ILL is aptly named.

[MainMom]

That's how you do it. It would depend by park and if you are also getting ILLS for anything how your waits look. We used G+ or ILL for most headliners combined with EE and then did standby for the smaller things with 20-30 minute posted waits. Gave us a bunch of free time to buy dole whips and merch instead of standing in lines and now I'm telling everybody the extra money is worth it exactly as Disney intended.

When was your trip? And we’re you in a park all day?

 

[fairestoneofall]

When we tried to book ILL for Remy in January, we'd get all the way through and it would time out or say there was an error. Then, we'd have to start all over again just for it to repeatedly time out. Over and over again. Then, it would say it was sold out for the day. We kept checking and it would occassionally become available again. Then, we'd start the entire process over again. It was a ridiculous pain in the petunia.

 

[PaladinButters]

When was your trip? And we’re you in a park all day?

Last week (crowd levels ended up about 7/10 if you go by touring plans). We stayed all day at Magic Kingdom for the fireworks / dessert party. Hollywood Studios we did everything in the morning (some twice) and then took off to do Disney Springs (shopping, Gideon's and dinner at Raglan Road) about four since there was no Fantasmic to keep us around there. Epcot we were around all day and Animal Kingdom we did a half day and then half resort night since we were at Animal Kingdom Lodge and therefore required by Florida state law to have the bread service at Sanaa. Travel days kinda cut in half by default since it's many hours of flying and busses and taxis for us so we treat those as no Genie and just do what you can days.

 

[ofcabbagesandkings]

What's weird is that with the old FP+ and ADR system, you could hold a time for a little bit until you finished entering your details and hit confirm. I never lost a time while doing drop/add with folks on the dining board. They could absolutely fix this if they wanted to. Yet another reason I'm excited to be going to Universal instead for our theme park vacation this year. Bring on the Unlimited Express pass!

 

[Duck143]

It happened on every G+ reservation we tried to make. My very favorite was when we booked slinky dog at 9:20am, clicked the button to reserve it and the confirmation page said 7:30PM. I almost threw my phone out the window.

I refuse to purchase G+ now for this reason. My money was better spent on a Touring Plans subscription and using the LINES app to avoid waits.

Did you find TP very helpful planning your day while you were in the parks?

 

[Jennasis]

Did you find TP very helpful planning your day while you were in the parks?

I don't use their actual touring plans but their app was invaluable to getting on rides with less waiting. I was sure to submit my times for every ride too. Love LINES!

 

[Duck143]

I don't use their actual touring plans but their app was invaluable to getting on rides with less waiting. I was sure to submit my times for every ride too. Love LINES!

Good to know! I have used their website for many trips and the ADR finder, but haven't used the app. I'll check it out at the app store. You found their app to have pretty accurate line times listed rather then Disney's (which have been all over the place lately!)?

 

[Jennasis]

Good to know! I have used their website for many trips and the ADR finder, but haven't used the app. I'll check it out at the app store. You found their app to have pretty accurate line times listed rather then Disney's (which have been all over the place lately!)?

We have found them to be most accurate. Disney's posted wait times were ALWAYS wrong. Lines was correct 9 out of 10 times.

 

[bsmcneil]

ILL really does make me ill. Today’s frustration. I log into the app at 6:59:50. I go to the rip board and change to Animal Kingdom. Boom! FOP listed for 9am! Grab it!!! WTH now it says 10:15!! Grab that! I pay for it and it now says 12:30!!! What a worthless piece of crap system! It does not even lock in the time you pick, it just keeps going until your payment posts!!!

Man, this happened to me last week(end, actually) on our last day with Rise. It was at a time we could make (2p hour) when I went to buy it and then moved to late 5pm (and we had an 8:30 flight). I will say that a CM graciously helped me (after actually confirming on the SW app that I had a flight and I had documented the issue almost immediately by asking via chat if anything could be done - and they referred me to the in-person Guest Experience teams). But it was super frustrating to worry about (especially because my kids were slow to get to the parks generally but check-out day was worse because I had to pack up, etc and I couldn't do anything until I got to the park ... and then we had a G+ reservation that would've expired if we hadn't done it immediately and I just wanted an answer/some clarity re: ROTR). Not the worst problems in the world but I could've lived without the frustration and worries. There are some other threads about G+/ILL that I'll add to and am thinking about my own trip report - but wow did I really feel frustrated by G+/ILL!

