Rumored Changes to G+

[sheilafri]

This speculation has led me to realize I am at peace with Genie +. My biggest complaint is that it costs unlike the old fastpass. I am really tired of needing to learn a new system to go on vacation. I feel my WDW visits coming to an end.

 

[TikiRob]

Just let me buy it ahead of time.

 

[SheSingsAlong]

I'd like the functionality of FP+ the DAY OF but NO advance bookings.

This eliminates the need to plan in advance or getting up at 7 am. This allows more flexibility in your day without fear the 3 in advance bookings having taken most the time slots like before. Maybe one in advance at 7 am or maybe none until you scan in to the park.

I would have gladly paid for the old FP+ MINUS the advance bookings. It makes if more fair, more functional and more successful.

Wait, without 60/30 day advance booking (which is apparently a big thing that many people miss from FP+), what did you prefer about FP+ over current Genie+? Is it just being able to select your own return window instead of accepting whatever G+ offers? Because the rest of FP+ was really not great. Tiered selections, no overlap bookings, no thanks. I suppose it would be nice to pick a return time rather than accepting what G+ offers (Or play the slot machines looking for a different time ) - but I am at peace with what Genie+ is right now.

 

[GroguAndStitch]

If we are making advanced bookings with a new G+, would we essentially also be making a park reservation? I assume I'd have to select the day I attend each park to coincide with my selections?

 

[soniam]

If we are making advanced bookings with a new G+, would we essentially also be making a park reservation? I assume I'd have to select the day I attend each park to coincide with my selections?

Park reservations for day tickets go away on 1/9, so not unless you have an AP.

 

[BrianL]

If we are making advanced bookings with a new G+, would we essentially also be making a park reservation? I assume I'd have to select the day I attend each park to coincide with my selections?

Sort of. With FP+ I would often make my selections for the park I would hop to in the afternoon, so while I did have to go there, I didn't have to go there first, which is a key distinction. Generally I would have decided which park I was attending when anyway.

 

[GroguAndStitch]

Park reservations for day tickets go away on 1/9, so not unless you have an AP.

I realize that.. I'm just saying. If I'm selecting my G+ selections for a specific park on a specific date, it's essentially the same thing.

 

[HopperFan]

I'm not sure I understand and am sincerely just looking for clarification. What would the difference between the current version of Genie+ and FP+ without advance booking be?

FP+ system was simple, easy to book, easy to change, worked quickly and was simple to refresh and honestly aside from the advance bookings easy to be successful all day long. In seconds we had our next time. I get to plan my day, not Disney.

Genie+, while improved, is clunky, less flexible, sometimes taking several steps to get where you want to be (if at all) and the stacking allows for hoarding of times making available disappear fast. Even with paying for the service we usually get many less return times than we did with the Free FP+ - which that alone reduces the value of the service. I am paying a substantial sum for less service that Disney wants to decide my day instead of me.

All you have to do is look around now that Genie+ exists and see Guests everywhere with their noses buried in their phones, not watching where they are walking. FP+ you picked a time while in line for your next ride and good to go. Now you spend too much time maneuvering through a over bulky bulky app. They have added a whole layer of work to the park day.

More changes coming? UGH.

Wait, without 60/30 day advance booking (which is apparently a big thing that many people miss from FP+), what did you prefer about FP+ over current Genie+? Is it just being able to select your own return window instead of accepting whatever G+ offers? Because the rest of FP+ was really not great. Tiered selections, no overlap bookings, no thanks. I suppose it would be nice to pick a return time rather than accepting what G+ offers (Or play the slot machines looking for a different time ) - but I am at peace with what Genie+ is right now.

We all have our own opinions. I think G+ is an inferior product that they have guests paying for. Good for Disney to make people think that because you are now paying it is somehow a better product.

I hope everyone is throwing them the extra $20-30 per day per person on top of everything else. I'm all about Disney making as much money. And yes we do get Genie+ about half our days BUT I take that money out of our TS fund.

If we are making advanced bookings with a new G+, would we essentially also be making a park reservation? I assume I'd have to select the day I attend each park to coincide with my selections?

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Did folks really think they were going to drop park reservations without something else to control how many people were going in each park? How were they going to fill up AK which has very low attendance right now? How were they going to fill EPCOT all day, the huge abyss of land? Dumbest thing they did was reduce cancel time on ADR, that was part of keeping some parks full.

There will always be a consequence to every gift. We don't know how this will play out we are working on info not from Disney. And as they have shown the last few months on any given day the rules and costs will change. How fun for folks spending the big bucks to constantly adjust their expectations, budget and plan.

 

[soniam]

I realize that.. I'm just saying. If I'm selecting my G+ selections for a specific park on a specific date, it's essentially the same thing.

Not necessarily, because you can choose stuff at the hopped to park. You may not be required to choose stuff at your first park. Just depends how you decide to do it. Plus, we don’t know how they will implement this.

 

[Chrisdriscoll]

FP+ system was simple, easy to book, easy to change, worked quickly and was simple to refresh and honestly aside from the advance bookings easy to be successful all day long. In seconds we had our next time. I get to plan my day, not Disney.

