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

[FuzzyPeach]

The arrival window passing triggering the ability to book another is how FP+ worked, isn’t it?

 

[vinotinto]

That does make sense.

But I still need to figure out what I’m going to do at 6 AM (central, where I am) on July 24. Having zero data to go off of stresses me out.

Join us in the "what else are they going to throw at us in late July" thread!

Do you all feel that more people will be buying into the system then they were with Genie+ just because there’s advanced selections? I have a feeling no. From everything I have read over the last several years since the debut of Genie, most people have indicated they are not buying it because they feel they’ve already spent enough on a Disney vacation. Not because they couldn’t book attractions in advance. FP+ was free so a lot of people used it. This system is still gonna cost money, if not more. I also feel because of this that there will be plenty of tier one attractions available the day you were in the parks. It shouldn’t be any different than it is now.

I vote no. Especially if the price point is as severe as G+. Outside of the moment it’s a noticeably harder to drop that extra dough.

To your second point, it is incorrect. Earnings calls have indicated somewhere around over half of guests purchase some aspect of G+/ILL on their trip. That being said I still would like to know how much was planned vs “the last couple days have been crap, I’m DONE with lines!” purchasing.

Initially, I was thinking that there would be fewer people buying in advance than the day of because once you are hit in one day with all the expense of purchasing all days at once, fewer people would buy. Like $100 for G+ for 1 day for a family of 4 and then a separate $70 for ILL goes down smoother than dishing out $1200 all at once for days. Surely, that would make people pause, especially those with families? But then I remembered how much Disney fans love to pre-pay for the dining plan at Disney. So, perhaps more people will be inclined to "take advantage of the convenience of prepaying."

I don't know about LLMP, but with the old FP+ I found that although you couldn't initially book overlapping times, you could later modify the time so that it overlapped. You'd get a warning message, but it worked.

You would get a message with overlap with dining, but it would not allow overlap between FP+.

Curious, How does it work in the reverse with US travelers to Disney Paris/Toyko/Shanghai? If it's the same where US travelers have to be in the area to book, it does make sense they are now holding the line on this.

In Tokyo, guests have to be scanned in the park to purchase Premier Access (similar to ILL) and book their version of free FP+.

 

[DisneyFive]

Fully anticipating that while this thread is a hot thread with lots of discussion, I'm preparing myself to never purchasing a LLMP as I'm fully anticipating it being $$$. Fully prepared for it to be $200/person/day....but likely more.

Sadly Disney doesn't seem to give something to us in one hand these days without taking something away with the other.

Fully prepared to make friends with standby lines as I cannot justify what many parks charge for these types of passes and fully anticipating Disney is joining the $$$ game.

That would make me really sad. That price would stop us immediately, and I’m guessing many others, from ever returning to WDW.

Maybe that would be the intent, make guests (who are willing to pay those prices) happy by reducing crowds levels but also increasing $$$ margins per guest.

Having said that I just don’t see it happening. I think Disney would get a lot of bad press and bad word of mouth.

 

[Jrb1979]

That would make me really sad. That price would stop us immediately, and I’m guessing many others, from ever returning to WDW.

Maybe that would be the intent, make guests (who are willing to pay those prices) happy by reducing crowds levels but also increasing $$$ margins per guest.

Having said that I just don’t see it happening. I think Disney would get a lot of bad press and bad word of mouth.

Maybe at first they would feel that way. Eventually many will understand standby is what the majority of guests use. That's how the majority of other parks do it.

 

[vinotinto]

There's no way it's going to be $200 per person per day because the increase is too sudden. It will likely be a slow boil. They will start at a level comparable to G+ and adjust depending on demand, etc. Although I fully agree with the poster that had said that the pricing is not ideal because it's cheap enough that most people buy it, which makes it less useful. They may increase a bit to adjust the demand.

 

[carlyannek]

There's no way it's going to be $200 per person per day because the increase is too sudden. It will likely be a slow boil. They will start at a level comparable to G+ and adjust depending on demand, etc. Although I fully agree with the poster that had said that the pricing is not ideal because it's cheap enough that most people buy it and thus it makes standby worse. So, they may increase a bit to adjust the demand.

Exactly. Boil the frog. They can’t just toss us in the deep fryer. This is why they slowly increase it a few bucks at a time. I don’t blink when I see that it’s currently $29, when a couple years ago $10 was outrageous.

