BREAKING: Walt Disney World Introduces Date-Based Variable Pricing for Genie+ Service

[set88]

I think it's more that it FEELS like we are back to ticket books for some people just because they put a price on some rides.
I'm looking at plans for our Disneyland trip later this year and RISE is $25. For one single ride for one person. And I know I don't have to pay that. But holy cow is that a big number for the non-Dis types to see when they already feel like it's pay the price or suffer.

It's all in the attitude.

What if there WAS no option to pay to skip the line? Would the 2 hour line be ok? Why would it suddenly NOT be ok just because there is an option to pay a ridiculous price to skip it?

I think people need to take a step back and realize that standing in a long line for a popular ride is NOT suffering - it's just part of visiting a popular theme park and riding the most popular attractions.

Long lines have ALWAYS existed. People used to be much more patient than they are now... and that was WITHOUT having the ability to bring all kinds of entertainment with you in the line via smartphone.

 

[gharter]

If you were used to FP/FP+ and used them to your advantage, attraction lines were not part of the theme park experience at Disney. And avoiding lines was a huge part of the enjoyment for many. For some, the ability to avoid lines was part of the magic.

So I understand why many people now feel the need to pay extra to avoid standbye lines.

Except, even paying for Genie +, we are not able to avoid lines as well as we could with FP+. YMMV.
However, using Genie + is better than not having it at in MK, HS. Haven't found it useful for EPCOT or AK. Maybe with the change in attraction level at EPCOT, it might be (with RAT and Frozen now LL and not ILL$).

 

[set88]

If you were used to FP/FP+ and used them to your advantage, attraction lines were not part of the theme park experience at Disney. And avoiding lines was a huge part of the enjoyment for many. For some, the ability to avoid lines was part of the magic.

So I understand why many people now feel the need to pay extra to avoid standbye lines.

I get that - but the problem there is lack of perspective.

FP+ only worked well for the minority of park guests that knew how to and were able to use it to their advantage. For your average parkgoer, especially those not doing long onsite stays, the lines were made MUCH worse by FP+.

I wish everyone who feels like you're saying about FP+ would take the time to understand that their enjoyment came at a HUGE cost to the enjoyment of many, many others.

For an illustration of exactly how that is true, with concrete evidence, I highly recommend watching Defunctland's YouTube video on the history of Fastpass.

 

[Disneylover99]

Except, even paying for Genie +, we are not able to avoid lines as well as we could with FP+. YMMV.
However, using Genie + is better than not having it at in MK, HS. Haven't found it useful for EPCOT or AK. Maybe with the change in attraction level at EPCOT, it might be (with RAT and Frozen now LL and not ILL$).

For sure. But I understand why people are trying.

 

[PaladinButters]

What if there WAS no option to pay to skip the line? Would the 2 hour line be ok? Why would it suddenly NOT be ok just because there is an option to pay a ridiculous price to skip it?

I would probably not be frequenting Disney if that was the case. Every other theme park has adopted some kind of system/pass/whatever. Sure, nobody had them 50 years ago but now that would make Disney the only dinosaur that didn't offer guests the better experience of not doing that.

 

[Jrb1979]

I would probably not be frequenting Disney if that was the case. Every other theme park has adopted some kind of system/pass/whatever. Sure, nobody had them 50 years ago but now that would make Disney the only dinosaur that didn't offer guests the better experience of not doing that.

The difference is that even though it's available, I would say the majority of park guests don't buy it.

 

[Disneylover99]

I get that - but the problem there is lack of perspective.

FP+ only worked well for the minority of park guests that knew how to and were able to use it to their advantage. For your average parkgoer, especially those not doing long onsite stays, the lines were made MUCH worse by FP+.

I wish everyone who feels like you're saying about FP+ would take the time to understand that their enjoyment came at a HUGE cost to the enjoyment of many, many others.

For an illustration of exactly how that is true, with concrete evidence, I highly recommend watching Defunctland's YouTube video on the history of Fastpass.

I realize that not everyone liked fp and I understand the reasons why. I was just responding to your comment with a reason why I understand a different perspective.

 

[ScarletFire]

I'm looking at the MDE app and I cannot find Genie+ prices for future dates. I don't think it's available. Wouldn't you know we leave in two days.

