Lightning Lane changes- paging overseas visitors

BTW - Posted a few long posts here, as do feel strongly about this issue - and am super annoyed as my family trip from the UK is at the beginning of August ;-( - but overall I hope that the new advanced booking system is an improvement for the customers who can use it (e.g. USA based, and canada(?) folks).

I think if you can use it , it will be great for locking in a few days of key rides etc and hope anyone who does use it has a good experience. So smoke em if you got em!

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I think youā€™re spot on here. It is truly ridiculous how full of holes some of the ā€œthinkingā€ by top paid execs is.

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This whole situation is nuts and I agree with so many of the comments on here - we go early August and have never felt so undervalued by Disney! I phoned my UK based Florida specialist travel agent yesterday to check on some flight details and ended up talking him through all these changes for 30 minutes! They book directly with Disney everyday and they have had absolutely no communication about any of this. They also couldnā€™t think of one good reason to explain the exclusion of non-domestic guests.

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This is the crux of it really. As they appear to have absolutely no good reasons or grounds to base this on other than pure laziness, its basically prejudicial treatment/exclusion of overseas guests from the one system that actuall really benefits ā€œplannersā€. I still think this is almost a consumer law violation or similar ethical breach - treating people differently based on where they come from. We all know where that leads.

Hope your trip is still enjoyable - I think at this point I am hoping Disney pull something out of the bag at the last minute, and prove everyone wrong, but if they dontā€¦ well, we will all just have to all make the most of it.

Happy to share experience once this thing kicks in - we are there first week of August. Our timings may actually crossover.

I should mention - technically, I could cancel our entire trip right now. The net cost to us would be a few hundred instead of thousands. This is just because of the way we booked it via airpoints and non packaged hotels. Until a week before we can arguably walk away. The reality is though - that we wont - and we cant - as it would hugely disappoint the family and I doubt we would get this chance/window of opportunity again - this is our main summer hols. There is already too much invested in it from a year of planning. DIsney banks on this all the time, and I assume because its pretty much the reality. But i am sooooooooooo tempted to give them the tall man and spend my Ā£Ā£Ā£Ā£ elsewhere ā€¦ already moving some park days to Unversal where we will have express pass.

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I made this point very clearly when I emailed and reiterated it on the phone.

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Even though I fear our thoughts, feelings and concerns are basically being ignored by Disney I do want to say thank you for trying :smiling_face:

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@KiwiDadatWDW24 oooh we could very well crossover! We land 5/8. Gotta love those Universal Express passes! Hope you have a blast!

The one slight saving grace is that this trip we are doing seaworld etc first for 4 days so we donā€™t quite miss out on all of the 7 day window. However, we shouldnā€™t have to miss out on ANY of it! I donā€™t even know how this could be anything but discriminatory.

Like so many others this trip has been 2 years in the planning and saving!!! This is going to be our last ā€˜bigā€™ trip for a while as itā€™s such a financial commitment and I never thought Iā€™d say it but Disney World just does not offer good value or customer service to the UK traveller anymore. Iā€™m sure there are plenty of other places that will happily take my holiday budget and treat me well rather than as an after thought or an inconvenience.

Whilst Iā€™m really trying to concentrate on all the positives about the trip (which there are so many) the way itā€™s all been handled has taken the shine off the magic a bit.

To add insult to injury we are caught up in the DAS changes too so Iā€™m trying to navigate those murky waters and was planning to use Genie + as a backup plan if we get refused!

Never thought a holiday of a lifetime could be this stressful! We Will definitely be making the best of the trip but do feel weā€™ve been given little option to do much else!

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Welcome!

Iā€™m saddened that you and other international visitors have been so shabbily treated. It truly is unacceptable.

