Everything Genie, Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane - Please Read Posts 1-7

[redboat45]

We are a party of 10(two families) traveling to WDW in a couple months. All 10 of our tickets are linked and I am able to make see everyone's passes in my app and make dining reservations for everyone. This morning I was watching the ILL rides in the app and clicked on one to get an idea of the next screen. I obviously wouldn't be able to move any farther as I don't have a reservation for today, but I noticed that only the 6 people in my family were listed? I want to get this figured out so I can book ILL's for our entire party when we go. Thank you for any advice!

I have this same question. I believe that the day off you'll be able to select everyone but I have not had this confirmed.

 

[Figment of Speech]

How do I move my preferences to the top of the tip board? I have tix linked to my account that are for may - is there a way for me to practice with the tip board without messing with my tix? I’m not sure I’m understanding how to look at a park I want to hop to on my tip board. Any links or help would be greatly appreciated!!!

I'm not sure how it interacts with parkhopping because I didn't parkhop when I was there, but to move your preferences to the top of the tip board:

1. Start in "My Day," and launch Genie (the free one) as if you were going to use it. If you are more of a visual learner, here is an example of Molly from AllEars doing this at Animal Kingdom. Notice she chooses exactly four things: Expedition Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Celebration of the Festival of the Lion King, and KiteTails:

2. Then switch over to the Tip Board and ignore Freenie's recommendations because they're not usually very useful. Your preferences should be there. Here is Molly's app a while later. Notice that the four items she selected are at the top as "Your Top Picks," followed by "Other Experiences to Consider" (it looks like the same link, but I attempted to timestamp both of these; if it didn't work, the first one was at 0:47, and the second one was at 5:31):

That'll work for the park you have reservations at. Maybe someone else can build on that to explain how to add parks you're hopping to.

 

[Miffy]

Just be aware that now your My Day board will be populated with a ton of Genie suggestions--and many of them will be ABOVE the attractions you have ILL$/G+ for. You can try removing them, but new ones will pop up. It's extremely annoying. This wouldn't be so bad if the Tip Board showed your actual reservations, but instead it intimates that you might have a reservation for X, Y, or Z, but it may just be a member of your group, and the time it shows is the next available time and not your reserved time. For that, you need to look at My Day.

It's as though they launched this system without testing it out first.

 

[Figment of Speech]

Just be aware that now your My Day board will be populated with a ton of Genie suggestions--and many of them will be ABOVE the attractions you have ILL$/G+ for. You can try removing them, but new ones will pop up. It's extremely annoying. This wouldn't be so bad if the Tip Board showed your actual reservations, but instead it intimates that you might have a reservation for X, Y, or Z, but it may just be a member of your group, and the time it shows is the next available time and not your reserved time. For that, you need to look at My Day.

It's as though they launched this system without testing it out first.

Thanks for that additional note. We used the My Day board very little after using it to pin attractions in the Tip Board, except to remind us when our bookings were, and there were only two of us in our party, so we weren't shown other people's reservations.

That seems like the kind of thing it really should be able to parse better. I'm the naively optimistic sort, so I hope that eventually they'll update the software to iron these problems out. But I also have enough experience with software developers to know that if it's not high priority, it could be a while. Quite a while.

 

[slappy1974]

I love the thread and all the advice at the top.
I just had a great day at MK last Thursday, first time back in several years and first time with Genie+.
It was the most crowded I have ever seen MK, and major attraction wait times were 60-90 minutes all day.

I have not read all 43 pages, so my tips are probably covered above:

1. All my old paper FP strategies worked the same, except you don't have to run around the park with everyone's tickets.

2. G+ makes you choose if you want Peter Pan and Jungle Cruise, or you can have pretty much everything else. When I logged in at 7am, Peter Pan and Jungle Cruise were taken until the afternoon. That would push the next available reservation time until 11am. I chose to maximize reservations, so I chose a Splash at 10:20am.

3. By noon, you could only get very minor attractions within an hour. All the major attractions were gone or late night (we had to leave around 3pm), and mid-tier were several hours out. What worked well was to make night time reservations for 8-10pm window. I could make a new one every two hours. You can make the most popular one at 2pm, then the least popular one at 8pm. This allowed me to stack several reservations for 8pm when I got back to the park. A mid-day break for lunch, pool, nap etc. works better than paper FP, because you can keep making reservations while you're not there.

