Enthusiastic about Genie+ touring

[cgattis]

So everyone else gets to concoct doom-and-gloom sky-is-falling scenarios – with no proof – about a system that hasn’t yet rolled out but not the OP with the opposite? Why is everyone here just predestined to assume the worst?

Everyone is free to concoct whatever they wish. I just think this particular poster chooses to brand his as fact versus speculation more than others.

 

[shawthorne44]

Agreed - if this is an "everyone" perk, it really diminishes the value of the on-site hotel purchase. Disney already has about 30k hotel rooms on-site, so the number of resort guests who can log on at 7am and make their first LL reservation is going to be sizeable. If you toss in all of the offsite guests as well, it'll really skew the opening LL distribution. On the other hand, Disney wants people to buy Genie+, so you'll probably get a few more offsite guests to buy it if everyone gets to use it at 7am. I guess it's a question of how Disney wants to incentivize its resort guests. The extra evening hours are only for the deluxe guests (less than a third of all on-site rooms), but the moderate and value guests don't have as many perks.

I am so on the fence about on-site vs. off-site that I am keeping two reservations until the last minute. If we do on-site, it will be value (camping), so no evening hours for us. I call the Disney leader Cheap-ek, so I'm not a fan. But, I like the morning time being all parks since it won't lead to one extra crowded park. I'd been hoping for a MaxPass thing at DW, and that is what I'm pinning my hopes on.

For me, I think that it HAS to be better than FP+, since there will be people that won't buy it. So, by definition, less people will be vying for the FP line (or whatever it is called). I also think the time investment required if the time is a long way off will discourage some people for the more popular rides. For us, since we want to do everything, so we'll be content to meander the AK trails or a walk-on show while we wait.

I am completely uninterested in pay-per-ride. But, hopefully, with early entry over a long trip we can knock those out first even if we have to wait in line a bit. If there was a pay-per-ride that didn't have free option, then I'd be annoyed.

 

[havoc315]

Hello all, been following the thread since the beginning and there are valid points on both sides. Ultimately, I don't see this really benefitting anyone but Disney starting out. It may level out later on with fewer people coming to the parks (especially if they had a huge blowout trip for the 50th) but here's the thing I'm struggling with in regards to those who say there will be passes available for anything at any time... the fast pass allotment hasn't changed, has it? Like, there's still going to have to be the same number of fast passes/LL passes given out as there were before to accommodate both Genie+ purchasers and standby guests, right? So what if at 7 am, the passes for BTMR completely sell out for the day? Alternatively, what if every hour, on the hour, the passes for BTMR sell out for the following hour? What happens then? You can't really complain because there are LL passes available for Pooh/Speedway/Barnstormer, so technically, Disney is delivering, just not what you want.

Your scenario of BTMRR selling out for the day at 7am is a mathematically impossibility.

Referring to the part of your post I bolded:

FP+ -- On an average day, about 57,000 people visit the Magic Kingdom.
Booking 3 free fastpasses in advance, that's 171,000 fastpasses booked before Magic Kingdom even opens on an average day. Could even be higher, with some people booking them but then not showing up for that day.

With G+, you are limited to only 1 pass at a time. So at most, only talking about 57,000 passes being sold that morning, if every single Magic Kingdom guests wakes up before 7am, and every single guest purchases G+.
In reality, we don't know the adoption rate of G+ but it will be under 100%. If I were to guess, it may be as low as 35% or as high as 75%. So that's between 20,000 and 42,000.

So yes, the pre-open FP allotment has changed massively -- Instead of 171,000+ pre-open passes, it's only 20,000-42,000.

Magic Kingdom will have about 17 G+ attractions. Some will be more popular than others, some have higher capacity than others. BUt in a 12 hour day, they can each, on average, spit out about 1200-1500 LL opportunities per hour -- that's between 244,000 to 306,000 passes per day.
So 244,000-306,000 passes per day -- And only 20,000-42,000 are booked before the park opens. (And it means guests who purchase G+ will be able to average between 6 and 10 G+ passes per day at MK, as opposed to about 4-5 under FP+).

