One of the most controversial changes to line-skipping with Walt Disney World’s switch from Genie+ to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass is the removal of all character meet & greets and other entertainment options at all four parks, with Magic Kingdom being hit especially hard. This post discusses why characters were cut from paid FastPass and the likelihood that’ll change in the weeks to come or 2025.
For starters, this feels like history repeating itself. When Genie+ first launched back in October 2021, it didn’t include nearly as many attractions and other ‘line items’ as it did when the system was retired in 2024. What was most notable about this was that there were two a la carte Lightning Lanes (now Single Pass) per park.
Those included Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Hollywood Studios, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After at EPCOT, and Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom–a nearly 50-year old roller coaster! Only the first two of those sold even moderately well–but they were all added to Genie+ on a “temporary” basis; first in late December 2021 and then again in February 2022 (that became permanent by the end of summer).
Alongside that, Walt Disney World began adding entertainment to the Genie+ service. This started with Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmastime Parade (daily ops version) around the peak weeks of Christmas and New Year’s in 2021. It continued with Festival of Fantasy Parade upon its return.
Then came character ‘sightings’ (remember those?) in each park in early 2022. All of this was unsurprising, as these were meet & greets that were part of FastPass+ prior to March 2020, and all of them were purpose-built venues that were created with FastPass+ queues in mind. After that, a few more venues were added at Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios–including Red Carpet Dreams, which was removed from Genie+ shortly after it was added.
As with almost all changes to Genie+ after it launched (aside from those adding obviously missing features) the goals of these additions were to load balance and increase capacity. Simply put, there were not enough Lightning Lanes to provide guests with adequate perceived value for money, which became evident as soon as there were “real” crowds around Thanksgiving (prior to that, the parks had been dead, so Genie+ had worked well!).
This background is provided because it would seem that history is at least partially repeating itself. Here are the attractions that were cut with the switch from Genie+ to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass:
Magic Kingdom
- Enchanted Tales with Belle
- Festival of Fantasy Parade
- Meet Ariel at Her Grotto
- Meet Cinderella and a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall
- Meet Mickey and Minnie at Town Square Theater
- Meet Princess Tiana and a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall
Hollywood Studios
- Meet Olaf at Celebrity Spotlight
Animal Kingdom
- Meet Favorite Disney Pals at Adventurers Outpost
- The Animation Experience at Conservation Station
EPCOT
- Mickey & Friends Meet & Greet
As a quick aside, it’s absolutely hilarious to me that Mickey & Friends debuted last month in CommuniCore Hall at EPCOT with a Lightning Lane. One month later, it has been eliminated. Remember that this change to pre-arrival Lightning Lanes didn’t just come out of the blue–it was announced over a year ago during the early stages of CommuniCore Hall’s construction.
It’s kind of hilarious in a sad sort of way that one hand didn’t know what the other was doing there and CommuniCore Hall managed to somehow open in June with a Lightning Lane…only to have it announced 2 weeks later that it wouldn’t have one. A perfect encapsulation of CommuniCore Hall as a whole. Just the chef’s kiss on that whole project.
Anyway, it’s my understanding that Walt Disney World made the determination that character meet & greets and entertainment should not have Lightning Lanes, so the decision was made to remove them from the pre-arrival service. When speaking with the team at Disney that was tasked with educating media about Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, I specifically asked about character meet & greets, and it was made clear that those were purposefully being retired.
No explanation was given, but I was not led to believe it was an oversight nor was the door left open for changes down the road. (Sometimes, they use wiggle words like “at this time,” “currently,” or “when __ launches,” suggesting things will evolve–not so here.)
In speaking further with credible sources, the language was even stronger: character meet & greets and other entertainment would not ever be a part of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and that wasn’t going to change.
I do not believe this.
To be clear, I believe that people within Disney working on Lightning Lane Multi-Pass think this. I’m well aware that line-skipping at character meet & greets and entertainment is a headache for Operations, more burdensome on standby lines, and creates other challenges.
It makes complete sense that the project team and Cast Members at those locations wouldn’t want Lightning Lanes–especially at locations not built for FastPass in the first place, like Adventurers Outpost. Not to ruin the illusion, but those spots lack the capacity of some of the larger meet & greet venues because they’re single rooms.
However, I also remember all of the above playing out with Genie+ that first holiday season. I also remember FastPass+ having a bunch of capacity added over time. Most importantly, I know that there are other “stakeholders” involved with the decision-making processes, and as soon as guest satisfaction takes a hit and there are complaints about a lack of availability, they’re going to scramble for solutions. It’s happened before; it’ll happen again.
Of course, there are other conceivable solutions beyond bringing back the Lightning Lanes at character meet & greets, so it’s not a foregone conclusion that’ll be the outcome. They could shoehorn Lightning Lanes onto rides that historically have not had them for good reason–this has been the approach at Disney California Adventure, and it’s been a pretty awful outcome.
They could change the rolling 3 rule to be more like the FastPass+ system where you had to redeem all three of your initial selections before making subsequent picks. This would definitely help from a capacity perspective if they’re worried about low-knowledge guests not buying Lightning Lane Multi Pass after seeing availability. However, I think it would result in an even bigger hit to guest satisfaction…and would really ignite the “Lightning Lanes are paid FastPass+” criticism (since it’d be even more true than it is now!).