 

[Skeletonframes]

Man, this happened to me last week(end, actually) on our last day with Rise. It was at a time we could make (2p hour) when I went to buy it and then moved to late 5pm (and we had an 8:30 flight). I will say that a CM graciously helped me (after actually confirming on the SW app that I had a flight and I had documented the issue almost immediately by asking via chat if anything could be done - and they referred me to the in-person Guest Experience teams). But it was super frustrating to worry about (especially because my kids were slow to get to the parks generally but check-out day was worse because I had to pack up, etc and I couldn't do anything until I got to the park ... and then we had a G+ reservation that would've expired if we hadn't done it immediately and I just wanted an answer/some clarity re: ROTR). Not the worst problems in the world but I could've lived without the frustration and worries. There are some other threads about G+/ILL that I'll add to and am thinking about my own trip report - but wow did I really feel frustrated by G+/ILL!

Same exact thing for us. I posted about this in another thread when someone asked if you can get refunded for Lightning Lanes that you can't make, but I'll add some details here, since there seems to be confusion on if the system holds your time or does not (spoiler: it does not) while you're checking out.

Saturday I purchased an Individual Lightning Lane for Flight of Passage for 2:45-3:45pm. We had a reservation at Tiffin's for 4:20pm, so I figured that time would be perfect for us. I confirmed it and paid, but when it showed up in My Day it was for 4:15-5:15pm. Tiffin's takes a good 1-1 1/2 hours for a meal, so this time couldn't work. I thought maybe it changed and I didn't notice before I hit CONFIRM, so just saw Guest Services when I got to the park and they helped us out a lot and gave us a pass to use any time we liked for the ride. This helped immensely, since Flight of Passage was running at half capacity for most of the morning.

Sunday morning I woke up to purchase an Individual Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance for our group. My girlfriend and I had to leave the park by 5pm to catch a flight home, the other couple in our group could stay all day. I chose 12:30pm and was given a 1:25-2:25pm window on my confirmation screen. I made sure that it stayed that way through the whole confirmation because of what happened the day before. When it showed up in My Day it was for 3:25-4:25pm. I have the email receipt that is timestamped at 7:00am, so I took less than 1 minute to CONFIRM the time. We had Oga's at 2:50pm and know that Rise often goes down for long periods throughout the day, so we went to Guest Services again. This time we were told that Oga's has a 45 minute time limit and we could still get in line for Rise by 4:25, so try that and if the line is too long for us to ride it, then the couple staying at the park could stay in line and my girlfriend and I could come back and get a refund.

Everything worked out and we actually had 40 minutes left in the park after the ride, since it was basically Walk-On with the ILL. But, I do think when a particular time is sold to the guest, they should absolutely get the time they paid for, because it may not work out as well for other groups.

We actually used Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes to our benefit during this trip, but I don't like the system or how it's implemented. We are more casual (don't care if we miss a ride this time) park-goers, so it was fine for us, but I couldn't imagine the stress this could put on a family.

 

[mom2rtk]

Same exact thing for us. I posted about this in another thread when someone asked if you can get refunded for Lightning Lanes that you can't make, but I'll add some details here, since there seems to be confusion on if the system holds your time or does not (spoiler: it does not) while you're checking out.

Saturday I purchased an Individual Lightning Lane for Flight of Passage for 2:45-3:45pm. We had a reservation at Tiffin's for 4:20pm, so I figured that time would be perfect for us. I confirmed it and paid, but when it showed up in My Day it was for 4:15-5:15pm. Tiffin's takes a good 1-1 1/2 hours for a meal, so this time couldn't work. I thought maybe it changed and I didn't notice before I hit CONFIRM, so just saw Guest Services when I got to the park and they helped us out a lot and gave us a pass to use any time we liked for the ride. This helped immensely, since Flight of Passage was running at half capacity for most of the morning.

