Disney band trip, told no Genie plus

[Sarah6342]

My daughter's high school band is heading to WDW next week. We were told this week that we cannot add Genie plus due to the type of ticket we will have.
Does anyone have any experience with band trips and if you truly cannot purchase Genie plus?

 

[NavyDad]

My daughter's high school band is heading to WDW next week. We were told this week that we cannot add Genie plus due to the type of ticket we will have.
Does anyone have any experience with band trips and if you truly cannot purchase Genie plus?

Yes - that info is correct. We did a band trip with our daughter last April and they could not add Genie Plus to the group tickets.

 

[holden]

That really stinks. If it was my DD, I'd tell her to go to a blue umbrella and see if they can do anything for her. They might say "no," but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Seems really unfair that someone can have a ticket and not access to LL.

 

[mom2rtk]

That really stinks. If it was my DD, I'd tell her to go to a blue umbrella and see if they can do anything for her. They might say "no," but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Seems really unfair that someone can have a ticket and not access to LL.

Won't help if others in her group don't have it as well.

 

[bluezy]

My daughter's high school band is heading to WDW next week. We were told this week that we cannot add Genie plus due to the type of ticket we will have.
Does anyone have any experience with band trips and if you truly cannot purchase Genie plus?

My daughter was there on a Music Department (band, choir, & orchestra) trip in early February. Band members were able to add Genie+ and the band director even sent out detailed instructions on how to do it and linked a few YouTube videos for students. Very few students added it, but my daughter and her little group of friends did and they got on so many more rides than the kids who didn't want to pay for it. I will mention that our groups didn't perform at Disney because Disney currently only allows one group per high school to perform (they used to allow 2 groups to perform so we'd have the marching band perform at MK and the Choir & Orchestra would perform together at EP). So they stayed at Universal and all 3 groups performed there. They just bussed over to Disney 2 days to go to MK & DHS. I'm guessing that meant they had different tickets than those groups who are performing at Disney (even though our kids had some kind of "tour group" tickets -- I just don't know the details) and that's the reason they could add Genie+.

That stinks that they're not allowed to add it. I'm not sure I understand the logic of that -- it's not like it's a free add-on. Disney is losing money on that.

 

[holden]

Won't help if others in her group don't have it as well.

I realize that. I assumed she'd go to the blue umbrella with a group of friends. If a CM can help, they'd help all of them.

 

[cgp33]

I’m very curious for more reports or direct experience with this. I’m chaperoning my daughter‘s middle school band/orchestra/choral group next week. I have all the tickets for my chaperone group of 3 kids plus me loaded into MDE and on the tip board it looks like I would have the option to purchase Genie+. I was certainly planning on doing so…hope that our tickets are eligible

 

[GoingSince1990]

That stinks that they're not allowed to add it. I'm not sure I understand the logic of that -- it's not like it's a free add-on. Disney is losing money on that.

I doubt that there is any business logic behind this; it's probably more a case of Disney's woeful IT not yet being set up properly so that Genie+ works with this kind of ticket. Definitely try going to an umbrella looking a bit baffled and saying that you seem to be having trouble buying Genie+.

 

[Narcoossee11]

I think it has less to do with the ticket than the headache with Genie and groups.
It is a added expense that school groups do not want to get involved with.
It may work with one group of students ( if the cost is not a issue) but other kids can't afford.

Easier just to have the kids go OLD SCHOOL. Just stand in a line like it has been like for 50 years.

 

[chicagodisfan]

My son’s band group just went a few weekends ago and the tour organizer sent out instructions and information about how to add Genie+ so I am sure it was an option for them. That said, we didn’t try to add it because he was going around the park with friends and some of them didn’t have MDE accounts let alone have their tickets linked. Our family was down there to watch them and we all have annual passes so on their Epcot day I coordinated with his chaperone (who I am friends with) and we were able to get his small group all Individual Lightning Lanes for Guardians. So I’m sure we could have gotten them regular Genie+ had we tried.

 

[g-dad66]

My grandson is on the bus right now returning from a band trip. He and 4 friends were able to purchase G+ every day, and they performed at Disney Springs on Monday.

All he had to do was enter the park tickets for all 5 into his MDE app. The charges all went to his parents' credit card, but his friends are paying him for their G+.

The only part that puzzles me is the park reservation aspect. He didn't have to make park reservations, because the app already knew which park they were doing which day (which is good since MK and HS were "booked up" on their days). I had assumed that the tickets were already in someone else's app for them to have made the park reservations previously, so I was pleasantly surprised that he was simply able to enter the ticket numbers into his app.

And I made some timely LL bookings for them when they were unable to do so (for example, they were in Flight of Passage when it was time to book their next LL).

