21,898 Steps
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Long day of walking at Disneyland's California Adventure Park (Cars Land, Avengers Campus, Pixar Pier) today. And that was just one park. Tomorrow we do Disneyland proper, with Space Mountain and Rise of the Resistance on our must-do list. We're also staying in a hotel outside the park that is a mile from the park entrance, so you have to tack that distance and those steps to either end of our day.
All in all, a good time. The new Web Slingers ride is fun, and we did it twice. Some of the waits, though, were brutal. Two hours for the Cars ride, after they told us 80 minutes at the entrance. The problem is that they have Genie passes (or some stupid name) that lets people who have more money than the rest of us pay to jump to the front. So there were times when our line didn't move for ten minutes or more as they let all the Genie pass people in ahead of us. The ideal solution, if you didn't want to wring every possible cent out of the guests, would be to do away with the fast pass lane and have just one line for everybody. Then the line would just move steadily forward. When we finally got to the point in the line where they combine the Genie people with the plebes, the Disneytron asked how many in my party. I really wanted to turn around and say, "Oh, about 1,200." But my wife made me promise I wouldn't say anything.
#Planelopnik all the things
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Genie+ is the system, Lightning Lanes are the separate lanes for the quick ride on. They are a good compromise to the old FastPass system (which required intimate knowledge of it's system, how to exploit it, and ruined many a vacation) which allow those that want to wait to wait and those who don't to pay their way.
FWIW, we've done Genie+ and bought the additional Lightning Lane at Disney World and it was awesome. Got to the new rides first, waited in line for the shorter lines, and used Genie+ for the longer waits and got every ride done before 3PM at every park!
Can't wait to get to Disneyland some day, Cars Land is a pilgrimage for me.
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1995 Ford Probe GT -
@rctothefuture Several years ago I spent some time talking to Disney’s software/hardware folks about their visitor tracking system and gave a talk about NoSQL data modeling at an internal developer conference. They definitely have some interesting problems to solve.
Jeeps
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Cars Land is fantastic, and the ride itself is worth the wait. We rode it twice when we were there in 2019, and today we rode it in the dark, which was a new experience. We also got to see the fireworks from the ride, which was cool.
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@Just-Jeepin said in 21,898 Steps:
They definitely have some interesting problems to solve.
They have ditched the lottery system for the new Star Wars rides. Now it's just like any other line. On our visit to Disney World last year, my wife set an alarm so she could get up early enough and hope to hit the button at just the right time. Later that afternoon, we were sitting in an outdoor dining area, waiting for 2:00 pm to hit the button again. It suddenly got very quiet and tense right before the hour, and then were were whoops of success for those who made it, and audible groans from those who didn't.
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@ttyymmnn oh hey...21k is what ive been getting this week too...as ive set myself the goal of getting at least 20k steps in before i'm allowed to hide in the shade and drink beer....my feet are not super happy with me...but thats mostly coz my shoes are dead..
anyways...that genie pass thing sounds like it would really really annoy me...tho tbh..after standing in line for 2 hours im fairly sure anything would annoy me
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We went to Disneyworld etc earlier this year, my record was ~18k steps at Epcot.
We used the genie+ system to do most of the big rides since with a 9yr old and 6 turning 7yr old (she had a great birthday) queing for hours in the heat just wasn't an option. Also as my MIL so hiply put it this was a YOLO trip, not likely to be repeated.
The Genie thing definitely creates a two tier society with the haves making things worse for the have-nots but they are never going back to a single line because it just makes the mouse so much money without adding any park capacity.
If you think it's evil now just wait; the current system uses a flat rate but I read the next generation will have surge pricing based on the length of the line! -
@rctothefuture said in 21,898 Steps:
which allow those that want to wait to wait and those who don't to pay their way.
Is this how the "haves" think of the "have nots"? They WANT to wait? Wow
'94 Volvo 850 Estate 5MT, '03 Saab 9-5 Wagon 5MT, '10 Volvo XC70
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@zipfuel said in 21,898 Steps:
The Genie thing definitely creates a two tier society with the haves making things worse for the have-nots but they are never going back to a single line because it just makes the mouse so much money without adding any park capacity.
Ugh. This is totally correct, but so annoying. One thing would be to restrict the number of the fast passes so it doesn't totally screw up the poverty line. This is just a way to get more and more money out of people. I really hate the way society is heading.
@zipfuel said in 21,898 Steps:
If you think it's evil now just wait; the current system uses a flat rate but I read the next generation will have surge pricing based on the length of the line!
Even worse!
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I'm a slow runner, and my strides aren't that long. My tracker shows about 2100 steps per mile. If you are walking, your strides are probably even shorter, but 22,000 steps would probably be at least 7 miles and possibly 8. The distance would be shorter if you spent any length of time doing Irish step dancing.
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@Sweedsinthestable not at all, it's a matter of time vs. money.
If I go to Magic Kingdom with friends and family who haven't been, or haven't been in awhile, I want them to experience everything on offer. If we wait in standard "stand by" lines we end up possibly missing a chunk of the day (shows, parades, lunch/dinner) to do everything. We spend the money for the Lightning Lane and now we can experience everything and everyone has a great time.
If my wife and I go by ourselves or with local friends, usually a few times a year, we almost never do Genie+ as we have the time and ability to know we can skip something or experience it later.
We know that an hour in line is an hour not spent enjoying a show, checking out the cool new experiences and exhibits. If we are ok with that, we wait. If not? We buy the lines and move on.
If an extra $20/person a day is too much for a family than Disney is off the list for you as a vacation entirely, in my opinion. We're talking about a place that for a 4 day trip is already $800-1200 for the rooms, $150 a day/pp tickets, $3 bottles of water and food that ranges from fast food to 5 star gourmet. It's not cheap, it never will be. That's why some people have "YOLO" trips because it takes a few years to save up for the experience. If you can only go once in your life, you better get every experience you can in!
We are lucky to have friends to stay with who allow us to stay at there home and help us get local perks. I won't deny Disney does some scummy business practices as of late (cutting airport transportation, removing room delivery for theme park purchases, lightning Lane individual purchases, etc.) but we still enjoy our time there. My wife does charity runs through the parks, we've met life long friends and I have some amazing photos and video of family passed on from our trips.
But I understand your point completely, I wasn't trying to sound elitist about spending the money. How you value your time in the parks dictates how you value Genie+ and the Lightning Lanes in total.
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@Just-Jeepin there's a great documentary by Defunctland on YouTube covering the history and logistics of FastPass. Blew my mind how difficult it is to figure out
