Fishing,accelerating modifying and MEP

[VicgirlBC]

Decided to venture into the park on a Friday night (5/31).
However, my day started in the morning, because my wife had to work and I work from home, so I entered the park at 730am bought G+ and immediatley went back home.
Decided to play the MEP game at home while wife was working with the hope of collecting a few MEPs and returning at night.

First LL booked was for Railyway.
When I got back to my car just as the park opened, I saw that Matterhorn was down at opening. So I modified my LL to Matterhorn at 820am. Got home at 815am and saw that my Matterhorn LL switched to an MEP.
Immeditaley booked Matterhorn again for 840am. At 835am that LL switched to MEP.
Now I saw that Indy was down, but the return time was for 12pm. Started to refresh the app and found a return time in the 9am's.
Booked it and that switched to an MEP. Booked Indy again refreshed the app and found an earlier time and again got another MEP.

After that I got a few from Big Thunder Mountain and another from Indy.

Total before I entered the park at 6pm was 5 Gold Tier MEPs and 3 Silver Tier MEPs.
I ended up using most of them for my wife (didn't havbe to buy G+ for her) and accelerating the other LLs I was able to book.

Productive day.

Wow! That's a productive day "working from home" ;-)

I am so happy to have found this thread. These tips will be invaluable for my next trip. I hope to be able to fish for MEPs in our downtime by the pool, then return in the evening with stacked LLs and MEPs!

 

[irlandaise]

used my own pass for the G+purchase. MEP, LL, and ILLs are not tied to a speficifc guest.

Oh, interesting. I would have expected Disney to tie all of those reservations to specific tickets.

 

[DLRExpert]

Wow! That's a productive day "working from home" ;-)

I am so happy to have found this thread. These tips will be invaluable for my next trip. I hope to be able to fish for MEPs in our downtime by the pool, then return in the evening with stacked LLs and MEPs!

If was staying at a nearby hotel. I would enter the park as earliest possible. Do as much as I can without LL for the first two hours. Stack MEPs for almost the entire first two hours in the morning.
My go to park opening order is.
Arrive at at the entrance 15-30 minutes before gates open at 730am
8am-820am: Alice, Dumbo (may skip), Toad.
I would do Pan if I had Early Entry. If no EE I usually skip and do later about an hour after fireworks when a 30 minute wait or less is manageable. Snow and Pinocchio also an hour after fireworks.
820am-830am: Matterhorn
830am-915am: Head to Toontown Chip and Dale coaster, Roger, Railway. Railway is usually or close to a walk on until 930am.
930am-11am: Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones if wait is 30 minutes or less, the Pirates
11am-12pm: Then use LL for Big Thunder and LL for Falcon.
Then break at 12pm or just before 12pm.
Save Rise, Tomorrowland, everything else in Fantasyland until I come back to the park around 5pm-6pm. Stay until park closing.

If the classic Fantasyland attractions weren't important and I was okay with just using LL. My family would just enter the park as early as possible and immediately exit. For example, we stayed at the DLH, we just entered from the Monorial station, immediately exited, started to collect LL for MEPs, and went back to the hotel or DTD for breakfast. Entered the park around 2pm-3pm with LLs and MEPs to use.

 

[twodogs]

Oh, interesting. I would have expected Disney to tie all of those reservations to specific tickets.

It is tied to the ticket, just not the person. That is, you would scan your ticket once to use one MEP for yourself to enter a ride, then scan your ticket again to use one of your MEP for someone else to enter the same ride.

 

[twodogs]

Another example, we were a party of 6 this weekend with my daughters and my parents. My mom and I don’t ride Incredicoaster, but to keep things simple with times to booking the next LL, etc, I booked all of us a LL for Incredicoaster. Once got to the scan point, I found a mom and around 8 yo daughter in the standby line and asked if they wanted to use our LLs. I scanned all 6 of our tickets, but my Mom and I didn’t enter the line and those two folks entered the LL with our other family members. So you don’t have to use your LL for yourself only.

 

[Artygal90]

So I read in a comment on another Disney blog from someone claiming that a rider swap pass can be used like a MEP to accelerate LLs.