4. I could never get an ILL for 7 Dwarves to work. In the morning, return times were all too late for us. I ended up in line at 10:30pm with posted wait of 45, and actual wait of 15 minutes.

 

[Miffy]

Thanks for that additional note. We used the My Day board very little after using it to pin attractions in the Tip Board, except to remind us when our bookings were, and there were only two of us in our party, so we weren't shown other people's reservations.

That seems like the kind of thing it really should be able to parse better. I'm the naively optimistic sort, so I hope that eventually they'll update the software to iron these problems out. But I also have enough experience with software developers to know that if it's not high priority, it could be a while. Quite a while.

There were only 2 of us as well, but the Tip Board insisted on reminding us that we might not actually have a reservation for an attraction that in fact we both had a reservation for. Weird. But maybe they've fixed this.

 

[Erica Ladd]

Still unclear on how to use the tip board. Do I have to be closer to our dates for it to work?

 

[Miffy]

Still unclear on how to use the tip board. Do I have to be closer to our dates for it to work?

Well, you can't make reservations using the Tip Board until you've got a park reservation for the day, but you can look at the Tip Board on your phone right now. Mine automatically shows MK and I can see the standby times and what's available and when for G+ and that ILL is not currently available for 7DMT.

When you're there, the Tip Board is the place where you make your G+ and ILL$ selections. They will show up in My Day only after you've reserved them.

 

[ekatiel]

Well, I read the first 15 pages, so this may be covered already in pages 16-42, but here goes nothing. Hopefully someone has some advice for our situation. We'll be a WDW over fourth of July. My hubby will be in a conference the mornings of July 1-3 and will join us in the parks around 1 or 1:30 pm. We'll have four other park days where he'll get to be with us all day, including the mornings. We're going to do a water park on of the conference mornings, so that leaves me with two days to figure out how to make this new Genie + system work when he won't be joining us until the afternoon. We'll likely be doing MK and AK those days. Here are my questions:
1) How do we best maximize the system so he can use LLs with us? I'm assuming that means not using any in the morning, because if we do, we can't use the same LL twice in one day.
2) I'm hung up on the fact that I can't choose return times in Genie Plus, so do I have to keep checking back until the system gives me return times in the afternoon?
3) Will booking Park Hopper tickets help any of this, or will we be stuck without the "good" rides in the second park of the day because we were using LLs in the morning at our first park without him?
I miss Fastpass .

 

[slappy1974]

Well, I read the first 15 pages, so this may be covered already in pages 16-42, but here goes nothing. Hopefully someone has some advice for our situation. We'll be a WDW over fourth of July. My hubby will be in a conference the mornings of July 1-3 and will join us in the parks around 1 or 1:30 pm. We'll have four other park days where he'll get to be with us all day, including the mornings. We're going to do a water park on of the conference mornings, so that leaves me with two days to figure out how to make this new Genie + system work when he won't be joining us until the afternoon. We'll likely be doing MK and AK those days. Here are my questions:
1) How do we best maximize the system so he can use LLs with us? I'm assuming that means not using any in the morning, because if we do, we can't use the same LL twice in one day.
2) I'm hung up on the fact that I can't choose return times in Genie Plus, so do I have to keep checking back until the system gives me return times in the afternoon?
3) Will booking Park Hopper tickets help any of this, or will we be stuck without the "good" rides in the second park of the day because we were using LLs in the morning at our first park without him?
I miss Fastpass .

(Although you have to pay for it now) this may be a situation where G+ works better than paper FP.
You can start at 7am making reservations for all 4 of you starting at 1pm, even when no one is in the park. I would start with Jungle Cruise, Splash Mtn., Space Mtn. or Peter Pan, which will quickly get past 1pm. Then at 11am you can make a second (mid tier like Haunted Mansion or Pirates), then at 1pm a third. You can ride standby all morning, and build up reservations for the afternoon.