Genie+, while improved, is clunky, less flexible, sometimes taking several steps to get where you want to be (if at all) and the stacking allows for hoarding of times making available disappear fast. Even with paying for the service we usually get many less return times than we did with the Free FP+ - which that alone reduces the value of the service. I am paying a substantial sum for less service that Disney wants to decide my day instead of me.

All you have to do is look around now that Genie+ exists and see Guests everywhere with their noses buried in their phones, not watching where they are walking. FP+ you picked a time while in line for your next ride and good to go. Now you spend too much time maneuvering through a over bulky bulky app. They have added a whole layer of work to the park day.

More changes coming? UGH.



We all have our own opinions. I think G+ is an inferior product that they have guests paying for. Good for Disney to make people think that because you are now paying it is somehow a better product.

I hope everyone is throwing them the extra $20-30 per day per person on top of everything else. I'm all about Disney making as much money. And yes we do get Genie+ about half our days BUT I take that money out of our TS fund.


Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Did folks really think they were going to drop park reservations without something else to control how many people were going in each park? How were they going to fill up AK which has very low attendance right now? How were they going to fill EPCOT all day, the huge abyss of land? Dumbest thing they did was reduce cancel time on ADR, that was part of keeping some parks full.

There will always be a consequence to every gift.

Thank you for your well considered response. I'm not sure I agree with all your points, but appreciate you answering my question so thoroughly.

 

[ChipnDale79]

I hope everyone is throwing them the extra $20-30 per day per person on top of everything else. I'm all about Disney making as much money. And yes we do get Genie+ about half our days BUT I take that money out of our TS fund.

I’m budgeting next years trip. We’re planning on genie plus, but we’re not getting hoppers this time. First time ever.

we’re taking the money from other areas of our trip, I can’t add on. its too expensive to justify a new add on to our budget. I’m sure I’m a rare case.

 

[HopperFan]

I’m budgeting next years trip. We’re planning on genie plus, but we’re not getting hoppers this time. First time ever.

we’re taking the money from other areas of our trip, I can’t add on. its too expensive to justify a new add on to our budget. I’m sure I’m a rare case.

I don't know that you are rare.

Aside from tickets we can control what we spend. Disney tracks all we spend and I think they have felt the pinch, that they caused. They are now offering deep discounts to get folks in to their hotels. Once in then guests spend on site. All those wide spread price increases they did about a month ago are filling the gaps where guests have stopped spending. The food and beverage ones will add up very quickly for Disney while seeming minimal for guests. No one really tracks merchandise costs but guaranteed they have been nickel and dimed up. Let's not forget when Chapek said "average guest spending is up" which was a word play, "spending" was up because costs are up.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm not sure I understand and am sincerely just looking for clarification. What would the difference between the current version of Genie+ and FP+ without advance booking be?

FP+ you could ride the same ride twice with a FP

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

If we are making advanced bookings with a new G+, would we essentially also be making a park reservation? I assume I'd have to select the day I attend each park to coincide with my selections?

Yes and no and nowhere near like what the park reservations were/are for covid.

I think people have forgotten how it worked before or they didn't get to experience it.

There were two primary strategies with FP+
1) Morning FP pre-booking
2) Evening FP pre-booking

add to that park hopping and park hopping had none of this silliness with a time restriction back then.

So for park hopping the general utilization was pre-booking FPs for the second park (or whatever park you were hopping to, it could have been your third or fourth park if you went to more than 2 in a day). The primary reason for that was obtaining FPs during which the park was traditionally busier (mid-afternoon and beyond). The sacrifice on that was usually not obtaining a huge amount of FPs since you were trying for later in the day after using up your first 3 that had been pre-booked.

So yes Disney did know which park you intended to be at but you were not set in stone and you could change on the fly. You could wake up that day and decide nope gonna change them. It all depended on what FPs were available or you could let them expire if your plans changed. We went during Irma and they dropped a bunch of FOP and Navi FPs in the morning, we happened to have our FPs for our second park but I could have easily switched up to AK FPs right then and there in the line of Navi but we kept our FPs for MK. With any resemblance of a park reservation this wouldn't be possible.


I'm not sure what Disney intends to do here with Genie+ but there was so much more flexibility with FP+ in terms of your plans you really can't look at it through the lens of what park reservations have meant due to covid.

 

[Genie+]

Curious how they plan to combat the lack of tier 1 fastpass rides that was already an issue when no individual upcharge attractions or virtual queues existed.

This is going to make that issue even worse than it was previously.

Yes that was definitely an issue with FP+. We thought we were so smart planning the next trip with 2 days in each park to get around that. Then Covid hit

HS was the worst for the last few years of FP+ tiers. That’s actually done a 180. For a couple years it was ToT and RnRC in Tier one and not much you needed a FP for in Tier 2. Finally in 2018 ToyStoryLand opened, helping out. Then Galaxy’s Edge in late 2019 and MMRR March 4, 2020. We were FINALLY going to have a healthy FP+ system there. And then in never happened.

