Disney says it’s still learning how to use one of its most divisive and most expensive new theme park tools.
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The Walt Disney Company released its Q1 FY24 earnings report Wednesday morning, revealing how its various businesses performed in the final months of 2024. On the streaming side, Disney+ lost 700,000 subscribers, something CEO Bob Iger isn’t all too worried about. While this number looks and sounds rather large, it only represents about a 1% change.
Disney’s theme parks performed well once again, with Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts making up a substantial portion of the company’s overall revenue in its Parks and Experiences wing.
There’s certainly no denying the price of a Disney vacation has increased over the years, and part of this cost lies with Lightning Lane, which Disney CFO Hugh Johnston stated the company is still figuring out.
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“It is a product that we are learning how to use, so we are marketing it very gently.” Disney is still very much in the early stages of Premier Pass, something its CFO reiterated during the company’s most recent earnings call.
Johnston also said that Premier Pass’ performance is “very much in line with our expectations, but we are moving slowly with that product in order to make it a great experience, both for the purchasers of Lightning Lane and for the rest of our guests in the park.”
Lightning Lane acts as Disney’s alternative to Universal’s Express Pass, allowing guests to skip the regular line at select attractions. However, unlike Universal, Lightning Lane is not unlimited, meaning guests need to plan and book out their day per attrition.
The service is split into two tiers, Lightning Lane Single Pass and Lightning Lane Multi Pass. As each name suggests, guests can choose between multiple attractions or simply opt for an a la carte option.
However, Disney recently introduced a third option for those with some serious money burning a hole in their pocket: Lightning Lane Premier Pass. This option grants guests the ability to skip the regular line at every available attraction at a given park, and as you can imagine, it comes at quite a cost.
Premier Pass starts at $119 per person and maxes out at $449. The price depends on what the park guests choose to visit, with Magic Kingdom being the most expensive.
Disney’s Lightning Lane
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Lightning Lane has been a part of the Disney theme park experience, at least domestically, since 2021, though it fell under a different umbrella known as Disney Genie. Genie acted as Disney’s next evolution of its FastPass system, this time coming in both a free and paid version.
The free version granted guests certain tools that helped them map out their day, but gone were the days of free line-skipping tickets. Instead, Disney asked those who wanted to bypass the standby queues to pay a fee and upgrade to Disney Genie+. This was, unsurprisingly, very controversial among both die-hard Disney park fans and newcomers alike.
Part of the problem came with implementing Genie+ itself, which did not feature a strict pricing structure. Instead, the price of Genie+ fluctuated on a day-by-day basis and would increase or decrease depending on the time of year and how crowded the parks were.
Controversy continued to cloud Genie+ for several years until Disney announced the system would be reworked into a new one simply named Lightning Lane. Remember, Lightning Lane was already a part of Genie+, but this Genie+ monicker, as well as some of its more unpopular components, have been abandoned.
If this is confusing, you aren’t alone, though guests seem to have a slightly easier time understanding Disney’s current Lightning Lane program than Genie+.
What do you think about Disney’s Lightning Lane system?
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