Yeah, we tour the parks way differently than before. Park tickets are way expensive. DH and I have APs but my grown children do not. They are joining us for 3 nights at the campground.

DS27 and DD25 arrive Thursday morning (one more week!) Am I mean to ask them to take a Lyft from MCO to the campground? Their flight departs from Louisville KY at 6am.

We have Halloween Party tickets for Thursday night.

No park tickets for Friday because we have tickets to see a show in Orlando, Gorillaz! Not worth the expense to go to a park. And the campground is lots of fun!

DS27 and DD25 bought a one day park hopper for Saturday. We are visiting EPCOT, AK and DHS all in one day, beginning with EPCOT and hopes to ride Guardians twice; VQ and LL$. Then to AK to ride Avatar with LL$. We'll also have Genie + and plan to stack for DHS in the evening and get more LLs as we need them. We'll get in line for RISE before closing. It's going to be an expensive day. But, it'll be a blast. My kids are FUN!!!!

DD25 and myself are experienced Genie+ users. I hate the 2pm PH rule.

No park tickets for Sunday since the kids fly home Sunday evening.

My point being, kids are buying park tickets for ONE day. They'll be at Disney for FOUR days. Remember the Ultimate Park Hopper??

 

[PaladinButters]

The difference is that even though it's available, I would say the majority of park guests don't buy it.

I imagine those same people then don't purchase them at all the different theme parks making their experiences even.
If you do buy them where offered and Disney is the only place you couldn't then they "lose".

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

So with tax at $22 per day for Genie+ (I travel during holidays due to kids school schedules so YAY)=$23.43 per day per guest
Just a random guess of $25 for an ILL during holiday season $26.63

 

[set88]

I would probably not be frequenting Disney if that was the case. Every other theme park has adopted some kind of system/pass/whatever. Sure, nobody had them 50 years ago but now that would make Disney the only dinosaur that didn't offer guests the better experience of not doing that.

Do you always buy the $100-250+ a person daily express passes at every other theme park? Genuinely curious.

They tend to be very limited and the overwhelming majority of park guests do not buy them.

I do believe Disney would be better off with that system. It just requires the understanding and acceptance that it WOULD need to be that expensive in order to work. Much more expensive than Genie+ and ILLs are now.

 

[Bibbobboo2u]

I think many people will still choose to buy G+ despite the current price increases. Disney vacations are expensive, and people want to get the most out of their park time. If paying more for G+ reduces wait times for even a few rides, I think people will continue to buy it. There is normally more value to using it at MK and HWS, with the other parks having fewer rides and/or rides with normally limited wait times. These G+ increases are relatively small and seem to just be an easy way for Disney to increase income. If the intent was to discourage G+ purchases, they would raise the prices to triple digit range, at which point some people may opt out of purchasing G+ or may just opt out of taking WDW vacations. I wouldn't doubt that they are analyzing this to see what the tipping point might be. If they can charge more to fewer people and still maintain or increase revenue levels, I can see Chapek saying "go for it". The changes at Disney have led us to take fewer WDW vacations, but when we go now, we do more things to "pay to play" in order to be able to maximize our park time. The one thing we don't do is stay deluxe, despite the extra evening hours at parks. We don't find value in that additional cost, while others do. I feel like much larger increases are on the horizon for G+, even in the current economic environment.

 

[PaladinButters]

Do you always buy the $100-250+ a person daily express passes at every other theme park? Genuinely curious.

They tend to be very limited and the overwhelming majority of park guests do not buy them.

I do believe Disney would be better off with that system. It just requires the understanding and acceptance that it WOULD need to be that expensive in order to work. Much more expensive than Genie+ and ILLs are now.

Yes, we do. Although generally not for every day of the trip. (Exception for Universal where they give them to us everyday with the hotel anyway).
My vacation time is valuable and limited- why spend it standing in line if you have the option not to?

 

[Miffy]

I get that - but the problem there is lack of perspective.

FP+ only worked well for the minority of park guests that knew how to and were able to use it to their advantage. For your average parkgoer, especially those not doing long onsite stays, the lines were made MUCH worse by FP+.