 

[Boomatt]

If the ticket shows up in her MDE she will be able to add it. If it’s a physical media ticket only, she won’t, but I don’t know that they even do this anymore. This could be the group leader trying to keep things “fair” in case there are kids whose parents can’t afford or simply don’t want to pay for the extra expense. Can’t allow some kids to have more than others…

 

[Sarah6342]

From what I understand we are getting physical tickets once we arrive. Getting the app was never even brought up at the parent meeting, so all the 1st timers have no idea about the app or anything else.

I'm also going as a chaperone, we stop at Disney Springs first so I figured I'd see what guest services can do, of course I don't know if I'll even have my ticket when we are at DS.
After seeing the crazy wait times this week I really want to add Genie. Seems crazy that they wouldn't want my money!
The band is marching at MK next friday. We are also receiving meal vouchers so no mobile order either I have to keep reminding myself and my daughter that we will be back again other times, but it really sucks for the kids that this is their only chance to go.

 

[DCLCruiseFan09]

My daughter was there on a Music Department (band, choir, & orchestra) trip in early February. Band members were able to add Genie+ and the band director even sent out detailed instructions on how to do it and linked a few YouTube videos for students. Very few students added it, but my daughter and her little group of friends did and they got on so many more rides than the kids who didn't want to pay for it. I will mention that our groups didn't perform at Disney because Disney currently only allows one group per high school to perform (they used to allow 2 groups to perform so we'd have the marching band perform at MK and the Choir & Orchestra would perform together at EP). So they stayed at Universal and all 3 groups performed there. They just bussed over to Disney 2 days to go to MK & DHS. I'm guessing that meant they had different tickets than those groups who are performing at Disney (even though our kids had some kind of "tour group" tickets -- I just don't know the details) and that's the reason they could add Genie+.

That stinks that they're not allowed to add it. I'm not sure I understand the logic of that -- it's not like it's a free add-on. Disney is losing money on that.

Chances are that they are able to do it once they are in the park as the ticket is seen in the app same as any other ticket. Even with the old Cheerleading tickets they could link everything in once they got to the park and still make fastpass+ reservations.

Disney performing arts probably tells people they "can't" to avoid the nightmare of setting something like that up for a group. If you look at the system, its designed for a family/small group of people. If you were to have 50+ band kids trying to make reservations for the same ride at the same time it simply wouldn't work. What a nightmare that would be! People already have a hard enough with a family of 4, 5, 6 people using the system.

I can't imagine that they would take the time to build separate tickets without the ability to do Genie+, they just don't want to advertise it as it's opening up quite the can of worms. It's most likely just something they'll need to do day off.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

I chaperoned my kid's band trip last year. I was able to add Genie+ for the small sub-group that I was in charge of. But it was much more complicated than I had expected. Each kid was given a ticket number in advance, and I added my group to my MDE before the trip. But then, when we all arrived at Disney, the band director simply handed out physical media tickets (plastic cards) by walking around giving one to each kid, without any effort to match the card with the student to whom it was assigned. That caused a lot of problems that had to be dealt with at Guest Services. I ended up just biting the bullet and purchasing magic bands for my group, so that I didn't have to deal with the long line at Guest Services and the headache that some of the other chaperones were facing.

 

[bluezy]

My grandson is on the bus right now returning from a band trip. He and 4 friends were able to purchase G+ every day, and they performed at Disney Springs on Monday.

All he had to do was enter the park tickets for all 5 into his MDE app. The charges all went to his parents' credit card, but his friends are paying him for their G+.

The only part that puzzles me is the park reservation aspect. He didn't have to make park reservations, because the app already knew which park they were doing which day (which is good since MK and HS were "booked up" on their days). I had assumed that the tickets were already in someone else's app for them to have made the park reservations previously, so I was pleasantly surprised that he was simply able to enter the ticket numbers into his app.

And I made some timely LL bookings for them when they were unable to do so (for example, they were in Flight of Passage when it was time to book their next LL).

The park reservation thing was the same for my daughter. When the band director gave her her hard ticket and she entered it into her MDE account, it already had the parks assigned to the specific days. I assumed the tour company did that and it had to do with the way they purchase the ticket from Disney. Fortunately our band director is a Disney fan and goes to Disney World every year or two so she was familiar with MDE & G+. She encouraged the kids to set up an MDE account so they could load their tickets to their phone. Any kids who wanted to do that, got their tickets a week or so ahead of time -- but she made them load the ticket to their account in her presence. Once it was loaded, she took back the hard ticket and held on to it until they got to DW. My daughter was the guinea pig for trying to load her ticket to her account herself (the director knows we go to Disney a lot) and as luck would have it, it wouldn't load -- kept getting errors. The band director was so nice and she spent the time on the phone with the tour company and Disney trying to figure out the issue. Once they figured it out, everything loaded fine. A few other kids had the same issue but at least she knew what to do for them.

