Genie Plus - Experiences and Reviews

[disneylover102]

Now, more details on my genie day:
There are several things you can do on this page:
1. Click “get started now” where you’ll select a day to plan and tell genie what you want to appear first on your tip board (more on tip board later). You can select like 8 or 9 rides and I prefer to select all the genie+ rides I can since I can go to the map for wait times for non-LL rides.
2. You can buy genie+. There’s a place near the bottom to do this. One of these screenshots shows that I’m not eligible to buy genie+ because I have not entered a park. You can’t buy genie+ until you’re scanned into a park.
3. You can view and redeem any lightning lanes you have. I recommend screenshotting these and/or your ticket barcode in case genie isn’t working when you need to scan in for a lightning lane.
4. You can view the completely useless recommendations you’re given to do and I hope for your sake you ignore them. For example it might be rope drop and my legs are ready to rush to Rise but Genie is telling me not to do anything for 45 minutes and then do Tiki Room even though I never said I wanted to do it because the forecasted wait is low at that time. It might say after that to go do the carousel 30 minutes after that and then go wait 2 hours for Rise. Those are useless suggestions so I’m gonna ignore them and do what I want to do, which is gonna be to rope drop Rise and then do rides like Space and Thunder before they get even longer. The forecasted waits that are included on each individual ride page might be useful to you but just know to look at ride wait times throughout the day and go where you want to go when you want to go, keeping in mind rides that are gonna likely be shorter at night like Space, rides like Rise that everyone is gonna rush to first, and any lightning lanes you’re going to use. But please please PLEASE don’t listen to what genie thinks you should do. It’s useless!
5. You can tell genie what you’d like to do in the other park when you’re heading over there. Don’t do this until you’re done with your first park. Your tip board will automatically show the last park you told genie what you wanted to do in

 

[disneylover102]

Ok now one last post: the tip board.

Once you’ve told genie what you want to do in each park the tip board will first list the rides you said you wanted to do and then list the rest after that. You can always edit the rides you want it to show first. I like it to show only the rides I’m eligible to book lightning lane for so when it’s time to book another one all my options are right there. Once I’m ineligible to book a ride anymore I edit my selections and take that ride off. For example if I book Thunder and I successfully use my lightning lane without it going down I am no longer eligible to book Thunder. So I take it off the list of rides that show on the tip board first. However, if Thunder goes down during my return window and converts to a multiple experience pass the system forgets I ever booked Thunder and I am eligible to book it again. In that case I would keep it on the list of rides that show first on my tip board.


You can see on the tip board rides that are temporarily closed. You can see in these screenshots that even when Space and Thunder were down lightning lanes weren’t super far away (note the time on my phone is in Utah and an hour later than Disneyland time). Sometimes they are that close but usually they’re more like 30-45 minutes away or more for the more popular LL rides. Pay attention to broken down rides like literally all day for the chance for more multiple experience passes.

When you want to book a lightning lane just click on the time shown on the ride you want to book and follow the steps you’re given. I’ll post screenshots when I’m in the park actually doing this again and don’t have to dig through old

 

[disneylover102]

Ok I tried my best to provide good screenshots and clear instructions but it’s hard to describe it all so feel free to ask questions and I’ll answer the best I can

 

[brenda1966]

Ok I tried my best to provide good screenshots and clear instructions but it’s hard to describe it all so feel free to ask questions and I’ll answer the best I can

Thanks a bunch! This was really helpful.

 

[Wilcojoe]

Can you choose a LL from the DLH? For example, I want to choose a LL for Space Mountain before returning back to the park after an afternoon nap.

 

[Rich M]

Can you choose a LL from the DLH? For example, I want to choose a LL for Space Mountain before returning back to the park after an afternoon nap.

Yes once you have scanned into a park you can continue to get them after you leave.

 

[allimaree]

Can you choose a LL or ILL from another park? We are stuck starting in DCA both days we are going to be in the park this week and we really want to do Rise. Not sure how quickly rise sells out but can I buy the ILL from DCA if I need to before I'm allowed to go over to DL after 1:00?

 

[Rich M]

Can you choose a LL or ILL from another park? We are stuck starting in DCA both days we are going to be in the park this week and we really want to do Rise. Not sure how quickly rise sells out but can I buy the ILL from DCA if I need to before I'm allowed to go over to DL after 1:00?

