Genie+ Stacking Strategy?

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

Keep in mind that you will only be able to stack 3, and you are at the mercy of whatever return windows are showing at that time.

Book at 7am, 11am, 1pm. In many cases popular rides can be totally booked by 3pm so don’t count on that one being a headliner. Just stuff to keep in mind.

Dan

Yeah I just realized that there isn't a 9am booking window if you're stacking. Blah. That puts a little wrench in my plan there. Still, I think this might work for us because we're only planning on it for two days.

One is for an evening in Animal Kingdom, so I'd probably only "need" 3 (Na'avi, Kilimanjaro, Dinosaur) and even those... I mean, maybe we just skip Genie+ all together that day. We will probably go to Epcot in the morning that day... and now I'm wondering if maybe we could use Genie+ to book our first LL at Epcot for early morning, go over (we're at BCV so this is no big deal), tap into that first ride around 9-10, then start stacking for Animal Kingdom while we hang out back at BC.

The other day we were considering stacking like this is for Hollywood Studios. We're dedicating the whole day to HS, but we also cannot have a full park day with the little ones. Since we're right over at BCV, my plan would be to make our first Genie+ at 7am as usual, then go to HS to rope drop something or other. Then see how it seems to be working and play it from there. If we seem to be getting lots of afternoon return times, we can easily go back to the resort, stack a few up, and come back later.

 

[scrappinginontario]

We did this last week for our second DHS day. Slow morning (after booking 7AM SDD LL), pool time, went to DS for lunch then to DHS.

Arrived at 2:30 and did a ride we didn't have a LL for. At 3:00 we hadn't used any of our LL's and had the following stacked:

3:35 - 4:35 Star Tours (booked at 1:00)
3:45 - 4:45 Toy Story Mania (booked at 11:00)
3:55 - 4:55 Slinky Dog Dash (booked at 7:00)
6:00 - 7:00 Tower of Terror (booked at 3:00)

The thing that worked well for us the few days I purchased Genie+ was to set an alarm for 5 mins before we were eligible to book the next LL. That way we weren't spending all our time clock watching. Also, in the 5 min window we would look at return times to determine what we were going to try to book when our window opened. We could have booked more LL after 5:00 but there wasn't anything available we wanted to book.

It was a bit of a learning curve but for the crowd levels we experienced last week, Genie+ worked well for MK and DHS. We did not purchase for the other parks or purchase any ILL$. The only 2 ILL$ we wanted we rode at rope drop (Remy) or park close (RotR and SDMT).

I noticed that with three of your G+ picks, the time frames are all overlapping (between 3:30-4:55. With FP+, you weren't able to do that. What happens if you get caught up on TSM and finish up after 5. Does that mean you miss SDD?

You can only book 1 LL return each time you're eligible to book (e.g. 7AM, 11AM, 1PM, 3PM....) but, the return time you choose is completely up to you if you choose to book overlapping times as I did above.

I was not concerned about missing any LL return times as we arrived at Star Tours right at 3:35 when our return window first opened. From there we made our way to TSL (via Batuu to save a few steps), arriving around 4:00. This gave us 55 mins to line up and ride TSM prior to our SDD window closing. There was plenty of time to accomplish all 3 LL between 3:35 and 4:55. This was a choice we made as I felt it was doable for us. There was nothing forcing us to do this, just our choice when stacking our LL attractions.

 

[Melissa Perez]

That is encouraging! We're also at BCV for half of our stay and over at the GFV for the other half, so your end of day strategy might work for us too, so thanks for mentioning it!

Maybe you can answer this for me though - I was under the impression that you could book every 120 minutes beginning at 7am, but I just saw somewhere that you can book at 7am but then not until 2 hours AFTER park opening. So basically not until 11am if you're trying to stack this way. Was that your experience?

You can book your first Genie+ at 7am for on-site guests and then the next one is 2 hours after park opening (typically 9am) so yes - the second one I would pick up would be 11am. Off-site can book their first at park opening. Since we were mostly arriving after 1pm I would have stacked 3 G+ already (7am, 11am and 1pm). If the first G+ res was the soonest (i.e. 1:15) then as soon as I tapped in to that I could already start making #4.

 

[mwoody19671967]

You can only book 1 LL return each time you're eligible to book (e.g. 7AM, 11AM, 1PM, 3PM....) but, the return time you choose is completely up to you if you choose to book overlapping times as I did above.

I was not concerned about missing any LL return times as we arrived at Star Tours right at 3:35 when our return window first opened. From there we made our way to TSL (via Batuu to save a few steps), arriving around 4:00. This gave us 55 mins to line up and ride TSM prior to our SDD window closing. There was plenty of time to accomplish all 3 LL between 3:35 and 4:55. This was a choice we made as I felt it was doable for us. There was nothing forcing us to do this, just our choice when stacking our LL attractions.