Now, getting specifically to BTMRR -- If every single person chose BTMRR as their pre-park G+, then it could book up for the day. But do you really think 100% of guests are going to pick BTMRR? Aren't some people going to pick Splash? Or Peter Pan? Or Haunted Mansion? Or Pirates?
Let's say that G+ guests split their pre-entry bookings between 5 rides about evenly, with 0 picking the other 12 rides. Even under this extreme scenario:
BTMMR -- 4,000 - 8,000
Splash - 4,000-8,000
POTC - 4,000-8,000
Haunted Mansion: 4,000-8,000
Peter Pan: 4,000-8,000

Even under this extreme situation, it means the other 12 rides would have walik-on G+ passes all morning. And it means that there would be availability for those 5 rides by afternoon.
Of course, it's more likely that the G+ booking will be even more spread out. There will at least be a few hundred people who select Dumbo, Jungle Cruise, etc. So it won't be 4,000-8,000 for BTMRR... it will be more like 2,000-4,000: Meaning, at 7am, the first 1-2 hours may book up. With availability opening up again, 1-2 hours after park open.

 

[FutureMrs.Incredible]

We are still allowed to have different opinions..right? I for one will not let a small thing like Genie+ bother me one bit.. How much overpriced adult beverages do you all purchase, Or anything else. The fact is you do you and let those that like the idea of Genie+ have their opinion.

Thank you! We choose to go to Disney, which has always been very expensive. We are not going to Branson or a cheap hotel at a Florida beach.

 

[gharter]

Why is everyone here just predestined to assume the worst?

Sadly, because Genie+ is very tech heavy and we've seen how Disney has handled MDE, mobile ordering, their website and wifi in the parks.
Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
Today, the website frequently gives the this page is unavailable.
Now add that traffic, 2 Virtual queues, LL and paid LL for those who will pay for a popular ride.

 

[cw1380]

Your scenario of BTMRR selling out for the day at 7am is a mathematically impossibility.

Referring to the part of your post I bolded:

FP+ -- On an average day, about 57,000 people visit the Magic Kingdom.
Booking 3 free fastpasses in advance, that's 171,000 fastpasses booked before Magic Kingdom even opens on an average day. Could even be higher, with some people booking them but then not showing up for that day.

With G+, you are limited to only 1 pass at a time. So at most, only talking about 57,000 passes being sold that morning, if every single Magic Kingdom guests wakes up before 7am, and every single guest purchases G+.
In reality, we don't know the adoption rate of G+ but it will be under 100%. If I were to guess, it may be as low as 35% or as high as 75%. So that's between 20,000 and 42,000.

1)So yes, the pre-open FP allotment has changed massively -- Instead of 171,000+ pre-open passes, it's only 20,000-42,000.

2)Magic Kingdom will have about 17 G+ attractions. Some will be more popular than others, some have higher capacity than others. BUt in a 12 hour day, they can each, on average, spit out about 1200-1500 LL opportunities per hour -- that's between 244,000 to 306,000 passes per day.
So 244,000-306,000 passes per day -- And only 20,000-42,000 are booked before the park opens. (And it means guests who purchase G+ will be able to average between 6 and 10 G+ passes per day at MK, as opposed to about 4-5 under FP+).

3)Now, getting specifically to BTMRR -- If every single person chose BTMRR as their pre-park G+, then it could book up for the day. But do you really think 100% of guests are going to pick BTMRR? Aren't some people going to pick Splash? Or Peter Pan? Or Haunted Mansion? Or Pirates?
4)Let's say that G+ guests split their pre-entry bookings between 5 rides about evenly, with 0 picking the other 12 rides. Even under this extreme scenario:
BTMMR -- 4,000 - 8,000
Splash - 4,000-8,000
POTC - 4,000-8,000
Haunted Mansion: 4,000-8,000
Peter Pan: 4,000-8,000

Even under this extreme situation, it means the other 12 rides would have walik-on G+ passes all morning. And it means that there would be availability for those 5 rides by afternoon.
Of course, it's more likely that the G+ booking will be even more spread out. There will at least be a few hundred people who select Dumbo, Jungle Cruise, etc. So it won't be 4,000-8,000 for BTMRR... it will be more like 2,000-4,000: Meaning, at 7am, the first 1-2 hours may book up. With availability opening up again, 1-2 hours after park open.

So, there's a lot of numbers there and I'm trying to keep track, but there's some significant flaws in your assumption.

1. There's nothing saying that all 57,000 people were even able to book fast passes. As you've said before, many had difficulty acquiring fast passes at the 60/30/day of mark. So that number is arbitrary and not likely to represent a real scenario. Also you're lumping in every single ride into the 171,000 fast passes which we know isn't correct because each ride has a different hourly capacity. So you're going to likely have more FP+ for PotC than you will Space Mountain.

2. Again, your numbers seem off. Assuming that each ride has a capacity of 1200-1500 riders per hr, then you'd realistically be looking at 750 LL/FP opportunities per hr (assuming 50% G+ adoption and 1500/hr capacity) that puts your numbers at about 153k LL opportunities for all rides in a 12 hr day (again that's flawed because of the assumption that all rides have similar capacity).

