Genie+ - Why is it so limited

[Donaldsfans]

We were able to use it to get on four rides at MK. I made a mistake at 7 AM (left a person off the G+ reservation by accident) and when I caught it later in the morning to correct it - it counted as "the" selection for that next time frame so I missed being able to make the next selection for all. So maybe we could have gotten 5 rides on it if I didn't botch that window? I was half asleep at 7 AM after all...

Peoples' mileage varies, and it also must depend on how packed the parks are. It was a VERY busy day when we went, but not packed like a summer day could be. So we did get more than just one ride.

That being said - there's nothing that felt "casual" about it. It all felt very intense. As the planner I really didn't have a good time. I mean... I literally set an alarm for every two hours. We had to stop everything we were doing and strategize several times a day on what to select. By afternoon it was slim pickings. The Tip Board doesn't let you sort. Super tedious to continue scrolling through a bunch of ride suggestions that you can't even select for G+ at all - weed them out mentally and remember which ones are even available for selection that you had scrolled past - then realize it's all stuff that's "bottom of the barrel" anyway. There's nothing casual about waking up at 7 AM and letting your phone dictate your day. However the alternative is waiting in long standby lines which can be a bummer in its own right.

I think the bottom line, however, is whether people get one ride or five rides with it, or whether they "love it", "like it" or tolerate it, or whether it logistically helps them or hurts them - I wouldn't say its a fun addition to the theme park experience. To me theme parks are supposed to be fun. Not work. I certainly didn't leave feeling "Genie+ is so FUN to use!" If it's not going to be fun then I agree with others above - best to go back to a fastpass/ADR-like system where people can plan things in advance so they are set up for fun when they arrive, not more work.

I think once on vacation, much of the right-brained work should stop.

I also think that the most casual park goer, and even people who never went to WDW, were aware of the FastPass system just from word-of-mouth and years of it being in effect. I think we can conjecture all day about how Disney launched it to improve the user (or some users') experience, but to me it's just a flat out money grab and data collection scheme that I tolerate because as of now it's priced out to be a better alternative than waiting standby half the day.

I agree. I don't want to stare at my phone in the parks. IN fact any time WDW uses a computer screen in an attraction or in a queue, I feel they lack imagination. No phones or screens in the parks! For example, spaceship earth was revamped to end with us staring at a computer screen.i can come up with more imaginative endings. How about a scene with time travel, or life exension. Or a scene with a vacations to to the moon. I'll tell you why. A computer screen is cheaper.

 

[Donaldsfans]

Sure everyone could book at 60 days, but... I think it's the fact that 7am is much easier to wake up for than the equivalent 4am on the west coast. That is a difference in the convenience of FP+ for those in different time zones.

Regardless, I still feel that FP+ was FAR SUPERIOR to G+. No getting up at 7am. You had 3 prebooked each day so you had a sense of peace going into your vacation. You could sleep in. You could choose from a number of different time windows for each ride per day. You could modify without cancelling your FP and losing the ability completely to ride that attraction with FP for the day...

One thing I never understood though. Why did they make the window so far out? 60 days? Why not 30 days, or even 2 weeks. That would help those that make last minute trips.

Dan

I am fine with making the window shorter. Not same day though. It's terrible.

 

[twodogs]

I am fine with making the window shorter. Not same day though. It's terrible.

Except same-day is not terrible for the local AP who decides that they want to go to the parks the next day. Or the person who gets time off that they have requested but it is only a few days before the trip. However they structure this, it is going to be good for some people and not others. Doing it same-day makes everyone "eligible' to benefit from it, so it increases the number of potential people who can/will purchase it. If Disney simply charged for FP+ at 30 or 60 days, Disney could not monetize those last minute guests in this way. It is all about the money, sadly.

 

[DisneyFive]

Except same-day is not terrible for the local AP who decides that they want to go to the parks the next day. Or the person who gets time off that they have requested but it is only a few days before the trip. However they structure this, it is going to be good for some people and not others. Doing it same-day makes everyone "eligible' to benefit from it, so it increases the number of potential people who can/will purchase it. If Disney simply charged for FP+ at 30 or 60 days, Disney could not monetize those last minute guests in this way. It is all about the money, sadly.

