Will DisneyWorld ever end this discrimination ?

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

A little context here -

We live in the UK and we're planning a return to WDW in 2026 - we last visited nearly 10 years ago and we're finding that so much has changed (not just the prices !!).
We are planning on staying in a Disney Moderate (POFQ) and we will be buying 14 day WDW park tickets
BUT, as a UK visitor I cannot buy / book any Lightning Lane passes until I'm in the USA. This means that for the first 7 days of our visit we will have to pick up any passes that are left, if there are any left as everyone in the US will have had first pick.

How can that be fair ? The whole world (except those in the US) are excluded from fairly obtaining LL passes.

Whatever happened to being able to book them online at the same time as everyone else - as we did when we last visited ?

 

[nickys]

There was a lot of anger and upset about this, understandably.

Most likely it’s either due to tax liabilityissues on digital products sold via an app, or the new online safety laws in the EU and the UK. We really know for sure though.

However the good news is there are ways around it. Note that a vpn doesn’t work since the app uses GPS location.

Go into MDE.
Turn off the location setting.
Manually set your location within MDE to the US or Canada.

 

[Jeff456]

There was a lot of anger and upset about this, understandably.

Most likely it’s either due to tax liabilityissues on digital products sold via an app, or the new online safety laws in the EU and the UK. We really know for sure though.

However the good news is there are ways around it. Note that a vpn doesn’t work since the app uses GPS location.

Go into MDE.
Turn off the location setting.
Manually set your location within MDE to the US or Canada.

Exactly this, can confirm this worked for us recently!

 

[Bastet]

Depending on when you are going and your tolerance for queueing, you may not need it. Just got back from a 2 week trip and didn't use LL at all

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

A little context here -

We live in the UK and we're planning a return to WDW in 2026 - we last visited nearly 10 years ago and we're finding that so much has changed (not just the prices !!).
We are planning on staying in a Disney Moderate (POFQ) and we will be buying 14 day WDW park tickets
BUT, as a UK visitor I cannot buy / book any Lightning Lane passes until I'm in the USA. This means that for the first 7 days of our visit we will have to pick up any passes that are left, if there are any left as everyone in the US will have had first pick.

How can that be fair ? The whole world (except those in the US) are excluded from fairly obtaining LL passes.

Whatever happened to being able to book them online at the same time as everyone else - as we did when we last visited ?

Plusses and minuses for UK visitors though. On the one hand, this sucks for you a bit (although the workaround suggested several posts down works). On the other hand, Disney sells you significantly cheaper tickets than those in the US. Your 14 day tickets cost around or less than a ticket for half as long in the US. Do you think US residents are being “discriminated against” by this policy?

 

[Jeff456]

Plusses and minuses for UK visitors though. On the one hand, this sucks for you a bit (although the workaround suggested several posts down works). On the other hand, Disney sells you significantly cheaper tickets than those in the US. Your 14 day tickets cost around or less than a ticket for half as long in the US. Do you think US residents are being “discriminated against” by this policy?

Yep agreed UK tickets are very very cheap. We currently have APs but they only make sense was we were doing 4 trips this year, will be back to UK tickets next year!

 

[nickys]

Plusses and minuses for UK visitors though. On the one hand, this sucks for you a bit (although the workaround suggested several posts down works). On the other hand, Disney sells you significantly cheaper tickets than those in the US. Your 14 day tickets cost around or less than a ticket for half as long in the US. Do you think US residents are being “discriminated against” by this policy?

Until the workarounds were tried and tested, it massively in convenienced international guests, just when the summer season was starting. Even now it doesn’t help any guests who simply book through the official WDTC companies in various countries. The workarounds are only mentioned in forums, not main blog or news sites.

But you can book the UK tickets too by going through a company like Attraction Tickets.

We also never get discounted rates for the resorts. Unless of course we use a vpn and book through the US site or use a US based TA.

The different countries use different tactics to attract guests. They must think discounted room rates is more attractive to US guests than discounted tickets.

Whereas the majority of UK or EU guests will stay offsite. The reality is most will only use those tickets for maybe 4 -6 days, so the cost per day is closer to that of US tickets. Those that use the tickets more than that are more likely to be staying onsite and paying more for the hotel room.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Until the workarounds were tried and tested, it massively in convenienced international guests, just when the summer season was starting. Even now it doesn’t help any guests who simply book through the official WDTC companies in various countries. The workarounds are only mentioned in forums, not main blog or news sites.

But you can book the UK tickets too by going through a company like Attraction Tickets.

We also never get discounted rates for the resorts. Unless of course we use a vpn and book through the US site or use a US based TA.

The different countries use different tactics to attract guests. They must think discounted room rates is more attractive to US guests than discounted tickets.

Whereas the majority of UK or EU guests will stay offsite. The reality is most will only use those tickets for maybe 4 -6 days, so the cost per day is closer to that of US tickets. Those that use the tickets more than that are more likely to be staying onsite and paying more for the hotel room.

It nevertheless remains the fact that this is in no way “discrimination.” I am confident WDW would gladly extend the benefit to international guests to help them sell LLMP & LLSP. The problem is the literally 100+ different legal and regulatory frameworks for offering this kind of purchase in advance via app. There are now workarounds, those workarounds work, and if anyone puts in the effort, they can find them through googling.

Finally, I was there this summer in Mid August shortly after this premiered. It was extremely not busy, and I am confident international guests would have had no problem getting all the rides they wanted on their arrival date, or even each morning. We ourselves ended up significantly modifying our day of reservations from what we had selected 7 days out each day with no problem.

 

[osian]

It nevertheless remains the fact that this is in no way “discrimination.”

"Indirect discrimination is when a rule, policy or practice that applies the same to everyone places some people at a disadvantage."

It is in every way 'discrimination'.

The pre-arrival booking service is the same for everyone, regardless of where they're from. Disney does not say it is only for US and Canadian citizens. However, it's been implemented in such a way that it only works when on North American soil. That puts international visitors at a disadvantage. It's not just a perk they're not getting, it actually puts them to the back of the queue. There are workarounds, yes, but workarounds are also a disadvantage. And not everyone knows about them, they're not published by Disney. And you visited at the quietest time of the year, which is possibly why you thought this was not a problem for your visit.

It is irrelevant why this restriction is in place, Disney didn't have to implement paid pre-booking at all. No-one forced them to implement this service (other than their own finance department), it was entirely voluntarily, and they've done it in a discriminatory way.

 

[Purduevian]

Plusses and minuses for UK visitors though. On the one hand, this sucks for you a bit (although the workaround suggested several posts down works). On the other hand, Disney sells you significantly cheaper tickets than those in the US. Your 14 day tickets cost around or less than a ticket for half as long in the US. Do you think US residents are being “discriminated against” by this policy?

FYI you can buy 14 day UK tickets from UK 3rd party sites. By their own rules they are allowed to sell to americans and americans can use them.