Genie add on

[Jelly563]

Something I never heard, that I have learned the hard way..... Is that you can buy Genie, open up the ride options and none of the rides you want to do are available. You can have ALL of the lame rides you want but NONE of the better ones. If they are avail, they are 2-3 hours later. For us, it was good for like 2 rides a day. Sorry fans, not worth it

 

[scrappinginontario]

Purchasing Genie+ before 7AM puts everyone on a level playing field at 7AM as 100% of the rides are available to be booked. Yes, some of the more popular fill within minutes. That being said, only a few attractions fill that quickly.

If a guest chooses to wait until after 7AM to add it, they can I open the MDE app and see all of the current LL return times to gauge if purchasing will be worth it to them.

MK opens at 9:00 today (8:30 ETPE) and this is is sample of what guests can see to make their determination.


There shouldn’t be any big surprises about purchasing and then finding out what they want is gone for the day unless they don’t look first.

 

[Straulin]

Genie+ sounds straight forward but it isn’t if you want to get the most out of it. There are numerous articles and YouTube videos about how to maximize its usefulness.

My personal technique is to purchase it before 7 (you can purchase as early as midnight the night before) and be ready to book my first ride right at 7:00. Book the most popular ride I want first. I may even resfresh a time or two to get a time I want.

In general, I don’t try to get a morning time. Lightning lane is for evenings for me. Let’s assume my first LL is for 6:00 pm.

Once the parks open, two hours after opening you can book another LL even if you haven’t used your first. So assuming opening at 8:00 a.m. I can book the 2nd at 10:00 a.m. I pick the ride I want to ride with the LATEST LL time. Then do the same as the day goes on at noon, 2:00, 4,00, and 6:00.

 

[coasternut22]

Do a search for the YouTube channel Earscouts. In those videos he gets a lightning lane for every ride in the the park in the same day. Did you use any of the strategies he recommends? The only way I see your situation playing out is that at 7am you get a Slinky Dog return time for 11:30am. At 10:30am, you book Rockin Roller Coaster with a return time of 2:45pm. At 12:30, you see MMRR, Alien Swirling, Toy Story, and MFSR with return times after 3pm, and you say, screw it, I’m going home. I find it almost impossible to only get 2 LLs per day unless you have circumstances you are not sharing with us to make your point seem more poignant like you showed up at the park at 11 and left by 2. Don’t forget this is an extremely busy holiday weekend with all sorts of wackiness due to the storm.

 

[aggiedog]

We just returned, stayed offsite, got up and were primed to hit select at 7:00. It was still very hit or miss. It worked well for HWS, not so much for Epcot, marginally better for AK. I'll post more in a specific thread, but I was not a fan of this system.

 

[kmill99]

I'm not sure if this is still happening, but when we went last May, the threads about Genie+ LL "drops" throughout the day were SO helpful. They showed which rides routinely dropped more availability at what particular times. Also how the morning 7am rush had a rhythm to that as well, with more dropped times, and often waiting like 10-20 minutes had better ride times to book. Overall it worked amazingly well for us, my wife and younger kids loved it. For the record, I didn't feel tied to my phone at all like people whine about. I also set an alarm for 2 hrs after each booking to grab the next. It really helps to know which rides disappear for the day 1st, and which routinely come back at the various drop times.

 

[kandlsutton]

I am not a fan of having to pay even more $$$ for Genie+. However, waiting in 1-2 hours standby lines at AK yesterday wasn’t any fun at all. So, from now on I will buy Genie+ and stack lighting lanes for the afternoon and enjoy the morning. If I don’t want to pay for the ILL, then I will rope drop those 1-2 rides and leave when the park gets too busy for me.

 

[baozi]

I follow a different strategy. I was park hopping starting at Epcot.
The straightforward thought would be to grab SDD or Remy's at 7:00am. But then I do not have a chance at the other one at all (since it is impossible to get early morning time for Remy's, that means the next opportunity would be at 10:30am). Instead I got Frozen at 7:00am, for that it is easy to get a 9:00am return time, and I used it as early as possible. Then I kept refreshing and got Remy's for 9:25 and 9:50 respectively in the two days. Then I used it as early as possible again. Then got SDD for late evening.
If you do not hop, I don't think it is worth it for Epcot and Animal Kingdom, and for Hollywood Studios, it is also arguable.

 

[Bullseye]

Last June we went to EPCOT on day three of GOTG opening and then again later that week. Both days we got on GOTG both on LL and Virtual. That was a cool ride! But we had 4 people dialing at 7am. For them big rides having numbers is good! Genie+ would be better if every time you confirm a ride, your ride time doesn't change. Very frustrating.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Last June we went to EPCOT on day three of GOTG opening and then again later that week. Both days we got on GOTG both on LL and Virtual. That was a cool ride! But we had 4 people dialing at 7am. For them big rides having numbers is good! Genie+ would be better if every time you confirm a ride, your ride time doesn't change. Very frustrating.

They updated the app in August and the changing return times doesn’t happen as often or as vastly as it did before then. I haven’t tried it out yet as we don’t know when we’ll go back (after years of 2-3 trips/year) but the changing return times after booking isn’t a (valid) complaint we hear quite as much about now.

 

[aggiedog]

I never had a time change, though I got the warning that it had changed every time. ??

 

[Louise97]

I know FP+ wasn't perfect, but because it was free you could accept its faults. We only bought G+ for one day on our last trip to try it but the pre-7am wake up and then not getting as many reservations as we used to get under FP+ meant we didn't bother on other days. We knew the limitations of the system in advance, I feel bad for the people who learn about it the hard way!

 

[Straulin]

I know FP+ wasn't perfect, but because it was free you could accept its faults. We only bought G+ for one day on our last trip to try it but the pre-7am wake up and then not getting as many reservations as we used to get under FP+ meant we didn't bother on other days. We knew the limitations of the system in advance, I feel bad for the people who learn about it the hard way!

The 7:00 a.m. part is my biggest complaint. I have to wake up on my vacation early to get my fast pass. I wish they would open it up 7:00 p.m. the night before for the first pass.

 

[Jelly563]

we are not park commandos. We make it in at a reasonable time like 9 or 10 depending on busses. Many of the better attractions were not available no matter how often u refreshed. Kids have to eat so u have to allow a reasonable time for reservations or a quick service stop. once fireworks start u have to watch them. Lines are long this week. I certainly didn't use a study guide or tutorial, Im just a dopey park guest that comes yearly and tries my best to get on rides. Did 3 so far today but nothing major.

 

[MomOTwins]

we are not park commandos. We make it in at a reasonable time like 9 or 10 depending on busses. Many of the better attractions were not available no matter how often u refreshed. Kids have to eat so u have to allow a reasonable time for reservations or a quick service stop. once fireworks start u have to watch them. Lines are long this week. I certainly didn't use a study guide or tutorial, Im just a dopey park guest that comes yearly and tries my best to get on rides. Did 3 so far today but nothing major.

But you can start booking G+ in the morning from your hotel at 7am with arrival times at 9am or later--you don't have to be in the parks to start booking rides. If you wait to start booking rides until after you are in the parks around 10am every day I agree with you it will almost never be worth it to buy Genie+.