Is Genie+ worthwhile for evening starts?

[Nick6300]

Do you feel Genie+ is still worthwhile at MK with a 4:30 start (assuming 11pm close) on 4/30? Initially thinking no, but we could try to time Pan at 4:30, and get 2nd LL at 11 am (we board our flight at 10 am central).

We've only had 2 trips since start of Genie+, and have avoided paying at AK/EP. When we hopped to, say, MK in the evening, w/out Genie+, we worked shorter SBs (Pirates, IASW, Philar, Mermaid, Peoplemover, and the shows). This trip is a little shorter than prior ones, but still 6 full days. Now with the added rides available for + such as FEA, Space, Runaway, EE (probably will be closed for us)... Similar to above, do you feel that an AK/HS or EP/MK day could still be worth the purchase?

The complication variable is that wife will not be going on any pregnant restricted rides, making AK/HS limited to about 2 attractions + shows/trails. EP may actually have more to do for her than MK. If we booked only me for HS, for instance, then she wouldn't be able to ride with me for Runaway and TSM unless via SB. Any thoughts on how you'd approach plans?

 

[clm10308]

I think G+ would be quite useful in your situation. Rides could be stacked for evenings to minimize waiting in line. Also, if you plan to do rides that your spouse cannot, then the amount of time she spends waiting for you will be minimized.
If you choose only to ride things that you can do together, then it might not be as useful.

 

[Nick6300]

I think G+ would be quite useful in your situation. Rides could be stacked for evenings to minimize waiting in line. Also, if you plan to do rides that your spouse cannot, then the amount of time she spends waiting for you will be minimized.
If you choose only to ride things that you can do together, then it might not be as useful.

Thanks. I think if we get G+ for both of us, I would still go on everything (once/twice), it's more of a question of whether to get it for just me or both of us.

When selecting your next LL, do you typically value obtaining one for a BTM that is a few hours out, getting later and later, or something much sooner, potentially missing out on a few.

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

I'm actually of the mind that stacking for the evening might be beneficial. Granted, I haven't been to WDW since before Genie+ launched so this is just my theory, not something I've actually done and experienced. But my plan for Animal Kingdom is to not get there until late afternoon - likely 2:30/3:00ish.

I'll start stacking right at 7am (and hopefully get an ILL for FOP, too). So 7am, 11:00, 1pm, 3pm. That in theory should start us off with 3-4 stacked Genie+ attractions by the time we arrive. We're having lunch ahead of AK arrival so we'll just do counter service at some point in the evening for dinner - this way we won't have to work around an ADR. Also there are not all that many Genie+ attractions in AK to begin with, so I feel like this should be plenty of time to get through all we want to do. I'm not sure my plan would be the same for MK, though.

 

[Nick6300]

I'm actually of the mind that stacking for the evening might be beneficial. Granted, I haven't been to WDW since before Genie+ launched so this is just my theory, not something I've actually done and experienced. But my plan for Animal Kingdom is to not get there until late afternoon - likely 2:30/3:00ish.

I'll start stacking right at 7am (and hopefully get an ILL for FOP, too). So 7am, 11:00, 1pm, 3pm. That in theory should start us off with 3-4 stacked Genie+ attractions by the time we arrive. We're having lunch ahead of AK arrival so we'll just do counter service at some point in the evening for dinner - this way we won't have to work around an ADR. Also there are not all that many Genie+ attractions in AK to begin with, so I feel like this should be plenty of time to get through all we want to do. I'm not sure my plan would be the same for MK, though.

Could be wrong or just doing it wrong, but it seemed like we were only able to stack no more than 2 each and got an error if we tried for 3.

 

[ckelly14]

You can definitely stack more than 2 (or at least you could). If you can give more details on what happened we can try to figure this out.

 

[Nick6300]

You can definitely stack more than 2 (or at least you could). If you can give more details on what happened we can try to figure this out.

Thanks, I need to research how to properly stack G+ before we leave. Not sure I can give an exact account. But we'd get an error stating 'not so fast' can't book another one error when we had 2 sets, and the 3rd one would have been after a couple hours have past since booking last one. We went to Guest Services when this occurred, few different times, different parks, and they told us you can't have more than the 2, have to use 1 first. This was Nov & Dec. and we sort of accepted that as the case. But a few articles I've seen, it did seem like people were using a lot more than we were able to.

 

[Nick6300]

I asked my wife, and she said that we were able to stack 3, not 2 like I had thought. We did get those Not So Fast errors when we already had a couple and tried to add right after using one. She believes that if we tried to stack without entering a queue, we would have been able to.

I'm surprised that I'm such a novice on the G+ ins and outs. I normally would be more in tune, but I'm getting disinterested after so many rounds of upcharges.

I'd like to learn more about the stacking and be able to create a G+ gameplan for the trip at end of mo. If G+ is worth it, at least MK and maybe HS, in the evening, then they would be worthwhile as a 2nd park after AK or EP, where at least we personally haven't bought it for those 2 parks.

