Disney Genie Is Now Live Post Your Hints and Tips

[Zerzura]

Thank you for the audio tales tip. I love stuff like this and this would tip my purchase for day of Genie+.

 

[bcassidy]

-There’s a somewhat hidden feature called Audio Tales that are short audio clips that tell behind the scenes info about different areas all over the park. I listened to a few and they were pretty interesting. You could make a decent couple hours strolling around the park listening to them all. Kind of like your own private DL history tour.

I saw that once while playing around in the app, but don’t remember where. Can you point me in the right direction?

 

[dieumeye]

I saw that once while playing around in the app, but don’t remember where. Can you point me in the right direction?

Looking at the app now at home I cannot find any way to access it. Maybe you need to purchase Genie+ to get access?

When I was in the park yesterday and had purchased Genie+, there was a banner in the My Day section that had a link to Audio Tales.

 

[JC1984]

Looking at the app now at home I cannot find any way to access it. Maybe you need to purchase Genie+ to get access?

When I was in the park yesterday and had purchased Genie+, there was a banner in the My Day section that had a link to Audio Tales.

Correct it is a G+ perk

 

[disneyseniors]

It sounds like Genie+ works pretty well for the DL setting. That's not what I am reading at WDW. This encourages me as we will probably be visiting DL this Spring. I've never been there and was really looking forward to it, then Genie descended on us all and I got nervous. I hope all the bugs are fixed by next Spring.

 

[thenicefamily]

I wish that worked for me. I did steps 1 & 2, but when I try to use the free Genie service, I get, "Not Quite Ready to Craft Your Day" and Disney tech support had me try a few things, but still no joy. My genie is stuck in the bottle.

Are you in the US? I've found my digital and direct-contact (i.e. no toll-free number for Canadians) mileage varies widely from most posters here because I'm in Canada.

I've also found the workaround in many cases (dining/spa) is to sign-in and change my location to US. When links to the newly opened Tenaya Spa weren't leading anywhere I came on these boards and someone suggested that change location option and, it worked! On my laptop.

Sadly, in the case of Genie+, it has to be done on mobile and as far as I can see there's no way for me to change my location on that so, I'm in the same boat as you.

 

[Briarrose1306]

I am disappointed that Genie+ only allows one use per attraction on the list.
Especially since some of the rides on the list are not one I generally ride.
I use to us MaxPass to ride certain ride multiple times.
In my opinion, Genie+ is too expensive for what you get.

Starting to have the same opinion. We'll be in the parks Monday through Wednesday and I was considering getting it but with the fact that I do single rider for most things, I'll only be able to use it once per attraction, and we're expecting rain, it just seems way too overpriced for what it is. TBH I'm not sure if I would've bought MaxPass on the daily but I paid $75 at time of purchase to just have it on my pass so it never seemed like an issue. As a Northern California local I feel like I would have to be much more planned than I usually am for it to be of any value.

 

[Jaina]

Starting to have the same opinion. We'll be in the parks Monday through Wednesday and I was considering getting it but with the fact that I do single rider for most things, I'll only be able to use it once per attraction, and we're expecting rain, it just seems way too overpriced for what it is. TBH I'm not sure if I would've bought MaxPass on the daily but I paid $75 at time of purchase to just have it on my pass so it never seemed like an issue. As a Northern California local I feel like I would have to be much more planned than I usually am for it to be of any value.

I had it on my pass before Covid too, and it was so nice! I agree that if you're only doing it for a partial day or even for one park it might not be worth it. For just 2-3 people I think it would be worth it much of the time, but it's going to be hard if I choose to buy it for 7 people a day. But still cheaper than doing 3 days vs 2. And we will probably just budget it in to get the most out of an already expensive trip. But we'll see how it's going if we take a whole family trip like that any time soon! I used it by myself yesterday and it was nice to have, but by no means necessary, even though the parks were busy. The return times were usually immediate on most rides. It will be interesting to see how it evolves as more people become aware of it and start using it.

