Paid Lightning Pass Rumoured $100-$300 A Day

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Talland 2016

I miss the old days when we would wait at the bus stop and get on the first resort bus that came
Nothing was planned or micromanaged
We would just decide on the day

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And, with the old system, you could still do that. You didn't have to plan if you didn't want to. There were a couple of times when we last visited when we changed our minds on the day - I simply cancelled the fastpasses I had and booked some new ones in the new park there and then.

It would mean that you might have a long wait for some of the more popular rides (or skip the most popular rides for that day). But that would've been the case with or without fastpasses.

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

And, with the old system, you could still do that. You didn't have to plan if you didn't want to. There were a couple of times when we last visited when we changed our minds on the day - I simply cancelled the fastpasses I had and booked some new ones in the new park there and then.

It would mean that you might have a long wait for some of the more popular rides (or skip the most popular rides for that day). But that would've been the case with or without fastpasses.

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I think that what Talland was getting at was the fact that many of us liked the fact that we could roll up on the day, do a ride and then decide which one to fastpass next, rather than have what amounts to a military action plan.

In the days when I still bothered with Disney because my boys hadn’t reached 54inches, I liked the fact that we were at no disadvantage when deciding at breakfast, which park we would be entering in an hours time and all I had to do was get there for rope drop. ‘The early bird invariably caught the worm’ and we were out of the parks, generally by 1530 in order to meet Happy Hour at an off site restaurant, having hit all of our objectives.

We have not entered a Disney park on our last 5 visits to Orlando and whilst price and value are a factor in that decision, a bigger factor is the electronic pass system. I am on vacation and whilst I know I need to be at DC on a date and I know that I need to check into a Universal Hotel on a date, I do not want to know on which day I will be doing the other parks, nor do I want to.

I would never have visited ‘Maplins’ as in Hi de Hi due to the overmanagement and that same feeling would apply to an on site, DDP, Disney vacation. I had 12 years of ‘place, time and planning’ in the Army and would never go back to it. Meal at this restaurant at this time, be at Thunder mountain for this time etc etc.

Others of course, absolutely love it and there is nothing wrong with that, but I think that I understand where Talland is coming from.

[Th1nkT1nk]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

One thing I've noticed is Disney seems to be introducing virtual queues to some of its rides. So, as a bit of fun, perhaps this is how Disney is going to do things:

• Get rid of fastpass+ as we know it,
• Provide free virtual queues for the popular rides whilst the other rides only have standard queues,
• Provide an expensive Lightning Pass option to skip all the standard queues.

Virtual queues are basically what the old paper fastpass system used to be and, apparently, some people used to like the old paper fastpass system. Whilst in the park, you went up to a machine outside the ride, inserted your ticket, and were given a piece of paper with the next available slot in the virtual queue. Doing the same thing on your smartphone simply removes the need to trek across the park to the machine and get issued a piece of paper. It's a more convenient version of the old system and means no need to book rides months beforehand.

So, for those cheapskates like me, we get something like the old fastpass system back - which would be a bonus for some. For those willing to pay Mickey's empire even more money, they can skip the regular queues whenever they want just like at Universal.

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I think this may well be an accurate summary of what will happen. The main thing that concerns me is, with the old old system (paper fast pass) if you were up early enough, you were pretty much guaranteed a ride on the ride you wanted, or else you could join the huge queue. With the virtual lines for ROTR, the place in the queue is gone within seconds and you have no other way of riding. So I can have saved up my hard earned cash, to take my child to Disney to see “Star Wars land”, only to find that I can’t even get on the main ride... that just doesn’t seem like a fair deal.

[Talland 2016]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

I think that what Talland was getting at was the fact that many of us liked the fact that we could roll up on the day, do a ride and then decide which one to fastpass next, rather than have what amounts to a military action plan.

In the days when I still bothered with Disney because my boys hadn’t reached 54inches, I liked the fact that we were at no disadvantage when deciding at breakfast, which park we would be entering in an hours time and all I had to do was get there for rope drop. ‘The early bird invariably caught the worm’ and we were out of the parks, generally by 1530 in order to meet Happy Hour at an off site restaurant, having hit all of our objectives.