So for example, me, my friend, and my toddler would show up to Big Thunder Mountain to get a rider swap. I would wait in line, and she would get a rider swap pass on her phone and wait with the toddler. But instead of her then riding the ride, we could go to Smuggler's Run, she would wait in that standby line, and I would get a rider swap pass on my phone. (I'm ignoring anything about Tiers just because I don't know off the top of my head what is Gold vs Silver and we were each already planning on doing BTMRR/Smuggler's solo). Then with both of us holding rider swap passes, we could book LLs for yet another attraction and accelerate them forward the same as if we had an MEP, as long as we don't go on Big Thunder or Smuggler's (respectively).

This sounds less efficient than fishing for MEPs but more of a sure thing. Can anyone confirm if this is possible? I'm not sure we would even take advantage of it but it is interesting to think about the possibilities...

 

[2vets]

Thank goodness I actually read this thread today - I leave tomorrow. I had glanced at it briefly before but made the assumption (you know the saying about that) that "accelerating' was just modifying genie+ selections. The tips in here are invaluable for WDW vets going to DLR! Thank you!

 

[TexasErin]

We had good luck with it on Monday, but today has not worked at all. We booked Indiana Jones earlier when it was down, but it came back up literally 15 minutes before our start time. Anytime something has been down, it has not stayed down long enough to benefit us. Like something will be down, but it won’t be time for us to get a Genie+ yet. Last night, space went down while we were in line and it became a MEP, but that was like at, maybe around 9:30 PM last night and it was only good for the rest of the night. And our goal was to ride Rise in standby, so we didn’t even use it. Also today if it was time for us to get a Genie+ and something was down, it was for a silver level so we weren’t really interested in it.

 

[Aspencreek]

We were also there Monday and got 2 top tier MEPs - one from Indy and one from Runaway Railway.... and we didn't end up needing either of them. Just doing the modifying was working so well that I could get a LL for 4-6 hours out and then every time modify it to almost immediately. Then hit that ride and immediately do it again for the next one. Park seemed kind of busy compared to Saturday, but with the modifying we got on all the LL rides except for Matterhorn (nobody wanted to do it), and ended up doing Indy twice (one LL, one MEP). And we still had time to do a bunch of the standy-by only rides, plus POTC 3 times, etc. So if you don't snag a MEP I wouldn't stress it too much, just do the modifying.

 

[Aladora]

So, I wasn't going to tell this story but on my latest trip (April 2024) I had a ton of luck getting MEPs, mostly silver but a bunch of gold ones as well. I maxed out at 11 in one day before I stopped and I think I may have broken the system that day since we used some of them for multiple BTMRR rides and after a while the system stopped removing the MEPs from my app.

Of course, the flip side to this story is that a bunch of rides went down for a long time on this trip which resulted in easy to get MEPs but bad for actually riding things!

 

[ghtx]

I had a great experience on Monday thanks to the info on this thread. We rope dropped Disneyland and the plan was to get a LL for Indy and ride Matterhorn standby. I got the Indy LL, but Matterhorn was down at park opening. So, I swapped the Indy LL for a Matterhorn LL, which was for 8:15. When 8:15 came, Matterhorn was still down but the LL didn’t convert to a MEP. I was getting nervous, but around 8:25 it became an MEP. I made an Indy LL, which wasn’t for two hours or so, but then immediately used it through accelerating, and then we were off to the races. We were able to do almost every major LL ride we wanted to do at Disneyland, then had lunch at DCA and took a two-hour hotel break, then did almost everything we wanted to do at DCA. We weren’t able to make a LL for Soarin since I didn’t realize that they were running out for the day, so I figured we would do Soarin the next day. But then it dawned on me that I still could actually use the MEP, so we did it on Soarin. It felt pretty great to get basically everything done that we wanted to do on just the first day of a two-and-a-half-day trip, so that the rest of the time was just rerides and minor attractions.

We didn’t get another MEP the other two days but still had a great experience with booking LLs. I modified and refreshed and was able to move some of the return times up, but there were still some stretches where we had to wait a bit before our LL arrival time. Plus, though we hardly waited for anything at all, we did a lot of cris-crossing across the parks.

