Just paid $30 for Genie+

[MillauFr]

They do not care about the guest experience.

I'm not too sure about that because every time we go to Disneyland we get treated like VIP celebrities. Even though we are not. Dinner at Napa Rose now takes 3 hours because all of the servers come over and chat even though we always request Rodney as our server. The food is good there but it is the Cast Member who go above and beyond are what makes our meals there special.

 

[DLRExpert]

I'm not too sure about that because every time we go to Disneyland we get treated like VIP celebrities. Even though we are not. Dinner at Napa Rose now takes 3 hours because all of the servers come over and chat even though we always request Rodney as our server. The food is good there but it is the Cast Member who go above and beyond are what makes our meals there special.

The corporate part of Disney that came up with G+ and ILL. Does not care about the guest experience.

The CM working at the park should give you the best experience possible and they probably understand the bs that G+ and ILL is.

 

[Cal-Pie]

They do not care about the guest experience. They just need to know where that G+ and ILL purchasing limit is at.

I've been in the parks since Friday, and this is my overall sentiment for this trip. There is just an overall different feeling here now. Not to say we haven't had fun, we have, but I'm ready to look for a better value for my vacation dollar.

 

[bookbabe626]

We were at DL yesterday afternoon/evening. We had a 1 day, 1 park ticket with G+ that we'd bought months ago. Our plan was DL yesterday on arrival day, OBB tonight, then off to the cruise port tomorrow. So not a real DLR vacation, just a couple days tacked on because we were here anyway.

My mistake was not doing more research before buying G+. We are WDW APs, so I made the stupid assumption that it worked the same way. Doh! G+ was useless yesterday with our late (2pm) arrival combined with the crowds, the weather and the breakdowns. At WDW, I would have been stacking LLs all morning pre-arrival. At DL, by the time we got there only crappy rides and/or very late return times were left. And we knew we wouldn't make it to park close because we were on east coast time.

Used LL for IASW and Buzz, did Nemo sub, Pirates and Jungle Cruise standby, ate at Blue Bayou, shopped a bit and gave up. Indiana Jones was either down or had stupidly long lines pretty much all day. HMH had very long lines and no LL return times by the time we scanned into the park, so didn't bother with it either. Luckily, our goal was dinner and only the couple of our favs that are different or not at WDW, so it wasn't the worst outcome for the day, but the G+ system is way more effective at WDW. No idea why, but I'm not sure I'd bother with G+ at DLR on future trips, even though we always buy it at WDW even for a short day.

I do not envy DL regulars. Your park and your G+ system is a mess.

 

[limace]

I think most reports are that G+ works typically better-or is more useful-at DL than WDW. Your experience isn’t really typical of how it works normally-and I say this as someone who is not a big fan. My only time using it at WDW was similar-we were there for Guardians preview, were in MK in morning and really only got one or two rides out of it. But I accept that wasn’t a typical use case and I’m sure it would work better on other days.

 

[Aurora0427]

I'm not too sure about that because every time we go to Disneyland we get treated like VIP celebrities. Even though we are not. Dinner at Napa Rose now takes 3 hours because all of the servers come over and chat even though we always request Rodney as our server. The food is good there but it is the Cast Member who go above and beyond are what makes our meals there special.

Yes but that’s the type of experience you should get at Napa Rose…. We’ve just done the princess breakfast at Napa Rose and it was a 5 star experience. Dinner should be even better than that. If you weren’t getting the experience you’re describing at Napa Rose, that would not be ok! I can assure you…. The day to day experience for the average guest within the parks is not a Napa Rose level experience.

 

[serendipityaey]

Maybe the increase in tourism really is so much that it increased the numbers. I don’t know. I don’t understand it…. I know when Walt Disney World came out with fast pass plus, it dramatically increased wait times in all standby lines because rides that had historically never had fast pass, now did, and it increased wait times overall, at all 4 parks, at all attractions. Rides like Figment now had wait times. But I don’t think Disneyland added LL to any attractions that didn’t have historic fast pass.

So my money is Disney screwed this up somehow by whatever system they used, but who really knows.

