Genie+ $29 per day but most major rides filled so beware

[Davey Jones II]

I keep hearing that "you don't need G+ at AK or Epcot" but what does that mean, exactly? In normal crowd situations (not extreme crowds like Dec. 25-Jan. 2) can G+ save you time on rides like Navi River and Safaris at AK, and Frozen, Soarin' and Remy at Epcot?

On our next (planned) trip, we will be at WDW for only five days or so, in the first week of May. Moderate crowds are expected during that time, but if we can shave an hour or two off our wait times every day, I think that's worth it. This will be our first WDW trip in 3.5 years, so I'm willing to shell out for G+ if it will save us time on rides that get pretty long lines in the aft. Any guidance would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[Mango7100]

I keep hearing that "you don't need G+ at AK or Epcot" but what does that mean, exactly? In normal crowd situations (not extreme crowds like Dec. 25-Jan. 2) can G+ save you time on rides like Navi River and Safaris at AK, and Frozen, Soarin' and Remy at Epcot?

On our next (planned) trip, we will be at WDW for only five days or so, in the first week of May. Moderate crowds are expected during that time, but if we can shave an hour or two off our wait times every day, I think that's worth it. This will be our first WDW trip in 3.5 years, so I'm willing to shell out for G+ if it will save us time on rides that get pretty long lines in the aft. Any guidance would be appreciated, thanks.

I think it is worth it to get it for Epcot. Your first Genie selection should be Remy (or Test Track or Frozen if you don’t want Remy. You should be able to pick up another LL from the big 3 rides as well since you are going on moderate crowd levels. Then getting LLs for Soarin, Spaceship Earth, Mission Space, or Living with the Land with pretty immediate return times is easy. We were there 12/27-1/2 so we had extreme crowds. Living with the Land was reaching 50 minutes, Spaceship Earth was over 60, and Soarin was sometimes over 100 minutes. Even saving 15-20 minutes on the lesser tier rides adds up when you are doing multiple of them. We could have easily gotten LLs for all of those rides and even Frozen or Remi by refreshing, but we chose to make our first 7 am LL for test Track (got return times around 10 am), early entry Remy, and started stacking our LLs for our evening park after tapping in to Test Track.

 

[Divine Disney]

I'm here right now and did two days at Disney and one day at Universal. This week was VERY busy and Genie+ is less effective during these super crowded times but it's possible to grab LLs by refreshing. I had better success at MK than Epcot (which seems to be the general consensus year round). At Epcot, I booked Remy at 7 am and by 10 am, Test Track and Frozen were gone for the day. I didn't see Test Track come up once and I was too slow to grab Frozen whenever it did pop up. I ended up getting Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, Nemo and Soarin, which all of these rides were over a 45 minute wait so it wasn't terrible. Personally I could not come during THE busiest week of the year and not buy Genie+. Remy went up to 200 minutes at one point and Test Track, Frozen, Soarin were 2 hours.

On the flip side, at Universal it was really nice to just walk up to any line you want and scan in, but those lines were not walk ons. Most waits were in the 5-20 minute range (Spiderman was 5 and Mummy took 20) but Gringotts took 40 and Minions was an hour. Single day Express is $200 per person per day and you wait an hour in the Express line. At Disney I didn't wait more than 5 minutes in any Lightning Lane. At least you can get Express by staying at a premier hotel but the rates for Christmas are kinda nuts (I saw Royal Pacific for $950 a night and that was a standard room. I'm not an AP so I cannot see AP rates.) Universal advertises their Express pass to only cut down half of the posted wait time so that's something to keep in mind too. Still, same as Disney I would never go there during Christmas and not have Express. Universal is just as insane crowd wise as Disney (but with WAY less strollers).

Rope drop was SUPER effective all three days. We got a lot done and I absolutely recommend it during the Christmas holiday. At Universal, I was not a hotel guest but bought my tickets through Park Prodigy, which is a travel agency that includes early park admission in their tickets. 100% worth it!

You mentioned purchasing Universal tickets through Park Prodigy and they had early entry without staying onsite. I went to their website, but don't see any information on that perk. Did you call an agent to purchase tickets? Did you purchase more than 1 day?

My family is traveling there at the end of the month and we're thinking of doing 1 day tix to Universal with park hoppers. If I can save on tickets AND get in early so I don't have to pay for Express, that would be great!

 

[Smugpugmug]

You mentioned purchasing Universal tickets through Park Prodigy and they had early entry without staying onsite. I went to their website, but don't see any information on that perk. Did you call an agent to purchase tickets? Did you purchase more than 1 day?

My family is traveling there at the end of the month and we're thinking of doing 1 day tix to Universal with park hoppers. If I can save on tickets AND get in early so I don't have to pay for Express, that would be great!

Hmm, I just looked at their site and don't see it either. That's really strange since when I bought tickets through them last year (around June/July), early park admission was included as a perk. Park Prodigy is a travel agency that works with Universal, so that's how they're able to offer that perk. When you buy tickets through them, an agent has to acquire the tickets from Universal and then they send you a reservation number to then pick up your tickets at a kiosk near the park entrance.

 

[MoreTravels]

I am the OP. Thank you for all the replies and discussions. I would like to supplement some info. I have young children. I used hotel WIFI for internet, which was very unreliable at my Disney Resort. We stayed onsite with early morning access and bus transportation.

