Hello! I've been away for a number of years. Staying onsite in Mid June for 6 nights. Me, DH, 2 adult sons, and GF of one son. We used to visit The World fairly often when kids were younger. Not to brag, but I was a world champion fastpasser...So, now it's 2023. Things are vastly different. And more expensive. Am I the only person who will not be purchasing
Genie+ or ILL? We plan to try to get VQ for Tron and GOG, but I cannot bring myself to pay $20 pp for an attraction! Or $35 pp per day! So, I am wondering if I am the only person out here who is just going to: arrive for EE and hit a popular ride, watch wait times throughout the day, and try to visit popular attractions nearer to closing. I can't be the only one, right???
Here's my take:
1. the price probably won't be $35 in mid-June. The $35 price is Easter -week surge pricing. WDW has long raised prices Easter week. That said, the price for G+ may well be $29.
2. I'm just back, and did not buy any ILL's, but we skipped most of them. I do not think any attraction is worth $20. (Been on all multiple times.))
3. Here's where things get more complicated. I did feel G+ was worthwhile. The reality of WDW right now is that you either pay the extra fee, or you will not be able to go on many rides in the middle hours of the day. When I say middle of the day, =10am to 7pm.
In current WDW, it is hard to arrive for rope drop every morning. Possible, but hard to do, unless you really wake up early and hustle in the morning.
Where you can do well (no G+) is the extra PM hours for deluxe guests, if that is an option. (I'm guessing no.)
Anyhow, if you don't have G+, you are probably looking at 60 minute waits for many attractions between the hours of 11am and 5pm. With G+, between 8:40am-10:30 we did:
Na'vi (arrived 8:40),
safari (scanned pass 9:10am-on ride at 9:31, off ride at 9:54am), then we had a 10:25 pass for
EE.
When we entered the queue for Na'vi, the standby wait was posted at 55minutes. When we got to the safari, the posted wait was 85 minutes.
Pick your poison. In the amount of time G+ covers 2-3 rides, people without G+ were still suck in line for their FIRST attraction (of the 8:40-10am time period). Also, by the time they got off the safari, the non-G+ folks faced long waits everywhere.
We did not buy G+ for HS. Instead, we did: walk-on TSM, short wait for MMRR, short wait for ToT. When we got off ToT though, the wait had jumped from 13 min to 55min! After ToT, we rode MF (as single riders/engineers). After that, we waited 2+ hours for Slinky. Brutal, but if we had gone to Slinky first, we would have waited at least 90 minutes, instead of covering 3 rides. We arrived at the 'start' of Early entry, but getting scanned into the park was VERY slow, so we spent almost all of the EE half hour waiting to enter the park. We covered 3rides between 7:55-9am, then MF 9:22-10:05am.