Question:
I am trying to follow this and understand it before an upcoming trip. We will have 3 adults with park hopper, arriving at 2 on a Thursday with a 5 day ticket. Using the stacking method, if I am up at 7 am to start the process keeping in mind that we will park hopping, should I make the first LL pick at the park I am starting at for the day or after 2 pm selection for the park I will end up at for that day?

 

[js]

You can book your first Genie+ at 7am for on-site guests and then the next one is 2 hours after park opening (typically 9am) so yes - the second one I would pick up would be 11am. Off-site can book their first at park opening. Since we were mostly arriving after 1pm I would have stacked 3 G+ already (7am, 11am and 1pm). If the first G+ res was the soonest (i.e. 1:15) then as soon as I tapped in to that I could already start making #4.

I am DVC but also have a TS in Orlando, where we are staying in April.
I'm confirming you are correct about G+ and offsite cannot book at 7 am.

I thought offsite guests can book G+ at 7 am but have to wait to book ILL at park opening.

Can someone please let me know if I am mistaken about above.

Thank you.

 

[Tom_E_D]

I am DVC but also have a TS in Orlando, where we are staying in April.
I'm confirming you are correct about G+ and offsite cannot book at 7 am.

I thought offsite guests can book G+ at 7 am but have to wait to book ILL at park opening.

Can someone please let me know if I am mistaken about above.

Thank you.

For Genie+, anyone, whether onsite or offsite, can book their first one at 7:00. It is ILL$ that differentiates between onsite and offsite guests.

 

[js]

For Genie+, anyone, whether onsite or offsite, can book their first one at 7:00. It is ILL$ that differentiates between onsite and offsite guests.

Thank you very much! First time using G+ offsite, so wanted to make sure.
We used in January but stayed onsite.

Thank you.

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

For Genie+, anyone, whether onsite or offsite, can book their first one at 7:00. It is ILL$ that differentiates between onsite and offsite guests.

Man that on-site advantage is REALLY dwindling.

 

[lockets]

You can book your first Genie+ at 7am for on-site guests and then the next one is 2 hours after park opening (typically 9am) so yes - the second one I would pick up would be 11am. Off-site can book their first at park opening. Since we were mostly arriving after 1pm I would have stacked 3 G+ already (7am, 11am and 1pm). If the first G+ res was the soonest (i.e. 1:15) then as soon as I tapped in to that I could already start making #4.

In the above scenario - say you booked a very popular ride during the 11 AM time slot for 4:30 PM. Would the next time you were able to select your next G+ ride be the 3 PM window? You wouldn't be able to select an additional ride after tapping into the 1:15 PM ride if you had a ride booked at a later time than that already, right? i.e. the 4:30 PM booked ride would block you from selecting again at 1:15 PM. My understanding is rides could only be selected after tapping in as long as there were no more rides reserved by you for the rest of day. Or did I get that wrong?

 

[elaine amj]

Man that on-site advantage is REALLY dwindling.

i don’t know. It feels like my only choice is to stay onsite to get early entry or stay offsite and buy Genie+. It is likely cheaper for me to stay onsite with early entry vs Genie+ for all of us. I was hoping to stay offsite next but early entry is pushing me back onsite.

 

[AprilsZoo]

You can book your first Genie+ at 7am for on-site guests and then the next one is 2 hours after park opening (typically 9am) so yes - the second one I would pick up would be 11am. Off-site can book their first at park opening. Since we were mostly arriving after 1pm I would have stacked 3 G+ already (7am, 11am and 1pm). If the first G+ res was the soonest (i.e. 1:15) then as soon as I tapped in to that I could already start making #4.

Re: the bolded portion of the quote…

If you are somehow lucky enough to get an LL for say 9:30 or 10:00 a.m.— are you able to make your next pick immediately after you tap in for that ride? Or are you still forced to wait until 11 (or noon) [2 hours after opening]?
{I thought it was the first way… immediately after you tap in.}

Also, is the time you’re eligible to make that second pick based on which park you have a reservation for? So that if my reservation is for Epcot, I’d potentially have to wait until noon to make my second pick… but if my ressie is at MK, I could grab my 2nd LL @ 11 a.m.?

I swear, every time I think I’m beginning to understand this, I realize there’s something else I didn’t know about, or that I had incorrect.

Thank heavens for Disboards so that I can have most of my learning curve worked out before I get there. If I had to figure everything thing out during my trip, without any knowledge going in… well, let’s just say I wouldn’t need shampoo anymore after day 1, because I’d have pulled out every last bit of my hair.

As it is, I’m afraid I’m gonna just end up in a secluded corner somewhere knocking my head into a wall. Maybe it’s a good thing there’s virtually nowhere that can be called secluded anymore.