3. Do I think every guest will book BTMRR at the beginning of the day? Depends on if that's the main attraction for G+ users. If it is, then more than likely it will. Same for why there's thousands of people trying to get a boarding group for RotR at park open at HS. There will always be a "must have" attraction that takes up all the FP/LL at the beginning of the day/hr. That's just how it works. That's human nature. If something is difficult to obtain, it must be good, if it is good, it must be obtained, which then makes it hard to obtain because of scarcity of resources.

4. Moving forward with the pre-opening booking math, assuming 750 LL/FP per hr (50% adoption, 1500/hr ride capacity, 12 hr day) you're looking at around 9000 LL for BTMRR for the entirety of the day. Assuming 57,000 people are in attendance and let's say conservatively, 30% of those people purchased G+ for the day, that means 17,000 people will be wanting LL passes that day. Let's say even more conservatively, half of those people will be using G+ at 7 AM or park opening, that's 7,000 people getting LL at the beginning of the day. Under that wild assumption, after 7:15, you'd be lucky to get a LL/FP for any ride in the first 4 hrs of park opening. Let alone the possibility that BTMRR sells out in the first 2 hrs. If it doesn't, then that means you're hitting your phone every hr on the hr looking for that LL.

Maybe I misunderstood the math, but I feel like your estimation of available fast passes at the onset is likely exaggerated. I also think there was likely some strategic throttling of specific fast passes to either slow down users at big attractions, or eat up crowds at smaller, less used attractions. At any rate, who knows? These are all assumptions and we won't know until it drops.

 

[havoc315]

So, there's a lot of numbers there and I'm trying to keep track, but there's some significant flaws in your assumption.

1. There's nothing saying that all 57,000 people were even able to book fast passes. As you've said before, many had difficulty acquiring fast passes at the 60/30/day of mark. So that number is arbitrary and not likely to represent a real scenario. Also you're lumping in every single ride into the 171,000 fast passes which we know isn't correct because each ride has a different hourly capacity. So you're going to likely have more FP+ for PotC than you will Space Mountain.

The 171,000 has nothing to do with hourly capacity. It has to do with number of guests. We know that Magic Kingdom was able to accommodate 3 FPs per day for Magic Kingdom guests -- which is why they never had to implement a tier system at Magic Kingdom.
Average number of guests at Magic Kingdom = 57,000 X 3 = 171,000 FPs distributed on a given day. The actual number was much higher when you add in 4th and 5th FPs, but that was the number that might be pre-booked prior to park open, on an average day.

2. Again, your numbers seem off. Assuming that each ride has a capacity of 1200-1500 riders per hr, then you'd realistically be looking at 750 LL/FP opportunities per hr (assuming 50% G+ adoption and 1500/hr capacity) that puts your numbers at about 153k LL opportunities for all rides in a 12 hr day (again that's flawed because of the assumption that all rides have similar capacity).

No, the 1200-1500 is the number of "FP" riders per hour by my estimate, representing about 70% of total capacity, as was allocated under FP+. Many rides at Magic Kingdom have a full capacity of well over 2,000 per hour. For example, Pirates, Haunted Mansion and Small World all can handle over 2500 per hour. My estimates may be off slightly, but not by much. Some rides like Barnstormer, with low capacity, may only be able to distribute 500 FPs per hour, but something like Haunted Mansion can likely distribute over 2000 FPs per hour. So 1200-1500 is a fair estimate on average.
You can see an analysis here:

https://crooksinwdw.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/theoreticaloperational-hourly-ride-capacity-at-wdw/

3. Do I think every guest will book BTMRR at the beginning of the day? Depends on if that's the main attraction for G+ users. If it is, then more than likely it will. Same for why there's thousands of people trying to get a boarding group for RotR at park open at HS. There will always be a "must have" attraction that takes up all the FP/LL at the beginning of the day/hr. That's just how it works. That's human nature. If something is difficult to obtain, it must be good, if it is good, it must be obtained, which then makes it hard to obtain because of scarcity of resources.

So you're saying that Big Thunder Mountain is the most popular attraction by orders of magnitude over everything else? We know that's simply not true.

The "must have" attractions are being designated as paid-LL. That's likely designed to avoid the scenario you're proposing. Disney knows the demand for their attractions. They can insure that there is balance, by designate the "ultra high demand" attractions as paid LL attractions.

