Here’s my genie+ report from 2/11. I ended up paying $20 each for genie+ and Rise and also $12 for WEB Slingers.
I got to security around 6:30. Security opened at 7:10 and I got scanned into the park at about 7:30 at which point I bought genie+ and reserved Soarin’ for 1-2 PM. I was at the front of the rope by Frontierland and someone asked if Rise would be open (I would’ve but I had asked the day before and they said they didn’t know). A cast member called the people who work at Rise and found out it would be broken down. This was less than 5 minutes before park opening. I weaved back through the massive crowd with the idea that I would do Space Mountain first. But I saw a friend from college in the crowd and briefly talked to him and told him Rise was down which he and his group were planning to do and I said I guessed I would do Space first. But someone overheard me and said Space was supposed to be down too. It was now getting dangerously close to park opening and so I was frantically trying to figure out what to do first with Rise and Space down. If I had had an extra second to think I would’ve done Peter Pan first which is something I wanted to do at some point on this trip. But I weaved through the massive crowd over to the Adventureland crowd and filled in any space as I could (but not cutting in front of anyone) to get as far to the front as possible. I did Indy first but that’s not what most of the Adventureland crowd was doing. They were mostly going to Rise first through Critter Country, unaware it would be down and that they shouldn’t go that route since it’s just a little slower lol (most people don’t know it’s gonna be down, it’s not like they announce it over the intercom or anything). I ended up being the 5th in line for Indy.
But as that rush started I was multitasking and on my phone cancelling my Soarin’ LL and booking Space for 8:10 because I knew it would be down but that the sudden didn’t know that yet and therefore LLs wouldn’t be pushed back at all. Depending on the ride they usually get pushed back 30-60 minutes when a ride goes down but if you can get ahead of the system and book a LL before the system knows a ride is down, do it! This might be the case if you know a ride will be down at park opening (like I did), you walk up to a ride and it’s down but the tip board still says it’s up (and note that the tip board is typically slightly more updated than the map of wait times), or if you are in line when a ride breaks down and that fact has not been updated in the system.
I obviously walked right onto Indy (and confirmed as I was walking through the line that Rise and Space were down) and while I was on Indy 2 things happened: I got the desired bonus LL from Space (good on anything except the individual LL rides and Peter Pan. It was valid on Space, Matterhorn, Indy, and Toy Story because it came from Space being down) and Space came back up. There was a VERY narrow window of time to get that bonus. Space wasn’t even down for 10 minutes and I got the bonus. So if you can, definitely try to find out if anything with LL will be closed at park opening and book that first unless you want to for sure guarantee that Soarin’ LL.
I then booked Soarin’ again for 1-2 PM and everything was running for about the next hour and a half so I ended up waiting the 2 hours to book another LL.
After getting off Indy since Space was up at 10 minutes I did that and waited a little more than 10 minutes. After that I wanted to do things fairly close to Rise for when it came up so I went and did Thunder. It was posted at 15 and ended up being a little less than that. After that I did Pirates which was posted 15 and I waited 10. While I was waiting I kept refreshing my tip board to see if Rise would come up and if it did I was planning on ditching my spot in line and hurrying over. It came back up a few minutes into the ride but since Pirates is a long one, by the time I got to Rise the line was already stretching all the way through Galaxy’s Edge with the entire queue full besides the extended queue. I got in line anyway because I figured it would move quickly and it’s a good ride and hopefully
lightning lane wouldn’t be too backed up yet. Well after 20 minutes they had filled the extended queue and I had gotten to the main queue just before the caves. And then it broke down again. They said I could keep my spot in line but I wasn’t very close to the front anyway so I got out of line and walked right onto the Falcon in single rider. It was around this time that it was time to book another LL and I got one about 45 minutes away for Roger Rabbit which was down.