I wish everyone who feels like you're saying about FP+ would take the time to understand that their enjoyment came at a HUGE cost to the enjoyment of many, many others.

For an illustration of exactly how that is true, with concrete evidence, I highly recommend watching Defunctland's YouTube video on the history of Fastpass.

This assumes that G+ is working well for the average parkgoer. I realize these impressions are limited to my own experience, but since G+'s implementation, I've run into innumerable parkgoers who have no clue how to work G+ and, judging by the number of posts on the G+ threads here, you still have to study up and gather a lot of knowledge in order to maximize usage of G+--or really, to even use it minimally. It's not a simple, straightforward, intuitive process.

ILL$, OTOH, is a straightforward thing . . . assuming one understands that you don't have to buy G+ in order to also purchase ILL$, which is something that a heckuva lot of people do not understand.

 

[MomOTwins]

It's all in the attitude.

What if there WAS no option to pay to skip the line? Would the 2 hour line be ok? Why would it suddenly NOT be ok just because there is an option to pay a ridiculous price to skip it?

I think people need to take a step back and realize that standing in a long line for a popular ride is NOT suffering - it's just part of visiting a popular theme park and riding the most popular attractions.

Long lines have ALWAYS existed. People used to be much more patient than they are now... and that was WITHOUT having the ability to bring all kinds of entertainment with you in the line via smartphone.

Or maybe those of us who have the “wrong attitude” of not wanting to wait 2 hours in line on a VACATION have always been around but we just spend our vacation dollars elsewhere. Before 2016 I had never been to Disney World. We’d taken our kids on day trips to local theme parks on the weekend, but disliked the experience and went very infrequently, and never spent a vacation at a theme park. We did all inclusive beach resorts in the caribbean or cruises instead. We did a weekend trip to Disney just to give our kids the experience and were blown away with how easy and fun the experience was. We never waited in any lines and could set our own pace and schedule FP at the time that worked for us, planning around meals, lazy mornings and afternoon pool breaks. I came home and immediately booked a weeklong trip a couple months from then, and between then and 2020 we did 3-4 trips per year. But today’s prices are more than double what we paid then, and for a lesser experience. We hated the lack of FP on our mid-2021 trip and have not been back to Disney World since—instead we’ve done three cruise vacations and they were all cheaper and far more enjoyable than our last disney trip. We have a trip booked in Nov. but the thought of waking up before 7 each day only to potentially be stuck with a ride at an inconvenient time, or lose out altogether and have to wait standby, already is making me feel exhausted. I am pretty sure we will be skipping 2023 altogether and just do other vacations.

 

[godfather927]

It will be interesting to see if the number of people in the parks decreases with this change? I know it's not measurable as Disney does not give attendance stats but, based on feedback here, it seems many are in the process of adjusting not only how much they spend at Disney but also, how often they will/will not go.

That's our family. All of the changes that have happened in the past few years, even before these latest increases, had already changed the frequency that we go to Disney. These latest changes are not helping our desire to return when we normally would.

ThrillData might be the only half-decent analog to gauge this. But personally, I doubt it's enough to materially move the needle. The bump in price wasn't significant enough to cause outrage among the casual park goers (of which we are all excluded by proxy of our presence here) and so the change in wait times as a correlate of attendance would probably fall within the margin of error. Any change in the LL availability for the headliners is still something worth keeping an eye on though.

 

[lugnut33]

BTW, the big thing people are missing is Disney has not substantially increased ride and park capacity for decades (don't try to sell me on Black Spire Outpost being an increase in capacity). The reason G+ works at MK so well is because of all the ride capacity at that park. Disney should have built a fifth gate long ago, but instead they were happy with increasing revenues through pay for experiences and charging for what used to be an expected part of the Disney difference. G+ comes along and supercharges executive bonuses.

