Plan Ahead with Lightning Lane Entry at Walt Disney World Starting July 24

[Karalee402]

The pricing on this to properly function at Disney would have to be outrageous. Think approaching VIP tour guide levels of cost.

People have said this for years but I personally think it’s very be careful what you wish for.

Completely agree! Can you imagine the uproar on these boards if Disney charged what Universal does for Express Pass? The unlimited pass starts at 119.99 and goes up from there. I know that would price my family of five way out of any sort of skip the line for our Disney trips. A large park near where I live has a "fast lane pass" that starts at $85 a day. Disney is just a completely different experience than Universal, so I don't think what works over there would work for Disney.

 

[KrazeeK120]

I’m trying to figure out strategy for this.

Should I build backward, like in the FP+ days? I’m assuming SDD is still going to be the most difficult to get, in addition to Remy and possibly Tiana?

I’m already envisioning myself crying while Stich is eating the page on the 24th.

 

[vinotinto]

Frankly I would've preferred Disney switching to a Universal-type model where you can pay one price and get to ride each ride with a LL once at whatever time you want.

This exists at Disney and per their website costs $450-900 per hour per group (with a minimum number of hours I believe). VIP tour guides offer a bit more than just the line entry, but that’s their primary function.

@FuzzyPeach beat me to it. This is what Disney VIP Tours offers.

Pricing and Reservations​

Get essential details about the Disney Private VIP Tour.

• Pricing: Ranging from $450 to $900 per hour, depending on the season (valid park admission is required for each park visited on tour and is not included in the price of the tour).
• Reservations: Call (407) 560-4033 to book. Guests under the age of 18 must have parent or guardian permission to call. Learn when advance reservations can be made.

Know Before You Go​

View important information including reservations, Guest restrictions and cancellation policies Disney Private VIP Tour.

• All VIP Tours require valid theme park admission, which is not included in the price of the tour
• Disney VIP Tours participate in full security screenings (including bag checks) during your Disney VIP Tour. Guests should be prepared for screenings with their appropriate government issued identification.
• Disney Private VIP Tours at the Walt Disney World Resort are very popular and may be limited in availability. Advance reservations are highly recommended. Learn when advance reservations can be made.
• All Private VIP Tours must be booked for a minimum duration of 7 continuous hours, and your party may include up to 10 Guests, including infants.
• Entertainment offerings are subject to availability and may be restricted by capacity constraints at the time of booking.
• You will incur a cancellation fee equal to 2 hours at the booked rate per tour if you do not provide at least 48-hour notice when cancelling any Private VIP Tour.
• No cameras, video equipment or cellphones may be used while in backstage areas.
• Guests 17 years and under must be accompanied by a paying participating parent or guardian.
• Pricing and information are subject to change without notice.

 

[HopperFan]

I'd much rather have it work the same as Universal or those other places, you purchase it for the day and go through the "fast lane" for whatever ride you want, in whatever order you want, at whatever time you want. All day. Not "pick 3 and then hope you get another one after that" or "use only once per ride!". Yes you have to choose to buy it for the day, I probably would, but after that decision, you are done until you get to the park.

So that would be a yes, you would pay $100, $150, $200 per day per person (Universal is dynamic pricing) for it to be at Disney.

 

[Pyxie]

What I find hard to believe is that so many people are "ok" with paying more money on top of an already expensive park ticket for either just a single ride or for a faster line to get on an attraction.

You'd be surprised how many people think paying for any kind of "skip the line" system is normal and pay it without blinking an eye. I'm not talking about the people on these boards to know Disney inside and out but more your casual park goer (which, let's be fair, makes up the majority of park visitors). A lot of them never knew what FP was or that it was included free. I actually had people argue with me that there is no way it was free back when it actually still was free. It's just so common to pay for this sort of thing at theme parks in general.

 

[FuzzyPeach]

Yes but that's not the same thing as purchasing Fastlane or Express Pass at Universal and being able to use it all day, or getting it free when you stay at a Deluxe resort.

