Best Strategy for a trip in 2022? Lower Your Expectations

[TiggerBouncy]

Except not really. Still getting some ILL rides gone before offsite people even get a chance to book them. Also - there's a huge difference between knowing what rides you could and couldn't get 30 days in advance allowing you to plan your schedule around it. So now you have people with a reservation at DHS who find themselves unable to get RotR, unable to get SDD or getting a time in the evening, etc. and now they're also locked into that park until 2pm and had to wake up at 7am to now discover on their vacation that the day the planned is basically not going to be what they wanted it to be. The ONLY advantage with the new system is it makes that first LL a little easier to get for some of the rides you couldn't get before (but even then - you have to pay for most of those and those onsite get a 2 hour head start eliminating nearly all of that advantage to begin with. And the trade offs are enormous. None of the things you mentioned about what people were complaining about have really been corrected by this system - if anything they've been exacerbated and those staying off site I'd say are in a far worse position than before - still likely to have trouble getting many rides they'd like at a convenient time for them but now having to deal with it at 7am every morning and having limited ability to change plans around it. So I dispute that Disney has done anything whatsoever to change the "Disney is only for the rich" complaint. I think most people would agree they've gone further in that direction rather than actually address any of the complaints about FP+. (And - yes - Disney gave an advantage to those on-site. A perfectly logical perk whether you like it or not. All they've done with this system is make life harder for everyone while not making it easier for anyone.)

You really should learn to use paragraphs. The wall of text is just confusing.

Again, I never said you would like or agree with HOW Disney is addressing the concerns. I am just saying that much of what went into Genie and G+ was based on our feedback from FP- and FP+. You can see how they are trying to address it. Doesn't mean you agree with how they did it.

But it was / does address some of the onsite/offsite gap at the expense of onsite benefits. They obviously have not found a balance yet and I don't think they are happy with it either. It would not surprise me if they do some more tweaks. I can almost guarantee it.

 

[Summer2018]

My friend is in WDW right now. She is so upset by how Genie+ has failed her. She is going to guest services to give feedback which is the best thing to do.

 

[DavidNYC]

You really should learn to use paragraphs. The wall of text is just confusing.

Again, I never said you would like or agree with HOW Disney is addressing the concerns. I am just saying that much of what went into Genie and G+ was based on our feedback from FP- and FP+. You can see how they are trying to address it. Doesn't mean you agree with how they did it.

But it was / does address some of the onsite/offsite gap at the expense of onsite benefits. They obviously have not found a balance yet and I don't think they are happy with it either. It would not surprise me if they do some more tweaks. I can almost guarantee it.

Really? This was based on our feedback? We wanted to lose the ability to choose times? We wanted a system that no longer actually gave you the time you clicked on but could give you ones hours later? We wanted a system that took the most popular rides out of the system and make you pay to book them increasing the stress levels on the remaining rides? We requested paying for hoppers and not being able to hop until 2 pm? We requested having to be up before 7am every single day of our trip if we wanted to book popular rides? I must have missed all those posts that were begging for this.

You really should learn how to look at a bigger picture. You took one minor complaint that people had - and which was barely improved (and many would say not improved at all) - and are claiming it was in response to complaints. That is amazingly naive. It had nothing to do with addressing a single guest concern whatsoever. It was 100% to do with taking control AWAY from the guest. It allows off site guests the ability to maybe get a better time for a single 2nd tier ride at the expense of every single major change I listed above. I mean seriously . . . all they had to do if the real reason was to level the playing field between on and offsite guests would be to let everyone make them at the same time or allow on-site guests a fewer number to make earlier. I mean really - you actually believe that the reason for this was to close the gap? Much in the same way you'd think someone shooting a machine gun into a house was someone trying to kill a fly in it . . .

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

My friend is in WDW right now. She is so upset by how Genie+ has failed her. She is going to guest services to give feedback which is the best thing to do.

I am so sorry.

