Checking Every Day?

Ok, sounds like max pass kind of. $450 for my family of 5 for our 6 day tickets. Since there is no Christmas party, I can deal with that.

2 Likes

So it’s basically Maxpass that doesn’t include some rides that you can then spend more money for (or ride standby I think). We loved Maxpass and always bought it, so this sounds great!

1 Like

I just watched the long video. The individual lightening pass attractions can be purchased at 7am for on-site guests. At park opening for everyone else.

2 Likes

Does this mean that if you don’t pay $24 for a timed ride on FoP we might not get to ride at all (or wait in an absurd line) or do you think they will limit the amount sold?

I can’t imagine there will be enough people stumping up $100 for their family to do one ride (after already paying for their ticket and G+) to fill the ride’s capacity. The standby line will be available. Which I’ve never actually done, so that will be nice - trying to find the positives here!!

5 Likes

The TP folks think that this revamp may help the standby lines run better. They briefly touched on it in the YouTube livestream yesterday. The old system was broken because the balance between standby and FP allocation was off. IF they have fixed that then the standby lines should generally be more manageable.

With a few exceptions (GOTG or Tron if I can’t get a BG, for example) I’m won’t be paying a la carte for rides.

4 Likes

I think it will depend on the G+ options for LL or the individual options

3 Likes

@ryan1 Does this sound right?

1 Like

I would agree with the balance for FP+. I believe this system is designed to be like the paper FP. It was better but lines will be longer than now (but you are moving over those that are willing to pay)

2 Likes

In my opinion, not likely. Of course, that’s a big IF there. But if they are not limiting sales of this new system, then as more and more people buy it (talking about the $15/day add on), the standby lines still continue to increase. It becomes exactly what we see for every other paid line system in other parks…as more people use it, the standby lines increase, causing wait times to increase, driving even more people to pay for the add-ons or one-offs.

So, it really is a scheme to drive people into paying more and more, and as they do, it will necessitate everyone else doing the same.

Now, they COULD control it in that if you pay for the add-on, but they still limit the total number of people they allow into the virtual queue (ahem…Lightning Lane), it means that if you pay for the add-on, there is no guarantee it will actually give you access to the rides you most want it for because they might “sell out” earlier in the day. In which case, you’ve paid an extra $15 to have shorter waits on the rides that don’t typically need the shorter waits anyhow.

Frankly, I DESPISE this new system, as I understand it right now. Perhaps in practice, we’ll see a lot fewer people willing to pay for it, and it will be all good. But I despise it more, otherwise, because while FP+ was a sham, this is a scam. It is effectively raising your ticket prices by $15/day (eventually) as more people begin to use it…and as more use it, the more people will find they need to.

3 Likes

When we went to DL we didn’t buy MaxPass everyday. We judged the crowds first to see if it would be worth it. The photopass at DL is junk so that was never a deciding factor either.

Why is photopass junk at DL? It was always hard to find a PP CM. Once we found 7 standing together and asked one to take our pic. HE passed us off to another saying, “Ask him (pointing) I’m on break”. the next passed us off too, and so on. Until we were a bit annoyed and finally got one of them to take our picture but they were rude and annoyed about having to do their job. I went to GS explained what had happened and asked for a refund. Rant over.

3 Likes

I went back and looked at the official announcement text and found this:

image

So…that means you might pay the $15 and STILL not get to ride what you want (or rather, not get to use the Lightning Lane for the rides you want). Positives and negatives there. Positives is that it MIGHT keep the standby lines more reasonable if they limit it enough…but the negative is that you might be gambling away your $15 if you decide to pay it.

2 Likes

The TP people said it so it has to be right! :wink::joy:

1 Like

They might be. I hope they are. What is really limiting this compared to old FastPass is the number of people willing to pony up for it. At this lower price-point, though, I think too many people will end up paying for it to keep the standby lines in check.

The biggest question, then, is if the number of people willing to pay for it PLUS the number of rides, per day, they are able to use it on is LESS than the number of FastPass+ passes people were using Pre-COVID.

Ultimately, though, unlike FP+, where at least there was a BALANCING of wait times (trading longer times for some for shorter waits for others), this just drives up standby times for EVERYONE, and only those who pay get shorter wait times.

So, as I said, not really that different from what other amusement parks already do (and cause HUGE standybline increases even at really high price points).

2 Likes

just like a park res. doesn’t guarantee a BG for RotR.

That sucks that you had such bad experiences with photopass photographers. I actually never used Photopass for photos when you enter the parks or anything like that (though I would always see them at the entrance to DL and DCA) BUT the DL photopass also includes any ride photos and character M&G photos. So for that I thought it was fine.

2 Likes

Photopass at WDW is totally worth it! There are CMs everywhere and they are fun, friendly. I won’t use it at DL again.

Yes…although, Park Reservations aren’t costing people money. I see it problematic charging people for the “promise” you MIGHT get to skip the lines on some rides.

3 Likes

I was just thinking about this aspect too. It seems they will devote significantly less ride capacity to this than FPP, so it remains to seen if the $15 is effectively a raffle ticket and something that forces people to be glued to their phone all day trying to find the value for that $15pp while the free part of Genie is bombarding them with alerts of where Disney wants them to be. Gotta keep an open mind until we see it in practice though.

3 Likes

Wondering if a lot of this discussion could go on over to the G+ thread so as to keep this a little “cleaner” for new announcements?

4 Likes