So Lightning Lane is basically just the old E Ticket system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_ticket

Yup.

I will not ever pay for Genie+ or LL. If something has a long line we'll just do it during extra magic hours or catch it the next day or the next trip. There's so much to do, there is really no ride that I absolutely MUST go on while there.

This was the perfect FastPass system in my opinion. You had to physically walk to the ride, insert your ticket, and you got a piece of paper telling you when to come back. You were limited in how many you could have at a time, and the paper would tell you when you could get another. Then you could go off and do something else, come back, and pretty much walk in. You didn't have to plan so far in advance, and you didn't walk around staring at a phone.

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It had its downsides too. You could hand off your fast passes to others. Cast members would generally honor any pass that had passed its time slot. In Disney land the 2 parks weren’t linked, so you could keep walking back and forth getting fast passes.

I have the perfect fix for long lines: More rides.

Hotel capacity (on and off Disney) has far outstripped ride capacity in the parks. Until ride capacity catches up, lines will always be a problem.

Easiest way to fix it: Add more rides and build a 5th park.

Me personally, I can't wait for Epic Universe to open up. I truly believe it will put a dent into the amount of people at Disney.

Is Magic Kingdom the most popular park? Build a second one with some of the best rides found at the parks outside of the U.S.

I liked paper tickets much better.

And I’m still shocked they didn’t build a Star Wars park as the fifth gate.

A 5th park will never be built. We are lucky we have the 4 that we have.

Disneyland in Paris has the best space mountain. It has star tours, haunted mansion, pirates of Caribbean, small world, big thunder. Been 21 years since I was there, trying to remember as much as I can. They have 2 parks there, but second one was completed after had visited.

Ive always wanted to do the Tokyo parks

The Tokyo parks are really good.

Disney HK has the best Big Thunder Mountain ride by far. On your way to Japan, you have to make a pit stop there.

Those were fun to get. On our honeymoon they would occasionally give them back to us as a souvenir, still have them in a scrapbook.
One big problem with them was people started to counterfeit them. I remember seeing big stacks for sale on eBay.
Things have changed many times at Disney World, I am sure in 10 years there will be people saying “what the heck was genie+?”

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Disney selling the number of tickets they're selling (given the amount of ride capacity they're offering) causes long lines and a crowded experience!

The initial cost estimate of Tron Light Cycle Run was between $350-450 million USD before Covid threw a monkey wrench into construction plans that will likely move the needle higher. Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland was over $1 billion USD to construct.

Attractions are massively expensive and are built solely to attract more patrons. Once the patrons are there they can be sold goods and services as the sole means of making the park money, like tickets, concessions, restaurants, souvenirs, and of course hotels and resorts.

Long lines mean the rides are doing their jobs well, attracting customers. Short lines would mean that rides are operating under capacity, and losing money (think Fast and Furious at Universal, a huge failure). You will never have a financially healthy park with short lines. If you had short lines, you also wouldn’t get new rides (remember rides are incredibly expensive to build).

I wouldn’t say never. If they felt they could attract enough guests to make it a long term financial success, it would get built.

It would need to be thematically different from their current offerings of fantasy (Magic Kingdom), future and technology (Epcot Future World), world culture (Epcot World Showcase), nature (Animal Kingdom), and Hollywood and the movies (Hollywood Studios). Any attraction whose story already fits in with the theme of an existing park would obviously go there. Each existing park could be expanded if needed, rather than build another park and all the required infrastructure.

Universal had to purchase land and build another park simply because they had no more space to grow their 2 existing parks. Walt learned his lesson from Anaheim where the space was too small, and businesses popped up at the edge of their property drawing money away from the park. That is why the land purchase for Disney World was so massive. It gave as much room to expand as they would ever need, kept competition far away, and controlled the experience. When the magic kingdom was built, they also built a ticket and transportation center. The idea behind this has always been stated that they wanted the experience to feel like being transported to a different land. While this is partly true, it was also the plan to separate you from your car, and make it tougher to leave. More time in the park means you are likely to spend more money.

Went to Hollywood Studios yesterday, purchased tix a few weeks back thinking a Tuesday in October should be a slower day. Lol. Then Disney announced it will be the First day for Genie +. Place was mobbed. We are down here for HHN and staying at Universal, so no extra morning half hour for us.

