Going without Genie +

[lizzyb]

I am not sold on the idea of paying more to go on certain attractions. Can you go, not use Genie + and still have a good experience? What are you best tips/suggestions?

 

[kanerf]

Yes, I did not use Genie+ on all days during my last visit. The regular Genie will let you know about wait times so that you can plan your day.

 

[Haley R]

We were just there for 3 days and didn’t pay for genie+. We thought the standby lines were pretty long and didn’t get to ride as much as we normally do

 

[Marionnette]

I am not sold on the idea of paying more to go on certain attractions. Can you go, not use Genie + and still have a good experience? What are you best tips/suggestions?

I purchased a Touring Plans subscription. It comes with access to the wait times in their Lines app. TP's info is more accurate than Disney's and gives advice as to whether to "ride now" "ride any time" or "wait to ride".

Disney Genie will send you wherever Disney wants you to be, often suggesting that you criss-cross the park multiple times. And the wait times are almost always inflated.

 

[lizzyb]

I purchased a Touring Plans subscription. It comes with access to the wait times in their Lines app. TP's info is more accurate than Disney's and gives advice as to whether to "ride now" "ride any time" or "wait to ride".

Disney Genie will send you wherever Disney wants you to be, often suggesting that you criss-cross the park multiple times. And the wait times are almost always inflated.

Thanks! I will look into this.

 

[Moms]

We were there the week before Christmas and purchased Genie +twice; once for MK and once for HS. It was a waste of time and money. We will not bother for our upcoming Spring break trip. We always rope drop and took advantage of the resort guest early entry. We generally leave the park mid-day for a break and "hop" to a different park in the evening. We found that most of the "desirable" LL's jumped to late afternoon shortly after the park opened. We did one lightening lane in MK and two in HS ... not much for $30 (2 of us). We did well monitoring the times in the free Genie and waited in few lines more than 20 minutes.

 

[stinkpickle]

Yes, we did last week without using Genie at all, and it was fine, even with the crowds. There weren't nearly as many people using the LL queues as there were back in the FP+ days, so the standby lines moved along nicely...except for when the attractions kept breaking down, of course.

 

[RebelHawk]

We're heading down next week with a group of 6. We're planning on buying LL access to the rides that are available for that and then just wait out the rest that we want to ride. If we find we are excessively waiting we might get G+ for MK / HS.

 

[loves to dive]

I was there the week of Dec. 17 and didn't use it and it was fine. Very crowded that week, as I knew it would be and some of the lines were very long. I did use resort guest early park entry sort of, a few days I got there about 2 min. before it ended. The only glitch I had was on my HS day I got there right when early entry started so people who got there and stood in line for early entry were already in the park. I didn't check Genie+ (free part) on line waits and walked over to RoTR. It already had a 120 min. wait because the ride was already down (the park hadn't even opened yet). So I walked over to MMRR and the line there was already up to 45 min. I found that day most of the wait times in MDE/Genie were pretty accurate. I have park hoppers (AP) and it was pretty easy to knock out my must do rides in the late afternoon/early evenings and then in the mornings I didn't mind standing in line. I'll add we rarely used FP+ or the old paper FP when it was available. We have been going since before any kind of FP so you just stood in line, we just continued to do that. I'll also add because I go often, there really aren't any rides I don't mind missing. I'm not a fan of FoP so it's not a must do for me and I've been on RotR enough times that if I skip it, it's not the end of the world.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

I've never used it. I paid ILLS price for Rise of The Resistance once. Otherwise I have not used any of the new system.

Just got back and did a lot of rides at Epcot, not Frozen and we tried Rat in standby but it broke down and got evacuated, so I can't say how long it would have taken. Used single rider for Test Track. Did not do any rides at Studios except for RoTR but one of the party did go on Rockin Rollercoaster (standby). Saw the Indiana Jones show and hung out in Galaxy's Edge.

I can't imagine that I would ever use Genie + at either AK or Epcot, but I haven't tried it at MK or Studios yet either.