I'd also like to figure out too when to book a SDD, FEA, Pan when they are for 2nd park vs. something within 1st park.

 

[MainMom]

I asked my wife, and she said that we were able to stack 3, not 2 like I had thought. We did get those Not So Fast errors when we already had a couple and tried to add right after using one. She believes that if we tried to stack without entering a queue, we would have been able to.

I'm surprised that I'm such a novice on the G+ ins and outs. I normally would be more in tune, but I'm getting disinterested after so many rounds of upcharges.

I'd like to learn more about the stacking and be able to create a G+ gameplan for the trip at end of mo. If G+ is worth it, at least MK and maybe HS, in the evening, then they would be worthwhile as a 2nd park after AK or EP, where at least we personally haven't bought it for those 2 parks.

I'd also like to figure out too when to book a SDD, FEA, Pan when they are for 2nd park vs. something within 1st park.

They closed the 3 stack loophole around November. Currently if you have 2 LL booked you can only book another one if the one you use is your most recently booked or when your 2 hours runs out.

 

[ckelly14]

I'm surprised that I'm such a novice on the G+ ins and outs. I normally would be more in tune, but I'm getting disinterested after so many rounds of upcharges.

Yes, 100%!!

 

[Nick6300]

Yes, 100%!!

and my wife is unofficially in charge of Disney (and all) tech. I don't want to think too hard on vacation.

 

[Nick6300]

They closed the 3 stack loophole around November. Currently if you have 2 LL booked you can only book another one if the one you use is your most recently booked or when your 2 hours runs out.

Thank you. Maybe our first trip AG (After Genie) was right when they closed the loop. Our 2nd trip was during Christmas/NY.

 

[snikki]

I would definitely get it. We are getting it for our entire trip and one day I have us going to Disney Springs in the morning and then to MK around 4-5. I plan on stacking starting at 7 am and hopefully walking into MK with 5 G+'s and maybe an ILL. We shall see.

 

[Pinnochio]

It's not worth it for morning starts, afternoon starts and evening starts but it is worth it if you want to spend more $'s and use your phone more....

 

[thanxfornoticin]

It really can work well in the evenings, whether you're planning to park hop or stay in one park all day. You can definitely stack some for later in the day and take advantage of the LL in the evenings. It worked well at EP and MK for us.

 

[Nick6300]

It really can work well in the evenings, whether you're planning to park hop or stay in one park all day. You can definitely stack some for later in the day and take advantage of the LL in the evenings. It worked well at EP and MK for us.

Thank you. So many of our planned days are EP start, MK evening. Would you start with FEA first given that something like Pan/Jungle will fill up fast but your 1st choice at MK would be 2pm at earliest. I guess how would you approach your selections? I was thinking FEA (because I would single rider TT first), and then start stacking a couple of MK ones. I'm not sure if I'd try to get Soarin before we'd want to leave for MK in early afternoon.

A day like AK start, HS evening. My wife can only go on Navi, Safari at AK and TSM and Runaway at HS. We will likely start at Safari and not even do Navi since no early entry this trip. For this one, would you still buy G+ for both (can use her selections to help me get attractions or something like SDD twice), G+ for just me, or neither of us, since we could just do some 2nd tier rides and shows to fill up that day.

 

[Nick6300]

Thank you for your input. We just got back from our week long trip. We ended up utilizing G+ for that 1st evening Sat MK night (think we had 4-5 stacked by the time we got there and made it into our 15 min grace by less than 10 sec). We got G+ for just me for our AK/HS Sun. We only bought 2 other G+ days for EP/MK & AK/MK days. 4 total days out of 8 possible. While we could have done it a couple more days, I sort of liked not having it, to force us to slow down, do the Carrousel/Philhar/Peoplemover type rides & shows. Especially when we had at least 3x at ea. of the parks. We used about 10 LL at MK, without trying to obtain ones like Pooh after 9pm when not necessary, and only about 4 at HS (missed our MF LL). We didn't buy any LL. Our 1st time at Rise late night, we got close to the Rey BB8 room when it broke down.

Without early entry, we were still able to ride Rise, Rat 3x, FoP, Mine Train about 5x. Our longest SB was FoP at 7:30 at 55min (1st one there of the non resort guests), followed by Rat at 45 min. The early entry allowed through taps varied greatly day to day, park to park. EP last Mon. they were allowed an hour before park opened at 8:30, then almost right at 30 min before park opens on Fri. While early entry was a decent advantage, we paid only about $67/night at our motel; went to Frontierland or Navi when the resort guests started at Mine Train or FoP, and did everything just fine. Typically rose Mine Train right before fireworks; one day 2x in about a 30 min. span.

One thing to remember was that 120 min wait from park opening for 2nd LL was from your 1st park's selection. So for our AK/MK day, our typical tendency was to select Pan, but on the one day we wanted to wait SB for FoP (because we couldn't skip it for the whole trip), we selected Safari knowing that FoP will cause us to have greater wait times for the other AK attractions. We were able to still get Pan at 2:05pm at 120 min. after 7:30am, rather than at 11am (MK opened at 9).