Goodbye, Maxpass. Hello, Disney Genie.

[AndrewC]

That’s what I was getting at here:


Presumably they’ve run some simulations…

I would love to see inside all of this. I bet they've done so many simulations. I would love to see how they've shifted the crowds and what kind of success rate they think they'll gain from directing people to specific parts of the park. This is big data at play, and I'm sure Disney has a lot of energy in researching that stuff...

 

[ttig34]

That's assuming return windows book way out. If you remove the whole free bucket because fastpass is gone, might it be that return windows for most attractions are within 60 to 90 minutes because of the reduced guests tossing $20/day/ticket out there? In that case, holding a max of one at a time might not be that big of an issue. It's only an issue when you grab something that is like 4+ hours away. I would LIKE to think my $20 will unlock a world where 45 minutes to an hour later I'm jumping on a walk on type of deal with my Genie+

Wait in a 30 minute line while I make a reservation with a return window 1 hour away, do my ride and head towards the reservation return, hopefully it's opened up by the time I get there. As soon as I scan in grab another with hopefully a 1 hour or less return window. Complete my ride, jump in another standby line that's 35 minutes long, head to reservation, etc.

Not exactly as tight as MaxPass masters, but could go along way to making that $20 feel a lot more worth it...

Yeah, if that is the case, wouldnt be so bad. Guess we will all have to wait and see how it pans out once it is implemented. I would hope if return windows ended up being too far out, they would make adjustments to the process. hopefully, not in the form of charging evenn more...

 

[Skyegirl1999]

I would love to see inside all of this. I bet they've done so many simulations. I would love to see how they've shifted the crowds and what kind of success rate they think they'll gain from directing people to specific parts of the park. This is big data at play, and I'm sure Disney has a lot of energy in researching that stuff...

It’s fascinating to me.

Also, it’s being reported various places as a way to “pay to ride Rise of the Resistance,” but I’m not sure if that’s official.

ETA: It’s being reported by official news outlets. “Rides with virtual queues will also offer the paid Lightning queue option.”

 

[ClaudiaKincaid]

The pay per ride legit feels gross. Trashy, like the Idaho State fair. (I live in Boise, so I can say that

Yyyyyyyyup. It's a rinkydink traveling carnival experience, but breathtakingly expensive, and with reminders of that fact every second of the day. "Magic," yeah. Our family may be done with the Mouse.

 

[AndrewC]

It’s fascinating to me.

Also, it’s being reported various places as a way to “pay to ride Rise of the Resistance,” but I’m not sure if that’s official.

ETA: It is official. Rides with virtual queues also offer the paid Lightning queue option.

Do you know what makes it official? Do you have a link to Disney? That's actually great news for me. Again, I hate having to pay more, but traveling from Washington state and having missed Rise by about 5 months on my last visit right before COVID, it's a huge point for me and has been so hard to avoid spoilers this long! I would love to do it once a day for sure my four or five days in the park... that's not too much to ask for

 

[AndrewC]

Yyyyyyyyup. It's a rinkydink traveling carnival experience, but breathtakingly expensive, and with reminders of that fact every second of the day. "Magic," yeah. Our family may be done with the Mouse.

I get your feelings for sure, but wasn't this sort of how Disneyland started? I thought you could buy ticket books and specific rides took more tickets or "higher priced" tickets...

 

[TikiTikiFan]

I'm just so relieved it's not a carbon copy of the Disneyland Paris version I'm not even that grumpy about this.

Thrilled photos are still included! WDW doesn't even get that so that's pretty awesome- I was worried about the fate of the included PhotoPass. When we went to WDW and paid for Memory Maker I died inside a little at the price.

I'm mostly nervous about what the price will be for the upcharge attractions and what they will include. Next we'll be there is Thanksgiving week so we'll definitely experience the highest those prices will get. I really hope we get those details sooner rather than later!

Also,' guests want to be spontaneous?' I'm not the target audience for that since I plan each day down to the minute on a big list on my phone.

 

[Cedric Rose]

Coming from Australia (eventually) the option of paying for and guaranteeing my family can ride Rise a few times is actually an attractive proposition. It would do my head in to get there and continually miss out on boarding passes.