4. Moving forward with the pre-opening booking math, assuming 750 LL/FP per hr (50% adoption, 1500/hr ride capacity, 12 hr day) you're looking at around 9000 LL for BTMRR for the entirety of the day. Assuming 57,000 people are in attendance and let's say conservatively, 30% of those people purchased G+ for the day, that means 17,000 people will be wanting LL passes that day. Let's say even more conservatively, half of those people will be using G+ at 7 AM or park opening, that's 7,000 people getting LL at the beginning of the day. Under that wild assumption, after 7:15, you'd be lucky to get a LL/FP for any ride in the first 4 hrs of park opening. Let alone the possibility that BTMRR sells out in the first 2 hrs. If it doesn't, then that means you're hitting your phone every hr on the hr looking for that LL.

You're 750 G+/hour capacity is low. At a minimum, they will distribute 900-1,000 G+ per day. For a daily G+ capacity of approximately 11,000 to 12,000 per day. (BTMRR capacity is a bit lower than many other rides at MK, at about 1400-1500 per hour, but FP+ distributed 70% to FP, not 50%)

Now, let's go with your other assumptions: You assumed 17,000 people purchased G+. Ok. And ok, half of them use G+ pre-park open. That's 8,500 (not sure how you got 7,000 as half of 17,000).
Now, there are 17 G+ rides at Magic Kingdom. You really think BTMRR blows past every other ride in demand? 100% of people would choose BTMRR over the other 16 rides at MK?

Ok, let's assume BTMRR is by far, the most popular attraction at Magic Kingdom. Let's assume that nothing else is even close. In fact, for every 1 rider who wants to ride Splash Mountain, there are 5 riders for BTMRR! For every 1 Peter Pan fan, there are 10 BTMRR fans. Even under the most extreme scenario you can imagine, no more than 50% would book BTMRR as their first choice. (A good portion of guests don't even meet the minimum height requirement!)
So you have 8,500 people pre-booking in your math. Maybe 4,250 book BTMRR.

Which means... BTMRR would be booked up for 4 hours, before the park opens.
Now, under FP+, if you weren't lucky enough to pre-book, you would be stuck hitting re-fresh on your app, like you suggest.
But under G+.. there is no hitting refresh on the hour, as you suggest.
Even if BTMRR blows past every other attraction in demand, it means that at 9:01, you would open the app, and could book a 1:00pm return time for BTMRR.

Of course, under this worst case scenario, where half the guests are booking BTMRR, it means all the other rides would be wide open. So it means that at 9:01, the return times would look like this:
Big Thunder Mountain: 1:00 pm
Splash Mountain: 9:30 am
Peter Pan: 9:30 am
Haunted Mansion: 9:15 am
Pirates of the Caribbean: 9:15 a.m.

Under your nightmare scenario where everyone stampedes to BTMRR, there is still BTMRR afternoon availability, and you can get an instant G+ pass to every other popular attraction, since everyone in your scenario loves BTMRR so much.

In reality, it will be much more balanced. Maybe the more popular attractions at BTMRR see the 9:01am return time pushed to 11:00am, while a ride like Haunted Mansion sees a 10:00am return time.

In the end, it will work out to an average of 6-10 passes per G+ purchasing guest at Magic Kingdom over a course of touring for the day.

 

[btuftee]

But the thing is, we have a pretty good idea of how Genie+/LL will work, because it's basically the old (pre-2013) FP system. Setting aside the IA$ purchases for the moment, I can say confidently with the exception of TSMM (before the third track), the main attractions in each park would have FP availability until early afternoon, or at least until late morning. Yes, on NYE or July 4th, all of the FP for Space Mountain would probably be gone within 90 minutes, but those days were the rare exception.

I wonder how much of the concern over how Genie+/LL will work is coming from people who didn't use FP much in the old days? To be sure, there would be days when you might only grab one or two FP, and you might wonder if that was worth $15/day. I can agree that with it becoming a paid service, people will be more likely to utilize LL if they bought it. I still think the biggest variable in how this will affect touring the parks will depend on who is allowed to start making 7am reservations (i.e. just on-site guests or everyone?). But even with that uncertainty, it's not going to be like the past situation with FP+, where all of the FP+ for FOP or Slinky Dog would disappear at 60-59 days out. Those LL slots aren't all going to disappear at 7am - but they might be gone by mid-morning.

 

[dez1978]

Everything I've said it based on the information Disney shared. So I will adapt, "under the assumption that Disney isn't lying.."

