Any recent experiences from people NOT using Genie+ or ILL?

[LuvAriel]

Yes she loved them!!!! We are going April 19-26 cant wait!!! Thinking we will need G+ for Mk & HS

 

[LuvAriel]

Did they see the fireworks show at MK? It was awesome

Yes she loved them!!! We are going April 19-26 and thinking we will but G+ for Mk & HS

 

[ScarletFire]

All your waits for headline attractions will be long without Genie+.

We didn't use Genie+ during the first week of March. We are AP holders and attractions are not a priority. We rode 3 attractions over 5 days. MMRR, Rise, and Living with the Land.

For both MMRR and Rise, we entered line around 8:30pm. Waits were less than one hour and way less than the posted waits.

Typhoon Lagoon had no waits for anything. The water park was practically empty.

 

[ScarletFire]

double post

 

[whiteness]

We won't pay for either upcharge. And, consequently, we are seriously considering not renewing our Disney APs. The parks are still enjoyable places to wander around soaking up the ambience, window shopping and occasional (overpriced) meals. But many of the rides and attractions are now just too much time and effort to bother with.

EPCOT is an especially viable option for local passholders (which should come as no surprise to anyone, right?) Just not sure if that is enough to justify the cost of our passes: perhaps if we were retired, the lowest tier one might work out better for us.

If I wasn't a local passholder, I wouldn't even bother to visit without purchasing the upcharges. And, even then, unless we did everything right, jumped through all the hoops (and had luck on our side), we might still not have a great experience. The parks are just too crowded, and most guests want to experience the same things. Even when you pay the upcharge, you haven't purchased guaranteed access to those things, because Disney has effectively "overbooked" them. And forget about doing standby in that case: the Lightning Lane ratio is so ridiculously high that it seems like the Standby line only moves when people give up and leave it.

Fastpass+ wasn't perfect, either. But at least it was free, so everyone was in the same boat.

And, yes, Universal also has Express pass, but it is much more exclusive (and expensive.) So it doesn't have nearly the same impact on Standby wait times. But, if you are flush with cash and want an ideal experience, it is well worth it. We bought it once for Halloween Horror because we could only go for one night, and we were easily able to do every maze and try every snack and beverage we wanted to. For what it provides, it is a good value, but it's not intended to be for everyone. If you are a "normal" passholder, you can still have a great time at Universal without it. And that's totally fair and reasonable.

What Disney has done is really unfair. Especially to local passholders. And I'm sure they realize this, and they don't care. It is a feature not a bug. They are happy for passholders to visit during festivals and eat their mediocre, overpriced food, but aside from that they really don't care if Passholders have a good experience. Unless they are willing to pay extra for it.

 

[JennyDrake]

I was there October 31-November 3 and January 30-February 4 without G+ or LL. I am/was an AP holder (for 20+ years) , staying on property. I refuse to pay for G+ and LL after already shelling out $1200 for an AP. As I go quarterly, there isn't pressure to accomplish a lot but with that said...

MK was a crowded nightmare with long long lines everywhere (and we went on a weekday). We did Tiki Room, the Liberty Belle, Goofy and not a whole lot else! And we were there within 1 hour of rope drop.

AK was manageable, especially 90 minutes before park close. We didn't attempt either Pandora attraction - lines were over 2 hours.

Epcot - well frankly not a whole lot there to do. Again, the last 90 minutes of the park day the lines were much better! We did Soarin, Living with the Land, Figment, Spaceship Earth & TT (single rider) each day. Elsa and Co were 90 minute or more wait and Remy wasn't going to happen....

HS - MK worthy lines for just about everything. Rode Star Tours x2, Alien saucers. That's it.

After 20+ years of AP, I didn't renew and I"m going to try Universal.

 

[pens4821]

We were here this week. 6 park days. Was planning on genie first and last day. Ended up getting it yesterday too (day 5). Just tired of all the long waits. It was epcot which people say you don’t need it for, but it really did save us quite a bit of time. If I were to do it all over again I’d get it every day. I know it adds cost, and I by no means have alot of money, but it’s just something I feel is worth the cost (even though it could most definitely be improved).

