Big changes are coming to Walt Disney World's Lightning Lanes

So essentially Disney is reverting the system similar to what it was when it was called FP+, just shortening the lead time for booking attractions ahead of a visit. They obviously couldn't possibly ween themselves off the revenue that Genie+ created, so they're still going to charge guests extra for what was a free service 5 years ago. I do like the idea of tiring attraction to make it easier for guests to get at least one "good" attraction ahead of time, but what isn't detailed here is whether guest will be able to get LLs for attractions they've already experienced through the LL like it was under FP+ - my guess would be no.

I guess this is a step in the right (backwards) direction, and undoes one of the worst performing Disney services ever conceived. WDW couldn't put the Genie back in the bottle fast enough.

I may be one of the few people that thought G+ was better than FP+. I hate having to book them in advance. Hate it. I do not want vacation being planned out in advance. And I despise the tiered system which forces you to have to stand in multiple long lines a day. So now it will be like FP+ but you have to pay for it.

I love the new attractions, but the customer service approach has gotten worse every year since 2000. They used to focus on doing things that are the best for the guest. Now it is what is best for them. Of course they are there to make money, but I will spend it elsewhere.

Also, all these changes make it more and more confusing for the average theme park visitor. People around here can (and will) navigate it to their benefit, but the average user will be frustrated and unhappy.

I used to tutor people on Disney trips and really promote it as a family vacation. Now I would send them elsewhere unless they are just dead set on going. They used to have families that were regular returning visitors. Now they are more likely to be one-and-done. Especially due to the cost.

This is just making it too complicated now.

There is a major problem with allowing advance LL reservations, when rides go down it creates a massive cluster**** for the rest of the day. When a major ride has some sort of maintenance issue and is down for 3 hours, when it re-opens the LL line stretches out of the rides entrance and wraps around the land, while the standby line basically doesn't move for the rest of the day because thousands of people have advance bookings and they all need to ride. The people in the standby line are ready to riot and the people who have LL bookings look at the line and say "Fastpass??? Should be SLOWPASS!!!" Its a massive customer dissatisfier, hence why they stopped doing it.

As George W Bush would say: "fool me once, shame on...shame on....you fool me you can't get fooled again!"

The LLMP could be a disaster for those who buy day of…may not be much available as it is unlikely they would withhold availablily or prime time slots from those booking (and paying) in advance. Also, can already identify a potential major loophole that could be exploited.

I miss being able to go to a theme park and just play it by ear more than plan every ride out in time windows.

@the_man7 - I can see those issues with attraction breakdowns, but those issues will happen whether they're letting guests get LLs the day of or a week prior. Under FP+, the reports of the FP line backing up due to an attraction breakdown were pretty rare. I'm not sure why it happens under Genie+, but I have read quite a few instances where the standby line grinds to a halt because guests mob the LL all at once - you would think if they're managing and enforcing return times that it wouldn't happen, but somehow it does.

Obviously the big difference is that Disney is now charging guests for this service, and so not only do guests expect/feel entitled to receive some benefit from the service, but they are more likely to use the service more than if it was included in the admission price, which was the case under FP+, when Disney could count on a certain number of FPs to not be redeemed since guests didn't have "skin in the game".

Ultimately, I think there are benefits to both booking in advance and day of, but personally I'd prefer to know what I'm going to get up front, especially if I'm paying extra. If I buy LLMP, and there are no tier 1 attraction available during booking, I can at least request a refund before I arrive. If you're booking attractions the day-of, and none of the top attractions have LLs available, you have to spend park time trying to get a refund or some sort of consolation. To me it's a nominal improvement in customer service by letting guests book ahead (and to give on-site guests a head start).

When an attraction breaks down with the current system, it is easy to pivot to another attraction since much is being done that morning or real time. With this new abomination, it will be much harder to book other attractions since they have been booked several days in the past. No way this new system is going to be better. Now, they could double or triple the price, then fewer people would be on it; however, I am not sure many would think this is a good idea.

Or, they could raise the price and substantially cut back attractions that use it. The fast loading or lower demand attractions could be standby only. At this point all my Disney trips will be substantially truncated or I will just do Disneyland which is much more manageable.

Previously my major trips would be 6-7 days at Disney with 2 at Universal. After 2025 it will be 4 Disney days and 4 Universal with Universal always at the end. I am not sure the people making these decisions to change the system are actually fans of the parks

I've said it before and I'll say it again! Please just switch to what Universal does and get rid of the booking system non-sense! Charge whatever you want and I would pay it and gladly go back to Disney. For now we will continue to avoid since we can't get a proper express pass.

