line Offering

A new rumor that Walt Disney World will roll out its own Universal Express-style skip-the-line system called Lightning Lane Premier Pass

blogmickey.com

There would be no value in this in Epcot and AK. If they initiate this and limit it to one park (thus no parking hopping) it could work without disrupting current operations.

 

[Wall-e]

If this has been mentioned before in this thread (or another) I apologize but I think something is being overlooked when people talk about efficiency and reliability (ROTR, RSR).

We witnessed in the last few years (since Individual Lightning Pass) at WDW and last month at DL that Disney is intentionally inflated wait times in a couple ways. And to me it’s not even a secret that they are doing this to monetize making people wait in a line (that they created).

Here’s my example from last month at DL. RSR and ROTR were down to start the day every day we were there. They are also the only two rides with ILP at DL. We rope dropped RSR one morning in hopes it would be up at open. It wasn’t. They told everyone they could get in line and wait it out and they slowly opened more of the que as people showed up to the ride. Around 8:30 Cars were on track with cast members testing. 8:45 they announce they need to do a full shut down of the ride and restart. They do this and by 9 the ride is operational.

I believe two things are true here that help drive the ILP. They are fully capable of efficiently operating the ride. If the ride consistently does not wake up for an hour than they could start it earlier. But if they did that then they would not have the opportunity to fabricate a wait time for a ride that they can make money off of said wait times.

So what do they do? They make sure that everyday the ride starts with an hour wait and keep that line at an hour to drive ILP’s.

The second way we witnessed them manufacturing wait times was just by posting inflated wait times for ROTR. Posted wait time was 60 minutes. We were on AND off in 45. When we got off the wait time said 65 minutes and the line was shorter then when we got on. Rode it again and this time the on and off time was only 40 minutes!!!

Disney has found a way to manufacture something that is heavily monetized and unregulated. I don’t hate the player but I wish I had a hand in the game.

 

[C33Mom]

Just thinking aloud here— but I bet they could use an express pass to drive higher attendance at certain parks (cough, animal kingdom, cough)— especially if it’s a once per ride situation. There aren’t enough headliners to keep people busy at MK and DHS all day if you can just walk on the rides you want in logical order once (obviously if you like shows and kiddie rides there’s more to do)— if you made it so that it cost $300/pp for the first park, but only $25-50 to add AK, you could probably get a lot of interest from families like mine, where the kids just want to do coasters and thrill rides. They could even have dynamic pricing and pop-up notifications about adding other parks that are slow.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I wouldn’t expect an unlimited Express type option either (though I’d personally prefer it).

Disney is selling a resort destination to their premium guests. That resort begins to crumble once you finish every ride at AK by 11 am and HS by 12. You can already get close to that without it, but that’s to the seasoned vet, not your family from Ohio staying concierge at Yacht & Beach.

If you’re not staying at the parks, you’re not shopping, dining, buying photopass, etc.

Universal is largely in the rides business (consider how little there is to do outside of rides) and Disney is in the holistic experience bundle.

Plaids are a good bridge between Express and LLMP, but they’re done on a limited scale at astronomical prices.

Overall, I think every park should satiate every category of guest desire for a full day, but currently, there’s parks, like AK, where it only provides a full-day experience if you do everything, not just rides.

Obviously, some imminent investment will help, but that’s all it’ll do, it’ll help, not fix it. An express pass would exasperate that problem.

With minimal effort, I could knock out AK, DHS, and Epcot’s attractions in a single day, so you have to price it to offset a loss of ticket clicks, so assuming a $150 park hopper, this would need to be more than that, but that’s before considering lost spend from stores, food, etc.

I’m not sure the GSAT would be that positive for such a service either, because while it’s much simpler, it makes the parks also seem far more one-dimensional.

…the hiccup here is Disney doesn’t draw “premium guests”

Sweater boy tried to convince himself they do…while cost cutting…and that’s ground zero for the problems they have now…

…and they definitely aren’t coming from Ohio

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Just thinking aloud here— but I bet they could use an express pass to drive higher attendance at certain parks (cough, animal kingdom, cough)— especially if it’s a once per ride situation. There aren’t enough headliners to keep people busy at MK and DHS all day if you can just walk on the rides you want in logical order once (obviously if you like shows and kiddie rides there’s more to do)— if you made it so that it cost $300/pp for the first park, but only $25-50 to add AK, you could probably get a lot of interest from families like mine, where the kids just want to do coasters and thrill rides. They could even have dynamic pricing and pop-up notifications about adding other parks that are slow.

Nothing they’ve done recently has driven higher attendance in any way…quite the opposite

Putting another paywall in for a 50 year old park is not likely to reverse that trend.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Then can give all of the previous DAS spots to LLPA and we would be in the same place we were in June...

Or... limit the amount sold, like Uni does.

If DAS was previously 80% of LL as some insiders suggested, and that's now down to, say, 10%, then selling enough Express Pass to just one quarter of that number is enough to supply a limited amount to the sell-out point, and LLs would still be at least half-occupied from just a few months ago.

Numbers here used just as an example.