Disney Genie announcement

[Sjm9911]

Thanks. This is very helpful. But just to play this out . . . Let’s imagine that, at 7:00 am, I get a LL return time for SDD for 12:30-1:30. Then, at 11:00 am, I get a second LL, this time for MFSR for 3:00-4:00. At 12:30, I scan in to SDD. Which is now true? (A) I can grab another LL right away. (B) I can grab another LL at 2:30 (120 minutes later). (C) I cannot grab another LL until I scan in to MFSR at 3:00.

Its like an SAT test, lol.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Thanks. This is very helpful. But just to play this out . . . Let’s imagine that, at 7:00 am, I get a LL return time for SDD for 12:30-1:30. Then, at 11:00 am, I get a second LL, this time for MFSR for 3:00-4:00. At 12:30, I scan in to SDD. Which is now true? (A) I can grab another LL right away. (B) I can grab another LL at 2:30 (120 minutes later). (C) I cannot grab another LL until I scan in to MFSR at 3:00.

I believe A

 

[disneylover102]

Ok can someone there confirm for sure whether or not you can get multiple LLs for an attraction or not? Someone in a DL thread said their friend at WDW said you can get multiple LLs for the same attraction but that contradicts everything I’ve heard up to this point

 

[soniam]

My head is spinning with the new genie and lightening lane… I’ve read how to articles etc and still cannot wrap my head around it! So my questions are
If I do not purchase anything will I get on rides without waiting longer than normal hours?!?

No. If you do not purchase Genie+ or individual attractions, you will use the regular standby line.

If genie plus is purchased what exactly will I get from that? I understand that it only allows access to buy lightening lane? Im soo confused and leaving next week and this is ruining my vacation already! Help! Thanks

Genie+ is similar to paper Fastpass or Maxpass at Disneyland. You purchase it day of and pick your attractions day of. The next available time will be given to you for a particular attraction. The Lightning Lane is the old Fastpass lane. You will not be guaranteed any access to attractions; however, the early you pick attractions, the better your chance. 1 at a time, except if the one you get is more then 2 hours out.

 

[Disneylover99]

Hopefully this helps. On this trip I am currently on I booked theme park reservations over the summer. 60 days out I tried to get a Topolinos reservation for breakfast and couldn’t get it. I wanted it on my EPCOT day since the park doesn’t open until 10, which was originally Wednesday. I stalked it and was able to get a reservation for Tuesday which was my AK day. So I just switched theme park days, no big deal. If I had 6 FP booked those days I would have been stuck.

Pointless to debate it now, I know, but you could have just changed those FP's day of. I say this because it was the story of my life. I always booked my fp's 60 days out, and then my family woke up each day of the trip wanting to go to a different park. lol. We still managed to get good fp's at decent times.

 

[dmunsil]

Thanks. This is very helpful. But just to play this out . . . Let’s imagine that, at 7:00 am, I get a LL return time for SDD for 12:30-1:30. Then, at 11:00 am, I get a second LL, this time for MFSR for 3:00-4:00. At 12:30, I scan in to SDD. Which is now true? (A) I can grab another LL right away. (B) I can grab another LL at 2:30 (120 minutes later). (C) I cannot grab another LL until I scan in to MFSR at 3:00.

I can think of another possibility: (D) you can get another at 1:00 (120 minutes after you got your most recent one).

That said, Seth Kubersky says his tests say the answer is A. This makes a sort of sense - the basic rule is, once you scan into a ride, you can get a new reservation, no matter when you made your previous reservation. Simple, easy to understand.

 

[MomEadon]

I think I have a handle on G+ now thanks to you all, thank you for all the info. I learned a lot. As someone who goes every 1-2 years, I think I am going to like this way of doing things. I think it will allow us to enjoy all the other things the parks have to offer (“stop and smell the roses” if you will) while getting to our LL rides and making the next then.

 

[3gr8boys]

Moved.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

When is your trip?

Our first park day will be November 14 so I will find out what happens then.

Christmas week, god help me lol. Eagerly awaiting your trip report!

 

[fly girl]

I've never understood this comment. You had to pick three rides that you wanted to ride. You literally had to plan about 30 minutes of your day between 30-60 days in advance. Not your entire day by any stretch of the imagination. Are you really telling me that when you go to Magic Kingdom you couldn't thing of three rides you wanted to do? And not only that - you could modify them.

Now however, you have to plan what park you want to go to months in advance. And you have to be up at 7am if you want to book your choice of ride. Before, when I planned - I was done. Now you have to continually look for your next ride and plan your day around what time it give you. And don't bother to say "well - you don't have to do that". Because you didn't have to do it before anyway. And don't try the "well - the best rides were taken". Well - now you have to pay extra for them and the ones you can get you could get easily under FP+.