Sunday morning I woke up to purchase an Individual Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance for our group. My girlfriend and I had to leave the park by 5pm to catch a flight home, the other couple in our group could stay all day. I chose 12:30pm and was given a 1:25-2:25pm window on my confirmation screen. I made sure that it stayed that way through the whole confirmation because of what happened the day before. When it showed up in My Day it was for 3:25-4:25pm. I have the email receipt that is timestamped at 7:00am, so I took less than 1 minute to CONFIRM the time. We had Oga's at 2:50pm and know that Rise often goes down for long periods throughout the day, so we went to Guest Services again. This time we were told that Oga's has a 45 minute time limit and we could still get in line for Rise by 4:25, so try that and if the line is too long for us to ride it, then the couple staying at the park could stay in line and my girlfriend and I could come back and get a refund.

Everything worked out and we actually had 40 minutes left in the park after the ride, since it was basically Walk-On with the ILL. But, I do think when a particular time is sold to the guest, they should absolutely get the time they paid for, because it may not work out as well for other groups.

We actually used Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes to our benefit during this trip, but I don't like the system or how it's implemented. We are more casual (don't care if we miss a ride this time) park-goers, so it was fine for us, but I couldn't imagine the stress this could put on a family.

Glad they made these right for you. But the irony of needing to stand in line (at Guest Services) to get help avoiding a line you paid to avoid is just too much.

 

[bsmcneil]

Same exact thing for us. I posted about this in another thread when someone asked if you can get refunded for Lightning Lanes that you can't make, but I'll add some details here, since there seems to be confusion on if the system holds your time or does not (spoiler: it does not) while you're checking out.

Saturday I purchased an Individual Lightning Lane for Flight of Passage for 2:45-3:45pm. We had a reservation at Tiffin's for 4:20pm, so I figured that time would be perfect for us. I confirmed it and paid, but when it showed up in My Day it was for 4:15-5:15pm. Tiffin's takes a good 1-1 1/2 hours for a meal, so this time couldn't work. I thought maybe it changed and I didn't notice before I hit CONFIRM, so just saw Guest Services when I got to the park and they helped us out a lot and gave us a pass to use any time we liked for the ride. This helped immensely, since Flight of Passage was running at half capacity for most of the morning.

Sunday morning I woke up to purchase an Individual Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance for our group. My girlfriend and I had to leave the park by 5pm to catch a flight home, the other couple in our group could stay all day. I chose 12:30pm and was given a 1:25-2:25pm window on my confirmation screen. I made sure that it stayed that way through the whole confirmation because of what happened the day before. When it showed up in My Day it was for 3:25-4:25pm. I have the email receipt that is timestamped at 7:00am, so I took less than 1 minute to CONFIRM the time. We had Oga's at 2:50pm and know that Rise often goes down for long periods throughout the day, so we went to Guest Services again. This time we were told that Oga's has a 45 minute time limit and we could still get in line for Rise by 4:25, so try that and if the line is too long for us to ride it, then the couple staying at the park could stay in line and my girlfriend and I could come back and get a refund.

Everything worked out and we actually had 40 minutes left in the park after the ride, since it was basically Walk-On with the ILL. But, I do think when a particular time is sold to the guest, they should absolutely get the time they paid for, because it may not work out as well for other groups.

We actually used Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes to our benefit during this trip, but I don't like the system or how it's implemented. We are more casual (don't care if we miss a ride this time) park-goers, so it was fine for us, but I couldn't imagine the stress this could put on a family.

Sadly, I ended up skipping Oga's due to ROTR being down and taking a while to get up, and then we couldn't get to Oga's (all at the end of the night). It was a 30 dollar hit (that I imagine if I had asked someone to help with, they might've - but at the end of the night, two young kids who are exhausted, I just took the hit - in part because I was wrong when I first came to terms with it, because I thought it was going to be a 10 dollar fee instead of 10pp). These are the nickel and dime things that are feeling frustrating to so many.

