Experience today, 12/14/21, at DHS. My sister and I are staying at AKL. I didn't note exact times, but here's the rundown:
7am: Made ILL$ for RotR for 11:15 am. I got this on my Android phone using WiFi. Sister, on her iPhone also on WiFi, didn't even have the ILL$ available yet by the time I'd purchased it.
7+am: Made G+ for MFSR at 3:40 pm--later than we wanted, but what the heck. We had an ADR at MM for 12:50.
7:30-ish: Left room and got Uber to DHS.
Arrived at DHS maybe 7:45? MBs scanned to make sure we were resort guests. Restroom break, then walked to MMRR.
Waited in line at MMRR and watched as the line got longer and longer, so our hopes of turning around and riding again were dashed. Held in line until official ETPE opening. Line kept moving after that.
It was fun to see the MMRR preshow, which we'd never seen. We were off MMRR at 8:58 am (that time I did note) and since it was too early to make another G+ we looked at the tip board. TSM was listed as 5 minutes, so we headed over there.
By the time we got to TSM the listed wait time was 35 minutes. Actual wait was 20 minutes.
We got off TSM and it was too early to make another G+ so we wandered back to SWGE, thinking we'd shop and check out MFSR, which at that point had a posted wait of 40 minutes. By the time we got there the wait was 85 minutes . . . and . . . RotR was down.
But it was too early for our ILL$ on RotR anyway.
We walked on to the Mickey and Minnie vacation movie, refreshed the heck out of our G+s. RotR was still down and TSM had no G+ available until early evening, too late for us.
12:50 ADR at MM. Restaurant was crowded and a lot of the staff was pretty new, including our server, who was extremely nice, so we cut her all the slack in the world.
While we were at lunch, RotR came back up, so we went right there after we were done eating. The LL looked long--not as long as the standby queue, which was epic--but it was only 15 minutes from the time we started standing in line until we were in the preshow. No spoilers here. Only one element of the attraction wasn't working properly, but most of it was great, and it's always a fun and amazing experience.
Afterward it was too early for our MFSR G+ so we did standby--posted 35 minute wait, actual was 60 minutes. We'd never done it before and won't be doing it again, but the inside portion of the queue itself is worth a look. For those of you who don't like motion simulators, you can skip this one.
At that point, probably around 4:45 there was a G+ for TSM at 5:15, which I grabbed, but by the time it was finalized, the G+ was for 6:55, not 5:15, so I canceled. We were whipped and ready to leave.
On my way out I stopped at a GET and talked with a great cast member. I really just wanted to relay how our day went--that we bought G+ and never used it for anything, that we spent a lot of time waiting for Rise despite having an ILL$, etc., and without my asking--and I wasn't expecting it at all--the CM gave us both a refund of our G+ and a free G+ rez for immediate use at TSM.
Alas, we were too tired to avail ourselves of this nice gift and retuned to AKL, from where I'm now typing out this not-detailed-enough info.
We have another 2 days reserved at DHS and other than definitely doing ILL$ again for Rise, I'm not sure what we'll do.
As an aside, my sister and I both adore MMRR and I utterly despised TGMR, so I love what they've done with the space.
There are a lot of people in the parks. By 5 pm or so there were no G+s available at any of the parks for any ride that didn't also have only a 5- or 10-minute wait. I know because I looked, thinking at one point that we'd hop, particularly to Epcot if we could've gotten ILL$ for Remy. I guess it was sold out. Likewise HM and NRJ were unavailable on G+--two rides I might've considered hopping for.
We were at DAK yesterday (12/13) and used ILL$ for FoP and G+ for NRJ and KS. Although we did only those three upcharged attractions, we felt the expense was worth it since at least we go to do 3 things we really wanted without having to wait in long lines and at times that fit well into our schedule.
But getting those attractions and times to line up is very hit-or-miss, which is one of the most frustrating and annoying aspects of G+ and ILL$.
Genie itself is useless, at least to someone who knows their way around the WDW parks. G+ is not always intuitive, although after some trial and error, one eventually figures things out--if they're working at any given moment, which they may not be.
Both mornings when I bought G+ I was asked to log back in to my account. I've never had the "we're sending you a code" experience. Yet. Who knows what's to come.
My takeaway so far is that if they'd just started charging for FP+ and kept the same FP+ system in place, I wouldn't've been happy about it, but I would've used it, assuming they didn't charge, say, $100/day for it. As it is, it's annoying to try to do these things at 7am and then if you want to RD, dash out to get to your park.
Some other posters really seem to like the new system. So far, I am not too amused by it.
TL;DR: ILL$ for FoP and RotR are worth it. G+ was useless today at DHS, at least for the attractions we wanted it for. G+ may be difficult or impossible to fit into your desired schedule and most-wanted attractions are sold out by late afternoon, if not earlier.