Yeah, kinda what I've been calling the "lowest common denominator" solution. Now it stinks for everyone (versus FP+)

Having travelled a good amount with FP+ and changing park days mid trip, there was still daily FP availability for all rides, except for 1 ride usually. (which before covid was SDD, FOP, and SDMT). ...and many times even those super premier rides would show up day of. Now we are out TWO premier rides per park unless we pay even more, and G+ is so restrictive. No choice of window, no prebooking, no modifying, one at a time only, etc...

I agree there is no perfect solution, but I feel FP+ (regardless of it were free or paid) was far better than what we have now. Regarding the expectation to be able to have equal FP access for those who decide to visit a park the night before, versus those that planned months out... I mean, when we go to purchase concert tickets, do we expect the same ticket availability the day of the concert versus purchasing seats months in advance? There is, and should, be some benefit to those that plan early IMO.

 

[cccory]

Great insight. Thank you for sharing. We haven't experienced Genie+ yet, and I'm already not looking forward to spending more time on my phone. I want to get away and NOT use my phone.

 

[gregskellington]

People that hate Genie for "having to look at your phone all day"....we're you only using three FP+ a day? I don't see how this critique makes any sense, this is the one part that feels essentially exactly the same.

 

[DisneyFive]

People that hate Genie for "having to look at your phone all day"....we're you only using three FP+ a day? I don't see how this critique makes any sense, this is the one part that feels essentially exactly the same.

I think that's a fair statement. Those that maximized FP+ also had HEAVY screen time unfortunately. Myself included.

Dan

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

I said the same thing, but you said it better!

So true, I would much rather pay for fastpass+ than pay for this nonsense.

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

People that hate Genie for "having to look at your phone all day"....we're you only using three FP+ a day? I don't see how this critique makes any sense, this is the one part that feels essentially exactly the same.

We actually did only use 3 fastpasses most days. Yes, *some days* we'd go for that 4th FP but we planned our trips so that we were there long enough where 3 fastpasses a day was enough to get us on most of the popular rides without having to wait standby. I'm not saying it's the norm, but there are some of us out there who did it this way. And I enjoyed that I could do my planning ahead of time and then not be tied to my phone while I was physically on vacation. Now I'm going to be stuck in my phone all day WHILE on vacation making plans for my family.

 

[gregskellington]

We actually did only use 3 fastpasses most days. Yes, *some days* we'd go for that 4th FP but we planned our trips so that we were there long enough where 3 fastpasses a day was enough to get us on most of the popular rides without having to wait standby. I'm not saying it's the norm, but there are some of us out there who did it this way. And I enjoyed that I could do my planning ahead of time and then not be tied to my phone while I was physically on vacation. Now I'm going to be stuck in my phone all day WHILE on vacation making plans for my family.

I guess we all have a different opinion of what all day is.

 

[JenSop]

Happy to share my thoughts...
I HATED Genie+.
I was there for a week in early January.
I got up at 7am only one of the days, to be able to get RotR. (Hubby had not ridden it yet. I rode it in January 2020, which was our last trip because of the pandemic.)
I hated getting up early. We are NOT morning-people.
That being said, it worked okay for DHS, since I DID get up early. I stacked the rides for the afternoon, and did some standbys that weren't too bad.

It was a disaster for me at MK. I didn't get up early, but still early for our vacation standards. (Hubby was still in bed when I left for the park a little after 10am.) I booked my first G+ ride while still in the room around 9:30am. (Also booked ILL for Space Mt.)
Couldn't book another until 11:30am. That's about the time I finished my lunch in MK. I was able to do BTMR, but my Pirates was for a later return. By 1:30pm when I could book my next ride, Haunted Mansion had an evening return time that conflicted with my dinner. I couldn't get on anything else I wanted with my G+ and felt that $15 spent was a total waste.

I'm also a part time TA on the side. I had my first client experience Genie+ and ILLs this past weekend. (Family friend taking the grandkids - hadn't been to Disney in 30 years.) They HATED Genie+. She thought it was SO stressful. (They legit bought their first smart phone just to be able to use it at Disney.) They were already not used to being on a smartphone all day, but they especially felt like they were living on that thing, while all they wanted to do was to enjoy the time with the grandkids.