 

[RamblingMad]

This is pretty scathing article on G+ that came out today.

Park employees end up dealing with the angry aftermath. “I thought guests were angry about having to wear [face] masks all last year, but that was nothing compared to the complaints I hear all day about Lightning Lane issues,” says an employee working near the Avatar Flight of Passage attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom, who requested not to be named for fear of reprisal.

“Everyone who bought [Genie+ access] is mad because it doesn’t work like they want it to, and everyone who didn’t buy it is mad because they have to wait in longer lines,” the worker continues. “Pretty much the only people not angry are the shareholders."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...flaws-errors-customer-complaints?srnd=premium

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

This is pretty scathing article on G+ that came out today.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...flaws-errors-customer-complaints?srnd=premium

This piece tells the story.
Thanks for posting.

 

[cgattis]

I appreciate that a lot of people think this way, but for me personally, I'm an aggressive anti-planner when I'm on vacation.

I get more than enough of planning and schedules and coordinating during my day job and regular life: the only planning I want to do for my vacation is "where am I going, where am I staying, how am I getting there/around" and as soon as the flights/car/hotel are booked, everything in between arrival and departure gets marked as 'figure it out as we go' on my calendar.

Luckily, as someone who doesn't really care for rides - I've had multiple trips to Disney where I rode zero attractions for a week - neither FP+ nor G+ has really phased me. No problem that I'm shut out of Rise or FOP for refusing to book them in advance, I wasn't ever really invested in riding them anyway: I'm much more interested in touring the World Showcase and meeting fascinating people from around the world, taking in the streetmosphere in each park, soaking in the magic of being in this place that is bubbled off from my everyday life, people watching, that kind of thing.

My absolute line in the sand, if anything, is park pass reservations - I absolutely will not book another trip until that system is either gone for regular ticket purchases or not applicable to resort guests. It is completely antithetical to the way I want to vacation, which is deciding what to do when I wake up based on what mood strikes me.

But even if they get rid of park reservations and restore all-day park hopping, it'll then be the lack of entertainment, no international program, effectively no good TS options for day of booking, and so on keeping me from finalizing my next trip to Disney. Every missing piece of entertainment and every lost opportunity for spontaneous decision making and every single time the answer to "how can I enjoy X here at Disney" is "go back in time and book it 60 days ago" makes the prospect of returning to Disney less and less attractive to me. I can have a wonderful vacation while never boarding a single ride vehicle. I can't have a wonderful vacation if there's nothing else to do.

But this new system was put in place because “guests wanted more flexibility!!”

I’m an uber-planner and I can tell you—this isn’t flexibility, this is the roulette wheel of vacation! I man for someone who doesn’t want to plan, like yourself, now all you have to do is wander around the parks and decide which snack stand to wait 30 minutes at!! No rides?? Perfect!! I mean there’s no shows for you to watch either but hey! You can still meet all sorts of interesting international CMs! Oh wait…..yeahhhhh. This thing is the absolute opposite of flexibility.

I just see SO many different ways Disney is letting people down right now. I hope this all comes to a head soon and drives some changes.

 

[RamblingMad]

But this new system was put in place because “guests wanted more flexibility!!”

I’m an uber-planner and I can tell you—this isn’t flexibility, this is the roulette wheel of vacation! I man for someone who doesn’t want to plan, like yourself, now all you have to do is wander around the parks and decide which snack stand to wait 30 minutes at!! No rides?? Perfect!! I mean there’s no shows for you to watch either but hey! You can still meet all sorts of interesting international CMs! Oh wait…..yeahhhhh. This thing is the absolute opposite of flexibility.

I just see SO many different ways Disney is letting people down right now. I hope this all comes to a head soon and drives some changes.