The only thing it does that I think has value to many is that they can purchase two of the top rides and not have to worry about them selling out. But your primary argument about having to plan your entire day under FP+ is really just nonsense.

I'll tell you why I wasn't a fan of the 3 FP+'s. We are last minute trip goers. We don't work banker hours, and schedules come out monthly. We would see we had 4 days to take a quick trip down 3 weeks out and we would go. But there we were as onsite guests without FOP, SDD, SDMT, and FEA because we couldn't utilize the 60 days out time range. It is what it is, and we rolled with it - stalking FP's and we would score them with persistence (except FOP the month it came out, no luck) Same with restaurants. I was elated when TP had their reservation finder.

Thanks. This is very helpful. But just to play this out . . . Let’s imagine that, at 7:00 am, I get a LL return time for SDD for 12:30-1:30. Then, at 11:00 am, I get a second LL, this time for MFSR for 3:00-4:00. At 12:30, I scan in to SDD. Which is now true? (A) I can grab another LL right away. (B) I can grab another LL at 2:30 (120 minutes later). (C) I cannot grab another LL until I scan in to MFSR at 3:00.

99.99% sure it is A. Soon as you scan into SDD at 12:30 (someone on here said after second scan) you can book your next G+ attraction.

Ok can someone there confirm for sure whether or not you can get multiple LLs for an attraction or not? Someone in a DL thread said their friend at WDW said you can get multiple LLs for the same attraction but that contradicts everything I’ve heard up to this point

I saw a vlogger try it at MK yesterday for Peter Pan. It showed up on his screen but when he clicked it it said rider has maxed out on LL for this attraction.

 

[3gr8boys]

My head is spinning with the new genie and lightening lane… I’ve read how to articles etc and still cannot wrap my head around it! So my questions are
If I do not purchase anything will I get on rides without waiting longer than normal hours?!?
If genie plus is purchased what exactly will I get from that? I understand that it only allows access to buy lightening lane? Im soo confused and leaving next week and this is ruining my vacation already! Help! Thanks

Paying $15 for "Genie+" for the day allows you to use the app to reserve time windows to go through the "Lightning Lane" instead of the regular lines. (There are restrictions on how/when you reserve these time windows that you will want to study.) Once you pay for "Genie+" for the day, there are no additional charges for the rides that are part of the "Genie+" program.

At each park there are two rides that you can pay to reserve a time to ride using the ride's "Lightning Lane" instead of the regular line. These pay-per-ride selections are not part of "Genie+" and are called "Individual Lightning Lane." You can buy "Individual Lightning Lane" access without having "Genie+." There are limits to when and how many you can buy (2, I think) daily.

All of this is done through the "Genie" app, available to everyone.

I hope that helps.... sometimes the blog reports and articles contain so much great detail that the foundation information gets muddled.

 

[SMF_mom23]

I could have been more clear in what I meant.

As Wisblue said, I didn't mean to indicate that the LL bypasses/leaves out some of the experience. But if elements are not working, you would miss out on them.

I understand that they can't control when something isn't working. But my point is that people are going to be more willing to accept missing one of those elements if they didn't pay extra for expedited access.

If people have paid extra, they are going to be extra unhappy if part of the ride is skipped because it's not working during your ILL$ window.

I would be WAY more understanding if an AA or something else mechanical isn't quite working right resulting in missing part of the ride experience. Skipping the pre-show is not acceptable when people are paying extra for the entirety of the experience. If you're not running a third of what riders normally experience when they DON'T pay extra, maybe discount/refund a third of the price. I realize that's not realistic, but charging the same amount when you're giving someone less than the whole is not good business and borders on shady, imo.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

My wife and I used Genie+ at MK today. I have mixed feelings. First, we were satisfied that we got our money’s worth. We arrived at the park fashionably late (10am) and decided after arrival to give it a try. We used it for 9 attractions, and it saved a lot of time at each. The negatives: you can’t use it to repeat attractions; we couldn’t manage to work in Jungle Cruise; the MDE app was a little fluky in that I would have to open and close it a few times to bring up G+.

Headed to Studios and AK tomorrow. We will probably buy G+ to see how it performs there

 

[CWTC]

Soon as you scan into SDD at 12:30 (someone on here said after second scan) you can book your next G+ attraction.

If a ride has two touch points, you have to have tapped into the second one. Experienced this yesterday at TSMM and tonight at HM.