We recently went to an after hours party at Hollywood Studios in April since my husband really wanted to see Galaxy's Edge and I have to admit that was quite nice. We had a great time and I think this will be our only way we visit Disney from now on.

Ugh, I actually preferred Genie+ over Fastpass+ BECAUSE it got rid of the early planning. Now we’re going back to seeing the hotel guests gobble up the good rides before anyone else gets a shot.

Fun.

I feel like we all just got gaslit by the Disney company. Everyone collectively: "We want our vacation planning to be simpler"... the Disney company, "So what we're hearing is you want to plan everything before you get there... we got you, how about this super convoluted thing we came up with that has weird rules about when how and who can book tickets for which rides?" No thanks. I think I'll be avoiding any Disney trips until they go out of fashion again and the crowds die down.

Congratulations, Disney! You are actively increasing the length of the list of reasons I have for not giving you money the next time I plan a trip to Florida. No other theme park in the world requires the amount of advance planning that WDW does in order to have a successful visit, and now that advance planning is strongly encouraging investment into an upcharge product that may or may not actually be needed. There's just so many ways that could go wrong.

Personally, I'm wondering how long it will be before Disney gets sued over this. If they can't deliver on the experience that guests specifically paid for and booked, are they going to offer a refund? Probably not, which is where I feel the problem lies. It's one thing to book a free reservation and have the ride be unavailable, but in this case you're paying in advance for specific experiences, and if those attractions wind up not being available, Disney is essentially breaching contract by not delivering what was sold. I'm sure there's all kinds of disclaimers so nothing would ever stick, but they could absolutely wind up with some incredibly bad PR should it become common for guests regularly needing to choose a substitute attraction that they might not have paid for had they known it was their choice when booking.

Ultimately, I don't think this will be the thing that turns the masses off from Disney, but it is the latest in a string of bad decisions that further decrease my desires to visit the companies parks. Out of the 100+ theme parks I've visited, the best Disney properties rank in the teens on my personal list (though most are in the 30s), which is pretty sad given the reputation they have.

Who said Disney does not innovate anymore. Well just not on the stuff we want them to. This so makes my head spin. Lets see 47 days to reserve rides unless we stay at a hotel then it is 74 days out. But dinning reservations are 54 days out unless we stay at a hotel then it is 210 days out. If we donate to the Walt Disney fund then subtract 30 days and multiply by 3.14. Have a Disney Visa card just show up and push people out of any line. If you love planning this is for you. Heck if I show up with my family well planning just will not work. We might get there at 9am, 1am or 5pm. Why, because we are on vacation. No work. No School. No schedule.

Who said Disney does not innovate anymore. Well just not on the stuff we want them to. This so makes my head spin. Lets see 47 days to reserve rides unless we stay at a hotel then it is 74 days out. But dinning reservations are 54 days out unless we stay at a hotel then it is 210 days out. If we donate to the Walt Disney fund then subtract 30 days and multiply by 3.14. Have a Disney Visa card just show up and push people out of any line. If you love planning this is for you. Heck if I show up with my family well planning just will not work. We might get there at 9am, 1am or 5pm. Why, because we are on vacation. No work. No School. No schedule.

"Under FP+, the reports of the FP line backing up due to an attraction breakdown were pretty rare."

Definitely not rare, it happened somewhere in the park every day and at many attractions on a regular basis (like multiple times a week). It doesn't even need to be a long downtime, or even a break down, to create chaos. If an old person trips and falls and they have to stop the ride for the paramedics to come get the person and then wait for custodial to clean the blood, now everyone is screwed.

While you are correct this was still an issue with Genie+ it was far worse with FP+ because I could just pick up the phone and call the command center and say "reduce inventory by [x%] NOW" if it was earlier in the day. Now all the inventory is gone and in addition to that these people all had it in their head weeks in advance that they are good. I don't need to know what's going to happen because it was already the reality prior to the pandemic. With FP+ it was actually a normal occurrence for the Space Mountain FP line to be 20 minutes or if it was a long downtime even longer, the line sometimes even stretched out the queue around to the restrooms. Jungle Cruise was the worst because of how small and congested Adventureland is. The line went up the stairs, around the corner and stretching back sometimes halfway through the land.

That rascal Bob Chapek is up to his old tricks again!!!

I pity the Disney visitors that casually show up to the parks nowadays thinking it's going to be like visiting any other park. Also the spontaneous visitors. I find it hard to believe people actually wanted this back.