 

[bethwc101]

Thought... if it really is going to play out how it sounds... FP lines are going to be SHORT. Our family is getting to the point it would be more cost effective to do a VIP tour with the unlimited FP one day with maybe one standby day to do everything else than doing 2 or 3 days with maxpass where we could do everything. Now we'll be paying more to do less. We probably either won't go or might look at doing vip considering how rarely we go anymore

 

[dieumeye]

Way back 100 years ago when they first announced the Genie, wasn’t one of the proposed features something about how the app could “make magic“ for guests? Like, it might suddenly offer your party free/instant FastPasses to an attraction.

The idea being, it would make the guest feel like they got some magic, while also directing them in real time toward an underutilized attraction. It fits in perfectly with the overall agenda of the Genie being a way for Disney to better manage crowds.

Was that a thing or did I dream that? Was anything like that mentioned in any of the recent reports?

Regardless, I would love to visit and let the Genie manage my day to see what happens versus what I think I would accomplish on a similar visit on my own.

 

[Mama_bear]

As someone with a reservation for mid September I would really appreciate something less vague then "fall" I dont want to miss out on rise of the resistance or web slingers because I didn't have time to learn and understand this new app or how these new fast pass systems work.

 

[ClaudiaKincaid]

I get your feelings for sure, but wasn't this sort of how Disneyland started? I thought you could buy ticket books and specific rides took more tickets or "higher priced" tickets...

No but that's exactly what I mean -- that was a bad, although common, system, and they eventually figured out that nobody wants to be constantly messing around with a fussy little ticket book and worrying about how many tickets they have and how to budget them and whether X ride was more "worth" seven tickets than Y ride and all that other small-time stuff; people wanted to pay once, and then more or less forget about it as they immersed themselves in the magic kingdom, right? Prix fixe, all-inclusive, you're in a different world now -- not Chuck E Cheese or the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. If your family can muster up the entrance fee, there's no difference between you and Johnny Four-Yachts as far as what rides and attractions you can go on.

TL;DR: I'm annoyed about the $$$, but I'm sad and furious about the incessant reminders of exactly how much chiseling is going on (plus the widening of the have/have-not divide). This is *specifically* about the experience of the place, and for me, this pops the "Disney bubble" with a loud bang.

 

[CommanderCanuck]

As someone with a reservation for mid September I would really appreciate something less vague then "fall" I dont want to miss out on rise of the resistance or web slingers because I didn't have time to learn and understand this new app or how these new fast pass systems work.

Same for me. Sept 10-13 in the parks and would like to know if I need to stock an extra $160 for our trip to make sure we don't miss something for any reason.

 

[AndrewC]

No but that's exactly what I mean -- that was a bad, although common, system, and they eventually figured out that nobody wants to be constantly messing around with a fussy little ticket book and worrying about how many tickets they have and how to budget them and whether X ride was more "worth" seven tickets than Y ride and all that other small-time stuff; people wanted to pay once, and then more or less forget about it as they immersed themselves in the magic kingdom, right? Prix fixe, all-inclusive, you're in a different world now -- not Chuck E Cheese or the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. If your family can muster up the entrance fee, there's no difference between you and Johnny Four-Yachts as far as what rides and attractions you can go on.

TL;DR: I'm annoyed about the $$$, but I'm sad and furious about the incessant reminders of exactly how much chiseling is going on (plus the widening of the have/have-not divide). This is *specifically* about the experience of the place, and for me, this pops the "Disney bubble" with a loud bang.

It took ~25 years or so for them to eventually figure that out, and what really seemed to push them was when Magic Mountain opened without that system. As long as Disneyland is on the top, it's going to be the most popular spot. It's sort of a self imposed problem. Parks are packed to the gills because everyone wants to be there. I'm sure there is a decent amount of bean counting and bottom line talks for the extra revenue, but I do in fact think a lot is also the long wait times for some rides and crowding issues.

I guess it would be more telling if Mon-Thur they just had normal MaxPass running and then Fri-Sun they had this adjusted system and pay to ride type stuff.