On Wednesday we could maybe have got another MEP. Matterhorn and Space were both down at RD. We had an Indy LL that we used, then booked Matterhorn while it was down, and it opened shortly before our return time. Same with Space; we booked the LL while it was down, then it opened in time for our arrival. No MEP, but I’m happier that they opened and we got to ride them.

Great trip! Genie plus is really great at DL compared to WDW; you can ride a lot more even without the accelerating hack.

 

[twodogs]

I had a great experience on Monday thanks to the info on this thread. We rope dropped Disneyland and the plan was to get a LL for Indy and ride Matterhorn standby. I got the Indy LL, but Matterhorn was down at park opening. So, I swapped the Indy LL for a Matterhorn LL, which was for 8:15. When 8:15 came, Matterhorn was still down but the LL didn’t convert to a MEP. I was getting nervous, but around 8:25 it became an MEP. I made an Indy LL, which wasn’t for two hours or so, but then immediately used it through accelerating, and then we were off to the races. We were able to do almost every major LL ride we wanted to do at Disneyland, then had lunch at DCA and took a two-hour hotel break, then did almost everything we wanted to do at DCA. We weren’t able to make a LL for Soarin since I didn’t realize that they were running out for the day, so I figured we would do Soarin the next day. But then it dawned on me that I still could actually use the MEP, so we did it on Soarin. It felt pretty great to get basically everything done that we wanted to do on just the first day of a two-and-a-half-day trip, so that the rest of the time was just rerides and minor attractions.

We didn’t get another MEP the other two days but still had a great experience with booking LLs. I modified and refreshed and was able to move some of the return times up, but there were still some stretches where we had to wait a bit before our LL arrival time. Plus, though we hardly waited for anything at all, we did a lot of cris-crossing across the parks.

On Wednesday we could maybe have got another MEP. Matterhorn and Space were both down at RD. We had an Indy LL that we used, then booked Matterhorn while it was down, and it opened shortly before our return time. Same with Space; we booked the LL while it was down, then it opened in time for our arrival. No MEP, but I’m happier that they opened and we got to ride them.

Great trip! Genie plus is really great at DL compared to WDW; you can ride a lot more even without the accelerating hack.

After being in the parks with my late teens and my parents last weekend, I was able to compare the value of MEP acceleration with this group versus our usual group of just us and our teens. Walking was a premium commodity for this trip, as both of my parents had serious cancers in 2022, requiring 3 surgeries between them and chemo for both of them. My Dad is now 85, so his recovery was slow and is still in progress. So, I wanted to minimize unnecessary steps for them to make every step count!! Acceleration was so helpful on the days I was able to get a gold MEP! It allowed us to just go in a geographic pattern, riding things as they came. When it is just us and our teens, we tend to park hop more than once per day, and we can “afford” to criss cross the park many times per day to get to the next LL that we have. But if you are really trying to save walking distance, the gold MEP makes a HUGE difference!

 

[LarsoftheJungle]

I just love...details. New to Disney-anywhere and this is all so much fun to learn about! Thank you everyone who's taken the time to break it down clearly! I have a handful of questions:

Do MEP's need to be repeatedly booked for different rides as you go through your day or is it just kind of a line skipping badge on your account that lasts until "used" on something you don't have a later LL booking for?

How does MEP affect DAS? Since DAS is not line skipping and you can't stack like Genie+, those who qualify may still be interested in using this system.
Say...
-DAS return time for RotR 8:30am and ride goes down
-Get an MEP
-Get a DAS return time for 11am at Smugglers
-Tap in at 8:45am at Smugglers: will it use the DAS return time or the MEP?

Another scenario, this time the DAS user also buys Genie+
-DAS return time for RotR 8:30am and ride goes down
-Get an MEP
-Get a LL return time for 11am at Smugglers
If you go tap in at 8:45am at Smugglers: will it use LL return time or the MEP? What I'm getting at is are MEPs specific at all to how you acquired them - i.e. losing your DAS return time vs LL return time?

