The theme park industry is massive, and while there are lots of amazing parks and attractions you should visit from companies that don’t have locations in Southern California or Florida, the simple fact is that there are two companies that tower over the rest in terms of scope and size: Disney and Universal.
Disney is obviously the top player in the theme park space, and as such, everybody else is going to be looking to see what moves Disney makes when contemplating their own future. Having said that, a recent test taking place at Universal Orlando resort has me concerned, as I’m afraid the number two theme park company may be taking bad lessons from number one.
Disney World and Disneyland’s Lightning Lane Isn’t The Most User Friendly System
One area where Disney actually wasn’t the leader in the theme park industry was in adding a paid option for line skipping to its parks. Disneyland and Walt Disney World’s FastPass system was free right up until the global pandemic closed parks and caused massive shifts across the entire industry. Disney took the opportunity to change its approach to line skipping and began charging for a system that is now called Lightning Lane.
The place where Disney changed the game was in the way it offered line skipping. Most other parks handle this with a single system. You pay a price and get access to all the rides that offer line skipping, or you don’t. There might be a price difference depending on how many times you want to use it, but that’s about it.
Disney World and Disneyland actually have two flavors of Lightning Lane: Multi Pass and Single Pass. The first covers most of the park’s major attractions, but the most in-demand rides, like Rise of the Resistance, can only be skipped by paying a separate price each time you want to skip the line. That is, unless you pay for the relatively recently introduced, and very expensive, Lightning Lane Premier Pass.
Universal Is Testing An Express Option That Looks Like Disney’s Lightning Lane Single Pass
Universal Orlando traditionally has two flavors of Express. The first gives you the ability to skip the line once per day on each ride that offers it. The second gives you unlimited line skipping. However, recently, signs (spotted by Orlando Theme Park Zone) revealed that Universal Orlando Resort is testing what it calls Universal Express Single Attractions Access, an option that, as the name suggests, gives guests an option to pay a price, in this case $25 per ride, to skip the line on a single attraction one time.
Thanks, I hate it.
The ship has sailed on free line skipping, so I’ll accept that any way of doing it at any theme park is going to cost me money, but the breaking down of individual pricing on individual rides just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Universal and Disney parks are only getting more expensive. I may think Disney World is still worth the cost, but that may still change one day if everything in a park gets its own price tag.
Universal Orlando may not go this route. It is just a test. Even if Universal does go through with making single attraction line skipping a normal offering, there are ways it may be better than Disney. If the rides that offer it are also available as part of standard Express, then the single attraction offering increases guest flexibility and is significantly cheaper than full Express for guests who only want to ride a couple of rides quickly.
There are lots of ways that other theme parks can learn from the market leader. Walt Disney World and Disneyland innovate in incredible ways all the time. Use Disney as your model when designing state-of-the-art animated characters, the way Disneyland did with the Walt Disney audio-animatronic. When it comes to new ways to get people to spend money, maybe don’t follow in those footsteps.