The lightning lanes suck. I was in Disneyland the Tuesday before Christmas. We were waiting. in line for the cars ride. When we got in the standbye lane it had an estimated 70 minute wait time. We continually watched every person who paid for the lightning. go right on while we waited a total 160 minutes. We pay the lightning lane fee later that night and waited 35 minutes. to get on the spider-man ride. What a complete. joke. Have been going to Disney annually for 20 years. This June we are giving DW a last chance I it. goes anything like Disneyland we are done. Also this will be the first time we actually stay off property because it is cheaper and you get very little for paying the excessive prices.
We just did WDW and can tell you it’s no better. The “cast” members have turned into the mask police and the charm of the park is not what it was. We didn’t even see Mickey once the whole time we were there!!! The Magic is gone and you will be disappointed. Save your money and skip it until they realize their errors and change course.
You just got called out by a cast member, Karen Brown… so try again. Even when masks WERE mandatory, the cast members were only doing their job. Please stay away for the rest of us k?
Disney should ditch the pay to ride (LL) and genie and just increase the park admission fee to $225 or $300 per person and have 1 line to ride. Stop nickel and dime park guests and just do what you always wanted to do all along increase admission fees!
It would certainly simply visiting Disney again
People have more money than sense, if they pay nearly $300 to get into a park then pay extras to buy LL, you shouldn’t have to pay to get into parks then pay to go on rides, genie+ & LL is a joke, this is the reason the massive queues, if people continue to pay then disney will continue to keep putting prices up as people will continue to pay
Disney not stupid, the public are the stupid people disney cashing in & people still continue to pay 🙄🙄🙄🙄 the fasspasses worked, disney just got Greedy & made the parks worse with queues, no way was queues this bad when fasspasses was in place don’t be stupid people, if you keep paying disney will continue to raise costs 🙈🙈🙈
@john lol the will do both… charge $200+ ticket entry and $30+ genie + access . I am surprised they haven’t charged for priority seating at restaurants and amenities in restrooms. The day will come …lol
Lol! Just don’t go. Spend your money in Hawaii. You’ll be much happier with how you spent your time and money. Disney is way overrated and will do anything for your dollars. I remember the glory days when you paid for entrance and paid for tickets (remember the E tickets?) For the rides.
Not my experience at all today (3/14) at WDW. The early standby line at SM was posted as 45 min and we boarded in 35. LL crowd was sparse.
If you pay for the privilege program, just don’t expect to benefit from it for more than 3 or 4 of the top rides.
The writer of this article clearly has no clue. The Twitter post is obviously DLR, but he keeps talking about WDW.
Though I will say, you might have gotten lucky and hit a sweet spot in your timing. I’m an AP holder here at WDW, it’s spring break season down here. Thanks to the 50th celebration and everyone making up vacation time for the last two years, the parks have all been crazy packed down here. We haven’t done an e-ticket type ride in ages because the wait times are ridiculous.
You know that a lot of articles use stock photos right? There probably weren’t any pictures included with the online post they’re taking about, so they paid for pictures that would depict the situation.
Lol, alright darling, believe what you will. Like I said I’ve been there and have also checked the stand by times from home on a regular basis for the last few months, so I KNOW that line has not been “deserted” at any point recently, but go ahead, have the last word… I’ll wait.
Vote with your wallets. Stop going to Disney. They continue to rip off the public. This new CEO is a joke. I have been to Disney at least 15 times but refuse to go back to be robbed by some woke, joke of a company. If you like getting robbed by all means you deserve it, keep going back. I work too hard for my money to be bent over by this company!
Robert, while I totally agree that until people stop going to Disney they will keep raising prices and add other extras to genie+ for money because people will pay it. Disney will become a rich persons park and leave out the average person to just watch. Disney built his parks for all kids and parents to enjoy. Now parents have to decide whether to break the bank or break their kids hearts.
