ILL and genie + rides down or missed times

[CVTmarie23]

We are familiar with using genie plus and ILL but not what to do if we deal with rides that are temporarily closed or what happened if we missed our return window for virtual que or a genie + ride time.

We ran into several frustrating situations recently and have a big family trip that we would like to handle better.

We used VQ for guardians and our time came up and overlapped some with our soaring G+. The ride ended up breaking and then we got on with half our party (the other half was doing rider swap). This caused us to go over our soaring time by 35 min. I thought there was a 15 min grace period but we werent sure what to do. The blue umbrella lines were long and the other half of the party didn't want to deal with guardians any longer so half of us skipped guardians and went to soaring. They let us on with no issues. One cast member mentioned as long as your are after hour time and within 2 hours it should be fine, but it was a lot of walking with a large group to be unsure if we would be turned away or not.

This also happened with mine train at MK and it caused us to be late for our space mountain gplus and this time they gave us a really hard time but eventually let us go.

It was incredibly frustrating and since we are local we often go with family and friends who have no idea how to use any of it, so I hate to give them incorrect advice or make us all walk really far or miss out on something we could have rode but we thought we couldn't since we missed our time.

We also had another situation were we booked genie plus (we had 15 people so we had 2 people booking) and as much as we tried to get the times to line up together and not interfere with meals, it was nearly impossible. We went to guest services and they weren't helpful at all. If they could have just moved half our party to match the first half it would have been fine, but all they would tell us to do was cancel them both and try to book them again but at that point the return times were late evening during fireworks and during our dessert party. It was so extremely frustrating to say the least.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Current VQ policy is once your group is called you have until park closing to ride. There's no end time, other than closing
Free Genie Spots have been exactly like FP+ spots, 5 before, 15 after. Provided there's no break down. They are pretty strict with it, unless you get a CM feeling generous, not something to count on so stay in that 5/15 window to be safe.
Break downs are different. Of course they offer something if the ride is broken/off line when your time comes. Just like they did with FP. In my experience, it's automatic, will show up in MDE with the replacement options.
ILL I think is like VQ. I've done it so little I'll leave it to others to answer.

 

[sponica]

ILL I think is like VQ

My only experience with ILL issues are on rise. Basically it converts to an anytime. (we got it refunded because it hadn't come back online and we had dinner plans elsewhere).
And the CMs at Rise let my husband on late, we were late coming from another ride, and they weren't concerned at all.

 

[CVTmarie23]

VQ policy is once your group is called you have until park closing to ride. There's no end time, other than closing
Free Genie Spots have been exactly like FP+ spots, 5 before, 15 after. Provided there's no break down. They are pretty strict with it, unless you get a CM feeling generous, not something to count on so stay in that 5/15 window to be safe.
Break downs are different. Of course they offer something if the ride is broken/off line when your time comes. Just like they did with FP. In my experience, it's automatic, will show up in MDE with the replacement options.
ILL I think is like VQ. I've done it so little I'll leave it to others to answer.

Thanks, yes I'm familiar with the 5/15 min rule and have only used genie plus about 6 times but every single time we had to deal with ride break downs or excessive waits at a dining location it becomes such a frustrating situation. Usually we just said it was after the 15 min so we lost it, but when they let us on soaring we were thinking maybe they are more flexible than we thought.

 

[gottalovepluto]

The rule is 5/15, not one hour. When ride & dining conflict I do the ride and then the dining as ADRs have a 20 min grace period (I think) and are more accommodative in general then rides. Blue umbrellas have been useless for adjusting ride/ADR conflict so I don’t even bother, it must be policy. I once got an adjustment from a blue umbrella cm on a ILL because I bought a 9am FOP and got a 6pm FOP but that’s it.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Thanks, yes I'm familiar with the 5/15 min rule and have only used genie plus about 6 times but every single time we had to deal with ride break downs or excessive waits at a dining location it becomes such a frustrating situation. Usually we just said it was after the 15 min so we lost it, but when they let us on soaring we were thinking maybe they are more flexible than we thought.

There’s always a chance a CM will override the 15 but there is no policy to do so, it’s just a gamble.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Thanks, yes I'm familiar with the 5/15 min rule and have only used genie plus about 6 times but every single time we had to deal with ride break downs or excessive waits at a dining location it becomes such a frustrating situation. Usually we just said it was after the 15 min so we lost it, but when they let us on soaring we were thinking maybe they are more flexible than we thought.

My understanding is, if you have a receipt from your ADR/Dining showing you were still finishing your dining time they are supposed to let you in. Maybe the blue umbrella's are needed to override?

 

[Mrs.AMC]

The rule is 5/15, not one hour. When ride & dining conflict I do the ride and then the dining as ADRs have a 20 min grace period (I think) and are more accommodative in general then rides. Blue umbrellas have been useless for adjusting ride/ADR conflict so I don’t even bother, it must be policy. I once got an adjustment from a blue umbrella cm on a ILL because I bought a 9am FOP and got a 6pm FOP but that’s it.

I think what PP is saying is they thought they'd finish their ADR with time to spare to do their Genie time but the ADR went over by a lot and it made them miss their ride time. You don't always know exactly how long you'll be dining. You can expect to be done in an hour giving you time for both but if it takes 2+ it can throw a wrench in things. No?

 

[scrappinginontario]

It is recommended if you have an ADR and LL return time conflict to go to your ADR then present your dining receipt at the ride and you will normally be allowed to ride. It is much more challenging to accommodate late arrivals for ADRs.

 

[gottalovepluto]

It is recommended if you have an ADR and LL return time conflict to go to your ADR then present your dining receipt at the ride and you will normally be allowed to ride. It is much more challenging to accommodate late arrivals for ADRs.

That’s what I get for listening to guest services. They advised the opposite
You’d think in person GS are gonna be more reliable than the phone CMs and then you find out you might as well have just asked a bus driver

 

[RoseGold]

This is the mess they are dealing with all day with everyone trying to get those nickels. These systems are probably going to change.