And you HAVE to have the knowledge to actually work G+!
You can't just be some random person showing up at Disney and jump into it.
I had detailed directions for them for each park. (At 7am, do this, then at park open, do this, prioritize these rides, etc, etc, etc.)
I can't express how disappointed I am in this change.

FP+ was awesome. I booked three rides for every day for right after lunch. Perfect for our touring style. We slept in every day, knowing we had rides scheduled already.
Heck, I would pay for THAT system. But now i have to pay for a worse product than the one that was free before!

Just really disappointed.

 

[gregskellington]

Happy to share my thoughts...
I HATED Genie+.
I was there for a week in early January.
I got up at 7am only one of the days, to be able to get RotR. (Hubby had not ridden it yet. I rode it in January 2020, which was our last trip because of the pandemic.)
I hated getting up early. We are NOT morning-people.
That being said, it worked okay for DHS, since I DID get up early. I stacked the rides for the afternoon, and did some standbys that weren't too bad.

It was a disaster for me at MK. I didn't get up early, but still early for our vacation standards. (Hubby was still in bed when I left for the park a little after 10am.) I booked my first G+ ride while still in the room around 9:30am. (Also booked ILL for Space Mt.)
Couldn't book another until 11:30am. That's about the time I finished my lunch in MK. I was able to do BTMR, but my Pirates was for a later return. By 1:30pm when I could book my next ride, Haunted Mansion had an evening return time that conflicted with my dinner. I couldn't get on anything else I wanted with my G+ and felt that $15 spent was a total waste.

I'm also a part time TA on the side. I had my first client experience Genie+ and ILLs this past weekend. (Family friend taking the grandkids - hadn't been to Disney in 30 years.) They HATED Genie+. She thought it was SO stressful. (They legit bought their first smart phone just to be able to use it at Disney.) They were already not used to being on a smartphone all day, but they especially felt like they were living on that thing, while all they wanted to do was to enjoy the time with the grandkids.

And you HAVE to have the knowledge to actually work G+!
You can't just be some random person showing up at Disney and jump into it.
I had detailed directions for them for each park. (At 7am, do this, then at park open, do this, prioritize these rides, etc, etc, etc.)
I can't express how disappointed I am in this change.

FP+ was awesome. I booked three rides for every day for right after lunch. Perfect for our touring style. We slept in every day, knowing we had rides scheduled already.
Heck, I would pay for THAT system. But now i have to pay for a worse product than the one that was free before!

Just really disappointed.

Sorry, I'm cackling at the insinuation that you didn't need to have knowledge to work FP+.

 

[JenSop]

Sorry, I'm cackling at the insinuation that you didn't need to have knowledge to work FP+.

You needed SOME knowledge, but it was honestly a LOT easier.
What would I tell a client with the previous system? Book at 60 days out. Choose three rides and pick the times that work best around your dining reservations. These are the best rides to do:_____, _____, _____. Don't waste your time on these rides: ____, _____, ______.
That was it.
Relatively easy.

This time, i had to create flow charts for each park, with A LOT more detailed instructions. Client had SO much stress. (Heck, I had the stress when I was doing it at the beginning of January.)

 

[Jrb1979]

Maybe the solution is to be up the price and limit it like all other parks.

 

[Orsino]

Maybe the solution is to be up the price and limit it like all other parks.

Perhaps. But I foresee needing to be up at midnight in order to buy G+ before it sells out AND having to be up at 7AM to book a popular ride. Though the former might mitigate the latter.

 

[Upatnoon]

I can’t work out why this genie+ goes so fast a lot of the time and on some days your left with hardly anything to pick from (from what I have herd anyway)

With the old fast pass system it was free for everyone and a lot of those people booked there 3 selections before there trip etc and then after that you could pick quite a few More on the day

however with this new system there saying roughly only 1/3 of people are buying it and your only allowed to do one ride once a day

On the old system I have been on popular rides a few times and there was a better choice to pick from until a lot later in the day and sooo many more people using it

So why is it so limited, only allowed one ride a day on each given attraction and thousands of people a day less using it but yet some days there is so little to pick from or rides gone for the whole day very quickly in the morning

I can’t work out why this genie+ goes so fast a lot of the time and on some days your left with hardly anything to pick from (from what I have herd anyway)

With the old fast pass system it was free for everyone and a lot of those people booked there 3 selections before there trip etc and then after that you could pick quite a few More on the day

however with this new system there saying roughly only 1/3 of people are buying it and your only allowed to do one ride once a day

On the old system I have been on popular rides a few times and there was a better choice to pick from until a lot later in the day and sooo many more people using it

So why is it so limited, only allowed one ride a day on each given attraction and thousands of people a day less using it but yet some days there is so little to pick from or rides gone for the whole day very quickly in the morning

The reason it is so limited is because Disney isn't charging enough for Genie+. If they raised the price, fewer people would buy it and more slots would be available to Genie+ customers.