From what I understand we are getting physical tickets once we arrive. Getting the app was never even brought up at the parent meeting, so all the 1st timers have no idea about the app or anything else.

I'm also going as a chaperone, we stop at Disney Springs first so I figured I'd see what guest services can do, of course I don't know if I'll even have my ticket when we are at DS.
After seeing the crazy wait times this week I really want to add Genie. Seems crazy that they wouldn't want my money!
The band is marching at MK next friday. We are also receiving meal vouchers so no mobile order either I have to keep reminding myself and my daughter that we will be back again other times, but it really sucks for the kids that this is their only chance to go.

My daughter's group also got "meal vouchers" at Disney. That's how it was worded on everything from the tour company. But what they actually got was a $25 gift card. I can't remember if it had to be used specifically at food locations but I know she mobile ordered at DHS because she couldn't believe how quickly they got their food compared to when we mobile ordered in June.

I hear ya on how things will suck for kids who only get to go to Disney this one time and not being able to use all the the "extra" features of MDE. Our kids had a full day at DHS -- arrived at 8:30 and stayed until park closing. Their day at MK was supposed to be from 8:30 to 5:00 and they had to be at the airport by 6:30 for their 9:00 flight home. But then their flights got changed by the airline and their departing flight left at 6:00. So then they were going to have to leave MK by 2:00, but based on their experience at the airport on the flight to MCO, the leaders felt they needed to leave MK by 1:30. So they really only had about 4 hours in MK. My daughter and her friend had G+ and managed to get on 6 rides and have lunch that morning, but most of the other kids only got on 2 or 3 rides because they were clueless about what to do and where to go. You know those kids came home complaining about how they didn't get to do anything in MK.

 

[DCLCruiseFan09]

The park reservation thing was the same for my daughter. When the band director gave her her hard ticket and she entered it into her MDE account, it already had the parks assigned to the specific days. I assumed the tour company did that and it had to do with the way they purchase the ticket from Disney. Fortunately our band director is a Disney fan and goes to Disney World every year or two so she was familiar with MDE & G+. She encouraged the kids to set up an MDE account so they could load their tickets to their phone. Any kids who wanted to do that, got their tickets a week or so ahead of time -- but she made them load the ticket to their account in her presence. Once it was loaded, she took back the hard ticket and held on to it until they got to DW. My daughter was the guinea pig for trying to load her ticket to her account herself (the director knows we go to Disney a lot) and as luck would have it, it wouldn't load -- kept getting errors. The band director was so nice and she spent the time on the phone with the tour company and Disney trying to figure out the issue. Once they figured it out, everything loaded fine. A few other kids had the same issue but at least she knew what to do for them.



My daughter's group also got "meal vouchers" at Disney. That's how it was worded on everything from the tour company. But what they actually got was a $25 gift card. I can't remember if it had to be used specifically at food locations but I know she mobile ordered at DHS because she couldn't believe how quickly they got their food compared to when we mobile ordered in June.

I hear ya on how things will suck for kids who only get to go to Disney this one time and not being able to use all the the "extra" features of MDE. Our kids had a full day at DHS -- arrived at 8:30 and stayed until park closing. Their day at MK was supposed to be from 8:30 to 5:00 and they had to be at the airport by 6:30 for their 9:00 flight home. But then their flights got changed by the airline and their departing flight left at 6:00. So then they were going to have to leave MK by 2:00, but based on their experience at the airport on the flight to MCO, the leaders felt they needed to leave MK by 1:30. So they really only had about 4 hours in MK. My daughter and her friend had G+ and managed to get on 6 rides and have lunch that morning, but most of the other kids only got on 2 or 3 rides because they were clueless about what to do and where to go. You know those kids came home complaining about how they didn't get to do anything in MK.

If you had 4 hours at MK and didn't "get anything done" that's on the kids and not the fact that they didn't have G+

You can get SO much done in the morning 4 hours at MK, especially if you are there at opening.

 

[bluezy]

Chances are that they are able to do it once they are in the park as the ticket is seen in the app same as any other ticket. Even with the old Cheerleading tickets they could link everything in once they got to the park and still make fastpass+ reservations.

Disney performing arts probably tells people they "can't" to avoid the nightmare of setting something like that up for a group. If you look at the system, its designed for a family/small group of people. If you were to have 50+ band kids trying to make reservations for the same ride at the same time it simply wouldn't work. What a nightmare that would be! People already have a hard enough with a family of 4, 5, 6 people using the system.