 

[AprilsZoo]

i don’t know. It feels like my only choice is to stay onsite to get early entry or stay offsite and buy Genie+. It is likely cheaper for me to stay onsite with early entry vs Genie+ for all of us. I was hoping to stay offsite next but early entry is pushing me back onsite.

Now that early entry is only 30 minutes before regular open… it seems like it’s just a tease to me.
“Neener, neener, neener… we got you good… we made you think you got something special …and you actually fell for it!! What a bunch of suckers…”
{Ok, I admit, they probably aren’t *really* saying that @ corporate… but man it sure feels like they’re thumbing their noses at us.}

Just from a quick search on Priceline, I see several nice hotels that are enough less than Disney hotels that it would go a long way toward paying for G+. Maybe even pay for it and then some. To top it off, quite a number of them appear to still qualify for EE and other privileges. The biggest obstacle appears to be transportation… but virtually all of the hotels show shuttles at least to DS, and many say they go to all the parks. Timing can be tricky when you’re leaving, but you can always take Disney transportation to DS, and then take Uber or Lyft from there to the hotel if there’s no hotel shuttle.

Personally, I have dreamed of staying on property for more than 20 years. But I think I missed my chance for it to be really magical. I’ve pretty much decided that we are going to stay in either the Swan/Dolphin for the whole trip, or stay in a Disney Springs Hotel that still offers most of the same privileges… then maybe, we’ll move to AKL for the last couple days of our trip, just so I can say I’ve stayed in a savannah view room and woke up looking a giraffes or other animals outside my window.

A Free Dining promotion *could* pique my interest to staying on-site… but who knows when that’s coming back. The funny thing is, on their website, they appear to have an updated page of dining package options… and they make it sound like they are all currently available. But according to the CM in chat, the Dining Plans still can’t be purchased. “Oh, the ambiguity…”

 

[Westerner]

Man that on-site advantage is REALLY dwindling.

Indeed. The key remaining advantage for onsite from my perspective is $ILL for RotR and occasional EMH for deluxe.

If you are somehow lucky enough to get an LL for say 9:30 or 10:00 a.m.— are you able to make your next pick immediately after you tap in for that ride? Or are you still forced to wait until 11 (or noon) [2 hours after opening]?
{I thought it was the first way… immediately after you tap in.}

Also, is the time you’re eligible to make that second pick based on which park you have a reservation for? So that if my reservation is for Epcot, I’d potentially have to wait until noon to make my second pick… but if my ressie is at MK, I could grab my 2nd LL @ 11 a.m.?

Yes! If you can get an early return time (i.e. prior to Park Open + 2 hours) you can tap in and get a jump on everyone else who'll be forced to wait til Park Open +2. Think of it like EE for G+ and it's a significant advantage at DHS. Example:

DHS opens at 830am
7:00:00: book MFSR for 10 return time (hopefully)
10-ish: tap in to MFSR. After the 2nd tap book ToT, RnRC orMMRR. Be ready with these rides pinned on your Tip Board to save time.
12-ish: book your next LL, something like TSM
etc.
Caveat: this does mean giving up a SDD LL. Getting a pre1030 return time on SDD is very difficult.

If you are not hopping then the 2hr rule is based on park open of where your reservation is at. Your Epcot/MK examples would be correct.
If hopping it's more complicated.

 

[HydroGuy]

If you are somehow lucky enough to get an LL for say 9:30 or 10:00 a.m.— are you able to make your next pick immediately after you tap in for that ride? Or are you still forced to wait until 11 (or noon) [2 hours after opening]?
{I thought it was the first way… immediately after you tap in.}

It is. The PP was probably discussing a person who was either park hopping or planning to arrive late to that park and was trying for LL's later in the day.

For those planning to rope drop, it still seems to me that going for a less popular LL with your 7AM choice and getting a LL window that opens before the 2 hour mark will give you the most options.

At 7AM you have visitors from all 4 parks hitting the system at once and it maxes out and does not function well as we all have seen.

At the 2 hour mark, and when the parks have staggered openings like today (7:30AM AK, 8:30AM EP and HS, and 9AM MK) then there will be less people hitting the system as the 2 hour point is different for each park - except EP/HS. So not as bad as 7AM but it still happens.

Regardless, if you can get LL#2 before that point you will have an easier time of it. More critically, it seems, is you are better positioned to get LL #3 two hours after that when popular rides really seem to dry up.

Also, is the time you’re eligible to make that second pick based on which park you have a reservation for? So that if my reservation is for Epcot, I’d potentially have to wait until noon to make my second pick… but if my ressie is at MK, I could grab my 2nd LL @ 11 a.m.?

Yes. And if you park hop it seems that it is 2 hours after your morning park choice, not your PH park choice.

But I am not sure we know 100% yet.