They're making too much money with this system. Maybe when their park reservations and hotel reservations drop they'll do something. Maybe they're charge more, so that less people will use it.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Really? This was based on our feedback? We wanted to lose the ability to choose times? We wanted a system that no longer actually gave you the time you clicked on but could give you ones hours later? We wanted a system that took the most popular rides out of the system and make you pay to book them increasing the stress levels on the remaining rides? We requested paying for hoppers and not being able to hop until 2 pm? We requested having to be up before 7am every single day of our trip if we wanted to book popular rides? I must have missed all those posts that were begging for this.

You really should learn how to look at a bigger picture. You took one minor complaint that people had - and which was barely improved (and many would say not improved at all) - and are claiming it was in response to complaints. That is amazingly naive. It had nothing to do with addressing a single guest concern whatsoever. It was 100% to do with taking control AWAY from the guest. It allows off site guests the ability to maybe get a better time for a single 2nd tier ride at the expense of every single major change I listed above. I mean seriously . . . all they had to do if the real reason was to level the playing field between on and offsite guests would be to let everyone make them at the same time or allow on-site guests a fewer number to make earlier. I mean really - you actually believe that the reason for this was to close the gap? Much in the same way you'd think someone shooting a machine gun into a house was someone trying to kill a fly in it . . .

yes, some of the changes were due to our feedback. I’m not saying scrapping fp+ and making genie was purely because of our complaints. Genie was always going to happen. Disney is always going to make new ways to control crowds. If you are expecting them to stop trying to grow, your expectation is flawed. Even Walt said they will never stop.

But some aspects of Genie grew out of guest feedback. If you really think Disney took a thousand developers, gave them a billion dollars, put them in a room, shut them away from the world, told them nothing of the current guest experience for 5 years, you’re horribly mistaken.

you may not like the solution they came up with, but believe it or not, they started requirements with the flaws and complaints people had.

 

[JJsmama]

I just see SO many different ways Disney is letting people down right now. I hope this all comes to a head soon and drives some changes.

we are arriving this weekend . I DID notice yesterday that hotel rates for some deluxe for our dates had suddenly dropped $100/ night, so something is not going the way they hoped…

 

[Mollygirl21]

This is pretty scathing article on G+ that came out today.



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...flaws-errors-customer-complaints?srnd=premium

This kind of trumps the argument that people were just as unhappy with FP+ based on the posts on the disboards. When FP+ came out, they didn't have multiple dedicated guest services stations in each park with long lines all day.

That seems to me to be a better indicator of how it is being received. Hopefully Disney thinks so too.

(fwiw, I loved FP+)

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

Regarding Disney possibly tweaking G+........I am not willing to gamble thousands of dollars over the remaining life of my AP while they experiment with this.

Yes, I was one of the folks that gave them feedback that we needed more than 3 with FP+ and then they let us pursue extras after the first 3 were consumed.

At least we had 3 in our hand with locked in times......we could build our day around those.

Presently we are trying to build a house of cards while the table keeps moving!

 

[scrappinginontario]

I don’t think we’re going to see a decrease in visitors anytime soon.

Earlier this week I was trying to help a friend book a Disney vacation for mid-late April (approx 5-6 weeks in advance) and when looking for a 7 day stretch I was seeing zero availability to the point where I thought the reservation system was down. Eventually 1or 2 resorts popped up but that was it!

I believe most/all resorts will have opened by mid-April which means an inventory of over 30,000 rooms!!!

Even in the state things are at right now, people are flocking to Disney and throwing their money at it (us included I’ll admit) which means for now go with eyes wide open and gauge expectations on what we know.

 

[abtahime]

The availability looks so much better today on the app for all of the rides - all rides still available by 8:30 am across all parks with both genie+ and ILL. No parks sold out - Goes to show the system potentially can work if Disney didn’t oversell the service and jam guests in like sardines.

 

[DisTXMom]

The availability looks so much better today on the app for all of the rides - all rides still available by 8:30 am across all parks with both genie+ and ILL. No parks sold out - Goes to show the system potentially can work if Disney didn’t oversell the service and jam guests in like sardines.