But when people start using over used words as “woke” I stop listening or reading because I feel at that point they have no clue or even really care about the subject and just wanted to use said word. jmho
For people like me, Disney is already a rich person’s park. Think about it this way. A 1 week vacation in Maui costs as much as a few days at a Disney park. I’m never going to get to take my daughter to a Disney park. And swimming with sea turtles is much more rewarding anyway.
We have had two Disney World trips since the new Genie system started. After spending more than $5400 just for park tickets, I refused to pay more for Genie plus or alacart lightening lane access. We are DVC, so I didn’t even count the housing costs, but just the passes, left me feeling like it’s no longer a perk to have park hoppers or annual passes. In November we bought 5 park hoppers in addition to the 2 Annual Passes for hubby and me. Disney may have finally cured me of my 30+ year Disney addiction. Last week we refused to do Genie plus and we experienced only 4 attractions in a week’s time. Next time we’ll just go enjoy our DVC accommodations and skip the parks completely. Nothing new there anyway that I haven’t seen plenty of times already.
Hi Diane.
I sympathize and somewhat empathize with you and your family. While I’m only an annual visitor (staying at the Dolphin Hotel), I considered WDW a place where I could go to get away from our world and sick society. But no, not only do they force their political opinions on us (i.e. Splash Mountain), not only do they destroy the beauty and uniqueness of Epcot, but they raise the prices to where it is no longer affordable to many people. RE: Just stay at the DVC resort. I sort of like that idea. We love being at the Dolphin and walking around the Crescent Lake areas. Regardless, I share your sadness.
I just went over Presidents’ day weekend. Most of the time I got directly onto the ride with lighting lane. The longest I waited was 10-15 minutes and standby was 90 minutes. We rode all the big rides in Magic Kingdom and Hollywood with lightning lane and did the lower wait time rides in between.
Hi All.
As an annual visitor, and long time WDW fan, I am very sad at how it has changed.
RE: Lightning Lane
I felt the old Fast Pass (3 per day) program was more than adequate.
We haven’t been since Feb. 2020, and will wait until early November to return. I theorize the huge crowds in normally not-crowded times may be a symptom of people wanting to get back after Covid, regardless of the time of the year.
It also is probably a sign that there were ALOT of people like me, who NOT come back until the mask rules were eliminated (another reason we haven’t been since Feb 2020).
God Bless all…
We had difficulty last December using Genie + and LL. We were shut out of LL purchases because we didn’t book any then and Slinky Dog at 7am! Totally blocked out of option. Hardly got on too many lines with genie + due to no availability for the rides we wanted. Having to wait to book one after the other was completed or wait 2 hours was not helpful. Fast Pass was a better system. Hoping the next time I go it is better. Early admission is best use of time for popular rides and I believe we only got on ROR because we got there early.
As long as people just go and crowd Disney parks why should they change the policies. We were long time Disney park fans and would to go to Disneyland all the time. We stopped going years ago because it has become a joke. Way too many people. I heard one mother say they were just going to get stands connected by metal chains at their house and they would have their own Disney experience.
Ken Brenner is right on the money. My family has enjoyed going to Disneyland for 20+ years. No matter what was going on in the world, Disneyland was the place to escape it all for a few days. Awful how Disney has allowed politics to creep it’s way in to the parks for the last few years. It’s incredibly sad how we have gotten to where we are. As far as the fast pass/ Genie debate, lets just bring back the fast pass ticket dispensers and make it the $15 add on. That way, folks who don’t use it or want to keep the cost down can pay just admission only. Maybe that would stop the guest complaining about the new system, give Disney the additional revenue they are seeking, and allow those who wish to minimize their entrance fees do so. Truth be told, it wouldn’t bother me if they just got rid of fast pass and Genie altogether and just raised the price $15 per ticket. Then everybody that goes is on a level playing field like it was years ago and Disney gets their raise.