 

[Kestryl]

I’m doing this real fast- made a log of today (3/18) at Magic Kingdom. So Friday of a Spring Break week. Two adults, have been before, did not get Genie+ or ILL. (Or use Genie at all.) Park was open 9 am-11 pm. We did not have early entry (offsite). We got there before park opening and got in our last line just before close.

Below is our list of attractions with listed wait times and the actual wait times in minutes. I also threw in when we did parades, food, that kind of thing.

Jungle Cruise 25, actual 25
PotC 45, actual 20
BTMRR 55, actual 30
(Cavalcade)
Carousel 20, actual 20
(Lunch at Pinocchio’s)
Space Mountain 60, actual 70
Monsters Inc Laugh Floor 20, actual 5
Meet Mickey 5, actual walk-in
(Cavalcade)
Teacups 15, actual 12
Philharmagic 25, actual 5
Small World 30, actual 17
Tom Sawyer raft 10, actual 3
(Snack at Gaston’s)
Little Mermaid 35, actual 21
Dumbo 35, actual 9
[Barnstormer 25, left line]
Haunted Mansion 35, actual 25
Peoplemover 20, actual 10
Carousel of Progress 5, actual walk-in
(Fireworks)
(Snack at Dunshine Terrace)
Tiki Room walk-in
[PotC 30, left line]
SDMT 95, actual 20
Peter Pan 35, actual 17

Space Mountain was kind of weird- there was some kind of incident while we were in line- someone got wheeled out in a wheelchair. This paused the line for a while.

Not sure what happened with PotC after fireworks and Tiki Room. We jumped in line, but then didn’t move for a solid 10 minutes, so we bailed. The LL looked excessive, so maybe it was that.

 

[glocon]

I’m doing this real fast- made a log of today (3/18) at Magic Kingdom. So Friday of a Spring Break week. Two adults, have been before, did not get Genie+ or ILL. (Or use Genie at all.) Park was open 9 am-11 pm. We did not have early entry (offsite). We got there before park opening and got in our last line just before close.

Below is our list of attractions with listed wait times and the actual wait times in minutes. I also threw in when we did parades, food, that kind of thing.

Jungle Cruise 25, actual 25
PotC 45, actual 20
BTMRR 55, actual 30
(Cavalcade)
Carousel 20, actual 20
(Lunch at Pinocchio’s)
Space Mountain 60, actual 70
Monsters Inc Laugh Floor 20, actual 5
Meet Mickey 5, actual walk-in
(Cavalcade)
Teacups 15, actual 12
Philharmagic 25, actual 5
Small World 30, actual 17
Tom Sawyer raft 10, actual 3
(Snack at Gaston’s)
Little Mermaid 35, actual 21
Dumbo 35, actual 9
[Barnstormer 25, left line]
Haunted Mansion 35, actual 25
Peoplemover 20, actual 10
Carousel of Progress 5, actual walk-in
(Fireworks)
(Snack at Dunshine Terrace)
Tiki Room walk-in
[PotC 30, left line]
SDMT 95, actual 20
Peter Pan 35, actual 17

Space Mountain was kind of weird- there was some kind of incident while we were in line- someone got wheeled out in a wheelchair. This paused the line for a while.

Not sure what happened with PotC after fireworks and Tiki Room. We jumped in line, but then didn’t move for a solid 10 minutes, so we bailed. The LL looked excessive, so maybe it was that.

That sounds like an amazing day!

 

[Kestryl]

That sounds like an amazing day!

It was! Now, this was our only day at MK, so the pressure was on to get as much done as possible, but still- I think this is the most we’ve done in one day, and we did it without any paid skip-the-line benefits!

 

[mac_tlc]

It was! Now, this was our only day at MK, so the pressure was on to get as much done as possible, but still- I think this is the most we’ve done in one day, and we did it without any paid skip-the-line benefits!