How does MEP work with ILLs? I noticed ILLs RotR & RSR weren't listed on the gold tier/silver tier lists. Does that mean MEPs given for those rides are only usable on those rides? If not, what tiers are they? I understand why it wouldn't make sense to pay to fish those rides (or fish in general), but people might buy the ILL or get a DAS return time and the ride could still potentially, even likely, go down. Or, alternatively, can MEPs acquired on other rides be used for ILLs?

I assume you'd lose the MEP as soon as you used them on those rides, as it would be unlikely that you'd purchase another LL (but hey, you do you). But, if a DAS user held an MEP and a later DAS return time for an ILL ride, which would get used when they tapped in?

Thank you!

 

[twodogs]

I just love...details. New to Disney-anywhere and this is all so much fun to learn about! Thank you everyone who's taken the time to break it down clearly! I have a handful of questions:

Do MEP's need to be repeatedly booked for different rides as you go through your day or is it just kind of a line skipping badge on your account that lasts until "used" on something you don't have a later LL booking for?

How does MEP affect DAS? Since DAS is not line skipping and you can't stack like Genie+, those who qualify may still be interested in using this system.
Say...
-DAS return time for RotR 8:30am and ride goes down
-Get an MEP
-Get a DAS return time for 11am at Smugglers
-Tap in at 8:45am at Smugglers: will it use the DAS return time or the MEP?

Another scenario, this time the DAS user also buys Genie+
-DAS return time for RotR 8:30am and ride goes down
-Get an MEP
-Get a LL return time for 11am at Smugglers
If you go tap in at 8:45am at Smugglers: will it use LL return time or the MEP? What I'm getting at is are MEPs specific at all to how you acquired them - i.e. losing your DAS return time vs LL return time?

How does MEP work with ILLs? I noticed ILLs RotR & RSR weren't listed on the gold tier/silver tier lists. Does that mean MEPs given for those rides are only usable on those rides? If not, what tiers are they? I understand why it wouldn't make sense to pay to fish those rides (or fish in general), but people might buy the ILL or get a DAS return time and the ride could still potentially, even likely, go down. Or, alternatively, can MEPs acquired on other rides be used for ILLs?

I assume you'd lose the MEP as soon as you used them on those rides, as it would be unlikely that you'd purchase another LL (but hey, you do you). But, if a DAS user held an MEP and a later DAS return time for an ILL ride, which would get used when they tapped in?

Thank you!

You can’t use a MEP on an ILL$ ride unless the MEP was from that ride. You can use a MEP from an ILL$ ride for something else (Gold Tier rides, I think), but that would be a terrible use of it since you paid so much for it. I **think** you can use a MEP from an ILL$ ride to accelerate other rides, but I would be too nervous that I might accidentally scan it twice and “burn” it (I have done this with a gold MEP in the past, as have others, when you are trying to accelerate a LL and accidentally scan someone’s MEP twice at the ride entrance: it uses that person’s LL and their MEP).

Also just for clarity, you will usually ONLY get a MEP from an ILL$ ride if you bought the ILL$ for that ride and it goes down. If you are in the SB line for ROTR or RSR, and it goes down, there is no MEP issued. You get offered to stay in the SB line indefinitely or get out of line and come back and try again in SB later.

 

[LarsoftheJungle]

You can’t use a MEP on an ILL$ ride unless the MEP was from that ride. You can use a MEP from an ILL$ ride for something else (Gold Tier rides, I think), but that would be a terrible use of it since you paid so much for it. I **think** you can use a MEP from an ILL$ ride to accelerate other rides, but I would be too nervous that I might accidentally scan it twice and “burn” it (I have done this with a gold MEP in the past, as have others, when you are trying to accelerate a LL and accidentally scan someone’s MEP twice at the ride entrance: it uses that person’s LL and their MEP).

Also just for clarity, you will usually ONLY get a MEP from an ILL$ ride if you bought the ILL$ for that ride and it goes down. If you are in the SB line for ROTR or RSR, and it goes down, there is no MEP issued. You get offered to stay in the SB line indefinitely or get out of line and come back and try again in SB later.