That assumes every LL attraction is $25, which they aren't all that high

I seemed to have missed the part where Disney has said how much LL will be per ride. You seem to be sure the prices "won't all be $25" and I'm just wondering where Disney said that. Well, I'm sure this is partly true. The rides that aren't really worth spending extra on to begin with won't be, like Dumbo. But I'd be willing to bet there are lots of days where all the headliners reach $25 for LL.

 

[havoc315]

But the thing is, we have a pretty good idea of how Genie+/LL will work, because it's basically the old (pre-2013) FP system. Setting aside the IA$ purchases for the moment, I can say confidently with the exception of TSMM (before the third track), the main attractions in each park would have FP availability until early afternoon, or at least until late morning. Yes, on NYE or July 4th, all of the FP for Space Mountain would probably be gone within 90 minutes, but those days were the rare exception.

I wonder how much of the concern over how Genie+/LL will work is coming from people who didn't use FP much in the old days? To be sure, there would be days when you might only grab one or two FP, and you might wonder if that was worth $15/day. I can agree that with it becoming a paid service, people will be more likely to utilize LL if they bought it. I still think the biggest variable in how this will affect touring the parks will depend on who is allowed to start making 7am reservations (i.e. just on-site guests or everyone?). But even with that uncertainty, it's not going to be like the past situation with FP+, where all of the FP+ for FOP or Slinky Dog would disappear at 60-59 days out. Those LL slots aren't all going to disappear at 7am - but they might be gone by mid-morning.

Bingo. This whole "nobody knows" is pretty misleading. We might not know with certainty. But just like I can fairly conclude it's probably not going to snow in Orlando in July, we have experience on which we can make fair conclusions about G+, based on paper FP and based on DL MaxPass.

 

[havoc315]

I seemed to have missed the part where Disney has said how much LL will be per ride. You seem to be sure the prices "won't all be $25" and I'm just wondering where Disney said that. Well, I'm sure this is partly true. The rides that aren't really worth spending extra on to begin with won't be, like Dumbo. But I'd be willing to bet there are lots of days where all the headliners reach $25 for LL.

We will see. Personally, IMO, the higher the price the better. As the higher the price, the more it will be "ride upon demand" for those willing to pay the price. As in Universal's Express Pass which goes as high as $300 per person during peak periods.

We do know how Disney has priced ala carte rides at other parks, where they use such systems.

 

[mom2rtk]

We will see. Personally, IMO, the higher the price the better. As the higher the price, the more it will be "ride upon demand" for those willing to pay the price. As in Universal's Express Pass which goes as high as $300 per person during peak periods.

We do know how Disney has priced ala carte rides at other parks, where they use such systems.

Why not just go for the private tour? It has the high price tag you seek with the accompanying benefits.

 

[katyringo]

As a frequent solo traveler, the Everest single rider line was often faster than the FP line. I'm hoping the lightning lane stuff doesn't affect SR lines.

Good tip! I’ve been meaning to look at what rides offer single rider as I’ve never used single rider befor.

 

[havoc315]

Why not just go for the private tour? It has the high price tag you seek with the accompanying benefits.

We all have a budget. I don't begrudge people who spend $4,000-$7,000 for a 1 day tour. They can afford it and/or they think it's worth it, it's not for me. I'm not going to get all mad at Disney for pricing me out of VIP tours, for daring to limit my experience based on my budget.
Instead, I'll simply be happy that there are vacation enhancements that are within my budget.
If they raised the price of G+ to $1.000 per person per day, I'd shrug my shoulders, and I'd simply skip it. If they offered VIP tours for $200 per day, I'd get on the phone to book it.

 

[cw1380]

The 171,000 has nothing to do with hourly capacity. It has to do with number of guests. We know that Magic Kingdom was able to accommodate 3 FPs per day for Magic Kingdom guests -- which is why they never had to implement a tier system at Magic Kingdom.
Average number of guests at Magic Kingdom = 57,000 X 3 = 171,000 FPs distributed on a given day. The actual number was much higher when you add in 4th and 5th FPs, but that was the number that might be pre-booked prior to park open, on an average day.

Fair enough, I was still thinking like the HS system of tiered passes, so this checks out in a way. I still think where it gets muddled is the number of FP+ available per ride. So the 171k distributed/day makes sense, but that's also operating under the assumption that Disney actually provided enough FP for everyone who would be attending. It's entirely possible that Disney only provided enough for 3 FP for onsite guests, then offered a fraction for AP/Day guests.