Disney has always been political. The original concept of EPCOT was to build a “community of tomorrow” that avoided the pitfalls and failures of other cities. The company produced shorts in support of the war effort during WWII. I’d argue that Song of the South, the movie that tied into Splash Mountain’s theming, engaged in some pretty heavy handed identity politics. So the company hasn’t suddenly become political, you just don’t like the decisions they’ve made. You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but lets not pretend that anything has changed but the priority assigned to the experience and comfort of white guests.
We have experienced genie+ several times now and it is horrendous. I do NOT want to wake up at 7am to pick one ride for my day. I do NOT want to be tied to my phone ALL DAY long. The $15 charge can get you into 1 ride you want or maybe 3 or 4 rides you want but you never know what you are paying for, it is happenstance. And, if you have dining reservations, there could be big blocks of time you can’t book. Plus, if you don’t want to go into the parks at 9am you need to wait to pick a ride. Fast pass used to let you pick times somewhat. And, you could be walking from one end of the park to the other and back again. This is the worst system any park has ever had. This is one thing universal and Busch gardens does so much better.
Disney never solved their fast pass to standby allocation problems, they just monitzed it for more money. Never mind the guest experience anymore, it’s now all about squeezing every last dollar out of the guests. Pretty soon they will kill the last of the good will they have left and they won’t be getting new Disney fans interested in the parks and they will languish in a decade or 2. Sad to see Walt and Roy’s dreams of the parks die this way.
We had a terrible experience with it. Family of four with small children and it was not functional for us. The times available were terrible. Booked our first time and after that had terrible luck with being able to use it….at all really. I also had NO choice but to be on my phone a ton, which I absolutely hate. I would rather look around and enjoy my environment and family as opposed to trying to get out $60 worth of use from the additional fee. If we chose to not purchase it we would be faced with overwhelming lines that my 3yo can not handle. It has changed everything for the worse in my opinion.
We didn’t enjoy our time at Disneyland. We didn’t use the LL at Disney and waited forever in the stand-by lanes for most rides. We did try out the LL option at California Adventures and it was an utter disaster. You can only book one ride at a time so you cannot book the next until you have redeemed the last one. We were done with a ride just around noon and looked at our next LL ride and nothing (not one!) was even available to reserve till after 7pm! 7 hours! So we went back into the good old stand-by lines and waited for 90 minutes like everyone else.
A waste of money and time. Thankfully this is our last trip to Disney! Done ✅
We went to Disney World in January. We purchased LL and Genie plus. We paid the extra to ride Rise of the Resistance. In fact, it was the sole purpose of our trip to get my husband on RoR for his 40th birthday. We woke up early and booked it for 11:20 am. We were told it was broken and to return later. We returned when it was fixed. We waited over an hour in the cave floor of the LL with 0 communication. We had a 3 year old with us as well. All of us ended up sitting on the floor to wait. Turns out it was broken again and nobody bothered to tell us. So we wasted most of our Hollywood studios day at the point. We went to guest services and the guy wouldn’t even say a word to us. I imagine many guests were just as disappointed. Needless to say, DW will not get another cent from us.
Comments for Disney Standby Line Completely Abandoned as Guests Crowd Lightning Lane
SCOTT lee-ross
so, which is it? Disneyland or Walt Disney World. The queue pictures are Disneyland
Larry Cleek
The lightning lanes suck. I was in Disneyland the Tuesday before Christmas. We were waiting. in line for the cars ride. When we got in the standbye lane it had an estimated 70 minute wait time. We continually watched every person who paid for the lightning. go right on while we waited a total 160 minutes. We pay the lightning lane fee later that night and waited 35 minutes. to get on the spider-man ride. What a complete. joke. Have been going to Disney annually for 20 years. This June we are giving DW a last chance I it. goes anything like Disneyland we are done. Also this will be the first time we actually stay off property because it is cheaper and you get very little for paying the excessive prices.