 

[DisneyFive]

Maybe at first they would feel that way. Eventually many will understand standby is what the majority of guests use. That's how the majority of other parks do it.

Are you saying the majority of guests don’t purchase G+ currently?

 

[tx911]

Exactly. Boil the frog. They can’t just toss us in the deep fryer. This is why they slowly increase it a few bucks at a time. I don’t blink when I see that it’s currently $29, when a couple years ago $10 was outrageous.

In this case, just make the frog really warm without killing him

 

[SleeplessInTO]

Source?

All the Canadian groups I’m in are reporting this. Several TAs have chimed in.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/c...xuT1wS-kzAtj4Polz0_aem_HmYUTrSry568GXZ7Ko8ASA

https://wdwnt.com/2024/06/advance-lightning-lane-passes-canadian-guests/

 

[carlyannek]

All the Canadian groups I’m in are reporting this. Several TAs have chimed in.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/c...xuT1wS-kzAtj4Polz0_aem_HmYUTrSry568GXZ7Ko8ASA

https://wdwnt.com/2024/06/advance-lightning-lane-passes-canadian-guests/

Thank goodness. For the people who were angry at the blogs for reporting on it, it certainly helped put pressure on Disney to make a statement. Now I don’t have to drive to North Dakota woohoo!

 

[Jrb1979]

Are you saying the majority of guests don’t purchase G+ currently?

My guess is close to 50% buy it each day. IMO it needs to be closer to 10 to 25% of guests.
I feel for any of these systems it's needs to worthwhile for those who buy it.

If I'm buying it, I want to be able to use it on 15-20 rides a day. Not 3-8 that most get.

 

[vinotinto]

My guess is close to 50% buy it each day. IMO it needs to be closer to 10 to 25% of guests.
I feel for any of these systems it's needs to worthwhile for those who buy it.

If I'm buying it, I want to be able to use it on 15-20 rides a day. Not 3-8 that most get.

I think the only park that has more than 8 rides is MK…unless you’re could count Pixar’s Short Films as a ride.

But I get what you’re saying. You want unlimited re-rides.

 

[Jrb1979]

I think the only park that has more than 8 rides is MK…unless you’re could count Pixar’s Short Films as a ride.

But I get what you’re saying. You want unlimited re-rides.

I do. Cause visiting Disney or Universal isn't something we do on a yearly basis that we want to get our money's worth on rides.

Last time we visited Universal we did The Mummy 11 times and the Hulk 6 times.

 

[vinotinto]

I do. Cause visiting Disney or Universal isn't something we do on a yearly basis that we want to get our money's worth on rides.

Last time we visited Universal we did The Mummy 11 times and the Hulk 6 times.

I like back-to-back-to-back rides in MiB so I totally get it.

And this is the reason why LLMP is not going to be $200. No one will pay that much to not even ride their faves a second time.

 

[DisneyFive]

My guess is close to 50% buy it each day. IMO it needs to be closer to 10 to 25% of guests.
I feel for any of these systems it's needs to worthwhile for those who buy it.

If I'm buying it, I want to be able to use it on 15-20 rides a day. Not 3-8 that most get.

I would agree, but I’ve never had a problem with the systems even when 100% of the guests had it like legacy paper Fastpass or FP+. We’ve never had a problem riding ALL the rides in a given park. (Maybe not over and over again buts that’s never been what we wanted)

If I wanted to tour a park like you are saying I might agree with you. Cheers

 

[thebigman65]

All the Canadian groups I’m in are reporting this. Several TAs have chimed in.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/c...xuT1wS-kzAtj4Polz0_aem_HmYUTrSry568GXZ7Ko8ASA

https://wdwnt.com/2024/06/advance-lightning-lane-passes-canadian-guests/

Good news! Still feel bad for the guests from EU and UK though. Hopefully that will be settled soon.

 

[Cabius]

After reading your entire post - Are you saying that 'smaller participation numbers in FP/LL queues will actually benefit the standby line because of the reduction of interrupts to that line'?

Kinda makes sense that reducing constant blocks of people (DAS, LL's) will increase the standby flow.

Yes. If a 1000-butt-per-hour attraction allocates 75% of its capacity to LLs, then it will only load 250 standby guests per hour. If it allocates 10% of its capacity to LLs, it can load 900 standby guests per hour.

Now, it's not as simple as saying that if you eliminated Lightning Lanes, all the waits would be 4x shorter. The reality is that the standby queues would move faster, but also have more people in them. Those hundreds of people who were in the LL will mostly join the standby queue instead.

