Fast Pass used to be included in every Disney ticket. Whether you were a resort guest, an annual pass holder, or someone who got in for free because they’re friends with a cast member, Fast Passes were just a part of everyone’s Disney day. This was something Disney always had over its chief rival, Universal Studios, who sold its Express Pass system at an up-charge.
Tron Lightcycle Run via TPMvids YouTube
But that all changed after the pandemic, when Disney swapped the previously included Fast Pass system for the brand new premium Lightning Lane service. This came at an up-charge per person and allowed guests to pay their way onto some of the more popular attractions.
Financially, the service can be considered a success for the company, garnering more than $700 million for the parks and experiences division. However, the service has also substantially lowered the value of Disney’s base theme park ticket, which may have played a role in the recent record low attendance seen at Orlando’s Walt Disney World.
The entrance to Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World via DocumentDisney YouTube
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Fourth of July and Labor Day, both holidays that typically see the parks packed with people, experienced low wait times and crowds throughout Walt Disney World. With such low wait times, there isn’t much demand for a paid line-skipping service like Lightning Lane. However, it seems as though Disney is trying to artificially create demand in order to drive people toward Lightning Lane. Recently, noted Disney historian Joshua L. Harris tested Disney’s posted wait times against the actual time he waited in the standby queue and the results were shocking.
“Did a quick visit to all (Walt Disney World) parks yesterday, and here are a few examples of inflated wait times thanks to upselling Lightning Lane,” he said in an X post on September 13.
Did a quick visit to all WDW parks yesterday & here are a few examples of inflated wait times thanks to upselling Lightning Lane. 🤨
Posted/Actual
•Flight of Passage 50/25
•Expedition Everest 25/15
•Tower of Terror 40/10
•Pirates 25/15
•The Haunted Mansion 40/30
1|3— Joshua L Harris (@JLHomni) September 13, 2024
He confirmed to That Park Place that when tracking the time he began the moment he entered the standby queue and concluded when the experience officially began. For many attractions, this is a pre-show. For Flight of Passage, for instance, it was the second pre-show.
For Haunted Mansion, it was the moment you enter the Mansion into the foyer. For something like Pirates of the Caribbean, time was tracked up to the moment guests were loaded onto a ride vehicle.
A photo of the Haunted Mansion in Magic Kingdom via Disney Parks website
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Flight of Passage, the top attraction in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, had a posted wait time of 50 minutes. But when Joshua got on the line he was watching the second pre-show for the attraction in just 25 minutes. This is a 100% inflation of the wait time. That seems to serve no purpose other than coercing guests into paying to fit these E-ticket attractions into their park day.
Harris said that inflating the wait times is a common tactic Disney once used when an attraction experienced downtime. This kept people away from the queue while the attractions team brought everything back to working order quickly. It avoided a pile up of people.
“Whenever there was a downtime we always overly inflated the numbers to discourage guests from entering the queue,” he said, recalling his time as a Walt Disney World cast member. “The difference is that it was temporary and ultimately good guest service. Today it’s decidedly the inverse.”
Key art for Avatar Flight of Passage in Pandora – The World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park
The Tower of Terror in Disney’s Hollywood Studios also saw a huge discrepancy, with a 40 minute posted time and only a 10 minute wait. That’s an inflation of 300%. He also saw smaller inflations of 10 minutes each for Expedition Everest, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Haunted Mansion.
“What they have done as a concept for today is they make it artificially higher on the board, and post a higher standby time for two reasons,” Harris said. “First of all, it’s to upsell these systems. They want you to buy into the system. And then the second one, and this is the one that most people really grasp, it’s actually also for the assurance of the person who bought the Lightning Lane. You have to make it high because if you purchase Lightning Lane for September 12th, a very slow day in any of the parks, and then you notice everything’s 15 minutes, you’d say ‘I wasted my money.’ So, it screws you on both sides.”
A photo of the Haunted Mansion in Magic Kingdom via Disney Parks website
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He noted in a private conversation with That Park Place that back in the time before Lightning Lane, the Fast Pass system used to run more efficiently. According to Harris, in the time before Fast Pass Plus, the queue was divided into 80% Fast Pass riders to 20% stand by riders.
“From what I understand, when they switched over to FastPass Plus, and even now especially, it’s gone to 90/10,” he said. “And one of the problems is that they don’t give any leeway for attraction downtimes. They don’t give any leeway for any other operational considerations. So, there’s no buffer for that, there’s no there’s no accounting for that.”
Looking up at The Hollywood Tower Hotel (The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror) at Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World, December 2004. Photo Credit: The original uploader was Techclub at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
Do you think Disney is inflating wait times specifically to drain more money out of guests? Will you purchase Lightning Lane on your next Disney trip? Sound off in the comments below and let us know!
Marvin The Movie Monster Montanaro is a YouTube commentator and personality specializing in movies, TV, video games, and professional wrestling. He can be found on his channels Tooney Town TV and Tooney Town Wrestling with daily content and weekly livestreams. He can also be found on That Game Place, the That Park Place video game channel.
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