John Brown
We just did WDW and can tell you it’s no better. The “cast” members have turned into the mask police and the charm of the park is not what it was. We didn’t even see Mickey once the whole time we were there!!! The Magic is gone and you will be disappointed. Save your money and skip it until they realize their errors and change course.
David Sharklaser
WDW hasn’t required masks for a month now.
Source: I am a current WDW CM who hasn’t worn a mask in the last month.
VDog
You just got called out by a cast member, Karen Brown… so try again. Even when masks WERE mandatory, the cast members were only doing their job. Please stay away for the rest of us k?
S John
Maybe they went more than a month ago?
Charlie
Genie+ is a train wreck. It has made both express and standby waits too long. Bring back fastpass+
Jonathan Lee
But Bob chapel says it works fine!
SidS
Bring back e ticket system if you want to see the lines for down.
John DeJones
Disney should ditch the pay to ride (LL) and genie and just increase the park admission fee to $225 or $300 per person and have 1 line to ride. Stop nickel and dime park guests and just do what you always wanted to do all along increase admission fees!
It would certainly simply visiting Disney again
S John
They’re going to do both.
KTS
People have more money than sense, if they pay nearly $300 to get into a park then pay extras to buy LL, you shouldn’t have to pay to get into parks then pay to go on rides, genie+ & LL is a joke, this is the reason the massive queues, if people continue to pay then disney will continue to keep putting prices up as people will continue to pay
Disney not stupid, the public are the stupid people disney cashing in & people still continue to pay 🙄🙄🙄🙄 the fasspasses worked, disney just got Greedy & made the parks worse with queues, no way was queues this bad when fasspasses was in place don’t be stupid people, if you keep paying disney will continue to raise costs 🙈🙈🙈
That guy
@john lol the will do both… charge $200+ ticket entry and $30+ genie + access . I am surprised they haven’t charged for priority seating at restaurants and amenities in restrooms. The day will come …lol
JLH
Lol! Just don’t go. Spend your money in Hawaii. You’ll be much happier with how you spent your time and money. Disney is way overrated and will do anything for your dollars. I remember the glory days when you paid for entrance and paid for tickets (remember the E tickets?) For the rides.
Michael Knight
Not my experience at all today (3/14) at WDW. The early standby line at SM was posted as 45 min and we boarded in 35. LL crowd was sparse.
If you pay for the privilege program, just don’t expect to benefit from it for more than 3 or 4 of the top rides.
Marije
The writer of this article clearly has no clue. The Twitter post is obviously DLR, but he keeps talking about WDW.
Though I will say, you might have gotten lucky and hit a sweet spot in your timing. I’m an AP holder here at WDW, it’s spring break season down here. Thanks to the 50th celebration and everyone making up vacation time for the last two years, the parks have all been crazy packed down here. We haven’t done an e-ticket type ride in ages because the wait times are ridiculous.
Devin
This is true, I was just there and not once was I told to wear a mask except on buses. The bus rule is due to it being public transportation.
Emilie Laprade
You know that a lot of articles use stock photos right? There probably weren’t any pictures included with the online post they’re taking about, so they paid for pictures that would depict the situation.
VDog
Lol, alright darling, believe what you will. Like I said I’ve been there and have also checked the stand by times from home on a regular basis for the last few months, so I KNOW that line has not been “deserted” at any point recently, but go ahead, have the last word… I’ll wait.
Robert
Vote with your wallets. Stop going to Disney. They continue to rip off the public. This new CEO is a joke. I have been to Disney at least 15 times but refuse to go back to be robbed by some woke, joke of a company. If you like getting robbed by all means you deserve it, keep going back. I work too hard for my money to be bent over by this company!
JJ
Robert, while I totally agree that until people stop going to Disney they will keep raising prices and add other extras to genie+ for money because people will pay it. Disney will become a rich persons park and leave out the average person to just watch. Disney built his parks for all kids and parents to enjoy. Now parents have to decide whether to break the bank or break their kids hearts.