 

[katyringo]

It sounds like Genie+ works pretty well for the DL setting. That's not what I am reading at WDW. This encourages me as we will probably be visiting DL this Spring. I've never been there and was really looking forward to it, then Genie descended on us all and I got nervous. I hope all the bugs are fixed by next Spring.

I used the system for 5 days and in all the parks at WDW. I did my due research and learned how to maximize it but I gotta say that 7am booking window there really kills the Vibe. I DO like how at WDW I could pick my times for the upgraded extra paid rides. This system is rebranded maxpass with a couple tweaks and we loved maxpass.

 

[V & S]

Like before you entered the park?

Yes, could buy before we entered the park, but that was the first day of Genie, so not sure it's still working that way!

 

[V & S]

Home, now. Thoughts: we didn't think Genie+ was worth it, because we were there long enough to be able to ride whatever we wanted to by by lightning lane for ROTR and arriving at 9am in the mornings and doing rides before 10 or 10:30, and then going back and staying after the fireworks. No problem.

 

[laugard]

Was in the park approximately 9 to 4:30 so decided to try Genie+ and found it completely worth it...at least for today. We used it for eight rides, four in DL and four in DCA, though could've done more if we'd wanted. We walked on nearly all the rides and the longest we waited was Indy, which was walk-on to the inside portion of the line and then 12 min to the car. This is one of the few where because of where it merges, it can still take a little time once inside if it's busy. (Stand-by time was 50 min and based on experience with the line, I don't think that was inflated. If anything, many times looked underestimated.) But we skipped the entire long, outdoor line. The others were either walk-on or 2 to 5 min wait, max.

Over 7.5 hours, we sat four times to eat something, picked up the gingerbread men we'd mobile ordered, and rode 16 rides, including IASW, Indy, Haunted Mansion, Monsters, Soarin', Toy Story Midway Mania, Incredicoaster and Radiator Springs Racers (single rider). Plus several dark rides including Peter Pan and Snow White. We skipped Guardians and a few others as we've ridden them a lot recently. And that was with us not rushing at all. We also never crossed back to DL after hopping to DCA (normally we do.)

For our needs (Magic Key holders, but ones who live 40-ish min away so don't do drop-in or weekday visits), Genie+ was a success today. We got to ride a few we'd skipped the last few visits due to the lines, which was exactly what we wanted.

Do I wish we still had free Maxpass? Yes. Would I add Genie+ if I were visiting all the time? No, likely not as it would add up. But as key holders who probably will go less than once a month once the holidays have passed (we were on pace for 6x for the year with our Flex), I can definitely see Genie+ making sense occasionally. While we were fine skipping certain rides during these last few busy months—knowing we could ride another time—it was was really great not having to do that today, and avoiding long lines in general (especially for Haunted Mansion and IASW, given the holiday-specific overlays.)

I'll add that we could've ridden Indy and HM early without Genie+ while lines were still relatively short. But we didn't want to try and cram as much as we could in before 10 today. And weren't in the mood for either attraction yet either. So we concentrated on Fantasyland and breakfast that first hour instead. (Peter Pan was the longest line we waited in all day at 25.) We also didn't leave time for the parade as we'd already seen it.

 

[ironband74]

Watching how the weekend shaped up via the app, and curious to continue monitoring as the holiday rush intensifies, I've been having thoughts as a chronic min/maxer.

Seems like many attractions, at least for the moment, are not "selling out" by evening. I suspect that this is because most people who get Genie+ use it as quickly as possible and with the one ride per attraction limitation in play, by evening many folks have already used their rides. Many of the lightning lanes seem to have almost immediate LL return times in the evening. Of course some have very short stand-by waits which would make Genie + superfluous, but some are 30-45 minutes or more at certain times with a nearly immediate return time for Genie+

It seems like none of the DL attractions on Genie+ are selling out. Guardians seems to be the main one that runs out over at DCA, though to be fair I didn't monitor DCA quite like I did DL.