Yes but need to make sure its a time you can get in the park

 

[DisDad 407]

Ok I tried my best to provide good screenshots and clear instructions but it’s hard to describe it all so feel free to ask questions and I’ll answer the best I can

Wow, You are such a helpful person! Thanks so much for this information. It will be a great help to me for my upcoming trip. Thanks again for posting this!

 

[mel2014]

Yes but need to make sure its a time you can get in the park

From previous posts, if you have a parkhopper and buy a LL in the other park, the system will automatically offer you only times after 1 pm (e.g., if you enter DCA at 8:30 am and immediately try to buy a ROTR LL, you won't get a time any earlier than 1 pm) and you will get the earliest available time after that). It will do the same thing for Genie+ -- if you enter DL and make a Genie+ selection for Soarin, you'll be offered the first available time after 1 pm. While this will lock you out of making a new selection in DL for 2 hours unless you cancel, as disneylover102 described in previous posts, this can be a good strategy to get a guaranteed afternoon Genie+ selection in the other park while not wasting your early morning low crowd hours using your once-per-day Genie+ rides during that time (it seems like this strategy works better when your starting park is DL, since there are significantly more Genie+ attractions and the booking windows are consequently slower to "sell out" for the day).

 

[disneylover102]

Can you choose a LL or ILL from another park? We are stuck starting in DCA both days we are going to be in the park this week and we really want to do Rise. Not sure how quickly rise sells out but can I buy the ILL from DCA if I need to before I'm allowed to go over to DL after 1:00?

You won’t have any problem. Even if you’re the first person scanned into DCA if you try to book Rise it’ll change your return time to 1 PM. But they don’t even run out that fast and are available well into the late afternoon and even when they run out Disney releases more. As far as regular LLs go it works the same way. You could book Space or Indy or something and the time would change to 1. Soarin’ is usually at least a couple hours out though so I don’t think it would be a terrible idea to book that first instead. Whatever you prefer.

You mentioned you’re stuck starting in DCA both days. Is this just an issue of no park reservations being available at Disneyland? I just looked at the park reservation availability for magic keys and regular park tickets and the only day that didn’t have Disneyland available was for tomorrow (Friday) for regular park tickets. I definitely found for my interests starting at Disneyland was a lot better because there’s a lot more to do, it’s an extra opportunity to walk onto Rise for free (if you have insanely fast legs and sanity and are willing to get there super early), and there’s more genie+ rides to break down that you can book and potentially get more multiple experience passes (if you’re in DCA and Matterhorn breaks down but it’s 10 AM if you book Matterhorn it’ll change your return time to 1). Not that starting in DCA is bad or anything, I just found that all the rides I like to repeat there are really easy to repeat after 1 PM:
1. WEB Slingers once per day is good for me and that’s a very easy ILL to grab (and you can book it twice if it breaks down during your window)
2. Guardians typically has a fairly long line after 1 but multiple experience passes are good on it
3. Radiator Springs Racers has a great single rider line and while it’s typically a walk on in the morning, you only wait 15-20 minutes pretty much any time later in the day. (Also you could buy an ILL but that’s not worth paying to skip 15 minutes for especially if it’s replacing WEB or Rise)
4. Soarin’ is one I’m ok with doing once per day with LL. Multiple experience passes are good here as well. Note standby is ALWAYS ridiculously long because LL is super prioritized
5. Incredicoaster is a great LL but honestly you’re probably never gonna wait in standby more than 20-25 minutes even later in the day
6. Toy Story Mania is a great one to do one LL per day. Multiple experience passes are not valid here btw

All the other DCA rides are easy one and done any time (or don’t ever do as long as I live like the Ferris wheel of death)

But then at Disneyland you’re gonna get some really nice short waits early in the morning and multiple experience passes aren’t valid on the biggest regular LL rides like they are in DCA (Space, Indy, and Matterhorn are excluded although do keep the single rider line in mind for Matterhorn). So if you can change your park reservations to Disneyland for one or both days I would highly recommend that if you have a sort of similar Disney touring style as me

 

[allimaree]

Thanks so much. My daughter is dancing in DCA both tomorrow and Saturday and she has to check in at 11:30 and 12:30 respectively. So we have to start at DCA or she wouldn’t be able to get in. Does that make sense?

