It's not official, but word on the street is that a premier version of Lightning Lane is coming (https://blogmickey.com/2024/09/rumor-walt-disney-world-lightning-lane-premier-pass-universal-express-style-skip-the-line-offering/) similar to Universal Express.
If it is modeled after Universal's version, it will be $200 per person per day and require no bookings. You would just walk into any lightning lane any time, but not the same LL more than once in a given day.
I think it makes sense that they introduce something like this. However, I wonder how they would keep it from hurting Disney resort bookings. If this new LL pass is what I think it is, I might cancel my resort booking, book off property and use the savings to pay (partially) for the premier pass. There's no need for early entry or 7-day pre-booking if you have the premier pass.
But maybe they'll only make this available to resort guests, or only to deluxe resort guests, for exactly this reason.
Thoughts?
I don't really have a problem with it as they've made it so expensive that it really will be just a few people who use it. If I were to spend that amount of money I think I'd be a bit disappointed that it only allows you to use each lightning lane once rather than unlimited.
I called that one. 😂
It sounds like they went with limiting this to deluxe resort guests just as we thought might happen. Or maybe Disney is reading our forum and got the idea from us? Though they don't appear to have listened to @Rob's warning that it could fuel the price gouging narrative. Universal Express is free for deluxe resort guests, and less restrictive.
So this has officially launched from October 30th. From what I understand of the articles out there, it's only available to people staying at Deluxe hotels and even then you have to pay an additional $400 per person!
Interesting to hear - historically we have stayed offsite and then the last 2 years we have stayed onsite - so much more expensive but we have enjoyed the ease of getting around and the benefits we have had - albeit limited now it seems
Universal give their unlimited express lane to everyone staying at a Premium hotel (3 of them) and it's actually cheaper to have a night in the hotel then it is to buy the pass itself. We had one night at the Hard Rock, which gave us the pass for two days (check in \ check out days) and I have to say it was so much easier than Genie+ and saved us an absolute ton of time.
I wonder if Disney might do something similar for the Deluxe hotels. It is all just rumor obviously and would seem a bit strange to bring out another Lightning Lane service when they've only just revamped it.
That makes a lot of sense. They'd have to be careful with the optics. If they coordinated the rollout with lowering the prices of the other lightning lane passes that could help.
If it were up to me I'd introduce an automated "concierge" service where you could just say what attractions you want to do ranked by priority, and the app schedules your whole day (or multiple days) for you. It could use an optimization algorithm to keep things distributed nicely keeping in mind supply and demand across all the attractions, and have it rejig things for you when unexpected things happen (or you ask to change something). This would feel more premium than universal express and they could sell a greater number of them since the optimization algorithm would do a better job at managing resources.
I think as long as they maintain the affordable version with bookings AND significantly limit the number of people who can purchase a "premier" option, it would be a change that many people have said they want and those with lots of money would happily use it. Maybe they allow hotel guests to buy it early and if it sells out, it sells out? That would be a way to not cannibalize hotel stays and is basically what they do with Single Pass LL on popular rides.
Of course, the other problem Disney is facing is the narrative that everything has gotten too expensive and the average family can no longer afford a Disney vacation now. If they do this, the headline in every media outlet will be some variation of "Disney now charging hundreds of dollars per person to cut ahead of your family in line." It doesn't matter that it's the same thing Universal and every other park already does, they will call out Disney for another price gouge. That may hurt more than it helps.
Personally, I don't put a lot of faith in Blog Mickey, but it could be true. I agree that it could cannibalize Disney hotels stays tho.