Disney’s Lightning Lane Premier Pass will ‘build over time;’ Disney Treasure gets rave reviews

In a world where skipping theme park lines is no longer free (goodbye forever FastPass), Disney theme parks rolled out in October its latest pay-to-play invention: The Lightning Lane Premier Pass.

With the premier pass, Disney World visitors could pay up to $450 per person to use all the Lightning Lanes for an entire park to wait in shorter lines than everyone else that day. The fee was extra on top of the theme park ticket price.

The Walt Disney Co.’s chief financial officer Hugh Johnston gave an update on the all-access premier pass when asked about it Wednesday during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

“Remember it is a premium product. It is a product that we are learning how to use, so we are marketing it very gently,” Johnston told investors. “It’s going to build over time, but it’s certainly very much (in the) early days.”

He did not say how much the premier pass is generating in revenue for the company but acknowledged, “It is very much in line with our expectations.”

“We are moving slowly with that product in order to make it a great experience, both for the purchasers of Lightning Lane and for the rest of our guests in the park,” he said.

For the media giant, Disney Experiences continues to be a moneymaker. Quarterly revenue for the division jumped 3% to $9.42 billion, which includes theme parks and resorts, Disney Cruise Line and consumer products. For the company’s domestic theme parks, operating income fell 5% to $1.98 billion because Walt Disney World closed for one day and a cruise canceled because of Hurricane Milton in October.

Overall, the entire company’s revenue rose nearly 5% to about $24.7 billion.

Disney Treasure, the newest Disney Cruise Line ship with a Haunted Mansion themed bar and shows based on popular Disney characters, is “off to a spectacular start” since it went to sea in December, Johnston said.

“We’ve done terrifically well. The feedback and guest experience, the high percentage of people are rating it excellent, very much in line with the rest of our ships,” Johnston said. “As we’ve said before, our expectation is for the ship to be profitable in the first quarter … And frankly, that is very much our expectation from here going forward.”

When asked about how Universal Orlando’s new Epic Universe theme park opening in May will impact Disney World, Johnston predicted a “small impact” but maintained he is confident in Disney parks business.

Summer bookings are up year-over-year, he said, which is similar to what Disney disclosed in November.

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