 

[Disturbia]

I was just having this conversation on another thread. It seems that you can in fact make regular LL reservations in your 2nd park for post 2pm even if the distribution time hasn't reached that for people who started off in that park with their reservation. I was very surprised that it worked that way and curious if that was what they intended. (I'm still so skeptical that it really worked that way that I keep looking for more first hand accounts). It seems a big loophole . . . and one that definitely lends itself to some good touring strategies.

When you apply the 120 min rule from park opening, you can’t get a Genie+ selection until 11 am if park opened at 9 am. So if you were planning to standby 9-11 am, then I guess it’s not that bad.

 

[Disturbia]

My apologies if this the wrong forum for this question…but when playing with the Genie it is only recognizing 1 day out of 4 as having a park reservation when I am trying set up my trip. My park reservation is on the day/date, my dining too and says good to go but I can’t edit or make any selections. Anyone else experienced this?

You can go to future plans and see if your park reservations are showing up. It’s the old ‘my plans’ page

edit: I’m like 2 pages behind continuously

 

[MJJME]

I just finished watching blogs by PCDev, Paging Mr. Morrow, Kyle Pallone and I rewatched the Touring Plans video.

The general feeling was that IL$ was worthwhile for the vacationer but local APs probably won't use them. PCDev showed a LL queu for ROTR from yesterday that went on forever due to the ride breaking down several times. Imagine paying $15 per person (to be able to skip the 2-hr standby line) and you end up standing in a LL queue that is almost as long! BTW, the standby line for ROTR was closed once it reached 2 hours and guests could not join standby. All the live bloggers were surprised to learn that the ILL$ were limited to 2 per day total and not per park. They all felt that this was a flawed limitation because they could see that ILL$ were available but they could not purchase them

As for Genie+, they all pretty much felt it was not worth purchasing. But keep in mind that this comes from the perspective of individuals who are in the parks regularly and are less likely to want to ride lower-tier attractions. All of the live bloggers were not attempting to stack reservations. They were choosing the return times for attractions they prefer, were not refreshing to see if better times were available and were not attempting to minimize their overall wait times. None of them combined ILL$, G+ and standby. They were only doing ILL$ and G+.

For G+, tapping in around 5 minutes early worked. Mr. Morrow was 14 minutes late for Soaring and Mickey still turned green when he tapped in.

If you skip a G+ reservation and you're well past your return window, it counts as your one G+ for that attraction. You can cancel before your return window opens and still be able to get a G+ for that attraction later but once the window opens, you're SOL.

I'm still watching a few other videos. I'm still on the fence about spending for either G+ or ILL$ on our next trip. Partly because I have a great distaste for the nickle and dime approach and partly because I just don't feel it's worth it since we will have an infant in tow. On top of that my MDE app throws an error when I'm signed in and won't allow me to purchase ILL$ but I can buy them for myself if I'm signed in under my husband's account. Go figure that one! It's just not worth my time to try to get Disney IT to fix it.

This is an excellent value added and unique recap. I do appreciate it. The bloggers know what they are taking about. I have a feeling G+ is going to be a massive dud by this time next year (or maybe sooner)

 

[DavidNYC]

Hopefully this helps. On this trip I am currently on I booked theme park reservations over the summer. 60 days out I tried to get a Topolinos reservation for breakfast and couldn’t get it. I wanted it on my EPCOT day since the park doesn’t open until 10, which was originally Wednesday. I stalked it and was able to get a reservation for Tuesday which was my AK day. So I just switched theme park days, no big deal. If I had 6 FP booked those days I would have been stuck.

That doesn’t counter anything I said about the having to plan your WHOLE day being bull. You also got lucky that you were able to switch park reservations. You easily could have been stuck there. And if you valued the restaurant over the rides - you simple take 10 minites to reschedule them. (“But the popular rides won’t be available”… well they’re not available now because you have to pay for them.

 

[cfw213]

I can think of another possibility: (D) you can get another at 1:00 (120 minutes after you got your most recent one).

That said, Seth Kubersky says his tests say the answer is A. This makes a sort of sense - the basic rule is, once you scan into a ride, you can get a new reservation, no matter when you made your previous reservation. Simple, easy to understand.

So then if you can get 2 by stacking you can simultaneously hold 2 all day by essentially leap frogging them? That would surprise me.

 

[MJJME]

The problem with an hour before opening would be that a lot of people planning to be there at opening would be in transit.

I was thinking about that for DAK where we will want to be at the park by 7:30 for the Early Entry. If I want to make any LL reservations at 7 AM that day it would have to be on the bus or after we arrive at the park.

Midnight wouldn’t be popular with people (like us) who want to be asleep by then because they plan to be up early to get to a park at rope drop.

What about 9pm the night before? Or 8pm? Or 7pm? What is preventing WDW from doing any of those times?

Anyone have a good answer?