Disney Genie+ and ILL$ Details & FAQ - Launches 10/19 at WDW, Paid "FastPass" at WDW and Disneyland (date TBD)

[ChipnDale79]

The newer ones did - we hated the TSMM race at ropedrop and those FPs went like hot cakes. Same thing with FP+: the only way to get some FP+ (ie FOP) was to use the 60+10 advantage and we frequently could only get that FP+ at the tail end of the trip. I agree though: the bulk of the rides don’t have that issue.

Disney should have controlled the FP situation at TSMM a lot better than they did. It was a total cluster.

What they're doing now is what i wanted without the pay portion, it's a mix of old and new. I think the charging is total BS, but i'm ok with the 60 day window being gone.

The shorter park hours and the removal of magic hours make a big difference also. I miss those days of paper fast passes and really late nights in the parks. If you want that, now you gotta pony up the big bucks.

 

[shafke]

That I would tend to agree with, I would say 1 an hour would probably be possible

If you could get a return time for less than an hour after you book it, chances are the standby line would be less than an hour.
Also, the ride that has a return time that is less than an hour (especially later in the day) most likely a ride that never needed FP/LL to begin with.

LL sounds like it will work the same as the old paper FP system with one major plus/minus depending on how you look at it.
With paper FP, you needed to go to the attraction to get a FP (minus) but it would take longer for all FPs to be distributed for the day (plus)
With LL/G+ you will be able to select a time from anywhere in the park (plus) but this means that the return times will be distributed quicker (minus).

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

They are, in fact, making it appear G+ will have continuous attraction availability. However, the desirability of what is offered and when is subject to availability.

They didn't spend a decade working on it, they had an idea back in 2014 that they were thinking about in the finance department, nobody was writing any code for Genie or Genie+ back in 2014.

Disney Genie and Genie+ is something that probably started development somewhere in 2018 or 2019. The screenshots you saw in 2019 were just concept art to demonstrate how it would work.

It doesn't take 10 years to develop a new fastpass replacement or even a system which recommends rides. It probably would have launched in 2020 if it were not for the pandemic. I'm sure Disney didn't want to launch it right around when the 50th started, it would be better to launch it before that and allow the software to become stable and the customers to simmer down a bit.

They didn't implement it years ago - because like the thread said back in 2014, Disney felt they didn't have enough 5 star attractions to charge money for it .. and like that person said, they had to wait until Toy Story Land, Galaxy's Edge, etc were completed first.

If Disney IT's track record is anything to go by - they don't want to develop anything from the ground up either - they re-used what they already had that worked which would be the MaxPass system - they've already had enough issues trying to integrate it into My Disney Experience & the new Park Pass system.

I think the Disney marketing has you thinking this is some revolutionary new system that will use advanced Machine Learning to figure out what Lightning Lane passes to offer you.

We're all making assumptions here - but mine is that based on their past history it isn't something revolutionary or fancy - it is just going to be a simple system that now costs $15 to use. Even Disney Genie itself will probably utilize simple systems to look at park crowds and wait times to make recommendations - hopefully not to everyone and only a certain percentage of people.

We'll see soon just how advanced Genie is I guess.

i appreciate the points you made, i just respectfully disagree. there is no way that finance was the first to have this idea, it would have had to make it through many other departments prior to finance reviewing to see if it was a profitable venture for the company. They may have delayed it due to lack of 5 star rides, i'll give you that, but Disney has been tracking crowd patterns forever, why would they do that unless they planned on changing the game, and on that point, technology a decade ago is very different than it is today, which could have also delayed this from coming out. I would also agree that Disneys IT is subpar, just launching Genie may solve a lot of the issues they have/ they may not have fixed those issues knowing Genie was around the corner

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

If you could get a return time for less than an hour after you book it, chances are the standby line would be less than an hour.
Also, the ride that has a return time that is less than an hour (especially later in the day) most likely a ride that never needed FP/LL to begin with.

LL sounds like it will work the same as the old paper FP system with one major plus/minus depending on how you look at it.
With paper FP, you needed to go to the attraction to get a FP (minus) but it would take longer for all FPs to be distributed for the day (plus)
With LL/G+ you will be able to select a time from anywhere in the park (plus) but this means that the return times will be distributed quicker (minus).

fair point!

it may not be as quickly distributed as you think, you can only get 1 LL at a time

 

[Sandisw]

The newer ones did - we hated the TSMM race at ropedrop and those FPs went like hot cakes. Same thing with FP+: the only way to get some FP+ (ie FOP) was to use the 60+10 advantage and we frequently could only get that FP+ at the tail end of the trip. I agree though: the bulk of the rides don’t have that issue.

But they didn’t sell out in a few minutes. It usually took a few hours after opening for them to go when we visited every summer. We always got TSM with paper FPs because we went at opening. But, sometimes it was 3 hours or more as a return time because we couldn’t get them until after my 2 older kids did RNR and TT which we had to FP first thing.

Some Rides will sell out…but I think people will have a chance to get them during the morning hours.

 

[Moliphino]

I just keep hearing people saying/ hoping this will be just like Max pass, or FP+, and I just can’t imagine Disney spending just about a decade on a program that they are going to use as a mirror image to what they have, if that’s the case they could have, and should have implemented this years ago

They say in their own announcement that "This convenient option is the next evolution of the fan-favorite Disney MaxPass service from Disneyland Resort." So comparisons to MaxPass and old paper fastpasses seem apt.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

They say in their own announcement that "This convenient option is the next evolution of the fan-favorite Disney MaxPass service from Disneyland Resort." So comparisons to MaxPass and old paper fastpasses seem apt.