No, the 1200-1500 is the number of "FP" riders per hour by my estimate, representing about 70% of total capacity, as was allocated under FP+. Many rides at Magic Kingdom have a full capacity of well over 2,000 per hour. For example, Pirates, Haunted Mansion and Small World all can handle over 2500 per hour. My estimates may be off slightly, but not by much. Some rides like Barnstormer, with low capacity, may only be able to distribute 500 FPs per hour, but something like Haunted Mansion can likely distribute over 2000 FPs per hour. So 1200-1500 is a fair estimate on average.
You can see an analysis here:

https://crooksinwdw.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/theoreticaloperational-hourly-ride-capacity-at-wdw/

That seems high. I would say the 1200-1500 is the number of total riders per hr, not just FP riders. That site was also based heavily on observations as opposed to direct data (which no one will get) and even the comments were saying his numbers seemed high and that PotC reaching 2600/hr was a really good hour. So I would lower those expectations especially given how rides go down, people get sick, and some carts take extra time to load. I would use that site's numbers as ideal situation numbers.

So you're saying that Big Thunder Mountain is the most popular attraction by orders of magnitude over everything else? We know that's simply not true.

The "must have" attractions are being designated as paid-LL. That's likely designed to avoid the scenario you're proposing. Disney knows the demand for their attractions. They can insure that there is balance, by designate the "ultra high demand" attractions as paid LL attractions.

Right, but if the majority of guests don't want to fork over $15-25 per person to ride the Super-E Ticket rides, then there is going to be a new, tier 2 must ride. Out of the ones left available, Splash and BTMRR have the broadest appeal as mild but wild rides that offer something for everyone in large demographic brackets. Sure, the littles can't ride it, but their parents, older siblings, uncles/aunts and grandparents sure can. Same can be said about other rides, sure, but they don't offer the same thrills. But that's neither here nor there.

You're 750 G+/hour capacity is low. At a minimum, they will distribute 900-1,000 G+ per day. For a daily G+ capacity of approximately 11,000 to 12,000 per day. (BTMRR capacity is a bit lower than many other rides at MK, at about 1400-1500 per hour, but FP+ distributed 70% to FP, not 50%)

I don't feel like this is correct because if that were the case, there would be little standby line and all FP+ line. On an hourly basis, I'd say 50% is pretty good. But this is all assumption and neither of us know for sure, so it's arbitrary.

Now, let's go with your other assumptions: You assumed 17,000 people purchased G+. Ok. And ok, half of them use G+ pre-park open. That's 8,500 (not sure how you got 7,000 as half of 17,000).
Now, there are 17 G+ rides at Magic Kingdom. You really think BTMRR blows past every other ride in demand? 100% of people would choose BTMRR over the other 16 rides at MK?

Because I have a Liberal Arts degree and I'm bad at math. If all but 2 thrill rides are paid LL then yes, there is a good chance BTMRR and Splash will be the main attractions. There's not much else to pull in the adventurous, thrill-seeking types. I love Disney, but there's only so many times I can tolerate It's a Small World. BTMRR, I could ride a couple of times a trip, easy.

Ok, let's assume BTMRR is by far, the most popular attraction at Magic Kingdom. Let's assume that nothing else is even close. In fact, for every 1 rider who wants to ride Splash Mountain, there are 5 riders for BTMRR! For every 1 Peter Pan fan, there are 10 BTMRR fans. Even under the most extreme scenario you can imagine, no more than 50% would book BTMRR as their first choice. (A good portion of guests don't even meet the minimum height requirement!)
So you have 8,500 people pre-booking in your math. Maybe 4,250 book BTMRR.

This is all presumptive based on whether or not people will feel the need to use their first G+ booking on a thrill ride, or something they can likely walk on later in the day. Me, personally, if I want to make sure I get to ride something, I'm gonna grab the ones that are hard to get first, like BTMRR or Splash because I don't want to wait in a long line or miss getting it later. Knock it out early, then when people are standing in line for it later, I can walk on the others with little wait. But, that might not be how G+ operates at all, we will have to see.

Which means... BTMRR would be booked up for 4 hours, before the park opens.
Now, under FP+, if you weren't lucky enough to pre-book, you would be stuck hitting re-fresh on your app, like you suggest.
But under G+.. there is no hitting refresh on the hour, as you suggest.
Even if BTMRR blows past every other attraction in demand, it means that at 9:01, you would open the app, and could book a 1:00pm return time for BTMRR.

How do you know this? How do you know it will be available later? What if Disney dumps them all at once and when they're gone, they're gone? Or how do you know they will release them at 9:01? What if they don't do it until 9:18 but you missed it so now you have to wait until 10:43? Then you miss that, etc. You legitimately can't tell me or anyone with certainty that you can do this. Just the same as I can't tell you with certainty that Disney will severely limit the number of LL passes so you have to buy multiple days in order to ride your ride. We just don't know.