This is a classic case of a company listening to the vocal few and thinking that it represents their customer base at large. Yes, there is a subset of people who enjoy spending the entire year planning every facet of their trip down to the second. Most people DO NOT fall into this category. I'll be at Universal, where I can do as I please without advance planning. At least for now, until I get locked outside of a portal at Epic b/c that land is at capacity.

…. and still no repeat riding ??

I’m with everyone on here, my time at Universal is so much more enjoyable these days

I think it's ironic that everyone keeps saying that Universal has it better. UO was my home park for many, many years. It was my favorite and I didn't deviate from it. Yes, I visited SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and WDW occasionally, but I loved Universal. However, things there have changed, and now I spend most of my time at WDW. Genie+ spreads visitors throughout the parks. Universal allows visitors to move in masses, which is exactly how people do. I've been in a short 15 minute standby line for the Hogwarts Express and then a large mass files in the Express line. The standby line now has to come to a 60+ minute halt because Universal favors Express Pass people. At least WDW, toggles back and forth. Worse is when it happens on Velocicoaster and Hippogriff because EP allows unlimited rides. (This is why the kid coaster is seeing longer standby lines this year.) I didn't like Genie+, at first, but I understood why it is was created. And, there are many ways to use it to your advantage and complete one of the four parks in a couple of hours for a fraction of the price Universal charges. Honestly, Genie+ is a bargain for what you receive.

What you need to remember, WDW has more to offer visitors and is much larger so the system spreads everyone out. Universal is smaller with less rides and shows, so you feel the Express Pass customer. I think EPs should be limited to one ride per person like Genie+ or they should cost A LOT more. My one issue with Genie+ is that it doesn't stop everyone from running to the line as soon as their time arrives. Why does everyone do this???

"I think EPs should be limited to one ride per person like Genie+ or they should cost A LOT more."

Universal does do that. Guests can purchase standard Universal Express, which grants faster access to selected attractions once per day. The price for standard UE starts at @$90 (@3x what Disney typically charges for Genie+), but guests don't have to do the Genie+ booking nonsense, and can simply enter the UE line when they arrive at an attraction. Unlimited Universal Express typically runs @$120+, and allows guests unlimited access to all UE attractions. This is the product that guests staying at deluxe resorts (Hard Rock, Portofino Bay, and Royal Pacific) receive, so the perception is that guests are paying for UE, but the fact of the matter is that most guests using Unlimited UE are getting it as part of their hotel room, further underlining why staying at the Universal deluxe resorts are one of the best deals in the Orlando theme park market.

I will note that in our most recent experiences with UE, the lines for Express have been longer than we've seen in the past, suggesting that more guests are actually buying it and/or deluxe hotel guests more efficiently using the complimentary service. Also, you still can't use UE on Hagrid's, but you can use it on Velocicoaster.

"My one issue with Genie+ is that it doesn't stop everyone from running to the line as soon as their time arrives. Why does everyone do this???"

Because once you've checked in for your selected LL attraction, you can grab a new LL. When you're paying money for a service, you want to get the most out of it, which means being as efficient as possible with your selections. That means grabbing your first LL the second they become available at 7 AM, and then clearing that attraction out of your queue so you can select your next attraction for the day, which can mean getting a better selection of attractions to choose from. If you wait until the end of your return window to redeem your LL (and it hasn't been 2 hours since you picked it up), then you're deliberately handicapping yourself and potentially limiting what rides may be available for your next LL selection.

Again, everything comes down to the fact that people are actually paying for Genie+, which was not the case with FP+. So people expect and demand to get value from their Genie+ purchase, which just didn't happen as much under the "free" FP systems. It seems that Disney's response to guest frustration with Genie+ is to make it more complicated, and then blaming customer ignorance when they aren't able to get any value from the service.

Unlimited Express Pass is a million times better than anything Disney has ever done. Better than FP, FP+, G+, and this new monstrosity. That being said, the ability to manage the people is much easier for UO. Disney simply has a much higher volume of people and many more people staying at their hotels. The cost of lodging is much higher. For example, Disney could give extra passes for deluxe hotel guests, but that would make many people very angry. $350 a night gets you no extra but $650 a night does. That wouldn’t work. UO offers the benefit for just three hotels that are priced at a Disney moderate resort.