This present an interesting puzzle for the min/maxer - Instead of steadily booking G+LL, it may behoove us to hold off on certain attractions which are likely to have a substantial wait in the evening, but a near immediate return time via LL. Using time during the day to do other stuff and/or judiciously ride stand-by and saving G+LL rides for the evening may prove to be an efficient use of time.

Under Maxpass, without any restriction of how many times one could book for a certain attraction, we didn't really try to optimize. We wanted to 1. Get them before they were gone and 2. Get them as soon as possible because the sooner we got one the sooner we could book another. This often meant that we'd happily book a pass to skip a 20 minute line, because once we scanned in we could book another one, so nothing was really lost, even if we only saved 10 minutes total by doing so. Now, booking early has a cost. I could now wait in that 20 minute line stand by, and book that ride later on when it would save more time, whereas if I booked the time now, later on when the wait was longer I would have to ride stand-by if I wanted to go a second time. I suspect that I will start plotting the delta t between stand by and return time (minus some differential wait between LLQ and SBQ) to figure out the most efficient use of lightning lanes.

Anyway, half baked ideas and not fully formed strategies and limited data with less than a week of G+, but if the trends continue I could see some interesting touring strategies emerging where high demand (Guardians, Indy?) LLs get booked early in the day to avoid getting skunked, shorter stand-by lines are enjoyed throughout the morning, Food, shows, and rest are enjoyed in the busiest hours of late morning/early afternoon, and then attacking attractions in the evening with Genie+.

 

[disneylover102]

Anyone know what happens if an individual LL breaks down during your window? Can you use it on any LL ride? I think I remember all ears saying that at WDW you could book a 3rd one if that happens? I’m wondering if for example I see that RSR is broken down and I book a LL for it and it’s still broken down when the time comes, maybe I can use it later on RSR, WS, or ROTR but then also book a LL separately for WS and ROTR. Lol does that make sense?

Also what exactly has been happening for normal genie+ rides when a ride goes down? I’m thinking it might be possible to take advantage of breakdowns for the smaller rides to re-ride the bigger rides. For example at this time of year Grizzly River Run is very, very slow. Say for example I see that it’s down and book G+ for it and then that converts to a pass I can use on other G+ rides instead such as Guardians.

Lol I’m kinda bitter that Genie+ only lets you on each ride once per day and I’m just trying to find workarounds I guess

 

[disneyseniors]

Was in the park approximately 9 to 4:30 so decided to try Genie+ and found it completely worth it...at least for today. We used it for eight rides, four in DL and four in DCA, though could've done more if we'd wanted. We walked on nearly all the rides and the longest we waited was Indy, which was walk-on to the inside portion of the line and then 12 min to the car. This is one of the few where because of where it merges, it can still take a little time once inside if it's busy. (Stand-by time was 50 min and based on experience with the line, I don't think that was inflated. If anything, many times looked underestimated.) But we skipped the entire long, outdoor line. The others were either walk-on or 2 to 5 min wait, max.

Over 7.5 hours, we sat four times to eat something, picked up the gingerbread men we'd mobile ordered, and rode 16 rides, including IASW, Indy, Haunted Mansion, Monsters, Soarin', Toy Story Midway Mania, Incredicoaster and Radiator Springs Racers (single rider). Plus several dark rides including Peter Pan and Snow White. We skipped Guardians and a few others as we've ridden them a lot recently. And that was with us not rushing at all. We also never crossed back to DL after hopping to DCA (normally we do.)

For our needs (Magic Key holders, but ones who live 40-ish min away so don't do drop-in or weekday visits), Genie+ was a success today. We got to ride a few we'd skipped the last few visits due to the lines, which was exactly what we wanted.