 

[SLThomas318]

Or maybe those of us who have the “wrong attitude” of not wanting to wait 2 hours in line on a VACATION have always been around but we just spend our vacation dollars elsewhere. Before 2016 I had never been to Disney World. We’d taken our kids on day trips to local theme parks on the weekend, but disliked the experience and went very infrequently, and never spent a vacation at a theme park. We did all inclusive beach resorts in the caribbean or cruises instead. We did a weekend trip to Disney just to give our kids the experience and were blown away with how easy and fun the experience was. We never waited in any lines and could set our own pace and schedule FP at the time that worked for us, planning around meals, lazy mornings and afternoon pool breaks. I came home and immediately booked a weeklong trip a couple months from then, and between then and 2020 we did 3-4 trips per year. But today’s prices are more than double what we paid then, and for a lesser experience. We hated the lack of FP on our mid-2021 trip and have not been back to Disney World since—instead we’ve done three cruise vacations and they were all cheaper and far more enjoyable than our last disney trip. We have a trip booked in Nov. but the thought of waking up before 7 each day only to potentially be stuck with a ride at an inconvenient time, or lose out altogether and have to wait standby, already is making me feel exhausted. I am pretty sure we will be skipping 2023 altogether and just do other vacations.

This was us... took the kids for a long weekend trip in 2018 to test the waters and fell in love. Disney was such an "easy" trip... didn't need a rental car, no messing with car seats, could schedule around a nap/meal, and while it was expensive, the convenience had value to us. The value, for us, is getting a little harder to justify!

 

[set88]

This assumes that G+ is working well for the average parkgoer. I realize these impressions are limited to my own experience, but since G+'s implementation, I've run into innumerable parkgoers who have no clue how to work G+ and, judging by the number of posts on the G+ threads here, you still have to study up and gather a lot of knowledge in order to maximize usage of G+--or really, to even use it minimally. It's not a simple, straightforward, intuitive process.

ILL$, OTOH, is a straightforward thing . . . assuming one understands that you don't have to buy G+ in order to also purchase ILL$, which is something that a heckuva lot of people do not understand.

Oh, no, it doesn't assume that at all. FP+ being an unsustainable and unfair system doesn't mean that Genie+ is somehow a sustainable or fair system.

I would say that Genie+ is definitely better than FP+ for more people overall. It still favors advanced knowledge, but it does not mean you're out of luck for your whole trip if you didn't do major planning months in advance (or if you didn't have a long onsite hotel stay). Every single person is on a level playing field every single day - so if you didn't understand Genie+ or use it well on the first day of your trip, you could learn to use it by the second day of your trip. It also levels the playing field between offsite and onsite guests.... which is nice for people that want to save money by staying offsite, but put some money toward Genie+.

I think Genie+ works fine for most in mid to lower crowds. I've seen fairly positive things about it from those that used it over the summer. The majority of major complaints about it were from people trying to use it in peak times like last holiday season or Spring Break, when the ride capacity simply isn't there for Genie+ to offer a good value. And unfortunately, it is peak times where skipping the line is most needed.

I've said it a few times, but I genuinely believe the best system for Disney to offer would be a very expensive skip the line pass that lets people skip the line at each attraction once - and cap sales to no more than 10-15% of guests per day. That's the same exact system that every other theme park uses, for good reason.

The advantage of this for everyone is that standby waits are not significantly higher due to so many LL entries via either FP+ or Genie+.

I will say that I think if Genie+ was capped at just high crowd times, it might work fine and be a sustainable system. The only downside to that I see is people's uncertainty with whether they will be able to get it on a day to day basis.

 

[Dulcee]

I genuinely do not understand the perspective that Disney is forcing people to pay for these extras to have a good trip. They're not. You can totally choose to go without them and still have a good time. Sure, if you believe you cannot have a good time standing in any lines, you likely won't have a good time... but at that point, I have to say that going to a theme park for entertainment isn't something you should do, because lines for attractions are part of the theme park experience.

It is certainly possible. We did our March 2021 trip (with huge crowds and a large group) without Genie + and had a lovely trip. But I think part of it hinges on what your definition of a great trip is... if a guarantee of getting on every, or even many, headliner rides is your definition, it is hard to do that without paying for the additional add-ons.

For our group, we were happy to go with the flow, ride what worked for us, and wait where we wanted to. All was well. I sometimes wonder if that's because I started going to the parks with my parents ( in the late 80s/early 90s) as a kid and had plenty of experience waiting in some memorably long lines before the days of fastpass at all.