Epcot was close behind. All the tier 2 didn’t really need FP+. Frozen opened but didn’t help much as it was just another thing added to Tier 1. Remy’s and Guardians could help some… I hope.

AK Tier 1 was FoP which everybody wanted and Navi River most people did not want. FoP frequently went over 200min waittimes sprinkled with 300+mins. People in the know were riding FoP twice a day and the unfamiliar waited in 3-5 hour lines. 120min wait was a good day! But at least Tier 2 offered some advantage. It helped for Safari, early day Dino, EE, even a good FoLK spot, and on hot day River Rapids.

MK was very healthy under FP+. No tiers and at least 7 rides where FP+ made a big difference.

How they approach tiers with G+ is yet to be seen.

I think social media has significantly shortened the learning curve for these systems and in response WDW’s continued tweaking could partially be to combat that. But it is negative to the guest experience. I understand the frustration of people with early 2024 trips who have no idea what to expect, and this may be the 2nd or 3rd time it’s happened to them in recent years. Add in WDW is very late to update park hours, advanced reservations are on multiple schedules where some don’t even release on those schedules. People with 2023 trips are dealing with party night overloads.

ADR changes are definitely a guest positive - not only have they pulled 180 day down to 60, and 24hr cancellation down to 2hr, with the G+ changes (Jan 9?) they are adding their own ADR finder that should help reduce system bog of a thousand 3rd party bots. Changes to G+ Might be geared to similarly defeat 3rd party apps like Standby Skipper, who would’ve surely had more and more competition like what happened with dining apps.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

People in the know were riding FoP twice a day

I'm going to push back on that one. FOP was a hard FP to get. It was not one that many could ride multiple times a day on it with a FP on your average day.

It was also one that for on-site usually needed to be at least 5 days on site and normally at the end of your trip. We were on site for like 10 days IIRC and I def. needed to put it towards the end of our trip and this was very much what a lot of people experienced.

Being in the know meant back then that you knew about FP to begin with, that you knew you could get 3 pre-booked regardless of onsite or off site and that it was included in your park ticket and that once those were used up you could get more. It meant you knew about the 60 vs 30 days for on site vs off site and that on site was for length of stay, it meant that you generally put those very hard to get FPs towards the end of your trip if you were onsite because of the length of stay aspect (this also meant shorter trips were at a disadvantage). It meant you knew you could refresh over time. But being in the know did not mean you could get FOP FPs twice a day by the virtue of knowing how FP worked, that was down to sheer luck and crowd levels. Disney still only released a certain amount of FPs per day and the most sought after rides (like 7DMT, FOP, TSMM, etc) were much less likely to have another go at it.

In addition FOP was not running at 3-5 hours on Standby, not at all consistently and not anywhere near the average.

Genie+ didn't really solve that issue because it's the most sought after ride at AK. Those on site have the advantage due to being able to book at 7am even though pre-booking was not relevant.

When I made my comment about being able to ride rides multiple times with FP+ I just meant you weren't blocked from doing so. If you wanted to ride it's a small world with a FP multiple times bless you you could do it

 

[Genie+]

I'm going to push back on that one. FOP was a hard FP to get. It was not one that many could ride multiple times a day on it with a FP on your average day.

By the end of FP+ it was very easy to pick up FoP at the ~1pm and ~3pm drop times with more and more people becoming aware of it. We did it for 3 or 4 trips. It was crazy to see the line all the way down to Africa 210+mins while we sat eating lunch and picking up FP#2 for within the next hour or two. Just had to have your initial 3 FPs used by that point or wait for 3pm.

*eta - we never pushed to get the 3rd at 3pm but likely could’ve.

 

[TPG0235]

Since my last visit to WDW was 2019, I have no familiarity with Genie+. But during that 2019 trip, my family used the hell out of FP+! I would book our three selections for early in the day, getting the heavy hitters out of the way, and then just constantly book the next FP (if my memory serves me correctly) as soon as I tapped in. Between that and rope dropping / early entry?, we got on pretty much every ride we wanted. And I wasn't constantly on my phone because after the initial three FPs, you could only have one at a time (I think?).

For our 2024 trip, I would prefer not to pay for any FP / Genie system, but I would be willing to if that included advance selection capabilities.

 

[Genie+]

In addition FOP was not running at 3-5 hours on Standby, not at all consistently and not anywhere near the average.

120mins to 210mins sure was and yes that was sprinkled with occasional 300min waits. I think the highest we personally saw was 315mins - 5 1/4 hours

On site Day 3 was our usual preselected FOP FP+. I really can’t remember ever needing 4.

We always hit AK early and for the am hours the bridge to Africa would be blocked with FoP line. That was typical. It actually got worse in the years after opening.

 

[Genie+]

When I made my comment about being able to ride rides multiple times with FP+ I just meant you weren't blocked from doing so. If you wanted to ride it's a small world with a FP multiple times bless you you could do it

I thought I was agreeing with you As what you pointed out was an important aspect.