 

[Sydnerella]

Sadly, I ended up skipping Oga's due to ROTR being down and taking a while to get up, and then we couldn't get to Oga's (all at the end of the night). It was a 30 dollar hit (that I imagine if I had asked someone to help with, they might've - but at the end of the night, two young kids who are exhausted, I just took the hit - in part because I was wrong when I first came to terms with it, because I thought it was going to be a 10 dollar fee instead of 10pp). These are the nickel and dime things that are feeling frustrating to so many.

That is a bummer!

I understand and agree. These are the challenges that make things more disappointing on recent trips. I would assume you could get reimbursed if you went to GET or customer service. While my frustrating experience with broke down rides and G+/ILL has been well documented here on the boards I always had pretty solid guest recovery after my daily GET visits… yes, I did say daily

 

[Sydnerella]

Glad they made these right for you. But the irony of needing to stand in line (at Guest Services) to get help avoiding a line you paid to avoid is just too much.

or more like This was the story of our TG 2021 trip… wait in GET everyday to get something fixed, addressed, refunded…. On average I waited 25 minutes a time… fortunately most CMs were very accommodating and apologetic but when time is what you’re trying to save - paying money to do that in the first place - it is not the thing you want to spend on your limited park days as you indicate and well know!

 

[bsmcneil]

That is a bummer!

I understand and agree. These are the challenges that make things more disappointing on recent trips. I would assume you could get reimbursed if you went to GET or customer service. While my frustrating experience with broke down rides and G+/ILL has been well documented here on the boards I always had pretty solid guest recovery after my daily GET visits… yes, I did say daily

I know. Honestly, there were enough times that CMs helped in other situations that I feel like it's all okay (I also had bought a lot of gift cards and paid with those and generally they wouldn't be much use to me now, if they refunded to the original source). I'm also the guy unlikely to send food back if it's cooked wrong/the wrong order

 

[momsquad]

So the time changing while trying to finish the checkout with an $ILL purchase . . . Does it not use the CC# info I have stored in my MDE account? Like it does for dining reservations? Or will I be expected to add that info every time I purchase an $ILL? (so confused)

 

[Westerner]

So the time changing while trying to finish the checkout with an $ILL purchase . . . Does it not use the CC# info I have stored in my MDE account? Like it does for dining reservations? Or will I be expected to add that info every time I purchase an $ILL? (so confused)

When I did it used the stored CC info I had. Not sure if it was linked in MDE or simply saved from the last G+/ILL purchase I made. But it did not slow me down from booking ILL rapidly once setup.

 

[umichigan10]

"Let's make sure this new system works really well by hiring absolutely top-notch software engineers", said no Disney executive, ever.

“We sent invitations out to the biggest IT innovators in the world to work on our system. Unfortunately, none of them showed up”

 

[OwnedByRetrievers]

When I did it used the stored CC info I had. Not sure if it was linked in MDE or simply saved from the last G+/ILL purchase I made. But it did not slow me down from booking ILL rapidly once setup.

I was literally getting ready to ask about this, after reading this thread. When I purchased our Magic Bands through MDE, I saved my CC info. What's the point of having it saved if it's not going to automatically use it? If it automatically uses it, why is it taking so long?

For those who had those delays, did you have CC info saved, or was it entered manually each time?

 

[Westerner]

I was literally getting ready to ask about this, after reading this thread. When I purchased our Magic Bands through MDE, I saved my CC info. What's the point of having it saved if it's not going to automatically use it? If it automatically uses it, why is it taking so long?

For those who had those delays, did you have CC info saved, or was it entered manually each time?

Pardon that this not directly answer your question, but here is one more thought that might help with 7AM-related slowness: if you're staying on Disney property and using their wifi, a lot of other guests might be trying to book LL at the same time. Perhaps you could get better performance using your cell service.