Genie+ change!

[BeachClub2014]

I wouldn’t mind the times so much as limiting people to one purchase per 7 day trip for those hard to get. Other than that, it’s standby and VQ.

So, you want to pay for Tron, you can for one day of your trip as the time of your choice but that’s it.

GP+attractions could be different. But I am sure what we will see is a paid FP+ with three advance

I'm sure we'll see something "improved" that costs more money.

All I want is to be able to get on any ride/attraction that I want to do in under 15 minutes. Is that too much to ask?

 

[Lumpy1106]

It's all well and good to pay for G+ and LL and skip lines, but the regular standby lines just crawl now. Where is the outrage? One day before they introduced paid G+ these boards would have lit up had even one person so blatantly cut the lines.

Sorry, I just can't get excited about going back until something is done to make the regular standby lines more tolerable.

 

[NY Pirate Princess]

I was excited to read that in my first ever Disney Files this afternoon! Then I thought "and how much will this cost!?!?!"

I am hopeful any improvement will actually be useful regardless of increased cost.

 

[bakerworld]

Honestly, I never understood why people liked to book Fastpasses a full 2 months before their trip. I never sleep late at Disney anyway, so being awake in time to do all the things right at 7am isn't an issue. If I wanted a relaxing vacation I would either change my touring plan to not include G+ and/or ILL or I would go somewhere other than Disney XD

Never been comando, even when we took the kids. FP+ we usually used 1 or 2. It was a push to use the 3rd one. No, we have never G+ or ILL. Don't even understand why anyone who is over 18 is in the parks after 1a. It's a vacation.... Whatever - to each their own - enjoy

 

[SL6827]

Wish they would announce when this is officially going down. Those with early 2024 trips need to know sooner rather than later.

 

[zavandor]

I was excited to read that in my first ever Disney Files this afternoon! Then I thought "and how much will this cost!?!?!"

I am hopeful any improvement will actually be useful regardless of increased cost.

I think the ability to prebook the rides you want for the time you want is such a better service than the current awful G+, that I bet it'll cost much more. I bet they'll start with a small upcharge and increase it over time to be double or so.

 

[Chuck S]

Honestly, they should've just started charging for FastPass+ rather than introducing Genie+ at all. The infrastructure to do so was already in place, and would have saved the company a lot of $$$ in app development. I only used Genie+ once, and it was an abysmal experience.

 

[PolymerSkywalker]

I'm old school and actually liked Fastpass 1.0 when you actually had to be in the park to get one. Ah, the good old days.....

That was at least fair and the early bird actually got the worm. All the current situation seems to be ripe for corruption and third party apps / party manipulation to me.

 

[crisi]

Honestly, they should've just started charging for FastPass+ rather than introducing Genie+ at all. The infrastructure to do so was already in place, and would have saved the company a lot of $$$ in app development. I only used Genie+ once, and it was an abysmal experience.

I agree - the other thing was that the learning curve had been completed. We haven't been at WDW since Genie + - and I think only took ONE Fastpass + trip - maybe two. But I'm sort of tired of having to learn how to do Disney again every time we go. The planning overhead has become way too high.

I was just talking about this with my now adult kids - how much work it was for me to plan all those Disney trips they took as kids. But planning for the first iteration Fastpass system was easy (the biggest issue was dining reservations). You did need to know TSM was going to involve rope drop and a beeline to the Fastpass machine for hopefully a morning or early afternoon return - but most of it was easy.

 

[Boopuff]

I'll never miss the old paper days, rushing to a ride, only to find a tour guide with a stack of 100 feeding them into 2 machines and watching the return time get higher and higher. I'm hopeful this new system will help a bit. Considering many other parks have had "express" pass for sale many years prior to Disney implementing Genie, the cost factor is minimal (Universals pay pass is pricey!) Another factor that has changed the parks in recent years (IMO) is the onslaught of AP holders and blogger/vloggers clogging up the lines, re-riding rides, this also impacts the "once-in-a-lifetime" families. I remember back when Rise opened, AP holders bragging they rode X times while some poor non-local families couldn't get on once. Not a popular thought: limit AP holders to riding "hot" rides 1 or 2 times a month.

 

[Chuck S]

You know, everyone knew Disney was having a rough time during COVID. All Chapek would've had to do is say, "We need to start charging onsite guests for access to FastPass+ pre-booking," without reworking the whole system into Genie+. They could also have started charging a nominal fee to onsite guests for Magical Express, and then bumped up the price, just like Mears has done, and left the reservation system as it was so the resorts would know you were on the way through a magic band scan. Some of the decisions made by Chapek and Iger after COVID were really counter productive from an efficiency AND a guest services point of view. It seems Disney is finally realizing this, hopefully. It wasn't broke, they didn't need to fix it, just charge for it.