They could add Lightning Lane viewing areas for Fantasmic, Luminous, and other new nighttime entertainment once that debuts. I’m honestly surprised that I can still walk up to the best viewing area for Luminous and stand in there for “free,” which was not possible with IllumiNations during the FastPass+ era. Ditto Fantasmic, which could have an entire section set aside for Lightning Lane. (Doing this in tandem with the above change would force guests to make a tough decision–as was the case with FastPass+.)
They could raise prices for Lightning Lane Multi Pass. Realistically, this is going to happen regardless during busier times. I’m skeptical that Walt Disney World ends 2025 with $39 being the highest price ever. But the problem here is that when prices go up, so too do guest expectations. So that also doesn’t solve that issue. (And as we’ve previously discussed, there’s a certain about of price inelasticity for Lightning Lanes, anyway.)
In my view, the path of least resistance is simply restoring Lightning Lanes at some character meet & greets. This is the most obvious option, as it’s the thing they’ve done before. So I think they’ll do it again if there are ongoing issues with Lightning Lane availability and guest satisfaction.
It’s also not a foregone conclusion that there will be issues with availability or satisfaction. To reiterate a point emphasized in What We’ve Learned from Lightning Lane Multi Pass So Far at Walt Disney World, the system just launched and Disney is probably playing it conservatively with Lightning Lane allocations. Seeing Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion ‘sell out’ so quickly–as compared to late in the evening under Genie–is a strong signal of this. It’s entirely possible that, two weeks from now, selections are much better as Disney finds the sweet spot.
It’s also possible that won’t happen. That the switch to 3 pre-booked Lightning Lanes is really significant, and that power users like us were underestimating just how bad the average guest was with Genie+. I’m very skeptical that about this because, again, most Magic Kingdom Lightning Lanes previously had availability into late afternoon.
To that point, the most obvious fix is bringing back a few of the character meet & greet Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom. In my anecdotal experience, it seems to be the park ‘hardest hit’ by the switch to Lightning Lane Multi Pass, and that’s probably at least in part due to it losing more Lightning Lanes than the other 3 parks combined!
(For whatever it’s worth, I doubt any meet & greets outside Magic Kingdom will get Lightning Lanes again. I guess maybe Mickey & Friends at CommuniCore Hall or Olaf at DHS? I’m skeptical of that, though. I think only the Magic Kingdom ones make sense and are needed.)
Then there’s the timing when character meet & greets could potentially have Lightning Lanes brought back to Magic Kingdom.
Well, if we’re talking about history repeating itself, it stands to reason that the availability and satisfaction situation is going to get worse. There has been a ‘last hurrah’ of summer travel boosting crowd levels for the launch of Lightning Lane Multi Pass, but this is still nowhere nearly as bad as it’s going to be in October for fall break or in November for Veterans Day and Thanksgiving–to say nothing of Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Having ‘fixes’ by October would be smart.
I’m somewhat skeptical that’ll be character meet & greets getting Lightning Lanes, though. Each of the last couple years, we’ve seen the Lightning Lane priority rankings of Magic Kingdom character meet & greets skyrocket during Party Season, which is a matter of staffing and capacity/supply. Staffing is still an issue to some extent, and Disney is very clearly reallocating some performers from daily ops to the hard ticket events. Because of that, they’ve reduced the supply of Lightning Lanes for those character meet & greets.
Given that, I’d imagine Walt Disney World will really want to avoid bringing back meet & greet Lightning Lanes until after Party Season is over. Even if they did bring them back earlier, the added Lightning Lane inventory would probably be a drop in the bucket. Even when operating at full capacity, character meet & greets really aren’t bringing that much to the table.
Remember, not all attractions are equal in terms of capacity. I’d hazard a guess that Pirates of the Caribbean is capable of a higher supply of hourly Lightning Lanes than every meet & greet in Magic Kingdom combined. (This is also why Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is so hard to book right now. Part of that is the popularity of anything new. More significant is that it’s breaking down constantly, so Lightning Lane allocation is lower than it should be because daily capacity for the attraction isn’t even close to what Splash Mountain was hitting.)
Anyway, if I had to guess as to the most likely dates for Lightning Lanes at character meet & greets being brought back, I’d go with one of two options. The first is December 21, 2024–that’s the date after MVMCP ends, which means both more capacity thanks to performer scheduling and more demand due to higher crowds for the peak weeks of the holiday season.
The second date is less specific, simply sometime in late January to mid-February. That’s obviously also after Party Season, but it’s also after the ever-briefer winter off-season and as crowds start to increase for Presidents’ Day, Mardi Gras, and school breaks. Basically, right as Walt Disney World realizes something’s gotta be done, they have the performers to do it, and no other good ideas.
Ultimately, it bears emphasizing that these are simply predictions and there’s a very good chance they’re wrong. Again, I’ve been told that Lightning Lanes at character meet & greets will not return. That this was not some silly oversight–it was a deliberate decision. So I don’t know whether the above is optimistic in the sense that it defies that, or if it’s pessimistic in the sense that changes to capacity for Genie+ started happening much earlier during its initial launch–right after that infamous Thanksgiving meltdown. I guess we’ll see how this plays out, but I think it’s fairly safe to say the current Lightning Lane roster isn’t the final one. We’ll almost certainly see changes by Spring 2025. Stay tuned.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on Walt Disney World bringing back Lightning Lanes for character meet & greets at Magic Kingdom? Hope more entertainment will be added to Genie+ or would you prefer first-come viewing locations? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