 

[ekatiel]

(Although you have to pay for it now) this may be a situation where G+ works better than paper FP.
You can start at 7am making reservations for all 4 of you starting at 1pm, even when no one is in the park. I would start with Jungle Cruise, Splash Mtn., Space Mtn. or Peter Pan, which will quickly get past 1pm. Then at 11am you can make a second (mid tier like Haunted Mansion or Pirates), then at 1pm a third. You can ride standby all morning, and build up reservations for the afternoon.

But I don't have a choice of return times, right? I have to wait until the return times are past 1pm. Do I just have to constantly refresh until return times are far enough out?

 

[Miffy]

But I don't have a choice of return times, right? I have to wait until the return times are past 1pm. Do I just have to constantly refresh until return times are far enough out?

Yes, that's correct, although for your first one, for something like JC or PPF, you'll already be seeing return times in the afternoon or evening.

 

[slappy1974]

Yes, that's correct, although for your first one, for something like JC or PPF, you'll already be seeing return times in the afternoon or evening.

But I don't have a choice of return times, right? I have to wait until the return times are past 1pm. Do I just have to constantly refresh until return times are far enough out?

Right now it's 5pm in Orlando, and the park closes at 11pm. You can get a JC or PPF for around 10:30pm, and some lesser attractions starting around 6pm, with everything else in between. You will need to refresh, and watch the return times for the attractions you are interested in.

 

[g-dad66]

Yes, that's correct, although for your first one, for something like JC or PPF, you'll already be seeing return times in the afternoon or evening.

True.

According to thrill-data.com, at 7:05 am today, the return time for JungleCruise was 5:13 pm, and the return time for PeterPan was 2:33 pm.

 

[pfeifer1990]

This is is from post 5 of the Everything Genie...- You can pin one or more attractions to the top of the Tip Board by selecting it as your only Top Pick in the free Genie part of the app. Or you can also select Top Picks through the Edit Selections link at the top of the Tip Board. This is very useful when you are in a hurry to book a particular attraction. Pin it to the top of the Tip Board. Then after booking, replace it with the next one that you will be going for. This saves time not having to scroll down through alphabetical list of attractions.

Do I do this the morning of my Park reservation? Or can I do this sooner (mid May reservations)? I am able to do my top selections in the free Genie part of the app but not on the Tip Board-I don't see the Edit Selections link at the top of the Tip Board.

 

[GBRforWDW]

But I don't have a choice of return times, right? I have to wait until the return times are past 1pm. Do I just have to constantly refresh until return times are far enough out?

I did this on our December trip. Wanted afternoon times for everything because my family is slow getting moving, so just refreshed until it got to a time that worked. Animal Kingdom, might take some time, but Magic Kingdom, top 2 rides should get past 1 pretty quick.

I'd shoot for a return time of 2 or later though, just in case he gets hung up in traffic or needs some food right away, don't want to miss the first return time, though a little bit of conversation with the CMs to explain why you were late should get you on the ride if you are late

 

[CJK]

I posted this question on another thread, but figured I should check here too.

Hi all! I have a quick question. My friends have 1 day tickets to Magic Kingdom next month. They are all staying in the same Disney hotel room, but they bought their 1 day tickets at different times. Three of the five people have 1 day tickets that includes Genie+. The other 2 people just bought their tickets today, and they don't have Genie+ (because Disney doesn't allow the sale of Genie+ with 1 day tickets anymore). Assuming the 2 family members buy Genie+ after midnight on their park day, should they be okay? I know there have been problems with AP tickets with tickets with Genie+ already added to the tickets, but I wasn't sure about this scenario. Thanks so much for your help!

 

[jeffg4]

Currently, only 1 ILL is offered for each park, but the rules state you can purchase up to 2 per day, so can an ILL be purchased twice for the same attraction in the same day?

 

[CarolynFH]

Currently, only 1 ILL is offered for each park, but the rules state you can purchase up to 2 per day, so can an ILL be purchased twice for the same attraction in the same day?

Sorry, no, you could buy one each in two different parks, e.g. the park you have reservation for and a park you’ll hop to, or two ILL$ in two parks you’ll hop to on the same day.

 

[redboat45]

Currently, only 1 ILL is offered for each park, but the rules state you can purchase up to 2 per day, so can an ILL be purchased twice for the same attraction in the same day?

no but you could buy one at another park and hop over.