 

[CarolynFH]

I'll never miss the old paper days, rushing to a ride, only to find a tour guide with a stack of 100 feeding them into 2 machines and watching the return time get higher and higher.

Amen.

 

[tjkraz]

As I understand it, one of the big issues they were trying to "fix" from FP+ was the fact that off-site hotel guests had almost zero chance of reserving certain rides since they couldn't book until 30 days out. Heck, things like FOP and 7DMT were fully booked exactly 60 days out much of the time. Even Disney hotel guests had trouble getting on some rides.

The tiering of attractions was also unpopular. Many people openly hated being forced to select specific attractions and ride times a full 2 months in advance. In order to give every guest their 3 pre-booked rides, Disney reportedly devoted as much as 90% of daily capacity on some rides to FP+, making standby completely unworkable.

At the end of the day, Disney can't satisfy everyone. Each attraction has a limited capacity. These systems are merely different methods of distributing that capacity. We could spend all day debating which system is "fairer", whether Disney's cure (G+) was worse than the disease (FP+).

I'll be very surprised if these pending changes to genie allow guests to book 3 passes in advance. I think it's more likely they allow people to buy Genie and book just their first attraction of the day. And even then, it will be interesting to witness the impact on the system as a whole. At a park like Epcot, we'll see a lot of capacity on Remy, TT and Frozen gobbled up weeks in advance. Unless they do even more aggressive tiering where guests can choose 1 attraction from a list of the top draws, and add a few more lesser rides.

 

[Chuck S]

As I understand it, one of the big issues they were trying to "fix" from FP+ was the fact that off-site hotel guests had almost zero chance of reserving certain rides since they couldn't book until 30 days out. Heck, things like FOP and 7DMT were fully booked exactly 60 days out much of the time. Even Disney hotel guests had trouble getting on some rides.

The tiering of attractions was also unpopular. Many people openly hated being forced to select specific attractions and ride times a full 2 months in advance. In order to give every guest their 3 pre-booked rides, Disney reportedly devoted as much as 90% of daily capacity on some rides to FP+, making standby completely unworkable.

At the end of the day, Disney can't satisfy everyone. Each attraction has a limited capacity. These systems are merely different methods of distributing that capacity. We could spend all day debating which system is "fairer", whether Disney's cure (G+) was worse than the disease (FP+).

I'll be very surprised if these pending changes to genie allow guests to book 3 passes in advance. I think it's more likely they allow people to buy Genie and book just their first attraction of the day. And even then, it will be interesting to witness the impact on the system as a whole. At a park like Epcot, we'll see a lot of capacity on Remy, TT and Frozen gobbled up weeks in advance. Unless they do even more aggressive tiering where guests can choose 1 attraction from a list of the top draws, and add a few more lesser rides.

Yes, but at the same time, certainly people staying at Disney resorts were overall more profitable for the company than those staying at an offsite location. All they really would have needed to do to give the "day trippers" some fastpasses was to adjust the percentages, making say 70% of the slots pre-bookable, and reserving 30% for day guests. Tweeking a working system would surely have been a lot cheaper than building a whole new app.

I could see a tiered system, with maybe 3 passes available to Deluxe and DVC, 2 to moderate, and 1 to value resort guests. With "E" ticket rides being restricted, too.

 

[kes601]

My biggest question about the potential of pre-purchasing / pre-selection of Genie+ is how this will work for APs. With date based tickets it is pretty easy to link the G+ day w/the ticket. But, with APs I am not sure how this is going to work. Sure you could link it with when you make a park reservation, but what about these "good to go" days that are supposedly going to be added to the system.

As an out of state AP visitor and one who relies on G+ because I hate lines if we are shut out of the "good" rides because we can't pre-select that is going to be frustrating.

 

[tjkraz]

Yes, but at the same time, certainly people staying at Disney resorts were overall more profitable for the company than those staying at an offsite location.

Agree, there are certainly other approaches they could have taken. One could certainly argue that they over-corrected with G+. (Although I would also argue that Genie+ and FP 1.0 are very, very similar, and lingering nostalgia for FP 1.0 was one reason that G+ went to such an extreme. You and I both know that a segment of Disney guests spent the prior 10 years routinely bashing the pre-booking aspect of FP+)

All they really would have needed to do to give the "day trippers" some fastpasses was to adjust the percentages, making say 70% of the slots pre-bookable, and reserving 30% for day guests. Tweeking a working system would surely have been a lot cheaper than building a whole new app.