Look, I do not believe for a second Disney is doing this because guests wanted it. They liked FP+ because it benefitted them. Then they introduce G+ and it worked better (at least for me) but you have to pay, and they raked in the money. So now they get the FP+ that they like but you have to pay for it. The bottom line is the current park management does not care if the guests have fun as long as there is a steady income stream. It also speaks volumes that they are not doing this at Disneyland. The public out there would not accept it.

I totally understand that Disney cannot have a system like Universal at WDW; however, they do not need to make a system that requires guests to watch tutorial videos or rely on travel agents just to plan a day.

Unlimited Express Pass is a million times better than anything Disney has ever done. Better than FP, FP+, G+, and this new monstrosity. That being said, the ability to manage the people is much easier for UO. Disney simply has a much higher volume of people and many more people staying at their hotels. The cost of lodging is much higher. For example, Disney could give extra passes for deluxe hotel guests, but that would make many people very angry. $350 a night gets you no extra but $650 a night does. That wouldn’t work. UO offers the benefit for just three hotels that are priced at a Disney moderate resort.

Look, I do not believe for a second Disney is doing this because guests wanted it. They liked FP+ because it benefitted them. Then they introduce G+ and it worked better (at least for me) but you have to pay, and they raked in the money. So now they get the FP+ that they like but you have to pay for it. The bottom line is the current park management does not care if the guests have fun as long as there is a steady income stream. It also speaks volumes that they are not doing this at Disneyland. The public out there would not accept it.

I totally understand that Disney cannot have a system like Universal at WDW; however, they do not need to make a system that requires guests to watch tutorial videos or rely on travel agents just to plan a day.

"...or they should cost A LOT more." Yes they should, I can't argue with that. The parks need to find a sweet spot of charging enough to thin their use but still making as much money as they want. If they doubled the price and had half the number of people using the passes, I think we would all benefit.

@AngryDuck - Or at least limit the number of guests that can purchase the service each day, like what every other theme park on the planet does. In the strive for more and more revenue, Disney doesn't seem to care whether the quality of the service suffers, and in turn, guests don't seem to care because the bar has been set so obscenely low.

Honestly, if Disney raised the price by 2-3x, I don't think it would significantly impact the number of guests utilizing the service, and would likely just create more frustration, animosity, and dissatisfaction when it didn't meet the higher expectations created by the higher cost (especially when compared to admission). Disney knows, and is counting on the fact, that for a large number of guests, a WDW is a once in a lifetime (or great while) experience, and that most guests just want to feel like they're getting a bit of a leg up on guests that don't purchase the service.

I really don't understand why the domestic parks don't follow what some of the international parks are doing with regards to Front Of Line Passes. At Tokyo Disney, for example, guests pay for Disney Premier Access for each ride. The problem with Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, formerly known as Genie+, is you are essentially paying for access to a booking system with no guarantee of availability.

It's understandable that Disney wants to give resort guests better perks in order to incentivize bookings, which from general chatter appear to be soft. Disney could set aside a select number of ride reservations for these resort guests, again similar to what Tokyo Disney does with their vacation packages. Disney could even tier these advanced reservations, with guests staying in Deluxe resorts getting 3 advanced reservations, and guests staying in a value resort getting 1.

Allowing all guests to book in advance just adds to the rat-race aspect of a Disney World vacation. Shrink the pool of advanced bookings to hotel guests when they initially make their reservation. Everyone else buys a la carte the day-of.

I guess, really the problem is... not every customer is going to be happy, no matter what system the park uses. There's going to be winners and losers--- well, except the companies. They'll always win as long as parkgoers fork over their money to them.

Russell- I know there is a pass that only always visitors to ride once, but most people stay the luxury hotels just to get the unlimited pass or they purchase their cheaper unlimited pass through discount venues. So what I can see and by talking to team members, the majority use the unlimited pass. Maybe they could limit the number sold each day or the team members could be instructed to toggle the standby and EPs more fairly.

HappyHaunt- You brought up a fair point about the hotel costs. I forget sometimes how much more expensive the Disney hotels are. Even when I used to travel down here to vacation at WDW for the week, I would stay at other hotels in the area, including the ones at Universal.

The whole reason they created Fastpass (in the 90s) was to increase the rides per guest number, therefore increasing customer satisfaction, without having to spend money building/maintaining/operating more attractions.

There have been some circumstances where Disney realized their rides do not have enough capacity and actually gone in and constructed new capacity to existing rides (Toy Story Mania and Soarin, although due to corporate bureaucracy it took many many years for that to actually happen), and Dumbo as well when they were spending money on Fantasyland. And guess what, it actually fixed the problem on those rides, which do not have nearly as long lines as they used to.