 

[kps7795]

It is slightly off-topic, but can I take this opportunity to say **** BOB CHAPEK for turning us into customers. It's still fun to go to Disney World, but I loathe the obvious nature of bleeding the (formerly known as) guests dry for every penny that they can get from them. I say this as a 14 year annual passholder and a Disney shareholder. It just turns my stomach!

 

[AliceNDinah]

I was wanting to know this exact thing as well...I'm surprising my little boy with an August trip (3rd week). We were there in June of 2021, and had a great time, did alot of things. I really didn't want to have to splash out extra money when we're already paying SO MUCH to get in, you know?
Has anyone here ever been to WDW in that August time frame?

 

[gatorlisa]

Took a 4 day trip about 3 weeks ago. No Genie+ or ILL the first day and the last day. Had Genie+ with one ILL on the second day, and just Genie+ the third day. The first and last days were actually much better, much more enjoyable days than the days that we had Genie+. On those days, we started at Epcot with early entry and hopped to MK in the mid/late afternoon. Able to ride Remy and Frozen and pretty much anything else we wanted to do at Epcot with minimal wait. Rode Seven Dwarfs Mine Train with a short wait during fireworks, rode what we wanted at MK without any waits longer than about a half an hour.

 

[gharter]

I think for MK and HS, Genie + can help.
AK and EPCOT have not real benefit.
If you are there during a really busy time, that might change.
Ultimately, how necessary Genie + is depends on how many others are using it. The more using it, the higher the need to use it as stand by lines will take longer as they empty the LL 's first.

 

[Turksmom]

The more using it, the higher the need to use it as stand by lines will take longer as they empty the LL 's first.

But the less useful it will be because the ride selections aren't as available. It's the circle of life

 

[Mousetopia]

I am not sold on the idea of paying more to go on certain attractions. Can you go, not use Genie + and still have a good experience? What are you best tips/suggestions?

I am not either! I refuse to let the moneygrab ruin the magic but With the cost of passes already..um nope. I plan to use a combination of early entry..getting there early in case they let in early as reports say they do, and t.plans app to suggest order of the day, and extra evening hours if we have any avail during our stay

 

[Sydnerella]

It is slightly off-topic, but can I take this opportunity to say **** BOB CHAPEK for turning us into customers. It's still fun to go to Disney World, but I loathe the obvious nature of bleeding the (formerly known as) guests dry for every penny that they can get from them. I say this as a 14 year annual passholder and a Disney shareholder. It just turns my stomach!

While I very much appreciate your sentiments **** I need to make a correction - he calls us consumers - which is even more disgusting and so transparently reflects his miserly focus. Not to mention his origins in video and “the Disney vault” schemes to create more sharevalue and pushing the cycle of scarcity/demand and now FOMO. And it is also indicative of Chapek’s almost single minded direct to consumer Disney+ focus. Unfortunately for him, he does not have the couth nor clout to nurture the relationships necessary in Hollywood to build on successful partnerships. Maybe we will get lucky and that will be his downfall - hopefully sooner than later!

As I have stated in many other posts the guest experience does not matter to Bob nor Josh nor Disney under current leadership and direction. We guests-customers-consumers are indeed the very opposite of their “Northstar“

We are not even the 32nd star to the right!

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

Sure you can. We just got back from a very short trip - Seaworld, Epcot, MK. We didn't buy it on our Epcot day, waited in standby, and had a good time. However, I will say that despite my own gnashing of teeth and clutching at pearls over Genie+, I actually really like it. We bought it on our MK day. Never once was I glued to my phone, we were actually able to be more spontaneous with it than FP+. Not to mention we never waited more than 7 minutes for any of our LLs or our 7DMT ILL. There was no need to be right on the phone every 2 hours. I booked when I remembered to do it. We did 9 attractions and the fireworks, and could have done more if we had wanted to stay afterwards.

I've been going to wdw for decades. Been through the change from standby to legacy (paper) FP to FP+ to now. And I have to admit, despite all of my own complaining on these boards, that from my one time use I prefer Genie+ to any version of FP.