It's been a week since Disney rolled out their changes to Lightning Lanes, replacing Genie+ with Lightning Lane Multi Pass (LLMP) and changing the name of Individual Lightning Lanes (ILL) to Lightning Lane Single Pass (LLSP) to help ease confusion (?) over the names. Some of the early feedback on this new system seems to be that there are fewer LL available for the "good" attractions as compared to Genie+, so I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at where we stand now and see if we can come to any conclusions.
One thing to note here - this analysis is only as good as the data we have so far, and no matter what we find, we probably shouldn't jump to any conclusions about the usability of the new LL system just yet. There's also the fact that on July 24, the system went live for everyone; meaning, if you were going to the parks that day or if you had a trip coming up within the next week, you were all hitting the system at the same time. This will not be the case from now on, which is why I wanted to wait a week before looking at the numbers; we now have that first week behind us, and same day availability should have leveled out by now.
Remember also that there are two different components of the LL system - pre-booking and same day. The system only works if both of these things are working well. I am on record as saying I am in favor of a system where you can book rides in advance, a la the long lost FastPass+ system. But your initial three rides shouldn't be the ONLY rides you can book with LL; this was true of FP+, so I don't see any reason why that would change. Plus Disney had to have enough available inventory to make sure people who buy LL on the day of their park visit (spontaneously) would still have a positive experience.
For the purposes of this piece, I'm only going to be looking at Magic Kingdom. The reason for this is because that park has the most LL options and isn't very "top heavy" in the sense that there are a lot of "good" rides dispersed throughout. The information here comes from Thrill Data (as it often does). This particular chart is broken out by LL availability today (as of this writing), compared to yesterday, the prior week and the prior month.
These last two columns are really the most important as we try to determine whether LL availability is worse under this new system. The last week's data in this case is from when LL took over for Genie+, where the past month would encompass most of that data. If there are differences, they should be noticeable.
Let's look at the rides that are in the "tier 1" level of the LLMP - for Magic Kingdom, those are Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan's Flight, Space Mountain and Tiana's Bayou Adventure. Those attractions would likely show the biggest variance, and that indeed holds true here - for example, Big Thunder was available until 4:35 pm on average over the last month, but in the last week since LLMP debuted, availability was gone at 1:46.
I say that this makes the most sense, because LLMP (re)introduced tiers to the LL system, something that was there under FP+ but not under Genie+. These are likely the most desirable rides at the park, and guests can only choose one in advance. That effectively limits same day availability, as most people have booked these ahead of time, leaving fewer open slots for same day guests.
This is true for Big Thunder, as listed above, as well as Jungle Cruise (4:42 pm vs 12:11) and Space Mountain (6:46 vs. 3:51). The other two are slightly different, as Peter Pan has essentially no availability at all, and Tiana's is consistent with selling out right around 7:00 am (the time that Genie+ reservations opened on the day of). Tiana's makes sense as it has high demand due to it being a new ride. Peter Pan is always a pain, though I'm still surprised by the complete lack of availability at all here.
As a side note, given the above information, a guest staying on site and purchasing LLMP should be able to maximize their time easily, as long as they arrive for Early Entry. In the above example, you should probably book Tiana's as your tier 1 and Pirates and Haunted Mansion (the best of the "tier 2" options - more on that below) in advance, then rope drop Peter Pan during Early Entry. You can then hit the other side of the park for traditional rope drop at Jungle Cruise, then start tapping into your three LL (provided you have good return times). Once you tap into any attraction, you can book another one, regardless of tier. So you can tap into Pirates and book Big Thunder, then tap into Tiana's and book Space Mountain. This knocks out most of your bigger attractions fairly easily - this is one reason why Magic Kingdom is the best park for LL.
In any case, if you look at the tier 2 rides on that chart, most of the availability is the same under LL and Genie+. Even Pirates, a desirable choice, doesn't show much difference. The two exceptions (so far) are Haunted Mansion (6:47 vs 2:26) and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (6:33 vs 3:49). It will be interesting to see whether this trend continues in the future; if so, it might be more worthwhile to book Winnie the Pooh instead of Pirates in advance. However, if you followed the plan above, this would require more crisscrossing of the park, something you might want to avoid. Getting a "better" LL for Winnie the Pooh might not outweigh booking Pirates and then immediately being able to book a fourth LL. There will be lots more strategy coming out as time goes on, so stay tuned.
We already discussed pre-booking having an effect on LL availability. The other factor here is that Disney simply released fewer slots for these rides. That seems counterproductive to their ultimate goal of guest satisfaction, but it makes sense in these early days. It's better to pull the plug too soon rather than sell too many, thus clogging up the lightning lanes and slowing everything to a crawl.
How can we tell that this is happening? One good indicator is that the LLSP rides (formerly ILL) have worse availability under the new system. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is all over the place but the difference for Tron Lightcycle Run (3:33 pm vs 10:29 am average) is stark. There really should be no reason that availability is worse for these rides, as the only thing that changed is the name.
But this isn't exactly true. Now LLSP can be booked in advance, the same way LLMP can be. I didn't think this would have an outsized impact, as I didn't think that many people would want to book these ahead of time. Maybe that was a bad guess by me, but I think it's too early to tell. Again, a lot will change as this system gets more use. I suspect Disney is monitoring more sophisticated data than what we have and will adjust accordingly.
A quick glance at the other three parks shows that the contrast isn't as stark as with Magic Kingdom. Ultimately, I think the panic about less availability is overblown - a savvy strategy will allow you to experience many more than three attractions in a day, which is by design. Disney will continue to tweak this system, but it already looks much better than Genie+ did upon launch, where was missing most of the features that were vital to making your day smoother until much later. I remain cautiously optimistic about the new LL system here.
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