Genie+ Rule Change

[Brandonius]

This rule change was recently implemented on the east coast, and I'm very sad to see it come to the DLR. Previously, if you had a park hopper ticket, you could book rides in either park at any point in the day, not just the park you start in. For example, I like starting in Disneyland. As soon as I scan in, I would book Guardians of the Galaxy. Up until now, guardians would shift its return time forward for me automatically to 1 PM, because that's the soonest I could hop over to ride it. This meant that I could stack up lightning lanes for the afternoon busy time in DCA and use the low lines in the morning at Disneyland to just use standby. Now, you can't book a Lightning Lane until the return time in the app is actually the return time you want. This isn't a huge deal for a lot of people, but for people like me that really like maximizing the value of that genie and park hopping until they drop, this throws a pretty great option under the bus.

I don't really understand the reasoning for adding this restriction on the west coast either... I understood it on the east coast mainly because there is so much more demand for Genie+ that if you book Hollywood studios reservations, you should have a better chance at booking Rise or Slinky Dog and the old system really did make that much, much harder. But there just isn't that kind of demand at Disneyland. The only thing this rule does is devalues Genie+ slightly and makes the strategy that best maximizes it out of the picture. Does anyone know why this rule might have been put in place for these parks? The only reason I can think of is that people were getting too much value out of park hopping and Disney wants everyone to stay an extra day lol.

 

[starlite_]

I don't mind it. Guests already in a park should get priority on it's rides over guests that are park hopping imo.

 

[sweethannah]

I heard a lot of people reporting this while I was in DL last week. I never had an issue but I'm not sure I understand or maybe it's two separate issues. I posted screengrabs where I was scanned into DL at 11am but was able to book GOTG for the afternoon. They were explaining their issue was they couldn't even book a LL until after 1pm because they hadn't been scanned into the opposite park.
It sounds like you used to be able to book a LL at GOTG and automatically given a timeslot after 1pm where as now you have to wait until the LL return time is after 1pm and keep an eye on it manually instead of it adjusting to your park hop time. This sounds different to the people saying they couldn't even book one even after 1pm as they hadn't scanned into that park.

I don't mind it. Guests already in a park should get priority on it's rides over guests that are park hopping imo.

Why? Guest pay extra to add park hopping to their passes and to use LL, it really shouldn't matter if you are 'in' that particular park or not. People will be in that park to ride, it makes no difference if they booked that ride when still in DL or vice versa.

 

[starlite_]

Why? Guest pay extra to add park hopping to their passes and to use LL, it really shouldn't matter if you are 'in' that particular park or not. People will be in that park to ride, it makes no difference if they booked that ride when still in DL or vice versa.

IMO because let say you are at DL and want to ride SM. It's 11am and SM LL is at 8pm because guests park hopping from CA stacked their LLs all morning. Or vice versa. Granted this seems to be a bigger problem in WDW than in DLR but if it will help to keep LLs from being all taken early during the day then it is better for everyone imo because you can grab more LLs in total in both parks.

 

[sweethannah]

IMO because let say you are at DL and want to ride SM. It's 11am and SM LL is at 8pm because guests park hopping from CA stacked their LLs all morning. Or vice versa. Granted this seems to be a bigger problem in WDW than in DLR but if it will help to keep LLs from being all taken early during the day then it is better for everyone imo because you can grab more LLs in total in both parks.

Everyone has access to the same pool of LL lanes. Guests currently in DL could be stacking LLs for evening returns which in theory limits the availability for park hoppers guests who can't get into the park until after 1pm. Guests who can't enter the park until after 1pm shouldn't run the risk not being able to ride something because by the time they have access to the ride the return times are so late or not available (sold out). The new time restriction for park hopping is imo, ridiculous but I don't see it going away so long as reservations are in place. Back in the day, you could crisscross the esplanade and stack fastpasses across both parks with impunity. That was one of the advantages of paying for hoppers and eventually, paying for Maxpass.

 

[starlite_]

Everyone has access to the same pool of LL lanes. Guests currently in DL could be stacking LLs for evening returns which in theory limits the availability for park hoppers guests who can't get into the park until after 1pm. Guests who can't enter the park until after 1pm shouldn't run the risk not being able to ride something because by the time they have access to the ride the return times are so late or not available (sold out). The new time restriction for park hopping is imo, ridiculous but I don't see it going away so long as reservations are in place. Back in the day, you could crisscross the esplanade and stack fastpasses across both parks with impunity. That was one of the advantages of paying for hoppers and eventually, paying for Maxpass.

We can agree to disagree. The 1pm hopping restriction is indeed very silly to me as well.

 

[DLRExpert]

I am okay with it, it gives me more time to FISH for the MEP passes.

The LL attractions that will get to the 1pm time fastest are...
DCA
- Guardians
DL
- Indiana Jones
- Space Mountain