Just back - here's how Genie + affects the parks.

[mom2rtk]

We also didn't use genie plus and were there 1/2 to 1/8. I agree early entry is not helpful for families with kids because to make it from the POP you basically had to be at the bus at 730 to 8 which meant waking up about 630 (what a relaxing vacation!). Also the waits weren't all 120 minutes but even a 60 minute wait was rough because you would stand still for 5 minutes very often not moving, this absolutely kills your feet and is so tiring, and it feels like the wait is much longer than it actually is.

Although we didn't use Genie + we did use the ILL$ on ROTR, FOP and Frozen, and that was easily over 150 dollars for five people, but it did save tons of time. In contrast when we didn't use ILL$ for seven dwarfs the wait took forever. We also found it wasn't worth it to go back to the resort because then you wouldn't really have time to ride much.

A silver lining-we didn't have extra evening hours, but still found that last hour to half hour in a park was dramatically lower waits so in the end we got on everything. But now we have gotten home, we are exhausted and until our boys ask to go back we have no plans to return. The only way to do this is to shell out for genie plus for at least three days and most of the ILL$ and for a family of four you are talking about 400 dollars extra. In the end the ILL$ and genie+ are great if you use it but a nightmare if you don't which is exactly what disney wants.

We were at the parks during a couple of the early entry times and crowds seemed huge. Additionally, we got to the bus stop at Pop on 1/11 at 7:40 AM and there was at least 3 bus loads of people backed up waiting. It was not a magical way to start the day. We weren't even there for the early park entry, but had to be there at 8:30 for our Capture Your Moment appointment. But I've never seen such a backlog of people for early entry.

One (of many reasons) is that if people have to be up making ride purchases and reservations at 7 AM, why not just get ready and head to the parks. I personally don't mind needing to be up early, I'm up anyway, but had to shake my head when I heard the alarm going off in the next room just before 7. I envisioned alarms going off all over the property. I can't imagine people are going to put up with that for long.

 

[Barbamama]

We are also seasoned WDW travelers and have been going often for the past 20 yrs. We have known the paper FP era, FP+ and those years where you could have extra FP thanks to extra MBs. Nonetheless, we were pleasantly surprised by our experience with Genie+/ILL$. We were there on January 12-13 (Wed-Thu) and stayed onsite. Loved that I could wake up at 7 am, reserve our 2 ILL$ + 1st FP and then relax. We got to the parks at the very end of our early entry, just before general admission. On Wednesday, started out at MK with Pirates (20 min), BTMR (30 min) and HM (45 min) and that was our longest wait; we walked onto SDMT and SM with our ILL$ as well as Peter Pan with our FP. We did ALL the rides except Riverboat/Tom Sawyer, teacups, Laugh factory, Pooh and Ariel (but did Pirates and HM twice); no wait times over 30 min., kept most Fantasyland rides like Dumbo and Barnstormer for after 7pm. On Thursday, got to HS just before general admission again and headed straight to SDD, where our wait was 50 min. We had ILL$ for ROTR and MMRT and FP for RnR then ToT and then for MF just before closure. Very smooth experience, less running around.