That’s kind of my point. Disney prices the ability to do this no strings attached kind of touring at WDW outrageously expensive compared to other parks. It already exists in some fashion, the price is just very very high to the point that it doesn’t even enter the conversation for most guests.

I’d guess demand at Disney for a line skip system priced similarly to Universal and functioning like theirs would collapse the system if not limited to a very small amount of guests, which would effectively render it useless since the bulk of guests couldn’t use it for it to function.

 

[Sandisw]

Just to make sure I'm clear: We can book the ILL (i.e. Tron, Flights of Passage, SDMT, RoTR) in advance as well and prepay? I saw somewhere else on this thread you still had to wake up at 7am for the ILL and want to make sure I'm understanding, we're there 7/26!

You can pre book both LL single pass and multi pass ahead of time!!

 

[Sandisw]

Does early access for resort guests start on the 24th? I assumed that was going to be the first day that the system was available in the parks, so early bookings would commence on the 17th. Could be wrong there though.

Andre

Nothing starts until the 24th. Those who are mid trip will have the current system prior and then the 24th will change for all advance booking dates.

So, on the 24rh you will have those will resort reservations beginning 31st of July and earlier

 

[Planogirl]

This is a huge thread!

Is there any indication of what this will cost for either onsite or offsite yet? I realize it’s dynamic but there should be a range or something right?

 

[Cabius]

Completely agree! Can you imagine the uproar on these boards if Disney charged what Universal does for Express Pass? The unlimited pass starts at 119.99 and goes up from there. I know that would price my family of five way out of any sort of skip the line for our Disney trips. A large park near where I live has a "fast lane pass" that starts at $85 a day. Disney is just a completely different experience than Universal, so I don't think what works over there would work for Disney.

The flip side is that, because it's so expensive, and because they have relatively little deluxe resort capacity, it's used by only a relatively small minority of customers.

That means that the people who pay for it really do get tremendous value, since they have plenty of skip-the-line capacity and they're bypassing the regular queues.

But it also means that guests who don't purchase the skip-the-line pass aren't penalized as much, because most of the ride capacity is going to the regular queue, as opposed to at Disney where sometimes those standby lines crawl along as 75% of capacity is allocated to the Lightning Lane.

Disney's approach is a sort of worst-of-both-worlds: it's cheap enough that most guests purchase it, which means it isn't actually a good product, and makes the experience for those who don't purchase it quite a bit worse. To paraphrase The Incredibles: If everybody is skipping the line, nobody is.


I honestly wouldn't hate a $200/day skip-the-line pass at Disney if it was fairly unlimited, and was the only pass offered. I almost certainly wouldn't buy it, but I think only a fraction of guests would buy it, so standby lines would move more quickly.

 

[vinotinto]

This is a huge thread!

Is there any indication of what this will cost for either onsite or offsite yet? I realize it’s dynamic but there should be a range or something right?

They have not said yet, but the speculation is that it will be in line with the G+ pricing.

 

[Cabius]

This is a huge thread!

Is there any indication of what this will cost for either onsite or offsite yet? I realize it’s dynamic but there should be a range or something right?

Indications are that pricing will remain the same as Genie+ at least at launch, but I don't think anybody knows for sure.

I imagine that if demand spikes or drops relative to Genie+ they will adjust accordingly.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

I agree. The new system is much better than Genie Plus only if you are an early arriver. For those of us who like to enter the park late afternoon with 3-4 "tier 1" LL stacked, the new system is now a problem. I don't foresee much availability of tier 1 rides if I can't book another one until I ride something at 3pm. If my devious mind is already thinking up ways to beat the system, I'm sure the Disney pros will by next month.