That's fair

 

[NuJoy]

()

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

Oh ok. So “while the FASTPASS, FastPass+ and Disney MaxPass services will be retired”, Genie services will evolve off of the MaxPass system specifically. I guess, then, MaxPass is the skeleton of the Genie system

There's definitely the potential there, but who knows what their definition of Evolution is, there is wiggle room there

 

[NuJoy]

()

 

[New Mouse]

There's definitely the potential there, but who knows what their definition of Evolution is, there is wiggle room there

It means we figured out how to add an upcharge option to an upcharge.

 

[Narcoossee11]

They didn't spend a decade working on it, they had an idea back in 2014 that they were thinking about in the finance department, nobody was writing any code for Genie or Genie+ back in 2014.

Disney Genie and Genie+ is something that probably started development somewhere in 2018 or 2019. The screenshots you saw in 2019 were just concept art to demonstrate how it would work.

It doesn't take 10 years to develop a new fastpass replacement or even a system which recommends rides. It probably would have launched in 2020 if it were not for the pandemic. I'm sure Disney didn't want to launch it right around when the 50th started, it would be better to launch it before that and allow the software to become stable and the customers to simmer down a bit.

They didn't implement it years ago - because like the thread said back in 2014, Disney felt they didn't have enough 5 star attractions to charge money for it .. and like that person said, they had to wait until Toy Story Land, Galaxy's Edge, etc were completed first.

If Disney IT's track record is anything to go by - they don't want to develop anything from the ground up either - they re-used what they already had that worked which would be the MaxPass system - they've already had enough issues trying to integrate it into My Disney Experience & the new Park Pass system.

I think the Disney marketing has you thinking this is some revolutionary new system that will use advanced Machine Learning to figure out what Lightning Lane passes to offer you.

We're all making assumptions here - but mine is that based on their past history it isn't something revolutionary or fancy - it is just going to be a simple system that now costs $15 to use. Even Disney Genie itself will probably utilize simple systems to look at park crowds and wait times to make recommendations - hopefully not to everyone and only a certain percentage of people.

We'll see soon just how advanced Genie is I guess.

Sorry,
Went to meeting in 2013 talking about the vision of the future of Disney . started with MDE ,going into GENIE( not that name ).
A third and fourth phase to come.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

Sorry,
Went to meeting in 2013 talking about the vision of the future of Disney . started with MDE ,going into GENIE( not that name ).
A third and fourth phase to come.

Can you divulge what they happened to say the vision was when it comes to Genie?

 

[Liquidice]

Sorry,
Went to meeting in 2013 talking about the vision of the future of Disney . started with MDE ,going into GENIE( not that name ).
A third and fourth phase to come.

So you're saying Genie and Genie+ have been in development since 2013, and they wrote the software from the ground up - or that in 2013 someone had the idea of MDE and future planning phases written down on paper?

I may not have explained myself well enough earlier - I'm not saying they weren't throwing around ideas a decade ago - I'm just saying the software platform that Genie+ is based on is MaxPass and they didn't reinvent the wheel here, they re-used software code that they already had and they already knew worked. I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet the Genie+ system will work very similarly to MaxPass but without the free paper Fastpasses and without Tier 1 attractions included (the evolution of the MaxPass software is that they added the ability to charge for individual rides and probably allow for a paper fastpass style distribution the way MaxPass worked before and a select your time style selection the way FP+ worked and which will now be used for Individual Attraction passes).

 

[bakerworld]

IMO, we go every year 2 or 3 times so if we don't get on a ride we'll always be back to try again = no need to pay. But we're only a 2 hour plan ride away.

 

[DL1WDW2]

Does anybody really know what the average hourly WDW vacation price tag would be without the Genie?
I admit I have been frazzled and then took a quick visit to POP and SkyLiner to Epcot for evening and next day SkyLiner to Riviera and it was so perfect and relaxing… Gave me a whole new perspective of experiencing the Disney we still want to love with all our heart.
Disney still gives their guests a lot that is unique and can not be bought anywhere else for any price tag.

 

[DougEMG]

While we're all just speculating, I can't imagine they'd pull a stunt like only making some rides available to some guests or holding back on the more popular rides in the morning. If we want to talk about making people furious, let's advertise you can start booking 41 attractions starting at 7am, but then only let people have secondary choices. I give this no chance of happening.

Everyone knows that the later you arrive at a park, the fewer choices you're going to have. It was that way with FP and FP+ and it's that way with how long you have to stand in line. The only difference was with FP+, some guests had a huge advantage over others for their first 3 choices of the day. There's no reason it won't be that way now.

I think the hand wringing about rides being sold out within hours of opening are overblown. Time will tell, but they never sold out that fast with paper FP and genie+ works much the same way.

To maximize the number of people buying Genie+, they will want to make sure that there are decent passes available for people arriving in the afternoon so that they buy Genie+. The easiest way to do this is by releasing the passes in waves through out the day. So I do not believe that they will make them available first thing in the morning.

 

[New Mouse]

To maximize the number of people buying Genie+, they will want to make sure that there are decent passes available for people arriving in the afternoon so that they buy Genie+. The easiest way to do this is by releasing the passes in waves through out the day. So I do not believe that they will make them available first thing in the morning.

So.then the people througout the day will be stuck with a philharmagic fastpass. If they demand for this is high, the system doesnt work.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

So.then the people througout the day will be stuck with a philharmagic fastpass. If they demand for this is high, the system doesnt work.

I would guess that the demand for fast pass would have been even higher considering it was free,(included in the price of admission) and that system worked, flawed, but still functional

 

[Brocktoon]

So.then the people througout the day will be stuck with a philharmagic fastpass. If they demand for this is high, the system doesnt work.

If demand is high to the point that G+ LL passes are filling up too fast, I think Disney may then use variable pricing to control the demand. They'll watch the initial rollout and adjust the G+ price accordingly