We have not entered a Disney park on our last 5 visits to Orlando and whilst price and value are a factor in that decision, a bigger factor is the electronic pass system. I am on vacation and whilst I know I need to be at DC on a date and I know that I need to check into a Universal Hotel on a date, I do not want to know on which day I will be doing the other parks, nor do I want to.

I would never have visited ‘Maplins’ as in Hi de Hi due to the overmanagement and that same feeling would apply to an on site, DDP, Disney vacation. I had 12 years of ‘place, time and planning’ in the Army and would never go back to it. Meal at this restaurant at this time, be at Thunder mountain for this time etc etc.

Others of course, absolutely love it and there is nothing wrong with that, but I think that I understand where Talland is coming from.

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Thanks for putting it more clearer than I did
The kids got so excited guessing which bus would arrive first. The wasn’t any displays saying which one would arrive either
Have some great memories of this

[Bozza]

Originally Posted by Th1nkT1nk

I think this may well be an accurate summary of what will happen. The main thing that concerns me is, with the old old system (paper fast pass) if you were up early enough, you were pretty much guaranteed a ride on the ride you wanted, or else you could join the huge queue. With the virtual lines for ROTR, the place in the queue is gone within seconds and you have no other way of riding. So I can have saved up my hard earned cash, to take my child to Disney to see “Star Wars land”, only to find that I can’t even get on the main ride... that just doesn’t seem like a fair deal.

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The problem is that the ride simply does not have sufficient capacity to accommodate everyone who wants to ride it pretty much every single day, so people will be missing out regardless of the system put in place.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I guess they could reserve a proportion of capacity for walk-ups, but doing so in the full knowledge that there will probably be a queue of three hours or longer, and possibly a lot longer, all day long.

[Bozza]

Originally Posted by Talland 2016

Thanks for putting it more clearer than I did
The kids got so excited guessing which bus would arrive first. The wasn’t any displays saying which one would arrive either
Have some great memories of this

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I still think this is perfectly possible if Park Reservations aren't in place, because it's exactly what we did a few years ago as I detailed.

Just because you CAN plan to the nth degree and just because you CAN book fastpasses and ADRs doesn't mean you have to.

We did the "jump on the first bus" thing on that trip, although it was only the buses for the Magic and Animal Kingdoms, as we could walk to both Epcot and the Studios.

I'm sure we were surrounded by families with finely-honed plans of military precision as we made it up as we went along. We still had an amazing time though.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

I think that what Talland was getting at was the fact that many of us liked the fact that we could roll up on the day, do a ride and then decide which one to fastpass next, rather than have what amounts to a military action plan.

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But you didn't need to have a military action plan.

I can't say I planned that much. I just prebooked 3 rides in a park. I didn't think that much about it. But even then, you didn't have to have anything booked. As I pointed out, sometimes we just rocked up to a park and then booked whatever fastpasses were available - same as you used to do back when paper fastpasses were a thing.

And before the days of fastpasses, you couldn't fastpass anything so you would've had to join the standby queue. Admittedly, the parks were a bit less busy back then.

The problem is, people used to come onto places that this, see all the posts by folk who did like to plan to the Nth degree and think they had to make spreadsheets of what they were doing each hour of every day otherwise they wouldn't have a good time.

[pdcdad]

I’m sure there will be some kind of paid fast pass system and for some they will take up that offer. In my opinion I think it may be say 2 fast passes a day free if you stay on site and then you have the choice to pay for more on a daily basis. Those off site will have the option of paying if you want it like you do at universal. I must say I will not be paying the extortionate amounts that are rumoured but we have been lucky enough to have been several times before and will go with the flow.

[Echoplex]

I’d happily take a more environmentally friendly version of the old paper ticket system - that system was extremely fair. Potentially too democratised for 2021 Disney but I sincerely hope not.

[Moorlandman]

Paid fast pass and virtual queues are the way forward. Non of this nonsense where people are prebooking fast passes at 60 days!