The Disney company spent north of $1 billion dollars to create fastpass+. It was a free service that worked pretty well, and allowed guests to make ride reservations to mostly avoid the queues. But it had an important caveat that the scales were tilted toward locals (and not the highest paying customers).
And so late in Igers first go-round, they decided to make a change. It would more naturally favor the people who were spending more and would charge for the previously free add-on. And arguably it would be much worse than what they built.
Sure, some of the guts of what they built were still being used, but "genie+" was hard to plan with and the pricing and what was included could best be described as confusing. To compound the confusion, they also added a "lightning lane" that allowed you to purchase access to a single attraction.
So this week, Disney decided to change course again, and perhaps get closer to what they had with fastpass+… but as a fee based service.
The idea is that you have the ability to make multiple ride reservations in advance for a sliding fee (around $25 per person, per day) in the "lightning lane multi ride pass". And you can add on what might have previously been called E-ticket attractions (the big ones) for an additional roughly $15 each. And they call that the "lightning lane single ride pass"
So you pay your $150 to get into the park, and then spend somewhere around $50 to see the attractions you want with little wait time.
This new idea sounds better on paper. And maybe it will help revenue. And maybe guests will like it. And if we're lucky, the queues might be better balanced.
Time will tell how all of this works out.
It's just sad that the already high price is being added onto with more costs.
And it has the additional effect of putting people's heads into their phones, rather than just enjoying a magical vacation.
