Based on the changes at WDW oner the past few years, I think this is exactly what WDW does not want. And I think it is a strategic decision from the top.
It appears WDWs strategy is to try to steer each guest into shorter trips with increased spending per guest per day at WDW.
I donāt disagree- I am just saying that what was vs what is- and for us at least we no longer feeling the need to be there nearly as often because of the changes.
In the last year 2 out of four have given up thier Disney APs for UOA & BGs.
Agree. Same for me. My WDW trips used to be longer back in the 80s, 90s and 00s. We spent a week at WDW when MK was the only park. Everything was much more relaxed back then.
Well itās official! There will be an express pass that allows each guest a single ride on all LL attractions without needing any reservationsā¦
āLightning Lane Premier Passā
At Walt Disney World, when Lightning Lane Premier Pass launches, it will be available to guests staying at Disney Deluxe or Deluxe Villa Resorts and may be purchased up to seven days in advance of their stay. It will only be valid for use in one park of the guestās choice per day. The first date it will be available is October 30, 2024 .
Prices for Lightning Lane Premier Passes vary by date and theme park. At launch, prices will range from $129 to $449 (per pass, plus tax), with the highest prices falling on a limited number of days over peak travel periods:
Wow. That is a spectacularly poor deal.
But Disney people are nuts. Iām sure it will be a huge success.
FYI thereās a discussion going on here this morning.
Thanks! I was looking for the thread before I posted. I missed it!
I read through the thread. Itās a lot of outrage, which I understand. I donāt think itās a bad product or unfair pricing - even though you have to stay at a Deluxe hotel to quaily, but I know that will be a āhot takeā
So, Iāll just say that here and move on!! 
Ha! I forgot about this thread!
Price is insane. Makes the current system a steal especially if you know how to maximize it like we do.
Iām thinking, please, no changes to the current system. Letās leave it alone for a little bit!
Iāve been biting my tongue all morning, but I canāt resist!
Iād like to see this system implemented the way DLP does it. You can buy the pass that allows for each ride once or pay al carte for individual attractions ā¦no other express passes / multi-pass / individual lighting lanes. No hotel reservation required and no planning / āstackingā involvedā¦
Just one very expensive queue to āskipā the line. You can pay $100ās / person for each park to ride everything or just $30+ for a single al carte ridesā¦
IMHO - It would help the SB queues so much while offering a service that some are willing to pay forā¦
Makes sense!
I like that, too. I would gladly wait standby for 90% of rides if I could just have LLSP at the top 2-3 rides in each park, with the option of buying for more if the wait vs. cost works in my favor.
I love the pricing. Go ahead and charge Disneyās target audience double to triple the current price of a ticket. If they want to add $500-$1700 per day for a family of four to skip the lines without worrying about getting LLMP or LLSP reservations, more power to them!
This doesnāt help the āDisney is too expensiveā people though. Of course anything is when you purchase a bunch of buy - ups but itās a choice.
Itās one pass that covers both parks. Currently around ā¬190 and there are 15 rides included.
Individual rides range from ā¬9 to ā¬20 , nowhere near $30
It works great IMO. We bought 3 and one was only because the line for Peter Pan was long because it went down. DH bought it for me! You can buy up to 6 for a single attraction in a day. And a total number, want to say 20 but not sure.
Return times are immediate, 10 minutes is about the most. Otherwise they donāt sell them until the wait time goes down.
Very few buy the All-in pass, and frankly it isnāt needed.
BUT it probably works because you just donāt get long lines. Other than Crush you rarely see waits of over an hour.
You can also buy a guaranteed seat at stage shows for ā¬15.
This is something my wife and I were talking about. People talk as if somehow any of this is a right. Even going to Disney itself isnāt a right. It is a choice, and we have to make financial decisions based on what we can afford. If we canāt afford itā¦then we donāt go! It is all a choice!
If Disney eventually prices us outā¦I would be sad. But I am priced out of buying a brand new BMW every two years as well. I make due buying used Fords.
True, the āDisney is to expensiveā people will run with this, and the āIt costs $40,000 a week to go to Disneyā will now say itās closer to $50,000 now. But itās an add-on, not a requirement. I donāt even see LLSP or LLMP as a requirement. Iām just glad the price is so high that it wonāt be accessible to a lot of people and hope that it wonāt be as in-use like it is at Universal. In my experience at Universal, rope drop is great, but by late morning and early afternoon when the Express Pass people stroll in, wait times increase dramatically.
I just opened this thread to see this. Well done!
The following is more inspired by the above rather than a direct response to it.
As I get older, Iāve noticed that Iām becoming increasingly left wing. I donāt know if this is because the world is changing or because I am only now noticing things Iāve never seen before.
One thing that I see a lot on social media that surprises me is how quick people are to defend huge corporations and the extremely wealthy.
Iām reminded of the expression just because you can do something doesnāt mean that you should. This is especially pertinent in the US, where the exertion of rights apparently for their own sake, rather than any individual or collective benefit, seems to be a core feature of the culture.
Disney is a for-profit corporation and can do what it likes, within the confines of the law. Increasingly it seems to be taking measures that actively harm the general guest experience. Yet, partly because of the uniqueness of its product and partly because of the blind loyalty of its customers, it gets away with it. The story about how to boil a frog springs to mind.
I was a Disney parks fanatic for a while. Until I suddenly had the realisation that Disney doesnāt in fact love me or care about me. Or you. Or its employees. While technically all business exist to make a profit, we all secretly hope they do more than that. Right now it doesnāt seem like more is any kind of priority.
Of course the main reason people get angry about changes at WDW is because the pattern is always the same: take away something that used to be free and then charge for it. And then increase the charge for it. People who once felt they were important to Disney ā a corporation that enjoys its reputation for making magic ā no longer feel that they are.
I increasingly think that we need a French Revolution. Trickle-down economics is manifestly a lie. Most people live lives blighted by the constant fear of penury. While we are surrounded by images of people who are grotesquely wealthy. And ā for now ā idolise them, perhaps naively thinking that we can and will become like them one day.
Increasingly my emotional loyalty ā and dollars ā are shifting towards UOR. In December I will be staying exclusively on-property there and will only spend three of seven days at WDW. When I first started visiting Orlando, UOR was a side quest from the main event at WDW and I never considered staying there overnight. WDWās upcharges ā MVMCP, for example ā exceed my budget now. Or, at least, the value is no longer there. Iāll even be visiting SeaWorld for the first time. It seems to have quite a few great coasters and the pricing appears to offer good value for money. Iāve paid for its version of the premier pass. It was about $40. Maybe Iāll go again on my next trip.
When I first visited WDW, only seven years ago, DME and FPP were a thing. Now theyāre both gone and their replacements have added significant extra cost to the already increasing base cost of a visit. I think people are entitled to be angry. Surely Disney was making a profit back in 2017? How much more money does it need?
And maybe it could spend its profits more wisely. The heart of Future World was walled off for five years. And what did we really get out of all that expenditure?
The success of capitalism is supposed to rest on competition being the spur to innovation. I can very much imagine the once unimaginable: flying four thousand miles to Orlando and only visiting UOR. I do hope they donāt screw it up.