But when people start using over used words as “woke” I stop listening or reading because I feel at that point they have no clue or even really care about the subject and just wanted to use said word. jmho
JLH
For people like me, Disney is already a rich person’s park. Think about it this way. A 1 week vacation in Maui costs as much as a few days at a Disney park. I’m never going to get to take my daughter to a Disney park. And swimming with sea turtles is much more rewarding anyway.
Barry
Please remember that in Walt’s day you had to pay for each and every attraction that you rode on. Want to go again? Buy another ticket.
Oyf
I hate this company.
Diane
We have had two Disney World trips since the new Genie system started. After spending more than $5400 just for park tickets, I refused to pay more for Genie plus or alacart lightening lane access. We are DVC, so I didn’t even count the housing costs, but just the passes, left me feeling like it’s no longer a perk to have park hoppers or annual passes. In November we bought 5 park hoppers in addition to the 2 Annual Passes for hubby and me. Disney may have finally cured me of my 30+ year Disney addiction. Last week we refused to do Genie plus and we experienced only 4 attractions in a week’s time. Next time we’ll just go enjoy our DVC accommodations and skip the parks completely. Nothing new there anyway that I haven’t seen plenty of times already.
Ken Brenner
Hi Diane.
I sympathize and somewhat empathize with you and your family. While I’m only an annual visitor (staying at the Dolphin Hotel), I considered WDW a place where I could go to get away from our world and sick society. But no, not only do they force their political opinions on us (i.e. Splash Mountain), not only do they destroy the beauty and uniqueness of Epcot, but they raise the prices to where it is no longer affordable to many people. RE: Just stay at the DVC resort. I sort of like that idea. We love being at the Dolphin and walking around the Crescent Lake areas. Regardless, I share your sadness.
JLH
Hawaii. That’s all I’m going to say.
Robert
Humans are stupid, I’ll remain in the stand by que as you people PAY to stand in this “lighting lane” see you on the ride chumps.
Lisa
I just went over Presidents’ day weekend. Most of the time I got directly onto the ride with lighting lane. The longest I waited was 10-15 minutes and standby was 90 minutes. We rode all the big rides in Magic Kingdom and Hollywood with lightning lane and did the lower wait time rides in between.
Ken Brenner
Hi All.
As an annual visitor, and long time WDW fan, I am very sad at how it has changed.
RE: Lightning Lane
I felt the old Fast Pass (3 per day) program was more than adequate.
We haven’t been since Feb. 2020, and will wait until early November to return. I theorize the huge crowds in normally not-crowded times may be a symptom of people wanting to get back after Covid, regardless of the time of the year.
It also is probably a sign that there were ALOT of people like me, who NOT come back until the mask rules were eliminated (another reason we haven’t been since Feb 2020).
God Bless all…
Donna
We had difficulty last December using Genie + and LL. We were shut out of LL purchases because we didn’t book any then and Slinky Dog at 7am! Totally blocked out of option. Hardly got on too many lines with genie + due to no availability for the rides we wanted. Having to wait to book one after the other was completed or wait 2 hours was not helpful. Fast Pass was a better system. Hoping the next time I go it is better. Early admission is best use of time for popular rides and I believe we only got on ROR because we got there early.
Bob Lassiter
Maybe you should have done your research beforehand.
Ed
As long as people just go and crowd Disney parks why should they change the policies. We were long time Disney park fans and would to go to Disneyland all the time. We stopped going years ago because it has become a joke. Way too many people. I heard one mother say they were just going to get stands connected by metal chains at their house and they would have their own Disney experience.
tripichick
poor privileged assturds.