I can only go by our past 20+ FP+ trips in the past. We rarely arrived at a park before 10 (usually around 11) and really had no issues getting what we wanted, and that was with the old rule that you could not pick your 4th ride until all 3 rides were used up. Now you can pick #4 as soon as you tap into ride #1. If you think about it, with G+ you got 1 at 7am and your next pick may not be until 10:30 if the park opens at 8:30 (EE). People also take for granted the tier 2 rides just because they normally do not have an hour wait. Rides that had 20 minute waits later at night, we would use FP+ and it was nearly a walk on and we would keep doing this the rest of the night. Those 15-20 minutes per ride adds up real quickly. There are parts I will miss with G+, but overall not sad to see it go. I also am the type of person that when I wake up and have to start thinking (buying and selecting a G+ ride at 7), I am not able to fall back to sleep and after a long night that adds up over a 9 day trip. At least with LLMP, I will be able to control the times a lot more then I could with G+. The only reason now to have to wake up at 7 is for VQ's, but that is still easier then having to do both G+ and VQ's at 7.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

Well that is a huge, huge bummer. LOVED stacking!!

Do we know if we can continue to book a new ride after one is used or if we are only allowed a 4th booking once the first is used and then have to use the other 2 up to get a 5th, 6th, so on?

Once you tap into a LLMP ride you will be allowed to select another and so on.

 

[Planogirl]

I just checked out buying tickets only for later this year through the Disney website and no mention was made of it. I figured that would be the case for now.

 

[jeneric997]

For those saying yay no more early mornings, what about the fact that now you can't stack rides in the evening? I feel like if you really want to take advantage of the new setup you need to be in park as soon as possible to make sure you use one of your selected attractions to be able to get another. In the past with Genie+ you could wake up, purchase Genie+, purchase your ILL for later in the day, pick your first LL for later in the day and go back to sleep or wake up get a coffee, chill, go to the pool and head out later in the afternoon and ride everything you stacked throughout the day.

It's more than just the 7am- it's the panic inducing, everyone refreshing, trying to get a ride at the right time problem. I could never get back to sleep after! Sleeping in, doesn't necessarily mean until noon. While stacking was nice, it doesn't always work for all the rides. It still pays off to be at the parks early, and for me sleeping the extra hour till 8am and being at the park before 9:30am without all the crazy 7am is better. You can still make 2 late LL and work off an early one. I would have been happy if we could have made just one early and then kept the system like Genie+, but they decided to go back to FP+ without the restriction of using all three first, which is a great compromise. I found I didn't use Genie+ as much because it wasn't really worth it for certain parks, it will probably be the same with the new system.

We will be guinea pigs for this, we check in on July 28th. Celebrating DD's 21st. I am soooo happy to not have to deal with 7am panic. If someone wants a VQ- they can get up instead of me!

 

[thanxfornoticin]

From the Disneyworld.com website: "Once you redeem a selection on the day of your park visit, you can choose another multi pass experience from either group (subject to availability)." (emphasis added) The "group" is the tier.

So perhaps, if availability holds, we could actually hold 3 tier-1 LLs at the same time? Interesting. That couldn't happen with the original FP+.

 

[fbarker]

There won't be any left for the day after you use your first one anyway, so this is pretty much a moot point.

I am sorry you have no way to know if that will be true. It may or may not be but its not good to speculate about that now.....In my opinion.

 

[Let's Get Kronk]

I am sorry you have no way to know if that will be true. It may or may not be but its not good to speculate about that now.....In my opinion.

You are absolutely right. I should have waited to see how the system functioned before I passed judgment. I am a bit skeptical, but I hope I am proven wrong.

 

[DoryGirl1963]

So that would be a yes, you would pay $100, $150, $200 per day per person (Universal is dynamic pricing) for it to be at Disney.

I venture you're looking at twice that for Disney at peak times - Unlimited EP at Universal can get up to $300 per person per day if bought day of for both parks at busy times, so Disney would be way more.

I love how Universal's EP works, too - so super easy albeit expensive - but folks are really under estimating how much that sort of thing would cost at Disney IMO.