Agree- I was watching it today also. Unfortunately, we will be there spring break week which will be sold out in all parks. It’s when we can go. Our kids are only home with us another 3-4 years- we can then travel to avoid school breaks

 

[mom2rtk]

We canceled our Spring trip. I filled out two surveys sent to me prior to canceling with feedback about why I was canceling and I wrote guest services. Also had a 6 night November trip booked that I cut in half and moved to December…. Though I’m monitoring the situation and may very well switch over to Universal for a few nights instead. I’m just about to actually book universal for same dates and as my cancellation window approaches decide what makes more sense.

we lopped days off our recent Disney trip and got Universal APs. We are already thinking of a Universal centric trip this year with maybe just one hard ticket night as our sole Disney time.

 

[Summer2018]

Agree- I was watching it today also. Unfortunately, we will be there spring break week which will be sold out in all parks. It’s when we can go. Our kids are only home with us another 3-4 years- we can then travel to avoid school breaks

I'm in the same boat for at least 10 more years. I'm a teacher, and I have zero flexibility in when I can travel. We've gone during Christmas vacation...absolutely amazing, but uber expensive and phenomenally crowded; February vacation...crowded and expensive; April vacation...crowded and expensive. We've mostly travelled there in July/August in the sweltering heat and humidity because it was the only time that I was off school and the prices weren't quite as outrageous as the other vacation weeks. I would love to book a trip when crowd levels are low. That's just not possible until I retire, and then I probably won't be able to afford it on a teacher's pension.

 

[DisneyFive]

But some aspects of Genie grew out of guest feedback. If you really think Disney took a thousand developers, gave them a billion dollars, put them in a room, shut them away from the world, told them nothing of the current guest experience for 5 years, you’re horribly mistaken.

you may not like the solution they came up with, but believe it or not, they started requirements with the flaws and complaints people had.

With all due respect TiggerBouncy how can you say this with certainty? Do you have an article from Disney stating such? Are you an employee of Disney and know this firsthand?
How do we know that Disney did this at all to improve the guest experience or complaints in the past of FP+?

I seem to recall a statement by Disney, when Genie plus was announced, that they were doing it for improved guest flexibility, but I’m not even sure I am remembering that accurately.

I think it is just as plausible that they implemented Genie plus to 1) increase revenue and 2). reduce the volume of fastpass at the parks.

From what I understand, allowing all guests to book 3 in advance was putting a huge load on their IT system and infrastructure, overloading the engineers and designers in those departments so they could not focus on other aspects of the guest experience. I don’t know if that is true or not, but it was commented on in that long history of Fastpass YouTube video
Dan

 

[RamblingMad]

we lopped days off our recent Disney trip and got Universal APs. We are already thinking of a Universal centric trip this year with maybe just one hard ticket night as our sole Disney time.

I did a Universal only trip with Disney dinning at some of the Disney resorts in the evening. I did a dinner at poly, so that we could watch fireworks. I couldn't get California Grill last minute. We did the hoop dee doo. And we did dining at AKL to see the animals. This was pre-COVID. We were able to get our Disney fix while spending our time at Universal during the day.

 

[Prince John Robin Hood]

I did a Universal only trip with Disney dinning at some of the Disney resorts in the evening. I did a dinner at poly, so that we could watch fireworks. I couldn't get California Grill last minute. We did the hoop dee doo. And we did dining at AKL to see the animals. This was pre-COVID. We were able to get our Disney fix while spending our time at Universal during the day.

It feels like we have no choice really. We're there in a week for spring break. Park pass is sold out most days and can't buy AP's which are open for park reservations. No park pass reservations available for onsite guests. We'll be driving from Poly and AKL to Universal each day and might check out Seaworld.

I really don't understand why Disney is making no effort to help out onsite guests. At a minimum they should have park pass availability specifically for people paying a huge premium to stay onsite.