I do truly think this is to shift crowds and reduce max wait times. Maybe a family skips going in the summer and instead takes the kids out of school four four days to go in March or something. No one wants a 70, 80, 90 minute line. At the same time, it doesn't do a whole lot if MaxPass options are gone for a ride within the first hour of the park being open. I loved MaxPass when I was there in 2019, but even then I didn't ride RSR each day I was there (four or five days) because the passes went so dang fast and I didn't always want to tie up the first 90 minutes of my day for pulling a pass with the return at 8pm. Short of expanding the parks I'm not sure what else Disney can do to try and balance the lines out, other than bumping prices up again.

I think if you look at the new Magic Keys you'll also notice a lot more blackout dates on all but the highest passes. Disneyland needs those passes during the off-peak times to bring in daily cash flow into the parks but at the same time they DON'T want those guys there on Saturdays or during the summer or anything. I suspect that's also why it's $5 more at Disneyland compared to WDW, again they need to balance how many people will use this system.

We'll see how it goes in the first six months or so. I'm still optimistic that maximum wait times in standby lines will overall drop with this system, maybe not a huge amount, but we'll see.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Do you know what makes it official? Do you have a link to Disney?

It’s in a bunch of articles from official news sources, but it’s not on Disney’s site yet. I’ll edit.

 

[TikiTikiFan]

Rise is confirmed in the D23 article here. It just doesn't confirm whether it's an upcharge or part of Genie+... but I think we all know it'll be an upcharge.

Here's the specific quote:

"And above and beyond that, there are some attractions that use the Lightning Lane queue—which you can purchase individually—which is the ultimate in flexibility. Think about Rise of the Resistance as an example. It’s a highly demanded attraction. Guests show up in the morning and they try to get into the virtual queue. We get as many people on there as we can, but inevitably someone is disappointed. Now there’s another option on top of the virtual queue so if Rise of the Resistance is the reason you’re at Disneyland or Disney’s Hollywood Studios, there may be an option for you to purchase Rise of the Resistance. So again: flexibility, optionality, better guest experience overall."

 

[Skyegirl1999]

Rise is confirmed in the D23 article here. It just doesn't confirm whether it's an upcharge or part of Genie+... but I think we all know it'll be an upcharge.

Here's the specific quote:

"And above and beyond that, there are some attractions that use the Lightning Lane queue—which you can purchase individually—which is the ultimate in flexibility. Think about Rise of the Resistance as an example. It’s a highly demanded attraction. Guests show up in the morning and they try to get into the virtual queue. We get as many people on there as we can, but inevitably someone is disappointed. Now there’s another option on top of the virtual queue so if Rise of the Resistance is the reason you’re at Disneyland or Disney’s Hollywood Studios, there may be an option for you to purchase Rise of the Resistance. So again: flexibility, optionality, better guest experience overall."

Thanks for that! Honestly it makes sense.

I wonder what they’re going to do when people have purchased a specific time to go on a ride and then it breaks down.

Anyone know how Paris is handling that?

 

[TikiTikiFan]

Thanks for that! Honestly it makes sense.

I wonder what they’re going to do when people have purchased a specific time to go on a ride and then it breaks down.

Anyone know how Paris is handling that?

Honestly, the first trip we took when we experienced the RotR boarding groups, I would have gladly paid. I was soooo stressed, I felt like I was going to pass out getting one haha. I'm a die hard Star Wars fan so if I wouldn't have gotten one, I would have cried. It makes sense to offer this, it's a no brainer for some folks.

Also curious on breakdowns... freebie FP I'm assuming like before?

 

[Priory]

I noticed in the Q&A that he says Disneyland guests can start booking their rides when they enter the park. Is this going to turn into a situation where everyone rushes the park at rope drop so they can buy their way into Rise before it sells out? If so, nothing will have changed for the guest except Disney gets more money out of them.

 

[TikiTikiFan]

I noticed in the Q&A that he says Disneyland can start booking their rides when they enter the park. Is this going to turn into a situation where everyone rushes the park at rope drop so they can buy their way into Rise before it sells out? If so, nothing will have changed for the guest except Disney gets more money out of them.

This will also make getting a boarding group more competitive in general because its more folks taking up space in the already limited 'bucket' of boarding groups. You're right though, I'll be curious what they do there. Maybe only give the option twice a day to buy it?