Ultimately, queues are a form of pricing, denominated in time rather than money. People look at a posted wait time and decide if it's 'worth' 60 minutes of their day. Today, that might mean 250 people joining a standby queue; without so much LL capacity it might mean 900 or 1000 people joining that queue. But on any fairly busy day, you would end up with queues that were longer, moved faster, and ultimately took about the same amount of time -- because people are willing to 'pay' 60 minutes.

My main point is that all skip-the-line options are a zero-sum game. The more valuable you make a LL pass, the worse the standby experience is, and vice versus.

Right now we're stuck in a sort of profitable-but-kinda-crappy equilibrium where G+/LLMP doesn't give the average guest an amazing experience: so many people have it that you still have some amount of waiting in line, and more importantly they have to severely restrict when and how much you can use it. But it still eats up enough capacity to make the guest experience worse for those who don't pay for it. That drives more people to purchase the service, which is great for Disney's bottom line, but only reinforces this dynamic.

I still think the best operational solution (if they had the physical infrastructure for it) would be a Universal-style express pass that is so expensive that most people didn't get it. It would be a much better product, because if few enough people had access to it, they could do away with bookings and limits and make it totally flexible. And it wouldn't have as much of an impact on standby guests. I get why Disney doesn't do it, especially given how much heat they already get from guests (including me!!) who bemoan their steep price increases -- especially paired with obvious cutbacks in entertainment, maintenance, and customer service. But in a world where I could dig up the old EPCOT Mickey wand and wave it around, I do think it would make the park-going experience better for both the luxury and normie guest.

 

[DisneyFive]

My main point is that all skip-the-line options are a zero-sum game. The more valuable you make a LL pass, the worse the standby experience is, and vice versus.

I still think the best operational solution (if they had the physical infrastructure for it) would be a Universal-style express pass that is so expensive that most people didn't get it.

This is not a snarky question, but a real one. Did you ever visit when it was only standby and the parks had filled back up and before G+? If so, how did you like it? That is the nearest equivalent to a “Skip the line” system that would be uber expensive where most guests would be standby and only a few would have the “fast pass”

Here’s our experience with that. We visited when parks were filled back up, but there was no “skip the line” system back in place yet. It was by far the worst Disney trip we have ever experienced. The only option was the standby lines, both long physically and also long time-wise. Also, the word was out and guests knew that the only way to try and beat the system was to get to the parks super early. So now there was no fastpass and we had to show up at the parks 30 minutes to an hour before opening just to get one or two headliners in before the crush of the crowds and long lines for the rest of the day.

In that scenario, the vast majority of guests experienced long physical lines and long average wait times and there was no alternative. The entire experience became mediocre for everyone.

The fast pass systems at Disney work, and they work well enough for all of the guests, or the vast majority of guests, to significantly benefit from it.

I know everyone has different desires of how to tour Disney parks. Our reality ( and we’ve experienced every “skip the line” System that Disney has implemented) is that it can work even when 100% of the guests have it. Pushing it to a select few, who are willing to pay the high price, comes at a much higher negative experience for the majority than it does for the benefit of the few.

 

[123SA]

I've been reading most of this thread and I have not agreed with posters who are concerned that there will be no valuable LLMP available after the initial 3. It occurred to me that I have a pretty skewed viewpoint. All of my trips since 2012 have been in August or September, which usually have light to moderate crowds.

I'm sure it will be easier to get additional LLMP during these months than the higher crowd times, and perhaps that is why this is being rolled at this time.

 

[scrappinginontario]

You expect this new version of LLMP to be $200 per person starting on July 24? For 1 tier one and 2 tier two prebooks.


I've read so much info in the past few days. I'm not sure where I read it, but I am sure I read somewhere that there will not be a significant price difference in the short term. I read it in a USA today article and elsewhere. Plus they put out that photo listing MK at $27 and although there was language stating sample pricing only on the photo, I can't beleive they would use that photo and then price it at $200 per person per day.

I would love nothing more than to be completely wrong about my possible price point! Guess I’m just preparing myself for the worst-case scenario as part of this seems too good to be true:
- buy in advance
- book 3 in advance
- no more midnight purchasing or 7AM wake-ups

Time will tell and hopefully it tells me I’m completely wrong - but I’m still preparing myself in case I’m not.