Genie and Lightning Lane rolling out to Disneyland Resort

There Goes Rotisserie Walt Again

Apparently, the first day did not go well. Also, this columnist says no virtual queue at all actually was going pretty well. I can anecdotally agree with the last sentiment at WDW, which is to say that standby waits weren't terrible when they didn't compete with a virtual offering. Good old FP, the paper or electronic kind, was still ideal.

Wasn't the first day "AWS Outage Day"?

I think that was Tuesday, wasn't it? The rollout was yesterday. But it would also be a strange choice to host the Disneyland system in the East region, which I believe is the one that went down.

I think LA locals would tell you there’s a lot of “strange to” do things “East coast” for the Disneyland Resort.

the move of imagineering will be a watershed moment and the exodus of talent will be felt for a generation

I've been seeing that doom prediction since the announcement. I don't buy it.

Yeah. The move to the east coast for some of WDI makes total sense considering most of their work is out here and obviously will continue to be. When you are spending 4-6 years working on a project only to return back to Orlando for another 2-3 year project, it makes sense to just move to Orlando with your family. So many of these people who are being relocated already "live" here and now their family will too.

Going back to the great Imagineering move, I saw a big thing about how Disney HR is at times-up on deciding to accept the re-location offer to Orlando. Probably the craziest thing about it, to me, is that people essentially have a unicorn job creating unicorns. You kind of have to work where they need you to work, you don't get to pick. I've moved cross-country more than once for jobs. Given that three-fourths of the domestic business is in Orlando, and countless partners and contractors are also based here, the big trade show is here every year, the industry association is here, I can think of a hundred reasons to put the unit here before I even get to state tax incentives and a far lower cost of real estate. I can be empathetic about not wanting to move to an extent, but it's very limited empathy.

Not to mention cruise line is headquartered here as well and they aren't slowing down anytime soon.

Jeff said:

You kind of have to work where they need you to work, you don't get to pick.

And when your department covers the globe, it makes sense to be more central to all the travel you could end up doing. And like I said, most of those relocating already have been living here because I have friends who started on Toy Story at Studios, then moved to Galaxy's Edge, who are now working on Star Cruiser. Think about that time frame for a second and ask yourself if you would still be ok paying for an apartment in Burbank that you haven't stepped foot in since 2015?

I'd have to think long and hard about it if my company wanted me to move to Orlando but I am not an Imagineer so there's that...

I moved here almost entirely for the weather, but it turns out that Central Florida is actually a pretty great place to live. Real estate is getting out of control (it was cheap when I got here), but no local or state income tax, 90 minutes to either coast, no snow, great city in terms of arts venues and food, theme parks, airport from which you can go anywhere... there are worse places to land.

Sandusky?

Jeff said “…there are worse places to land.”

I thought everyone in Orlando lived in cheap motels that they couldn’t afford?

You're thinking of Kissimmee.

If you have a few minutes, check out the Twitter thread from this guy who is very familiar with Disneyland and was determined to do exactly what the Genie (the free itinerary planner, not the Genie+ or Lightning Lane) suggested for an entire day. It's a very objective look at the strengths and (many) weaknesses of the system.

https://twitter.com/tai_nugget/status/1472204219646033924

Wow. That is terrible.

Until I linked it here and checked the link I hadn't read both the Disneyland and DCA live tweets. Wow.

The Bakery Tour first thing in the morning…😂 They aren’t even trying…

I have a friend here in Orlando that tried it at Epcot and at park open it tried to get him to do Imagination, Turtle Talk, and Nemo and Friends before encouraging him to buy his way onto Frozen and Remy once they got busy after the gates had been open for an hour. It never encouraged going to any of the headliners first, and none of the three park open suggestions were on the list of things he had expressed interest in.

As far as WDW goes, they are limiting each park to only one a la carte Lightning Lane attraction during peak holiday time. From the WDW site:

Between December 19, 2021 and January 3, 2022, Expedition Everest — Legend of the Forbidden Mountain, Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway, Frozen Ever After and Space Mountain will be included via Disney Genie+ service and will not be included as an individual Lightning Lane selection.