Do I wish we still had free Maxpass? Yes. Would I add Genie+ if I were visiting all the time? No, likely not as it would add up. But as key holders who probably will go less than once a month once the holidays have passed (we were on pace for 6x for the year with our Flex), I can definitely see Genie+ making sense occasionally. While we were fine skipping certain rides during these last few busy months—knowing we could ride another time—it was was really great not having to do that today, and avoiding long lines in general (especially for Haunted Mansion and IASW, given the holiday-specific overlays.)

I'll add that we could've ridden Indy and HM early without Genie+ while lines were still relatively short. But we didn't want to try and cram as much as we could in before 10 today. And weren't in the mood for either attraction yet either. So we concentrated on Fantasyland and breakfast that first hour instead. (Peter Pan was the longest line we waited in all day at 25.) We also didn't leave time for the parade as we'd already seen it.

Wow, it sounds like genie + really works for DL. You seem to have gotten alot done in a day!
I think that WDW and DL are two different animals because it definitely is not liked much at WDW. The reviews have been horrible for genie+ at WDW.
I wonder what the big difference is between them? I know the size of the parks is different, but Why does it work for most of DL guests? Just wondering?

 

[starlite_]

Wow, it sounds like genie + really works for DL. You seem to have gotten alot done in a day!
I think that WDW and DL are two different animals because it definitely is not liked much at WDW. The reviews have been horrible for genie+ at WDW.
I wonder what the big difference is between them? I know the size of the parks is different, but Why does it work for most of DL guests? Just wondering?

DL guests are used to maxpass and genie+ is almost that with more restrictions. So it's easier for ppl to adapt.

 

[disneyseniors]

DL guests are used to maxpass and genie+ is almost that with more restrictions. So it's easier for ppl to adapt.

I think you are right about Maxpass. I only heard positive things about it when reading these sites. It must have been a great way to do it.
I wonder why WDW didn't try a version of maxpass instead of genie?
It's just so crazy that it's hated by so many at WDW and liked by most in DL?
Oh well, I guess we will find out for ourselves this Spring. thanks for answering.

 

[GBRforWDW]

It's just so crazy that it's hated by so many at WDW and liked by most in DL?

Another part is that in most of the parks at WDW, they have every ride and show included, but few of the rides/shows actually need it - meaning it's quantity instead of quality, while many of the Genie+ passes available in DL/DCA are actually worthwhile. Quality over quantity.



Parks are also open longer. 10-12 hour days at WDW vs 14-16 hour days at DL allowing passes to last longer.

DL also sees a bigger local crowds who are less likely to spend the upcharge amount or come later in the day, so more availability throughout the day for those that did purchase.

 

[mommabo]

Watching how the weekend shaped up via the app, and curious to continue monitoring as the holiday rush intensifies, I've been having thoughts as a chronic min/maxer.

Seems like many attractions, at least for the moment, are not "selling out" by evening. I suspect that this is because most people who get Genie+ use it as quickly as possible and with the one ride per attraction limitation in play, by evening many folks have already used their rides. Many of the lightning lanes seem to have almost immediate LL return times in the evening. Of course some have very short stand-by waits which would make Genie + superfluous, but some are 30-45 minutes or more at certain times with a nearly immediate return time for Genie+

It seems like none of the DL attractions on Genie+ are selling out. Guardians seems to be the main one that runs out over at DCA, though to be fair I didn't monitor DCA quite like I did DL.

This present an interesting puzzle for the min/maxer - Instead of steadily booking G+LL, it may behoove us to hold off on certain attractions which are likely to have a substantial wait in the evening, but a near immediate return time via LL. Using time during the day to do other stuff and/or judiciously ride stand-by and saving G+LL rides for the evening may prove to be an efficient use of time.