Genie+ doesn’t include Rise of the Resistance or Mickey’s Runaway Train ride. So if we wanted LL access to all rides it would have cost an extra $37 per person. We did end up paying the $15 for Rise because I just couldn’t stand in a 110 minute queue. wouldn’t do it again, an extra $15 / pp to skip a line for a ride one time is just a bit much.

On a side note, at IOA we’ve ridden VelociCoaster 3 times and the wait hasn’t been more than 25 mins , even though the posted wait times are always over 45 mins.
HHN tonight and tomorrow. Time to go get our scare on.

There will never be a 5th park meaning they don't have any more room. The Reedy Creek Improvement District has to have x amount of preserve as part of the original agreement with the State way back in 1968 or so. If you look at an aerial map, with all of the hotels/waterparks, and other structures, there isn't a lot of green space left in the Reedy Creek District. Yes - it looks like that to us as we drive around it, but not from an Eagle's point of view.

I don't think they have enough green space to build another park and all of the infrastructure needed like parking lots, support buildings, etc.

I hope they never do. I enjoy the mix of development/non development of WDW as it is.

Not quite:

What is Reedy Creek looking at for the future in terms of development? Well, the 2020 comprehensive plan says that about 51.4% of the entire District (including the Reedy Creek food plain) will remain totally undeveloped, and most of the undeveloped land has been designated as Conservation. The remaining land (just over 12,000 acres) has been designated for “more intensive uses.” Out of the available land, 75% is already urbanized, leaving about 25% vacant. This vacant land basically corresponds to areas that have been designated as “suitable for development.”

Source: https://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2021/05/27/umm-excuse-me-how-much-of-disney-world-is-just-empty-land/

How long did it take for you to get on Rise of Resistance with the LL?

Disneyland had solved this issue (at least when I went in Feb 2020). You would get the ticket but it was linked to your park ticket that you inserted into the machine. All the FP did was remind you what time range to return to the ride. You had to have your park ticket to use it at the FP line.

I actually liked being able to give away unused FP's in the past. Sometimes we wouldn't have time or were tired, so I'd give them to a family getting in line for standby. Sometimes people would give me an unused one if I was going on a ride alone.

I heard FastPass was put in for the opposite reason. My brother worked in Tomorrowland in the 90s and was friends with the guy that worked on the ticket machines. He said supposedly the concept came about because Disney figured every minute you’re standing in line is time you could be in a shop or restaurant spending $$. They want people to pass through the turnstiles, not be hung up in queues.

I guess they decided differently now.

Theres Tons of Space for Disney to develop, but it will be quite some time.
There are also plenty of plans that exist in early stages.

We have had quite a few theme parks, that never came to life.

There was a single worlds tallest tower coaster, at the end of Sandlake,
a Raceworld/Nascar World, A Paramount/Star Trek theme Park in Arizona,
that all didnt come to life. Right now, there is a Bible World going through the motions in AZ.

Over the years, dozens of projects, in Orlando, that didnt come alive.

Its interesting family conversation here, with my brother having been lead contract attorney
for Universal construction, and at Disney. I enjoyed visiting daily, as Universal was being built,
and I had a store across the street.

About 15 minutes

For $15, I would say it’s worth it.

I’m looking at the lines today in Disney. Rise of Resistance is sold out. Genie+ based on ride times at 10am is kind of a waste. If I have similar wait times in January, then I’ll just purchase arise of Resistance and that’s it.

This is where i'm hoping they start adding benefits of on site stays. The on site deluxe hotels are insanely priced now. The polynesian is about $700/night now for a standard room. They should give a couple of Lightning Lane passes per day at that cost. I say that as a DVC owner though, as I'd never pay $700/night for that room

You get extra 2 hours on select evenings.

a pittance.

I’m a theme park guy more than Disney guy. I have seen some studies done that virtual lines increase sales inside of the parks. The waterpark at Universal is almost all virtual so that you can stand in line to buy food and merchandise. So Disney’s getting it both ways you pay for virtual and you’re probably going to spend more money on food and merchandise.

I totally agree with you.

For deluxe, they should have an extra 3 hours in magic kingdom and Disney studios everyday.

That would have me booking there for certain.

They did eventually, after it was abused for years with the old paper ticket system

Both ideas work together. You are right that they don't make money with people standing in line (unless you are at universal, and they are smart enough to sell beer in the line, which is genius), and that is why for brand new attractions they have switched to virtual queues.

