Lightening Lane + Breakdowns = Magic Killer

[ComeToSocialize]

breakdowns seem so much more common these days; i assume a combo of understaffed maintenance, maximum caution (after things like the big thunder disaster), and more complicated rides with more to go wrong.

It is one of the biggest drawbacks with prebooking LLs... if they know something is going to be down in the morning for example, they can't adjust pre-opening.

 

[wdwfan94]

I know Disney sort of does this already for a handful of rides but they should do it more often - allow fewer LL slots to be prebooked in advance and release them at certain intervals (like every hour maybe). If the ride is down (or has been down earlier in the day) don't release the new slots to control the LL backup.

 

[Threehearts]

Premium Pass- I had a similar situation 2 weeks ago when I purchased the Premium Pass at MK for $499 plus tax. Several top rides were down for a good part of the day. When I finally gave up around 7pm, I went to guest services to explain. They told me that I could have a pass for the next day for only the broken rides but I couldn't be in the MK the next day so that was no use to me. They said that they couldn't give me an any ride LL pass because I already had that on Premium Pass. I gave up. The logic was not logical, especially when paying PP prices.

I agree that your day is very affected by rides being down. Of course that will happen but it is very disappointing nonetheless.

 

[reddog21]

Premium Pass- I had a similar situation 2 weeks ago when I purchased the Premium Pass at MK for $499 plus tax. Several top rides were down for a good part of the day. When I finally gave up around 7pm, I went to guest services to explain. They told me that I could have a pass for the next day for only the broken rides but I couldn't be in the MK the next day so that was no use to me. They said that they couldn't give me an any ride LL pass because I already had that on Premium Pass. I gave up. The logic was not logical, especially when paying PP prices.

I agree that your day is very affected by rides being down. Of course that will happen but it is very disappointing nonetheless

They should open up lightning lane to be able to ride anything multiple times, the one time ride it ridiculous. Not that it would work for everyone but I would take being able to ride say haunted mansion or space mountain multiple times if Tiana was down or another major ride was down. It not ideal but it's better than getting nothing. Even if they just did it for those buying premium pass.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Would I have been out of line to tell the CM to the first video room,

Yes, you would have. It's not the CM's fault.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

hey should open up lightning lane to be able to ride anything multiple times, the one time ride it ridiculous.

That would make the problem of accessibility for rides worse, not better.

 

[scrappinginontario]

They should open up lightning lane to be able to ride anything multiple times, the one time ride it ridiculous. Not that it would work for everyone but I would take being able to ride say haunted mansion or space mountain multiple times if Tiana was down or another major ride was down. It not ideal but it's better than getting nothing. Even if they just did it for those buying premium pass.

They offer this for the majority of attractions with VIP tours. Adding riding multiple times to every guest who purchase PP would make the lines unmanageable.

 

[reddog21]

They offer this for the majority of attractions with VIP tours. Adding riding multiple times to every guest who purchase PP would make the lines unmanageable.

That would only depend on how many people actually purchase PP, I don't think it's a lot.
You could make the system whatever you want, can't ride multiple times in an hour or every 2 hours but at the end of the day you could ride multiple times. You could say if you have PP the first ride is whenever you want then if you want to ride the ride again you have to pick a time. You could go a lot of different directions.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Would I have been out of line to tell the CM to the first video room, “You know, this side paid to get into Epcot today, too”??? My kids were the only ones keeping me from saying something I’d regret later.

Disney is not for you. Chalk it up to Oops and move on. If you’re worried time might glaze over this experience, write yourself a note of why it sucked and remember this particular moment when you were one sentence away from a chat with Disney Security. Then book the beach getaway instead.

 

[BrianL]

Unfortunately you will not get a lot of agreement in a forum like this. But what you describe is a very real problem and the average park goer is most definitely frustrated by these situations. It's just fan groups are not populated by average park goers. Instead its mostly people whose very identity is dependent on their fandom. So they see this as an attack. Consciously on what they are a fan of, and subconsciously on their very identity.

Rest assured many do agree with you. They just aren't active participants in online forums and social media fan groups.

I don't know - I don't feel like most people here are never critical of Disney. The maintenance issues have been brough up several times across the board for...well, pretty much as long as I've been here. It is espeically notable since COVID that they have been cutting back on necessary maintenance and that is leading to more breakdowns. I think few people here would actually say otherwise.

You might find people here more supportive of the general way that programs like Lightning Lane work in principle becuase we tend to be well-versed in the systems and know how to use them (though certainly there are many complaints too). We are also frequent visitors, so a bad experience here and there doesn't deter us as much as we still have a lot of positive experiences too. I doubt anyone would say that what the OP experienced at Guardians was good though, and I think the complaint is totally valid.