Steve K
Ken Brenner is right on the money. My family has enjoyed going to Disneyland for 20+ years. No matter what was going on in the world, Disneyland was the place to escape it all for a few days. Awful how Disney has allowed politics to creep it’s way in to the parks for the last few years. It’s incredibly sad how we have gotten to where we are. As far as the fast pass/ Genie debate, lets just bring back the fast pass ticket dispensers and make it the $15 add on. That way, folks who don’t use it or want to keep the cost down can pay just admission only. Maybe that would stop the guest complaining about the new system, give Disney the additional revenue they are seeking, and allow those who wish to minimize their entrance fees do so. Truth be told, it wouldn’t bother me if they just got rid of fast pass and Genie altogether and just raised the price $15 per ticket. Then everybody that goes is on a level playing field like it was years ago and Disney gets their raise.
Marie
Disney has always been political. The original concept of EPCOT was to build a “community of tomorrow” that avoided the pitfalls and failures of other cities. The company produced shorts in support of the war effort during WWII. I’d argue that Song of the South, the movie that tied into Splash Mountain’s theming, engaged in some pretty heavy handed identity politics. So the company hasn’t suddenly become political, you just don’t like the decisions they’ve made. You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but lets not pretend that anything has changed but the priority assigned to the experience and comfort of white guests.
Renaissance
We have experienced genie+ several times now and it is horrendous. I do NOT want to wake up at 7am to pick one ride for my day. I do NOT want to be tied to my phone ALL DAY long. The $15 charge can get you into 1 ride you want or maybe 3 or 4 rides you want but you never know what you are paying for, it is happenstance. And, if you have dining reservations, there could be big blocks of time you can’t book. Plus, if you don’t want to go into the parks at 9am you need to wait to pick a ride. Fast pass used to let you pick times somewhat. And, you could be walking from one end of the park to the other and back again. This is the worst system any park has ever had. This is one thing universal and Busch gardens does so much better.
Pete
Disney never solved their fast pass to standby allocation problems, they just monitzed it for more money. Never mind the guest experience anymore, it’s now all about squeezing every last dollar out of the guests. Pretty soon they will kill the last of the good will they have left and they won’t be getting new Disney fans interested in the parks and they will languish in a decade or 2. Sad to see Walt and Roy’s dreams of the parks die this way.
SJ
We had a terrible experience with it. Family of four with small children and it was not functional for us. The times available were terrible. Booked our first time and after that had terrible luck with being able to use it….at all really. I also had NO choice but to be on my phone a ton, which I absolutely hate. I would rather look around and enjoy my environment and family as opposed to trying to get out $60 worth of use from the additional fee. If we chose to not purchase it we would be faced with overwhelming lines that my 3yo can not handle. It has changed everything for the worse in my opinion.
Bob Lassiter
You don’t have to be on your phone all day to use it. Just book every 2 hours and then put phone away. You should have done research.
nk
These photos are from Disneyland and that’s where the tweet was from. Try tagging the correct location
Heather
We didn’t enjoy our time at Disneyland. We didn’t use the LL at Disney and waited forever in the stand-by lanes for most rides. We did try out the LL option at California Adventures and it was an utter disaster. You can only book one ride at a time so you cannot book the next until you have redeemed the last one. We were done with a ride just around noon and looked at our next LL ride and nothing (not one!) was even available to reserve till after 7pm! 7 hours! So we went back into the good old stand-by lines and waited for 90 minutes like everyone else.
A waste of money and time. Thankfully this is our last trip to Disney! Done ✅
Jaime Popard
We went to Disney World in January. We purchased LL and Genie plus. We paid the extra to ride Rise of the Resistance. In fact, it was the sole purpose of our trip to get my husband on RoR for his 40th birthday. We woke up early and booked it for 11:20 am. We were told it was broken and to return later. We returned when it was fixed. We waited over an hour in the cave floor of the LL with 0 communication. We had a 3 year old with us as well. All of us ended up sitting on the floor to wait. Turns out it was broken again and nobody bothered to tell us. So we wasted most of our Hollywood studios day at the point. We went to guest services and the guy wouldn’t even say a word to us. I imagine many guests were just as disappointed. Needless to say, DW will not get another cent from us.
THX1138
Jumped the shark!
Stand in line, wait you’re turn!
Comments are closed.