Of course, under this worst case scenario, where half the guests are booking BTMRR, it means all the other rides would be wide open. So it means that at 9:01, the return times would look like this:
Big Thunder Mountain: 1:00 pm
Splash Mountain: 9:30 am
Peter Pan: 9:30 am
Haunted Mansion: 9:15 am
Pirates of the Caribbean: 9:15 a.m.

Under your nightmare scenario where everyone stampedes to BTMRR, there is still BTMRR afternoon availability, and you can get an instant G+ pass to every other popular attraction, since everyone in your scenario loves BTMRR so much.

Actually my nightmare scenario is that I spend $15/person/day ($135/day for my group of 9) only for Disney to artificially throttle the number of LL passes available so that I have to keep spending money to ride the "good" rides. Which is entirely possible because let's face it, you don't know how this is going to drop, you don't know what rides you can ride in advanced or what will be available when.

In reality, it will be much more balanced. Maybe the more popular attractions at BTMRR see the 9:01am return time pushed to 11:00am, while a ride like Haunted Mansion sees a 10:00am return time.

Unless you were on the engineering team that built this program, I really don't see how you can say that. But I didn't work on it either, so I can't say. But I won't go around telling everyone this is exactly what it's going to be like when I don't know. I will throw out possibilities with a disclaimer, but never say for certain.

In the end, it will work out to an average of 6-10 passes per G+ purchasing guest at Magic Kingdom over a course of touring for the day.

No, In the end it will work out to an average of 3-4 passes per G+ purchasing guest at Magic Kingdom over a course of touring for the day.

 

[havoc315]

Fair enough, I was still thinking like the HS system of tiered passes, so this checks out in a way. I still think where it gets muddled is the number of FP+ available per ride. So the 171k distributed/day makes sense, but that's also operating under the assumption that Disney actually provided enough FP for everyone who would be attending. It's entirely possible that Disney only provided enough for 3 FP for onsite guests, then offered a fraction for AP/Day guests.



That seems high. I would say the 1200-1500 is the number of total riders per hr, not just FP riders. That site was also based heavily on observations as opposed to direct data (which no one will get) and even the comments were saying his numbers seemed high and that PotC reaching 2600/hr was a really good hour. So I would lower those expectations especially given how rides go down, people get sick, and some carts take extra time to load. I would use that site's numbers as ideal situation numbers.



Right, but if the majority of guests don't want to fork over $15-25 per person to ride the Super-E Ticket rides, then there is going to be a new, tier 2 must ride. Out of the ones left available, Splash and BTMRR have the broadest appeal as mild but wild rides that offer something for everyone in large demographic brackets. Sure, the littles can't ride it, but their parents, older siblings, uncles/aunts and grandparents sure can. Same can be said about other rides, sure, but they don't offer the same thrills. But that's neither here nor there.



I don't feel like this is correct because if that were the case, there would be little standby line and all FP+ line. On an hourly basis, I'd say 50% is pretty good. But this is all assumption and neither of us know for sure, so it's arbitrary.



Because I have a Liberal Arts degree and I'm bad at math. If all but 2 thrill rides are paid LL then yes, there is a good chance BTMRR and Splash will be the main attractions. There's not much else to pull in the adventurous, thrill-seeking types. I love Disney, but there's only so many times I can tolerate It's a Small World. BTMRR, I could ride a couple of times a trip, easy.



This is all presumptive based on whether or not people will feel the need to use their first G+ booking on a thrill ride, or something they can likely walk on later in the day. Me, personally, if I want to make sure I get to ride something, I'm gonna grab the ones that are hard to get first, like BTMRR or Splash because I don't want to wait in a long line or miss getting it later. Knock it out early, then when people are standing in line for it later, I can walk on the others with little wait. But, that might not be how G+ operates at all, we will have to see.



How do you know this? How do you know it will be available later? What if Disney dumps them all at once and when they're gone, they're gone? Or how do you know they will release them at 9:01?

You’re misunderstanding how it works. There is no 9:01 am release. There is only a 7am release.
You can then book your second G+ after you redeem your first. So if rope drop is 9:00am, then that’s the earliest anyone can book a second G+.

And as we worked out in the math, even if BTMRR’s popularity was 10x every other ride, we know there would still be afternoon availability for BTMRR G+ for a second G+ selection.