It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. I generally think that Disney does a pretty good job and they offer an experience that I overall really enjoy and find worth the cost for my part. There are definitely areas where they could improve - maintenance being a big one - and I'm not shy about pointing them out either.

 

[DisneyFive]

Randomly refreshing for lightening lanes doesn’t work very well at all anymore. What you need to look for is the scheduled times for additional releases. I was skeptical at first but learned very quickly that those do work well, you just have to be quick as they do go fast.

I noticed this too. It was MUCH more difficult to modify (move up) LL times than it used to be with FP+ or G+. That was consistently the case during our 9 night stay a few weeks ago. I would luck out once in a while, but it was far less frequent than it used to be.

 

[Smugpugmug]

I don't know - I don't feel like most people here are never critical of Disney. The maintenance issues have been brough up several times across the board for...well, pretty much as long as I've been here. It is espeically notable since COVID that they have been cutting back on necessary maintenance and that is leading to more breakdowns. I think few people here would actually say otherwise.

It's way worse on Facebook groups vs this forum. They're full of people who would defend Disney as if their lives depend on it and it's VERY weird to see. I see this on Universal (specific Epic Universe) groups too. They take any sort of criticism as an attack. I don't see that here tbh. At least not to the scale of Facebook.

 

[BrianL]

It's way worse on Facebook groups vs this forum. They're full of people who would defend Disney as if their lives depend on it and it's VERY weird to see. I see this on Universal (specific Epic Universe) groups too. They take any sort of criticism as an attack. I don't see that here tbh. At least not to the scale of Facebook.

I guess there are always people like that, but I don't find it here. If anything, there is a lot of griping!

 

[DisneyFive]

A few weeks ago we did our 10th weeklong+ family trip to WDW (first was 2010).

This was the first trip where the breakdowns noticeably impacted us. A couple of examples... We were evacuated off Remy. We were evacuated out of Dinosaur. Rides that seemed to be down a lot: RnRC, ROTR, Expedition Everest, Spaceship Earth, and oddly Haunted Mansion

Re. that Dinosaur breakdown, it made us miss Expedition Everest too. I think Dinosaur had a posted wait of about 25 minutes mid afternoon (park closed at 7pm that day). We got in the standby line, but then ended up waiting in line 60-90 minutes before they made everyone leave. It never came back up that day. To make it worse, EE went down while we were in the Dino line, and EE also never came back the rest of the day.

Made me wish I had bought LLMP for that day because we would have certainly gotten through the Dino line before it broke down, which would have also gotten us to EE before it broke down.

We bought LLMP for all the other parks and were mostly happy with the system (still like FP+ far better) but loathe paying for it. Added about $1000 to our trip. Thanks for that Disney. (also, we refuse to buy LLSP's)

 

[fatmanatee]

This is admittedly a very minor pet peeve but I'm fascinated about how often it's called "Lightening" here. Not sure if it's an autocorrect thing or something else. It's "Lightning", as in fast!

 

[brockash]

This may not help, but next time watch for the additional lightening lane drop times. You probably could have moved that Toy Story time up several hours with very little effort.

Not sure about OP, but we have had very little luck with that at DHS...eespecially for a high priority tier 2 ride.

Maybe if you go solo it's easier, but even when we're just a party of 2, we have not had much luck moving to earlier times fpr things like TSM at DHS.

The additional drops though, I agree have worked better.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Not sure about OP, but we have had very little luck with that at DHS...eespecially for a high priority tier 2 ride.

Maybe if you go solo it's easier, but even when we're just a party of 2, we have not had much luck moving to earlier times fpr things like TSM at DHS.

The additional drops though, I agree have worked better.

Toy Story Mania has additional drops scheduled throughout the afternoon. We were traveling with 8 and didn't have any trouble getting a LLMP with only a 25-30 minute wait for the return window. We visited DHS 3 times during the last week of July.

 

[scrappinginontario]

That would only depend on how many people actually purchase PP, I don't think it's a lot.
You could make the system whatever you want, can't ride multiple times in an hour or every 2 hours but at the end of the day you could ride multiple times. You could say if you have PP the first ride is whenever you want then if you want to ride the ride again you have to pick a time. You could go a lot of different directions.

I'm not sure how many they offer but considering MK PP has sold out 101/224 days so far this year, I believe a lot of people are purchasing it!

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

That would only depend on how many people actually purchase PP, I don't think it's a lot.
You could make the system whatever you want, can't ride multiple times in an hour or every 2 hours but at the end of the day you could ride multiple times. You could say if you have PP the first ride is whenever you want then if you want to ride the ride again you have to pick a time. You could go a lot of different directions.

You can already ride these attractions multiple times at the end of the day using the standby line. The line stacking and intentionally inflated wait times are a good deterrent for most guests and the actual waits do get very short.

 

[CVG]

It's funny but I think I was a helluva lot more tolerant when skip the line features were free.