I could see a tiered system, with maybe 3 passes available to Deluxe and DVC, 2 to moderate, and 1 to value resort guests. With "E" ticket rides being restricted, too.

For what it's worth, it's been said that programmers basically wiped-out the foundation of FP+ to create Park Pass. In the heat of the pandemic as they rushed to reopen WDW by July 2020 with some tool for managing crowds, supposedly they reworked the code from FP+. And there was no clear path to return it to its original purpose. Especially since Park Pass was (is) still in use.

That lead to Genie+ being built from the ground up, with execs seizing the opportunity to refresh the entire concept (for better or worse.)

 

[Chuck S]

Agree, there are certainly other approaches they could have taken. One could certainly argue that they over-corrected with G+. (Although I would also argue that Genie+ and FP 1.0 are very, very similar, and lingering nostalgia for FP 1.0 was one reason that G+ went to such an extreme. You and I both know that a segment of Disney guests spent the prior 10 years routinely bashing the pre-booking aspect of FP+)


For what it's worth, it's been said that programmers basically wiped-out the foundation of FP+ to create Park Pass. In the heat of the pandemic as they rushed to reopen WDW by July 2020 with some tool for managing crowds, supposedly they reworked the code from FP+. And there was no clear path to return it to its original purpose. Especially since Park Pass was (is) still in use.

That lead to Genie+ being built from the ground up, with execs seizing the opportunity to refresh the entire concept (for better or worse.)

Apparently DISNEY IT has never heard of backing up each sub program so it could be reactivated at a later date if needed.

 

[sndral]

Honestly, I never understood why people liked to book Fastpasses a full 2 months before their trip. I never sleep late at Disney anyway, so being awake in time to do all the things right at 7am isn't an issue. If I wanted a relaxing vacation I would either change my touring plan to not include G+ and/or ILL or I would go somewhere other than Disney XD

First, we fly in from the west coast, so 7 am is 4 am for our first couple of days. OTH we loved the evening EMH which have been severely curtailed. Second, we like to eat at the signature restaurants & I suspect Disney likes for us to eat there as well since that adds to their coffers, w/ pre scheduling our ADRs & our FPs we knew that the framework of our days were set, we’d be riding some favorite rides & not fretting about making our ADR times because we had some control over our schedule.
W/ G+ you literally have no clue when you wake up at 7 am day of where & when your first ride will be & you have no clue where or when your next ride will be or the one after, I hate it, it’s like you’re paying for a grab bag w/ no idea whether you’ll actually get a decent number of rides for what you paid or a couple tier 2/3 rides spread hours apart.
It works at DL/CA because there are so many rides & it’s very easy to hop between the parks, my G+ experiences at WDW have been less successful, it’s a lot of money for, IME, very little return.
My sense is that because it’s a paid system they move the LL much faster than they did the free FP lines & that’s resulted in ridiculously long standby lines.
I know nothing about technology (other than IME Disney’s is really bad .) But, the DAS system allows users to schedule 2 rides per day up to 30 days in advance, so I assume that they have some pre scheduling technology built into their current G+/ LL system.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Do not find that a plus nor exciting. It works fine as is.

Except for requiring a credit card of course.

 

[SheSingsAlong]

First, we fly in from the west coast, so 7 am is 4 am for our first couple of days. OTH we loved the evening EMH which have been severely curtailed. Second, we like to eat at the signature restaurants & I suspect Disney likes for us to eat there as well since that adds to their coffers, w/ pre scheduling our ADRs & our FPs we knew that the framework of our days were set, we’d be riding some favorite rides & not fretting about making our ADR times because we had some control over our schedule.
W/ G+ you literally have no clue when you wake up at 7 am day of where & when your first ride will be & you have no clue where or when your next ride will be or the one after, I hate it, it’s like you’re paying for a grab bag w/ no idea whether you’ll actually get a decent number of rides for what you paid or a couple tier 2/3 rides spread hours apart.
It works at DL/CA because there are so many rides & it’s very easy to hop between the parks, my G+ experiences at WDW have been less successful, it’s a lot of money for, IME, very little return.
My sense is that because it’s a paid system they move the LL much faster than they did the free FP lines & that’s resulted in ridiculously long standby lines.
I know nothing about technology (other than IME Disney’s is really bad .) But, the DAS system allows users to schedule 2 rides per day up to 30 days in advance, so I assume that they have some pre scheduling technology built into their current G+/ LL system.

I can totally understand making an improvement that you select a return time for G+ instead of just taking whatever comes next. Selecting rides days in advance just stresses me out - you have no idea how you will be feeling or what the weather will be like! Sorry you have had poor experiences with G+. Ours have been great, but TBH our favorite experience was standby ONLY during COVID.