They do need attractions to bring in a lot of people, which lead to greater wait times, and now they are monetizing the ability to get out of the long line. It would be interesting to see if they use far field radio to track magic bands to research the number of people who wait in line then ultimately buy a lightning lane pass after 30 minutes. I think the situation of parents in line with kids who start to get too fidgety or having a melt down will make the impulse purchase. There are so many parents out there that would gladly pay money to not have to tell their kids they have to wait, and Disney will take advantage of that.
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I don’t see any benefit to deluxe hotels. It’s just entirely too much to stay there.

I’m down there for 10 days in January. I’m not paying $700 per night just to sleep in a room. I’m staying at the tower at Coronado Springs. The rooms there are gorgeous and only $300/night.

Note: I’m sitting in eye doctor waiting room. Beauty and beast song from the live action movie is on…..no where near as good as the 1991 version. Sigh.

Book at a Universal deluxe resort where you get unlimited fast pass from the day you check in through the day you check out.

Money talks. It is all that Disney will listen to especially since Bob Chapek took over right at the beginning of the pandemic. If they start to lose bookings and survey results indicate that is why, they will change their policies. Good article on Chapek and the current prospectus of Disney: https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/10/17/is-disneys-bob-chapek-ceo-of-the-year-for-2021/

The new tower is great. I also love the southwest theming in the section towards the back of the resort. It's a wonderful resort,and one of the better deals on Disney Property. It is the only one that has a gym, and jogging around the grounds (the resort is huge) is a real pleasure in the morning (if you like jogging that is). Hot tip, if you get there late like I did once before I moved down here - there is no place to get anything to eat late into the evening. You'll have to order delivery from Dominos or go to another resort.

I’ll be doing plenty of jogging doing the Dopey Challenge. No late night dining is fine….I’ll be in bed by 7:30pm the first 5 nights.

We’re staying at an Air B&B for the week, but booked one night at a Universal Deluxe b/c it was significantly cheaper than buying 5 Express Passes directly. As a bonus we’ll have access to a nearby room for naps/changes of clothes, even though we won’t actually be sleeping there. Crazy!

Edited as I had the wrong information, apparently you can buy individual lightning lane passes without genie+.

With this being the case I could see them selling a lot of lightning lane passes when people are looking at a 2 hour line

Yes you can buy only Rise without Genie+, that’s what we did yesterday

That's hilarious. I'd be trying to sell my room key to someone.

Good to know, sorry for the misinformation. I must have read it wrong on the Disney forum, I’ll edit my previous post. Thanks

I do the same thing. If I go with other people, sometimes I will check them into my deluxe room, even with them staying somewhere else, till we hit the max occupancy just to get them passes.

Five per room, baby! The math works out at busier times when the express passes are more expensive, and you’ll probably want them more then as well.

Bigger question for me is how often does Rise of the Resistance break down? When I was at Disneyland when the ride opened (the second or third day after), the line was backed up because it kept shutting down...and then they eventually just shut it down for good (which understandably pissed off a ton of people that came there just for that). Have they fixed the problems with that ride, or is it still prone to regular shutdowns?

It's getting better. Any new ride is plagued by interruptions.

I doubt there is any discount for running in B mode. That's why they now make a B mode on new attractions, so that animatronics malfunctions don't shut down the ride or ruin the experience.

Funny Disney story. When my brother first met his ex-wife, she had a 5 day disney trip planned with her friends.

On the 4th day, she came home early, due to getting into a major fight with her friends.

I told my brother that this is a huge red flag, because how does anyone get into that kind of argument with friends at the happiest place on earth.

They were divorced after 6 years of marriage.

An aggregated % is a total of ALL available space. I don't see how and where they could build a 5th park. Plus they can't go anywhere near Animal Kingdom. They should focus on adding attractions in the current parks (which is what they have been doing), no need for a 5th one unless they want to repurpose something (like one of the water parks).

It still breaks down but the downtime is shorter and less frequent it seems. It definitely isn't as bad as it was during the initial launch. I was on the ride once when it broke down. We were in the cell waiting to be broken out for longer than normal, which was our first sign something wasn't going right. Then when we were on the main ride portion, the whole ride froze when we were in the room where Kylo Ren and General Hux are talking to each other. Right when Kylo Ren turns around, it froze. After about 15 minutes all the lights came on and the screen behind the windows went black. We were eventually met by a castmember to let us out of the ride vehicle. We then got to walk through a portion of the ride before being led out a backdoor. They added a new boarding pass to our magic band for anytime that day so we got to ride it again.

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