I can't imagine that they would take the time to build separate tickets without the ability to do Genie+, they just don't want to advertise it as it's opening up quite the can of worms. It's most likely just something they'll need to do day off.

My daughter was able to buy Genie+ and make her first LL and ILL reservations for her group of 4 before they left the hotel at Universal each morning (they actually purchased Genie+ at midnight the first night just so they had plenty of time to fix things if something didn't work) because she already had her ticket loaded in MDE. I don't see why having 50 band kids being allowed to purchase Genie+ is going to be any harder on the system than having 50 other random guests using the system. I don't know how other groups do it, but our kids were basically "set free" in the park. They had to be with at least one other person (preferably groups of at least 4, but 2 was the minimum) and they had to do a "selfie" check-in with their chaperone every 4 hours. They weren't all walking around together as a group of 150 kids and chaperones all day so there was no 1 person trying to make LLs for a huge group. I think the key is that the kids need access to their tickets *before* they get there so they can load them in to MDE. If they're not planning to do G+, there is no need to get their tickets prior to arrival.

I chaperoned my kid's band trip last year. I was able to add Genie+ for the small sub-group that I was in charge of. But it was much more complicated than I had expected. Each kid was given a ticket number in advance, and I added my group to my MDE before the trip. But then, when we all arrived at Disney, the band director simply handed out physical media tickets (plastic cards) by walking around giving one to each kid, without any effort to match the card with the student to whom it was assigned. That caused a lot of problems that had to be dealt with at Guest Services. I ended up just biting the bullet and purchasing magic bands for my group, so that I didn't have to deal with the long line at Guest Services and the headache that some of the other chaperones were facing.

Yeah, our band director wrote each kids name on a specific ticket since some of the kids had already loaded their ticket into their MDE before leaving on the trip. She knew everyone needed to get the same hard ticket as what was loaded on their MDE account. She just handed them out on the bus on the way to the park.

My daughter used her magic band from a previous trip because she didn't want to be bothered with pulling out her hard ticket all the time. She actually had to do a chat with Disney before she left on the trip to have her magic band transferred to her MDE account since she was always under my account for our family trips (she never set up an MDE for herself until the band trip). I was pretty impressed with her taking the initiative to do that. I just kept telling her to use the card at the parks, but she wanted to use the magic band. It was a really simple process and took about 5 minutes and she was really glad she had the magic band to use. She also ended up buying the 1-day photopass at DHS so the magic band came in handy for that as well.

 

[DCLCruiseFan09]

My daughter was able to buy Genie+ and make her first LL and ILL reservations for her group of 4 before they left the hotel at Universal each morning (they actually purchased Genie+ at midnight the first night just so they had plenty of time to fix things if something didn't work) because she already had her ticket loaded in MDE. I don't see why having 50 band kids being allowed to purchase Genie+ is going to be any harder on the system than having 50 other random guests using the system. I don't know how other groups do it, but our kids were basically "set free" in the park. They had to be with at least one other person (preferably groups of at least 4, but 2 was the minimum) and they had to do a "selfie" check-in with their chaperone every 4 hours. They weren't all walking around together as a group of 150 kids and chaperones all day so there was no 1 person trying to make LLs for a huge group. I think the key is that the kids need access to their tickets *before* they get there so they can load them in to MDE. If they're not planning to do G+, there is no need to get their tickets prior to arrival.

I used to work in groups and conventions for WDW. There is no way to "get you your tickets in advance" unless they mail them to everyone individually. It's just not going to happen. Tickets get lost, its a mess. I would get screamed at by cheerleading moms time and time again on the phone because I "wouldn't give them their tickets so they could do FP". Its just not how things work unfortunately with these special tickets. They are provided when they arrive.

In your mind, you may be reading this as "50 band kids are bad, and should be allowed to use G+" which is not what I'm saying. The uplift of trying to get everyone to download and use the app isn't practical for these large groups so they wait till they are provided their individual tickets in order to add it manually for the ones that want to use the system while others don't. Again, 6 groups of 6 kids making LL is great! some rides don't have time allocations for larger groups that would just always turn out a "nothing available" if you were trying to make a reservation for 1 large group at a time.

The positive for these kids is that, unlike FP+ they do actually have opportunities to use the system to its fullest ability. Although I did like that FP+ was free, doing everything same day does make it a little less "plan in advance" heavy than it used to be. Also, it sounds like if they give them a multi day ticket, at least they can purchase it for other days at 7 am it sounds like which is good.

 

[Sarah6342]

Thank you everyone for your amazing suggestions and help. I will report back next week on what happens once I receive my tickets. And if anyone happens to be in MK next friday (3-24) the Vicksburg marching band puts on a good show!