This is also true of the Lighting Lane rides that are selling out instantaneously. If Disney charged enough, they wouldn't sell out.

There are other factors other than pure economics. Disney knows if it charges $40 for Genie+ there will be a ton of outrage -- that outrage could result in lower attendance.

For now, Disney seems to be settling for a mediocre Genie+ experience at a lower price. I'm sure Disney has spent a lot of time crunching numbers to maximize its profits, but that also comes with weaker Genie+ customer experience.

 

[Ikaikalani]

People that hate Genie for "having to look at your phone all day"....we're you only using three FP+ a day? I don't see how this critique makes any sense, this is the one part that feels essentially exactly the same.

On our last trip to WDW was one week before things shut down for covid and we had the best week we've ever had in 20+ visits! At 60 days out we got our 3 FP's booked. A few weeks later, due to an IT glitch, we were given 2 more anytime FP's. A few weeks later another glitch netted us the holy grail of FP's, Gold Tickets good for any ride, anytime! Then, the first day at HS, Alien Saucers went down and they threw 2 more anytime passes at us. We ended up not using them all. The only time I really looked at my phone was at 8am to frantically try to get a boarding group for RotR...and we got group 4! An extremely lucky trip indeed, which did afford us the luxury of forgoing our phones for nearly the entire day, and boy was that a wonderful thing!!

 

[twodogs]

People that hate Genie for "having to look at your phone all day"....we're you only using three FP+ a day? I don't see how this critique makes any sense, this is the one part that feels essentially exactly the same.

I think some people on these boards who are lamenting everything G+ have not ever actually used it. As a person who was very versed at MP at DLR, I used G+ very easily the week of Christmas. I was nervous about it, based on what I had read here, but honestly, it was fine. I was NOT in my phone all day. I got the ILLs at 7am, as well as the first LL. During a busy time, you will be on the 2 hour lock out for almost all of your LLs, so you book one, and then don’t look at your phone for the next 1 hour and 59 minutes. I don’t see how that is on your phone all day. Since you can’t “modify” the LL, I am not sure what there is to do on your phone during the 2 hour lock out?

During less busy times, when you are booking LLs that are immediate or very soon returns, you will be in your phone more often, but you will also be getting more LLs! If you think it won’t work for you, it won’t. I hope everyone can find the right answer for them, if it is G+ or not!

 

[JenSop]

People that hate Genie for "having to look at your phone all day"....we're you only using three FP+ a day? I don't see how this critique makes any sense, this is the one part that feels essentially exactly the same.

For most days, yes, we would do our 3 FPs each afternoon. MAYBE do another one or ride something standby. But we were content with our three rides that we really wanted that worked great into our schedule for the day. (No conflicts with dinner reservations, and no need to get up early.)

 

[JenSop]

I think some people on these boards who are lamenting everything G+ have not ever actually used it. As a person who was very versed at MP at DLR, I used G+ very easily the week of Christmas. I was nervous about it, based on what I had read here, but honestly, it was fine. I was NOT in my phone all day. I got the ILLs at 7am, as well as the first LL. During a busy time, you will be on the 2 hour lock out for almost all of your LLs, so you book one, and then don’t look at your phone for the next 1 hour and 59 minutes. I don’t see how that is on your phone all day. Since you can’t “modify” the LL, I am not sure what there is to do on your phone during the 2 hour lock out?

During less busy times, when you are booking LLs that are immediate or very soon returns, you will be in your phone more often, but you will also be getting more LLs! If you think it won’t work for you, it won’t. I hope everyone can find the right answer for them, if it is G+ or not!

I really went in trying to have an open mind. I tried not to pre-judge. But I did try it, and I really REALLY didn't like it. Just bummed if this is what we have for the forseeable future.