Basically it comes down to the fact that Disney has a ride capacity problem, everyone knows it, but they haven't wanted to hurt their margins to fix it. And since their parks have been doing really well from a business perspective for so long the people running the place have taken a "this is fine" position on it. I almost shat my pants when Bob Iger recently said "we need to add capacity" in an earnings call talking about adding new lands to MK, its like, dude where have you been for decades?

Say what you will about Eisner, but the customer service back then was through the roof. I have countless stories of things cast members did above and beyond back then. We had meals comped when a counter service line backed up, got extra fast passes when a member of our party made a frustrated face, had hotel managers go over and beyond, etc. etc. I could experience 15-20 attractions per day with the original FP (of course I quickly took all our party member’s tickets through the park to the kiosks in a whirlwind early morning brisk power walk).

The theory back then was by the parks going above and beyond, it would bring in repeat customers who did not mind paying a premium to be treated right. Corporations would send employees to a Disney customer service training so they could replicate the service. I was glad to pay as much as I did if we would be treated that way.

Then it changed. It started with FP+ and the Magic Bands. The customer service started slipping, but the people came anyway. The average guest had to have a guide book to understand it all. Yet they kept coming. It got more and more expensive. I could now get 8-10 attractions (unless I was at Disneyland). G+ came along and I was up to 9-15 attractions, but it cost an absolute fortune. I use rewards points to make it very cheap, but I am using up points.

However, Universal started stepping up their game. It became more fun to go there, but I still love the Disney parks. Now they are removing services. No more Magic Express, packages delivered to hotel, and the parks are staffed much less it seems. Now they are reverting back to a sort of FP+ but you pay for it.

All this rant to say they should really go back to what made it a great vacation destination. While the new attractions are great, it was really the customer service that set them apart. You never had a situation where 4-5 attractions would go down. Change direction. Go ahead and build a fifth gate, but remember what set you apart.

@HappyHaunt - I complete agree, and think you hit on something really important. The level of customer service in the 90s and early 00s was all about getting guests to come back or to turn their 3-5 day vacation into a week-long vacation. That's part of why DVC was created and why resorts started popping up like weeds around WDW during that era. It's also why 3 new American parks were added and additional parks were built around the world to encourage guests to have more and more Disney experiences. When there were drops in tourism following 9-11 and again after the Great Recession (2008), it was all about getting visitors in the gate and convincing them to extend their stays or come back in the next year. Visiting WDW was part of a family's routine to the point that many were taking 2-3 full week trips to Orlando in a single year with DVC. Yes, a trip to Orlando was still an expensive proposition, but you at least felt like you were getting some value in your return visit with decent "bounce back" offers (30% or more off - I once recall receiving a bounce back offer to get 3 nights of a 6-night stay for free at a Moderate Resort) and solid savings on multi-day tickets (even when prices broke the $100/day ceiling, you could still get in for less than $50/day if you bought a 10-day, non-expiring ticket).

I think the difference now is that Disney sees itself as a luxury lifestyle brand, and has developed so much loyalty and demand over the past 2 decades that they no longer need to convince guests to come back or to extend their stays. They can routinely jack up prices without causing their core fanbase to bat an eyelash. Disney is preying on long-built loyalty, because they know even if 10-20% of their fans don't visit as frequently or give up on WDW altogether, they still have more guests wanting to visit than their parks can handle. That's why the biggest economic crisis since 2008 (Pandemic) actually resulted in the most aggressive stripping of value from a WDW vacation, and even as Disney has started to restore some of those perks, they are being done in a smarmy, reluctant way. Even before Disney started reversing their perks rollbacks (most notably free parking at resorts, DDP, park hopping, and park reservations), the parks were already back to pre-pandemic crowd levels.

Ultimately, customers/guests will drive what Disney does, and as long as there is an endless supply of money from guests who don't care about value on their family vacation, Disney will continue to optimize their revenue through whatever means possible. I've thought numerous times over the past 2 decades that different operational and/or price changes would finally cause the resort to hit the wall, but it's never happened. I do think that at some point Disney will rue the day when they switched from a customer-focused operation to a revenue-focused operation, but it doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon.

I have just accepted the fact I no longer fit within Disney's targeted demographic. The days of walking around the park with no plans are long over, and I miss that. I could afford all of this... it just doesn't feel worth it to me.

The positive spin here is it gives me an incentive to visit other parks around the world to explore and enjoy.