We’re heading to Disney World in just over a week (!!) and I’ve got our park visits planned in days when current crowd calendars are 2 or 3 out of 10. We used to be annual pass holders back other Genie+ days, then took a hiatus for many years and did our first trip back last fall- I couldn’t imagine not having lightening lanes, so we bought the LL multi passes for every one. The crowds weren’t huge last year, but I don’t remember thinking it was wasted money. That being said, with low crowd predictions, I was thinking we could probably pass on LLs this year. But now that the 7 day mark is approaching, I’m wondering if that’s a mistake. We are planning to buy the individual ones for TRON, which we didn’t get to do last year. Will I regret not getting multi-passes this trip? For reference, the Touring Plans crowd prediction levels on days we’ll be visiting are: MK 3, HW 3, Epcot 3, AK 2.
We are staying on property and plan to use early hours everyday.
What do you think: Is it worth it to spend the $$ or save about 700 bucks and wait in not-too-terrible lines?
For me, I would probably put together tentative touring plans without LLMP and see what the estimated waits are. Then I would run it with LLMP and compare (cost versus time as well as walking / touring efficiency).
I did that last trip and did not get LLMP every day. YMMV.
I’ve never been without LL. I just feel like the flexibility and potential for lower waits and more rides outweighs the cost. That being said…. With some LLSPs and savvy strategy (rope drop etc) on a low crowd day, you may be able to do without. It depends on the park(s) you’re going to and your expectations.
“worth it”: People have different incomes, budgets, and value they place on a dollar
“not-too-terrible lines”: People have different views on what this means too. When DW and I went to WDW before we had kids, we were fine with waiting an hour (or more) for rides. With young kids, anything more than 20 minutes feels like a “terrible line” to us.
My own view is that I like having LLMP even on low CL days because it still saves time and adds flexibility into my schedule, but I also think guests can have a great time at WDW without LLMP.
My thoughts exactly. If $700 seems like a lot on your budget, save it and find other ways to beat the longest lines. But if it were me I’d just eat the cost to make things smoother.
My family refuses to wait in queues. I buy LLMP and other parks Express Pass routinely when they tag along.
It does suck when I have trips where I feel like I wasted the money due to short standby lines. However, we stil get to skip those and my family is happy.
Time is a resource that you can never get back. If you have the funds I would go ahead and buy the pass. You may not need it for every attraction, but it will save time on a lot if stuff like Space Mt or Test Track that always have long lines.
One more thought here.. if you get the LLs (and times) that you want, you may be able to skip EE rope drop. We plan on rope droping for EE every day, but sometimes decide last minute to let the kids sleep in a little longer. Can make for a more pleasant day…!
Thanks for the thoughtful replies, all! You guys are really great at shutting down my inner Suze Orman and reminding me that time is money, life is short, etc, etc. We probably shouldn’t hang out too often because I’d go broke, but we sure would have fun!
For us, we have paid for exactly 2 days total to use LLMP/Genie+…and in those cases, it was a very specific intended use case, not really so much about saving time.
We don’t generally go to Disney during super busy times. If we did, perhaps our answer would be different. And so, for us, going to Disney is about more than just getting on more rides. (In fact, ONE of the two times we paid for Genie+, we stacked LLs so that we had 5 or 6…and ended up having a terrible time because it only became about getting to the next ride.)
I’m not saying we won’t every pay…and in fact, I’m more likely to pay for LLSPs than LLMP. But in general, I prefer to do trips without it.
I will always buy LLMP for DHS and MK. We can only handle a day or two of rope drop before our bodies need to sleep in.
AK is very easily done with rope drop–meaning we are in line at AK by 6:50 for a 7:30 early entry.
I will also rope drop Epcot from IG and we are at the skyliner no later than 7:15 for an 8:30 early entry. We can hit Remy, FEA, then Soarin and Spaceship Earth. We ride TT as single riders and don’t ride Mission Space. We will pay for LLSP for Guardians.
You bring up a good point- having booked LLs is kind of… rigid, in that you’re tied to getting to those rides at those time frames. Completely worth it when it’s a 90+ minute wait for each ride. But the logistics of the LL planning falls only on me, and I’m thinking it might be nice not to have my nose stuck in my phone all day. I’m going to go for a hybrid approach this trip- getting LL multi-passes on some days for some parks and going “freestyle” for others. We’ll live and learn!
Besides the fact that I don’t want to pay one cent more for the already outrageous tickets, this was my first beef with FPP and why I cancelled my 2014 trip entirely. The rigidity
We are the outlier on this forum where we don’t mind lines. Additionally, just like we prefer to be in the park from rope drop to close to get as much ROI as possible, if I paid for LL then I’d be stuck on the phone trying to maximize what I paid for THAT too. We did use the service in 2022 when it was easily added on to the ticket price, but we ended up criss-crossing all day long to get as much done as possible.
This upcoming trip will be SB lines only and our TP’s are designed to minimize walking most of the time.
It really depends on the travel party & what they value most, and what their budget allows.
This is definitely an added cost that people don’t always appreciate. In EPCOT for example, if you have to walk from GotG to Remy and back, that could take 30 minutes. Plus using the LL doesn’t guarantee no line – you could still wait 20-30 min. So you might be eating an hour of your schedule using a LL vs. just waiting the hour when you’re already in the area.
Kind of an extreme example, but it’s worth considering.
It’s ok and everyone has different opinions on what we should share. But personally I am of the opinion that we should be careful discussing Liner secrets in the public section of the forum.