I then just went to wait for Peter Pan since I knew I was gonna need to do that eventually. On my way over there I stopped at a guest relations kiosk and showed screenshots of the bonus LL I didn’t have time for the night before and the CM gave me a new one. It was based on a Thunder breakdown so it was valid on anything expect Peter Pan, any ILL rides, Space, Matterhorn, Indy, and Toy Story.
While I was in line for Peter Pan I got the bonus LL from Roger Rabbit. I booked it again for about 20 minutes away I think. Then I did Matterhorn single rider and Roger Rabbit came up so I got Thunder for immediately. I did that and then used my bonus LL from Space going down earlier on Space. I think something went down and I booked that. But it came back up so I booked Star Tours and did that after Space.
For the next little while I think I was booking rides that were down, I don’t remember which ones though. After Star Tours I hurried over to Indiana Jones because it had been broken down and I wanted to catch it before the line built back up. I only waited about 15 minutes. Then I did Millennium Falcon single rider and walked right on and then used my Rise LL which I had booked a few hours prior.
So here’s what happened with the Rise LL: I didn’t want one until at least a couple hours after park opening so I waited to book one. But then when it was down at park opening the times were pushed back and I refreshed until I got a time I liked, I think it was 12:55-1:55. As I was purchasing it I made sure it gave me the right time but when the transaction went through it changed it to 1:35-2:35 which wasn’t great for my 1-2 Soarin’ LL. By the time I got off Rise it was a little after 2 so I got to Soarin’ as fast as I possibly could. During this time I booked Toy Story Mania for about an hour out (I kept refreshing to get a better time).
I knew there was probably a 15 minute grace period and I really didn’t want it to use my bonus LL from Roger Rabbit or Thunder so my goal was to scan in by 2:15. I scanned in at 2:14 so I BARELY made it. By then my LL had disappeared from my genie day but I had screenshotted it earlier and when I scanned the barcode it used the one I wanted it to thankfully.
At this point my friend (who started in California Adventure) wanted me to watch the Avengers Campus shows with her because I hadn’t seen most of them. So we watched Doctor Strange, Dora Milaje, Black Widow, and Spider-Man. Then it was time to ride Toy Story so I went and did that. After scanning in I booked Incredicoaster immediately. So I went and did that and booked Guardians for 40 minutes later. After getting off Incredicoaster I did it again through standby which was posted at 30 minutes and was actually a little less than 20.
At that point I went and scanned into Guardians and booked Space for a couple hours later at 7:10-8:10. It was weird how I got it though. Normally Space has plenty of LLs available hours before the park closes but I was about to book 6:55-7:55 I think and it said that time was no longer available and changed it to 10:05-11:00 which I didn’t want to do in case it broke down the last hour of the day. So I refreshed and the next time available was now 10:30-11:00. That was even worse so I refreshed again and now none were available. I kept refreshing and eventually 7:40-8:40 popped up and when I tried to reserve that it changed the time to 7:10-8:10. So genie was real confused there
After Guardians I did RSR single rider and booked WEB Slingers which I rode afterwards. After doing WEB Slingers I saw about half the standby queue for it was empty so I jumped in line and did it again (I waited about half an hour).
Then I used my bonus LL from Thunder and Roger Rabbit to ride Guardians twice. At that point it was time for my Space LL and time to book a new LL and I got Indy. I used my Space LL and had to sit down and wait for 15 minutes because it briefly broke down.
Then I went and waited an hour for Rise and got into the transport. The transport broke down while I was on it and I got stuck for 20 minutes. When they finally got everyone out they scanned my ticket and gave me a LL good through the end of the next day on any LL ride including Rise but not including WEB Slingers or Racers. What was much different about that particular LL from other bonuses was that it was good on Rise (which is like… never the case) but not non-LL rides such as Pirates.
While at Rise, Indy broke down and I got a bonus LL from it so I used it on Space (it was valid there since Indy is also one of the ones it’s not typically valid on). I got an immediate LL for Buzz and used that. Then I did standby for Star Tours which was very fast. At that point the park was closing in about 10 minutes so I jumped in line at Space. It was posted 75 but I only waited 35.