I know a little of all yā€™alls despair. My sisterā€™s only grandkid had been saying for years they wanted a Big Birthday Bash with all the close extended family, nearly 20 folks. My sister had enough time share points for three 3 br villas - off property, so weā€™d be missing out on early entry. But if you go to a non early entry park, itā€™s almost as good. We timed the trip for first week in September, taking some cousins out of school. Using TouringPlans I made schedules based on crowd levels, etc.
And then Disney announced Star Wars Land would open just 2 days before we were to arrive. Early Entry now at all but one park, crowd levels completely unknown. My heart had stopped and my stomach hurt. We did discuss rescheduling. Eventually I realized I could still think of Disney parks as mostly the same, if I took Star Wars Land out of the mix. Didnā€™t help with missing on early entry on 3/4 of the parks. But I could still come up with a basic plan. So I ignored Star Wars and gave no thought to its implications since no one knew.

We had a great time anyway, even when a hurricane closed MK during our scheduled Fantasyland time. Our Princesses had a great time at Akershus in Epcot on another day.

I hope our international visitors can make the best of your trips, despite incompetent Disney planners. :smile: :grin: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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It opened 2 weeks after our trip and when I saw how low the crowds were and those super early openings I was sick to have missed it.

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Pixar Place the year before was such a big deal. As was the early opening of the Millennium Falcon ride Memorial weekend.

And then the big Labor Day Star Wars opening was a non-event. It helped us out a lot, especially in last minute lunch sit down meals. Some kids donā€™t eat much - but the ones with our trip like to eat. :smile::blush:

Sad you didnā€™t get to take advantage of the opening days. :confused: I managed a work around so my sister and her daughter were able to get in earliest on one day. They did everything in 2 hours and were kinda meh about it.

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Oh we had a fantastic trip that year! So I canā€™t be too sad.

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I recall your reports. You had a great time even with no clothes. :laughing::wink:

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Different trip :joy: Galaxyā€™s Edge was 2019, the trip with Joe and my parents.

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Oic

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Gawrsh has it been so long?

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Was that the trip where your cases were lost on arrival or am I misremembering :thinking:

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That was the 2022 trip.

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A while back I did promise to try and find out who we can contact about this with Disney. So after some searches on the WDC management structure Iā€™ve come up with some people whose remit could be said to include this system, to some degree in any case. Iā€™ve included some blurb from the official Disney site as to their remit, so everyone can decide who to contact.

Starting at the top (and apologies for the mixed formatting):

ROBERT IGER
CEO of Disney
Robert.A.Iger@Disney.com

JOSH Dā€™AMARO
CHAIRMAN, DISNEY EXPERIENCES, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY
Josh.DAmaro@Disney.com

KRISTINA SCHAKE
SENIOR EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY

Disney Experiences (Parks worldwide)

Chairman - Josh Dā€™Amaro

Lisa Becket
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GLOBAL MARKETING

oversees the entire team responsible for promoting Disney destinations and experiences, signature vacations, and consumer products around the world.

Gail Evans
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CHIEF DIGITAL AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER (CDTO)

oversees the strategy, development, and implementation of digital and technology strategies across all of the segmentā€™s businesses around the world.

Alannah Hall-Smith
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

her team manages a strategic mix of programs and plans that advance the business, enhance reputation, engage key stakeholders, and maintain relevancy with audiences around the world. Her global organization includes corporate communications, public relations, influencer engagement, creative content, social media strategy, executive engagement, employee communications, community relations, government relations, corporate citizenship, communications events, and business-to-business communications.

Jeff Vahle
PRESIDENT, WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT
Jeff.Vahle@Disney.com

Karen White
General Manager of WDW

Editing for any DVC members. You might want to email
Bill Diercksen, the VP of DVC. William.c.diercksen@disney.com

Actual email addresses are difficult to confirm. In general they take the format
First name.Secondname @ Disney.com

I plan to have one main email, which Iā€™ll tweak depending who itā€™s for. For example I might ask slightly more specific questions of the IT person.
Iā€™ll focus on 3 main questions:
Are they aware of the issue
Do they think itā€™s fair
What do they plan to do about it

Iā€™m hoping by asking direct questions I might get a response from someone rather than a placatory standard reply. Weā€™ll see!

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Thanks for doing this!

I like your plan and applaud the research youā€™ve done into whom to contact. :trophy:

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