It is true some major rides will have availability but many appointments are only in late afternoons and evenings by the time I was able to make a choice. At 7 am, the MDE app Genie section "Tip Board" will usually freeze as thousands if not tens of thousands of Disney tourists log in all at the same time. I often lost app connections and had to reload. The pixie dusts would just keep spinning. Then sometimes the screen was blank and I was not sure if it was site congestion or WIFI signal loss. Many times, I was only able to successfully see the booking screening by 7:15 am (ie, only 15 minutes of opening). Then it would be either totally full or available at 8pm.

With elementary school age children, we did not want to stay at the parks that late. We wanted to have an enjoyable vacation with rest and dinner. We did not want to stay up until 10pm then return to shower and sleep at midnight, only to wake up at 6:45am to book Genie+ all over again.

So it did not work for us at all.

On the other hand, if you are willing to pay the same cost (ie, $100 or so per person) at Universal Studio, you can use the "Express Line" and walk to the front of time. There is no booking, app reloading, early morning wake up non sense required. You would think if someone wants to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars more per family in their Disney trip, they would be treated like Royalty. They would go on "red carpet" line with bouncer to let you in ahead of the crowd. In Universal Studio, they make their paying guests feel special that way. Unforunately, Disney did not make me feel that way. I actually felt the whole family was depending on me to get a good spot and I failed them... after spending hundreds of dollars more.

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

Prices are variable based on demand. Christmas is the most expensive time of the year to visit Disney. From the reports I've seen, they are severely underpricing it.

Looks like today it’s back down to $17

 

[katied]

On the other hand, if you are willing to pay the same cost (ie, $100 or so per person) at Universal Studio, you can use the "Express Line" and walk to the front of time.

Having done both universal and Disney at Christmas, the one thing I’ll point out is Universal Express Pass is meant to be half the wait time… so, if the line is 90 min, you still wait 45 min. This makes a big difference if you are there at a very crowded time.

we never waited more than 10 min in a Disney LL.

that said, Universal is an easy trip… I don’t put hours into planning and organizing. I still don’t sleep in, because the only way to beat the line for Hagrids is rope drop.

i had no trouble with MDE at 7 am every day, but did have 2 cellular devices ready to go, and stayed off Wi-Fi the whole trip.

 

[Smugpugmug]

Having done both universal and Disney at Christmas, the one thing I’ll point out is Universal Express Pass is meant to be half the wait time… so, if the line is 90 min, you still wait 45 min. This makes a big difference if you are there at a very crowded time.

we never waited more than 10 min in a Disney LL.

that said, Universal is an easy trip… I don’t put hours into planning and organizing. I still don’t sleep in, because the only way to beat the line for Hagrids is rope drop.

Exactly this and I said this in my initial post on this thread too. Universal advertises Express to cut down half the wait time rather than front of the line access (you would have to do a VIP tour for that and I did see a few of those at both Universal and Disney). However it really does depend on when you go. I went to Universal in mid May and every single ride except for Gringotts was a walk on for Express. Gringotts took around 30 minutes then. During Christmas week, Gringotts was 40 minutes, Minions was an hour, Mummy was 20 and everything else was 15 and under. At Disney, I never waited more than 5 minutes in any Lightning Lane.

 

[laura428]

Looks like today it’s back down to $17

Yep, this is what it was for us today. And we paid $10 for individual lightening lane.

FWIW, we’ve found Genie+ to be pretty helpful. We’ve been in the parks since 1/2 and have had zero issues booking the rides we wanted. For example, we combined Genie+ with rope drop at MK Thursday, 1/5, and rode Big Thunder 3 times, Splash 2 times, Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Space Mtn, Pooh, PeopleMover, plus paid for ILL for 7DMT. This was also with a break for swimming at the resort from 3:00 to 7:00. In fact, we rode so much that by the end of the night, we were pretty happy and decided to call it a night early (after first fireworks) because there really wasn’t anything else we wanted to do.

I didn’t like paying extra for this trip, especially when I was concerned about availability. But it’s worked really well for us.

 

[godfather927]

I keep hearing that "you don't need G+ at AK or Epcot" but what does that mean, exactly? In normal crowd situations (not extreme crowds like Dec. 25-Jan. 2) can G+ save you time on rides like Navi River and Safaris at AK, and Frozen, Soarin' and Remy at Epcot?

On our next (planned) trip, we will be at WDW for only five days or so, in the first week of May. Moderate crowds are expected during that time, but if we can shave an hour or two off our wait times every day, I think that's worth it. This will be our first WDW trip in 3.5 years, so I'm willing to shell out for G+ if it will save us time on rides that get pretty long lines in the aft. Any guidance would be appreciated, thanks.

I buy G+ for all days where we plan on being in the park for more than 5 hrs. It has more value at some parks vs others because of how much time it can save you but either way you should be able to get 3 decent LLs with it which should save you a few hours at least.

The reason people say it’s not with it for Epcot is because on really busy days you can’t usually get both Remy and TT, so you gotta pick one, and then do Frozen and Soarin, or even less desirable ones like mission space if you don’t care for either of those.

So it’s not great value sometimes, but I see it as a way to buy myself some extra time when its needed most (waiting standby with two young kids is tough so I take what I can get before they get burned out.) Since people value their time differently, you get a variety of opinions on whether it’s worth it at certain parks.

I think there is also a bit of a sunk cost fallacy at play since some people will look at not just the G+ cost but also the cost of the ticket itself and think they’ve already spent too much money to get through the gate, so they’re not gonna give Disney anymore money on things like G+. Which is fine, but then those two decisions should be ideally viewed together, not individually, if you would rather save the time but struggle to justify the cost. Spending an extra ~$9 per ride is not bad if you prefer to avoid long standby waits and figure you’ll still enjoy the rides where you can’t really replicate that experience anywhere else.