 

[Mando3611]

My reservation is at Animal Kingdom...Park Opens at 7:30 AM. I was planning to park Hop to Magic Kingdom at 2:00 PM later that day. I was also planning on stacking LL reservations at 7:00 AM , 9:30 AM (7:30 + 2 hours), and 11:30 AM - ALL LL reservations would be for Magic Kingdom afternoon attractions. Will this work?

Also...could I buy a individual purchase lighting lane at 2 different parks in the same day (Flight of passage and 7 dwarfs)???

Please Help???

 

[iheartglaciers]

I did this earlier this month on 3/10 at HS. Park opened at 8:30am, but I planned to sleep in (well, wake up at 7am, book LL, and then go back to sleep ) and shop at DS before heading to HS around 2pm.

• 7am: I booked Slinky for 4:30pm (this took some playing around and stress because I initially got Slinky for 9:30am and it didn't immediately give me the option to cancel... but once I was able to cancel, I kept refreshing and got the 4:30pm slot).
• 10:30am (2 hours after park open): Booked Milenium Falcon for 6:30pm
• 12:30pm: Refreshed for ~20 mins and booked MMRR for 7pm
• 2:30pm: Refreshed (can't remember for how long) and got TSMM for 6pm

We got to HS around 2:30pm, ate lunch at Woody's Lunchbox, watched the Beauty & the Beast Show, and shopped. Slinky was down for rain, but it got turned into an anytime FP, and fortunately it wasn't down for too long. We knocked out 4 rides in a couple of hours.

Genie+ really helped us avoid waiting in lines, but I find it stressful to have to wake up at 7am on vacation to book (not to mention it can be glitchy which adds to the headache of being up early). Stacking can be great, but it's annoying to set an alarm for every two hours and do the amount of refreshing that can be necessary to grab your later LLs (versus FP+ where you'd already have 3 booked and you could do the refresh game when you scanned in for the 3rd). And it's much harder to plan around your schedule (or just even put together a logical flow that doesn't have you criss crossing the park so much) since you can go to book a LL at a certain time, but it'll end up booking a much later time.

 

[Mando3611]

I did this earlier this month on 3/10 at HS. Park opened at 8:30am, but I planned to sleep in (well, wake up at 7am, book LL, and then go back to sleep ) and shop at DS before heading to HS around 2pm.

• 7am: I booked Slinky for 4:30pm (this took some playing around and stress because I initially got Slinky for 9:30am and it didn't immediately give me the option to cancel... but once I was able to cancel, I kept refreshing and got the 5:30pm slot).
• 10:30am (2 hours after park open): Booked Milenium Falcon for 6:30pm
• 12:30pm: Refreshed for ~20 mins and booked MMRR for 7pm
• 2:30pm: Refreshed (can't remember for how long) and got TSMM for 6pm

We got to HS around 2:30pm, ate lunch at Woody's Lunchbox, watched the Beauty & the Beast Show, and shopped. Slinky was down for rain, but it got turned into an anytime FP, and fortunately it wasn't down for too long. We knocked out 4 rides in a couple of hours.

Genie+ really helped us avoid waiting in lines, but I find it stressful to have to wake up at 7am on vacation to book (not to mention it can be glitchy which adds to the headache of being up early). Stacking can be great, but it's annoying to set an alarm for every two hours and do the amount of refreshing that can be necessary to grab your later LLs (versus FP+ where you'd already have 3 booked and you could do the refresh game when you scanned in for the 3rd). And it's much harder to plan around your schedule (or just even put together a logical flow that doesn't have you criss crossing the park so much) since you can go to book a LL at a certain time, but it'll end up booking a much later time.

Thank You!

 

[dagored]

I have read the entire thread. Learned a great deal. This doesn’t sound like fun anymore.

 

[Scalemaster34]

i don’t know. It feels like my only choice is to stay onsite to get early entry or stay offsite and buy Genie+. It is likely cheaper for me to stay onsite with early entry vs Genie+ for all of us. I was hoping to stay offsite next but early entry is pushing me back onsite.

I got more "value" out of doing Early Entry or Deluxe Evening Hours... than I did with Genie.

But Disney real should be offering an evening each night with Deluxe Evening Hours...

 

[iheartglaciers]

I got more "value" out of doing Early Entry or Deluxe Evening Hours... than I did with Genie.

But Disney real should be offering an evening each night with Deluxe Evening Hours...

Totally agree on all counts. I don’t usually go for a whole week and end up missing the Monday or Wednesday Deluxe Evening Hours. And the one time I’m there on a Wednesday later this month, MK Evening Hours is on a Tuesday .

My best stretch was MK from 9:30-11pm a couple weeks ago. Especially after 10pm, most lines were walk on or very short. Stress free, you could just ride whatever you wanted without worrying about LL windows and refreshing the app all day.