A new ride at Disney World now seems to be a new way to make a ton of money for the parks!
By all accounts, and including our review of Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, the newest roller coaster at Epcot is a great success. It’s not revolutionary necessarily in the way that Rise of the Resistance is — it is a heck of an interior roller coaster nevertheless.
That’s why it sort of depends on the way you look at Disney World policy as to how you respond to the news in this article. If you’re in the camp that wants to see a monetary way to skip lines combined with higher profits for Disney, you’re probably going to like what we report on. If you, on the other hand, believe that such monetized line skips are a way to diminish the experience of lower socioeconomic guests or you have distaste for every planned moment of your trip being set by an app on your phone, then this isn’t a great piece of news. But what is that news?
Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind opened to the public today and it has been a phenomenal success for Disney. Despite pricing its Lightning Lane (line skip a la Fastpass) option at the highest dollar amount ever in Disney World history ($17 per guest), the ride’s Lightning Lane option sold out in seconds. This essentially means that guests racing to get the line skip on their phone app were playing a sophisticated lottery game in which server response and latency fettered out who would win. It also means that this is a truly successful means for Disney to continue driving up profits off of new rides. We surely expect to see this implemented at Tron when it opens in Magic Kingdom late this year or early next.
Something to keep in mind if you’re trying for Cosmic Rewind Individual Lightning Lane this weekend: If you fail at 7 am, keep trying until at least 7:12 am.
7:12 am is the purchase timeout for people who changed their mind or received an error during checkout. https://t.co/9uIAexHwdO pic.twitter.com/HbCRKJeQoB
— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) May 27, 2022
Disney World has announced that they plan to drop the fee for Lighting Lane admission at Cosmic Rewind once Memorial Day Weekend is over. The ride will lower exactly three dollars to $14.
So what do you think? Is this new system a positive or do you believe that long lines for new attractions was a good way to make everything fair? Let us know in the comments below and keep reading That Park Place for all the latest news that should be fun!
