Do you HAVE to buy Genie+ for your entire trip??

[boxer]

We have a long trip scheduled for Spring, and I assume Genie+ will be rolled-out by then. So my issue is can you buy this 'on the fly' per day--or will you have to commit to the entire trip beforehand?? My issue is I would like to use it for the first day--BUT if the available line times are scattered throughout the day, it won't be feasible for us. We are DVC--so we go a few hours in the morning--take a afternoon break--and then come back in the evenings. My fear is that Genie+ will spit out times scattered throughout the day--making in infeasible for us. Our typical plans with FP+ were to rope drop the morning and ride whatever we could--and then use FP+ for the evenings.

My basic understanding of Genie+ is that you buy it and book your park day in the morning--and it gives you the ride times. I don't mind trying this a day or two---but I hate to commit a full 10-day vacation until I see how it works.

 

[Disneylover99]

No. You don’t have to buy Genie for your entire trip.
If you add it on beforehand to a package, it’s for the length of your tickets.
Or you can add it on, on a day by day basis, starting at midnight each day of your trip.

 

[DL1WDW2]

Be your own Genie on my t-shirt

 

[MakiraMarlena]

If you book a room/tickets package there will be an option to add it to your package ahead of time, but only for the length of the tickets.

Otherwise you can pick which days you want it, and add it to your account on whichever day you want to use it.

Unfortunately currently no one knows how it's going to work in practice, so unless you are going the day it debuts, hang on to see reports from the field. But my understanding is it will show you the next available times for various attractions at the time you want to book an attraction. So using MK as a template, you book HM at 9, ride at 9 then book BTMRR at 11, ride at 11 then book Buzz Lightyear at noon, ride Buzz, take a 2 hour break at the resort. While you are at the resort you can check and see what is available when you are ready to return to the park, and choose Jungle Cruise at 3:30. and so on.

 

[DL1WDW2]

I was at the Riviera Resort yesterday and happened to log on to my MDE and Lightning Lane already knew where I was and told me to take a DVC tour so I suspect it is already monitoring .
On another board a post found it strange that Genie had already booked their Park Pass (entry)Reservations for December even tho They knew they hadn’t booked them yet. Is Genie just following your normal patterns from previous trips ? And testing our reponse?
They have to start collecting data if they want to declare it a success.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Genie isn't active yet (and if it is, it's a separate app right now) so I don't know what is booking park passes for people without their knowledge. I must say that I have multiple trips and MDE has never booked park reservations for me.

 

[erionm]

I was at the Riviera Resort yesterday and happened to log on to my MDE and Lightning Lane already knew where I was and told me to take a DVC tour so I suspect it is already monitoring .

You apparently have allowed MDE to know your location, so that's why you got that. It has nothing to due with Genie or Lightning Lane which are not even active yet.

On another board a post found it strange that Genie had already booked their Park Pass (entry)Reservations for December even tho They knew they hadn’t booked them yet. Is Genie just following your normal patterns from previous trips ? And testing our reponse?
They have to start collecting data if they want to declare it a success.

Not Genie, most likely a glitch.

 

[boxer]

And LL can be purchased SEPARATELY without Genie+ from what I'm understanding? So conceivably you could JUST book the couple of highline rides on LL--and standby the rest of the day--if I'm understanding correctly

 

[MakiraMarlena]

You don't even need to have Genie + to book LL. So yes, you could book up to two "E tickets" and standby everything else.

 

[PFopma]

No. You don’t have to buy Genie for your entire trip.
If you add it on beforehand to a package, it’s for the length of your tickets.
Or you can add it on, on a day by day basis, starting at midnight each day of your trip.

Can't wait to see all the crabby people walking around WDW who have to get up early every day to make their first selections.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

No, you don't have to buy it at midnight. That is just the earliest that you can buy it.

You could buy it at 6:58 if you want. I'd wait and see how easy it is to add it. Nor have they said if they will cap the number of Genie+ sold.

7 is only the first time you can go online and book your first attraction, you don't have to do it then. If you don't want to get up you can wait until you do. However at this time we don't know what the availability is going to be like past 7. probably slots for the more popular attractions will go first, so if you have something you really want to book you may have to jump on it. Maybe the more in your party, the sooner you have to get on it.

They can also make the first selection at 7 and go back to bed. Epcot doesn't even open until 10 or 11 these days

Not sure what the 7 is about, they could have just made it park opening.

 

[DaniellePoppins]

And LL can be purchased SEPARATELY without Genie+ from what I'm understanding? So conceivably you could JUST book the couple of highline rides on LL--and standby the rest of the day--if I'm understanding correctly

Obviously nothing is confirmed yet, but I heard a rumor from a couple of places that the for purchase LL rides are going to be limited to only 2 or so at each park (only two ride options, not just that your own limit will be 2 per day). If that's the case then I'd expect it to be the most popular/newest at those parks. The rest of the LL options would be only available to Genie+. So similar idea of the tiers for fast pass that were in place. Using HS as an example I'd guess RotR and MRR would be the ones you could purchase. Everything else would be standby only or standby with a Genie+ Lightening Lane option. But of course that's all rumors and speculation so we'll see what happens when its actually rolled out.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Disney has announced that you are limited to two LL purchases for "E tickets" per day, but they do not have to be in the same park, if you have PH you can pick one in HS and one in AK and then hop to AK. It was only hinted that there will be two attractions available for purchase in each park, but that does make sense.

Standby or Virtual Queue will still be available for the LL purchase attractions.

 

[Disneylover99]

Can't wait to see all the crabby people walking around WDW who have to get up early every day to make their first selections.

This will likely be everyone. lol. Even if you don't want to pay extra for anything, most will still get up early to try and join a virtual queue. And the reality is, if you're paying for Genie+ you'll most likely want to get to the parks early to get your moneys worth. If you're willing to do standby, you'll most likely want to get there early to get a jump on the rides before standby fills up.

This feels like a step in the wrong direction for Disney. FP+ levelled out the crowds throughout the day. Guests will now be driven back to rope drop. I hope they have adequate staff first thing to handle the inevitable crowds.