 

[disneylover102]

Thanks so much. My daughter is dancing in DCA both tomorrow and Saturday and she has to check in at 11:30 and 12:30 respectively. So we have to start at DCA or she wouldn’t be able to get in. Does that make sense?

Ah that makes sense. I was in dance in junior high and we went to Disneyland one summer and danced in DCA. That was fun but the group drove me insane lol, they wanted to have all 50 of us doing the same things a bunch of the time and fight about what to do next and since it wasn’t an official school thing with official rules I sneaked away from the group the last day and did 10 times as many rides as anyone else. Then I quit that group cause the teacher wasn’t great… lol hopefully you and your daughter have a better experience with your group than I did with mine

 

[allimaree]

Ah that makes sense. I was in dance in junior high and we went to Disneyland one summer and danced in DCA. That was fun but the group drove me insane lol, they wanted to have all 50 of us doing the same things a bunch of the time and fight about what to do next and since it wasn’t an official school thing with official rules I sneaked away from the group the last day and did 10 times as many rides as anyone else. Then I quit that group cause the teacher wasn’t great… lol hopefully you and your daughter have a better experience with your group than I did with mine

Haha! You’ve truly been a Disney lover from the beginning. Luckily, we’ll be on our own for most of the day. Any suggestions for conquering Disneyland after 1:00?

 

[allimaree]

Haha! You’ve truly been a Disney lover from the beginning. Luckily, we’ll be on our own for most of the day. Any suggestions for conquering Disneyland after 1:00?

Sorry, just saw your very good answer on the other thread. Thanks so much!

 

[allimaree]

Yesterday went pretty well except as we were waiting at the front of the rope between Carthay and Grizzly falls, a cast member told us that RSR wasn’t going to open with the park. Might be an hour or two. No problem—we’ll do Web Slingers. Then a little while later, another cast member told us Web was also down and would not open with the park. So when the rope dropped we all booked it to Guardians but so did an entire different rope crowd. Everyone ended up crowding into the same line but some people weren’t happy about it. All in all, we had a pretty unproductive morning which was frustrating. The late morning and afternoon went better and we got almost everything done we wanted to do.

One new thing we noticed—our multi experience pass we got from Buzz going down worked at Space Mountain.

 

[disneylover102]

Yesterday went pretty well except as we were waiting at the front of the rope between Carthay and Grizzly falls, a cast member told us that RSR wasn’t going to open with the park. Might be an hour or two. No problem—we’ll do Web Slingers. Then a little while later, another cast member told us Web was also down and would not open with the park. So when the rope dropped we all booked it to Guardians but so did an entire different rope crowd. Everyone ended up crowding into the same line but some people weren’t happy about it. All in all, we had a pretty unproductive morning which was frustrating. The late morning and afternoon went better and we got almost everything done we wanted to do.

One new thing we noticed—our multi experience pass we got from Buzz going down worked at Space Mountain.

Oh no, that’s very frustrating!

And that’s great news! Was it valid on Matterhorn or Indy? Maybe they’ve updated what it’s valid on

 

[allimaree]

Oh no, that’s very frustrating!

And that’s great news! Was it valid on Matterhorn or Indy? Maybe they’ve updated what it’s valid on

I think yes on Matterhorn, not sure on Indy. But then, yesterday, when I got another one for Soarin’ going down, it was not good on Space. Seems to vary but make sure to look closely at the available rides. You may be surprised!

 

[disneylover102]

I think yes on Matterhorn, not sure on Indy. But then, yesterday, when I got another one for Soarin’ going down, it was not good on Space. Seems to vary but make sure to look closely at the available rides. You may be surprised!

Interesting. When I was there I got makeup passes from Roger Rabbit, Thunder, Falcon, Soarin’, Grizzly, and Goofy’s going down and they were all the same: good on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, Space, Indy, Matterhorn, Toy Story, Racers, or WEB Slingers. Maybe it’s randomly different on Buzz? I’ll have to experiment on that more when I’m there next week

 

[disneylover102]

Ok I’m back at Disneyland today through Saturday and I’m buying genie+ each day. I probably won’t buy Rise or WEB Slingers every day this time since I’m on more of a budget this time but I’ll report my experiences each day like I did last time. If anyone has any questions while I’m here or wants screenshots of specific thing lmk