Under Maxpass, without any restriction of how many times one could book for a certain attraction, we didn't really try to optimize. We wanted to 1. Get them before they were gone and 2. Get them as soon as possible because the sooner we got one the sooner we could book another. This often meant that we'd happily book a pass to skip a 20 minute line, because once we scanned in we could book another one, so nothing was really lost, even if we only saved 10 minutes total by doing so. Now, booking early has a cost. I could now wait in that 20 minute line stand by, and book that ride later on when it would save more time, whereas if I booked the time now, later on when the wait was longer I would have to ride stand-by if I wanted to go a second time. I suspect that I will start plotting the delta t between stand by and return time (minus some differential wait between LLQ and SBQ) to figure out the most efficient use of lightning lanes.

Anyway, half baked ideas and not fully formed strategies and limited data with less than a week of G+, but if the trends continue I could see some interesting touring strategies emerging where high demand (Guardians, Indy?) LLs get booked early in the day to avoid getting skunked, shorter stand-by lines are enjoyed throughout the morning, Food, shows, and rest are enjoyed in the busiest hours of late morning/early afternoon, and then attacking attractions in the evening with Genie+.

I agree with your analysis so far. On the 9th, day 1 of Genie+ actually working as it should, we were faced with choices you mentioned, do we grab now or wait, but possibly get skunked? Plus, I was initially caught off guard with the immediate return times since even MaxPass had us wait a bit. We went with maximizing rides and minimizing walking. For us this worked best because we didn’t plan to arrive until 1pm and as the day wore on the 30k steps we took on the 8th we’re catching up.

My children are adults now, but still enjoy the occasional Disney visit even after nearly 20 years of Disney finding its way into our vacation plans via either the parks or cruises. They are well versed in rope drop/nap/back for the evening armed with collected FP strategies, they still talk about mom’s commando trip to WDW in 2007 with the Christmas crowds and never more than a 15 minute wait for anything. Back then FP were free and return times treated more like suggestions, we followed the sage advice of Tour Guide Mike (anyone remember him?) and my kids not only never doubted the plan, they learned to make their own. We’ve adjusted to the various incarnations of FP both at WDW & DL, and by far the favorite was MaxPass.

Genie+ is not MaxPass, but given the crowds Disney is now facing, I think it’s a reasonable compromise (at DL, WDW is another beast). I found I miss the ability to ride an attraction more than once, but I can see where it might help ensure more availability to more people. As for our touring style with Genie+ in place, I can definitely see some options emerging. With just myself and husband or just one of the kids, we might be more aggressive in the morning and then strategize for LL evening returns, a version of the commando style of years past though slightly slower as we have become slightly slower in our age. But with our whole family and their significant others who most definitely are not accustomed to hitting Disney hard and want a more relaxed vacation, I really think this is where Genie+ might shine for us. Mid morning arrival, see what Genie+ rides are available, go with the flow, grab lunch or dinner at off peak hours, park hop (or not) depending on what Genie+ is serving up and how we feel. And for the ILL like ROTR, we will likely pay for it once so the whole group can have that shared experience, possibly RSR for an evening ride only, and probably only doing Web-slingers via standby for those who are interested.

Will both Genie+ and ILL get pricey? For our group of 8, you betcha!! Will we do it frequently? Not a chance, each visit will be evaluated on case by case basis. Its not lost on me that we are in a place of our lives where we can consider these options, so it’s not something everyone can do, but we’ve been in the pinching pennies to make this happen as well. Despite our 20 year relationship with Disney it has not always been consistent. Most visits were conceived when I noticed special pricing or taking advantage of off site hotels or packing our own food to be eaten/prepared at hotel with kitchen, etc. While I’d love the convenience of staying at GC, we will continue stay across the street on Harbor and use the money we save to cover our Genie+ purchases. It’s a choice that works for us.

 

[JC1984]

I found I miss the ability to ride an attraction more than once, but I can see where it might help ensure more availability to more people.

I kind of like this. It will force me to enjoy things maybe I haven’t enjoyed in years because I have so focused on the best attractions. And you could always go standby on the LL attractions if your willing to wait standby. There are so many cool hidden gems at DL wether it be attractions we haven’t ridden in years or an area of the park we have failed to stop and notice the beauty in.