As you seem to have conceded.. Splash Mountain May be as popular as BTMRR. And a good number of families are too young for any of the thrill rides.
So if 1/3rd of G+ guests book BTMRR and 1/3rd book Splash and 1/3rd book other attractions, that is even better than my previous projections. It would suggest that at 9:00:01, the earliest anyone can book a second G+, there would still be 11am-ish availability.

(by the way, the 70% allocation to FP is essentially a poorly kept secret. You’ll find over the last few years, significant published confirmation of that 70% number including detailed analysis over at touringplans).

Unless you were on the engineering team that built this program, I really don't see how you can say that.
But I didn't work on it either, so I can't say. But I won't go around telling everyone this is exactly what it's going to be like when I don't know. I will throw out possibilities with a disclaimer, but never say for certain.

No, In the end it will work out to an average of 3-4 passes per G+ purchasing guest at Magic Kingdom over a course of touring for the day.

Or if I’ve used the program before. And anyone who has used paper FP or MaxPass has indeed used the program before.

And for Magic Kingdom, there will certainly be more than 3-4 G+ passes per day. It was higher than that under FP+.

 

[wisblue]

I'm going to have to see how this works in practice before I decide if I like it or not.

For one, I want to see how this works in conjunction with the new 30 minute "early entry" for resort guests. Will this be a real 30 minutes, or will the de facto opening be a little earlier than that? And, what attractions will be open during this time? If it will be possible to get a couple of top tier rides in before the crowds build up and LL holders start to slow down the standby lines, that would be a good start. It will also be interesting to see how quickly standby lines build up and how quickly LL passes disappear for the most popular attractions.

On the surface, the Genie+ LL system looks like the old paper FP system but without the need to actually go to the attraction to pull the tickets. The elimination of advance FP+ should be seen as a positive for people who hated FP+ and liked the "clean slate" that paper FPs offered. The words "next available time" suggest that, like paper FP, you won't be able to choose a time, something that I liked about FP+. I hope there is an ability to pick another LL pass after a certain amount of time has passed, and not just when the first one is used. Without that it might be hard to get another pass if you pick one for a popular attraction with a return time a few hours away.

We also have to see what attractions are in the Genie+ program, which are in the separate "pay to play" category, and how much the cost for that will be. I am willing to pay something if it means I can avoid the crush and mad dash to a popular attraction first thing in the morning, but I'm not sure how much. $10 might be OK once in a while, but $50 would be too much. I suspect that the actual price will be somewhere in between.

Our next trip is scheduled for mid November, before Thanksgiving week. I am preparing for that to be kind of a test of the new system. I sympathize with people who aren't regular WDW visitors trying to sift through all of this for their once in a lifetime trip.

 

[KaystotheKingdom]

I was okay with genie +, and actually optimistic with the positive feedback I’ve heard about max pass at DL.

They completely lost me at the pay per attraction and it’s made me distrust the other suite of touring options as a result.

 

[ThistleMae]

Would the pay for LL be available for the 1/2 emh?

 

[mom2rtk]

I'm going to have to see how this works in practice before I decide if I like it or not.

For one, I want to see how this works in conjunction with the new 30 minute "early entry" for resort guests. Will this be a real 30 minutes, or will the de facto opening be a little earlier than that? And, what attractions will be open during this time? If it will be possible to get a couple of top tier rides in before the crowds build up and LL holders start to slow down the standby lines, that would be a good start. It will also be interesting to see how quickly standby lines build up and how quickly LL passes disappear for the most popular attractions.

On the surface, the Genie+ LL system looks like the old paper FP system but without the need to actually go to the attraction to pull the tickets. The elimination of advance FP+ should be seen as a positive for people who hated FP+ and liked the "clean slate" that paper FPs offered. The words "next available time" suggest that, like paper FP, you won't be able to choose a time, something that I liked about FP+. I hope there is an ability to pick another LL pass after a certain amount of time has passed, and not just when the first one is used. Without that it might be hard to get another pass if you pick one for a popular attraction with a return time a few hours away.

We also have to see what attractions are in the Genie+ program, which are in the separate "pay to play" category, and how much the cost for that will be. I am willing to pay something if it means I can avoid the crush and mad dash to a popular attraction first thing in the morning, but I'm not sure how much. $10 might be OK once in a while, but $50 would be too much. I suspect that the actual price will be somewhere in between.

Our next trip is scheduled for mid November, before Thanksgiving week. I am preparing for that to be kind of a test of the new system. I sympathize with people who aren't regular WDW visitors trying to sift through all of this for their once in a lifetime trip.

If the system was free (like legacy FP) and didn't exclude top tier attractions, I'd love it. Unfortunately, those are some major sticking points.