I got tired just reading it. At our age, 14 hr days aren’t happening. But our adult kids are still in that stage!

mac_tlc

 

[MonaMN]

We were here this week. 6 park days. Was planning on genie first and last day. Ended up getting it yesterday too (day 5). Just tired of all the long waits. It was epcot which people say you don’t need it for, but it really did save us quite a bit of time. If I were to do it all over again I’d get it every day. I know it adds cost, and I by no means have alot of money, but it’s just something I feel is worth the cost (even though it could most definitely be improved).

We just got home too. Crowds were pretty high across the board. We were bringing first timers and wanted them to have a good experience, so we got ILLs and Genie+ most days. We did it at Epcot because we wanted to sleep in that morning - so I stacked some Genie+ sections for mid-day. We did not get Genie+ at AK but arrived late afternoon after Disney Springs - and I did get the ILL for FoP. Other than that, we only went on Safari as a group; a few others stayed a little later and also did Navi River Journey.

Even with doing Genie+ at HS, we didn’t get everything done in one day - but we had two days planned and rope dropped to do the two things we didn’t get on our first day (Smuggler’s Run and ToT).

In general, I liked it more than I thought, especially at MK. We were able to do pretty much everything we wanted with a combination of rope drop and Genie+ on a fairly busy Saturday. The only thing we missed was Splash Mountain - it was down for a while then it got chilly and we didn’t want to get wet.

 

[loves to dive]

I was there solo the week of Dec. 17 for 5 days and didn't use either. I go often so there aren't really any rides that are a "must do" but I did ride most of the ones I wanted to. I didn't ride RoTR but have ridden it many times. The morning I got out of bed and on the bus early enough for the early entry I got there maybe 15 min. into the early entry and the ride was down with a 120 min. wait. I did a 45 min. wait for MMRR instead. Had I just gone there (MMRR) right when I got in the park, it probably would have been a walk on. I have an AP so I tend to hop around. I think I went to Epcot the afternoon I arrived. I know during the course of the 5 days I rode:

MK - PP, Pirates, Jingle Cruise, BBMR, HM, SDMT, WTP, CoP, PM and watched the FWs. I got there right at rope drop on my reservation day and that was the day I rode most of what I did. I hopped over one night for the FWs. That was really all I wanted to ride but could have ridden more.

Epcot: - Living with the Land twice (once at day and once at night) Soarin, Figment, Mexico, walked through the Seas (I don't like the ride) TT and watched the night time show. Almost all the rides were that first afternoon when I got there. I hopped over to Epcot every day at some point. I'm not a fan of Frozen or Mission Space but could have ridden both had I wanted to. The only day I had a reservation for Epcot was arrival day and at the time they had virtual que for Remy so didn't ride that.

AK - Navi, Safari, Dino, walked all the trails, saw the bird show, rode the train and petted some animals and watched a procedure on a bird and kite tails. I don't remember if EE was down at the time but I don't ride it. Could have easily ridden FoP but I'm actually not a fan. Had one day of park reservation and hopped over there one night to see the tree awakenings.

HS - MMRR, SDD, TSMM, ToT (3 times during the course of the week, my fav) watched Frozen the sing along and Beauty and Beast, saw the ToT awakenings. I don't like many of the rides in the Star Wars section except RoTR and as I said, missed that one on purpose. I don't ride RnRC, it hurts my neck. I hopped over there a couple of nights, one was when I rode Slinky cause I love it at night.

I spent a lot of time just looking at the holiday decorations, eating, resort hopping to look at their decorations and just sort of soaking in all the stuff. I spent every afternoon at the resort, either at the pool/bar or napping. I only made one early entry actually at early entry and that was MK and I only did that because I had a reservation and needed to tap in. I went on the PM and CoP and sat and drank a coffee for a while, shopped and that was one of the days I resort hopped until I could park hop. The other times I thought I was going to do it I got to MK at rope drop, got to HS 15 min. in and got to AK about 5 min before rope drop. I don't think I closed any of the parks but was close on most of them since I wanted to see the night shows. I did everything I wanted to do and could have done more had I wanted to. I think the longest line I waited in was about a hour and that would have been SDMT and SDD.