Ok, just reiterated to make sure I followed:
-MEP from any Genie+ LL to accelerate return time of ILL$ (RotR & RSR): No
-MEP from ILL$ rides: maybe

Maybe this is more of a question for DAS users: would you even get an MEP if a ride went down while you were holding a DAS return time? I guess if DAS *is* supposed to be the standby line made accessible, it would make sense that you DON'T get an MEP. I thought I read somewhere you do, but maybe I got that wrong? Edit: Did some searching around and it sounds like some people have gotten MEPs from a broken ride during a DAS return time and some haven't.

 

[twodogs]

I guess I am not sure why one would need to accelerate an ILL$? You buy an ILL$ when the time is out to when you want to ride it, and then you have an hour to ride it (you don’t get to choose your ILL$ return time like you do at WDW). Acceleration of a LL has real value when the return time is hours away, and you want to use it presently.

 

[DLRExpert]

Consider DAS and LL two different things.
I would not risk using an MEP to accelerate a DAS return. Especially since DAS return times are usually not that far off from when you book them.

You get a use anytime DAS if the DAS ride you booked goes down during the return window. You can then book your next DAS.

 

[LarsoftheJungle]

I know DAS and LL are different, and I understand the difference. DAS return times are the same as the Stand-by line. For some rides/times of day, it would be very attractive to be able to accelerate that, so it's a fair question to want an answer to. Our first DAS return time will be RotR, which will not cost us anything, and if this past week is any indication, that ride is broken in the morning A LOT. So, it's a fair question to wonder if Disney does anything to compensate for return time getting messed up. It also makes sense that the answer might just be "no" because DAS is essentially the SB line. But if I have both DAS and Genie+, I'm just trying to wrap my head around if/how they might affect each other, or if there's any strategy that could be used to help my son and I manage the smoothest possible time around the park with his disability.

 

[VicgirlBC]

Ok, just reiterated to make sure I followed:
-MEP from any Genie+ LL to accelerate return time of ILL$ (RotR & RSR): No
-MEP from ILL$ rides: maybe

Maybe this is more of a question for DAS users: would you even get an MEP if a ride went down while you were holding a DAS return time? I guess if DAS *is* supposed to be the standby line made accessible, it would make sense that you DON'T get an MEP. I thought I read somewhere you do, but maybe I got that wrong? Edit: Did some searching around and it sounds like some people have gotten MEPs from a broken ride during a DAS return time and some haven't.

We had DAS for our January trip for my husband (paraplegic and wheelchair user). We were given a few MEPs from ROTR, but they were given to us by CM’s, not automatically by the app. At the time we didn’t need MEPs for rides since DAS worked so well and we could walk on any ride we wanted. However we made use of them on rides when my husband wasn’t with us, and that was awesome. I also didn’t find any benefit to having Genie+ with DAS, as DH rode almost every ride with us.

 

[VicgirlBC]

I know DAS and LL are different, and I understand the difference. DAS return times are the same as the Stand-by line. For some rides/times of day, it would be very attractive to be able to accelerate that, so it's a fair question to want an answer to. Our first DAS return time will be RotR, which will not cost us anything, and if this past week is any indication, that ride is broken in the morning A LOT. So, it's a fair question to wonder if Disney does anything to compensate for return time getting messed up. It also makes sense that the answer might just be "no" because DAS is essentially the SB line. But if I have both DAS and Genie+, I'm just trying to wrap my head around if/how they might affect each other, or if there's any strategy that could be used to help my son and I manage the smoothest possible time around the park with his disability.

As I posted above, I see no reason to pay for Genine+ if you have DAS and it’s just you and your son, but that’s just my perspective DAS allows you to ride any ride, numerous times. It’s so much better than Genie+. Also, although you have to wait a bit for rides (I found it to be about 10 minutes less than the posted standby wait), you can easily walk on other rides that load via the exit (if one’s disability involves a wheelchair or similar). So if you book DAS for a ride often times you can just walk up to a ride and hop on it right away while waiting for your DAS return time. Some CMs did ask if we had a DAS return time, but others would just let us load via the exit. I realize this is likely unique to our situation since DH is a wheelchair user so we were given wheelchair access to the loading area and that had nothing to do with DAS. I am not sure the details of your son’s disability but if it’s mobility related you may find this info useful.