What specifically do you mean by ‘system’?

 

[Snap Crackle Pop]

It honestly needs to be more expensive. Universal, Six Flags and Knotts I think have more expensive fast pass like systems so it doesn't make it seem useless. It's honestly a good bargain in comparison to other parks but its the ride breakdowns that can cause a lot of issues.

 

[DLR70]

That was said for WDW, and only for the month of October.

Oh that's right. I knew I saw that somewhere!

 

[DLRExpert]

We were at DL yesterday afternoon/evening. We had a 1 day, 1 park ticket with G+ that we'd bought months ago. Our plan was DL yesterday on arrival day, OBB tonight, then off to the cruise port tomorrow. So not a real DLR vacation, just a couple days tacked on because we were here anyway.

My mistake was not doing more research before buying G+. We are WDW APs, so I made the stupid assumption that it worked the same way. Doh! G+ was useless yesterday with our late (2pm) arrival combined with the crowds, the weather and the breakdowns. At WDW, I would have been stacking LLs all morning pre-arrival. At DL, by the time we got there only crappy rides and/or very late return times were left. And we knew we wouldn't make it to park close because we were on east coast time.

Used LL for IASW and Buzz, did Nemo sub, Pirates and Jungle Cruise standby, ate at Blue Bayou, shopped a bit and gave up. Indiana Jones was either down or had stupidly long lines pretty much all day. HMH had very long lines and no LL return times by the time we scanned into the park, so didn't bother with it either. Luckily, our goal was dinner and only the couple of our favs that are different or not at WDW, so it wasn't the worst outcome for the day, but the G+ system is way more effective at WDW. No idea why, but I'm not sure I'd bother with G+ at DLR on future trips, even though we always buy it at WDW even for a short day.

I do not envy DL regulars. Your park and your G+ system is a mess.

2pm arrival should have gotten you quite a bit of value, especially if you knew about the refresh trick.
Even the top tier LLs.

 

[MonocularVision]

I still think folks are having some major nostalgia over FastPass/MaxPass. These are the downsides I remember:

• The return times were often way later, earlier in the day. I remember Space Mountain and RSR returns times being gone by 10-10:30am with some other rides not being too long afterwards. In my experience (disclaimer: my last visit was in August), G+ returns are available much later in the day than FP/MP)
• The return lines were often longer and moved way slower. I remember folks constantly complaining about waiting 30-60 minutes in a FastPass line. Again, in my experience, with how heavily they prefer LL’s to the regular lines, they seem generally shorter and faster than FP/MP was.

I will restate my disclaimer that our last visit was August and before that June, when the parks seemed like they were generally operating better (and is why I am constantly telling folks to GO DURING THE SUMMER).

I will also state that we used to get way more done with MP but only because we were absolutely masters of the system (refresh trick, 90 minute vs 120 minute cooldown, acquiring MEP, re-rides allowed). I think for any vacationer/casual visitor, G+ will probably bring them more value than MP.

 

[twodogs]

Folks saying “why can’t we go back to MP” are trying to compare MP to G+, and seeing G+ making things confusingly worse for lines, and they are assuming that all other things are equal in those two scenarios besides the price of the “skip the line” product. However, that can’t be true because if it was, things would not be worse now with a more expensive product. So consider other factors that Disney controls that can also impact the lines, wait times, guest experience such as:

• staffing (I feel they have lowered staffing to the bare bones minimum so they are not, for example, loading rides as quickly (and they can do this because they know exactly how many guests will be in each park at the start of the day based on park reservations))
• ride through-put (are they running both sides of rides like BTMRR at all times or are they choking off lines by running only one side?)
• ride break downs (enough said)
• many fewer shows and character meets/experiences to soak up crowds and keep them out of ride lines

I feel like all 4 points above are being done now to save Disney money while they make the SB lines (and G+ lines) longer, which drives more people to try to mitigate that by buying G+, which makes Disney more money, and if buying G+ doesn’t fix it, the guests buy the “after hours” or “hard ticket” event ticket or even the VIP tour…and Disney makes even more money. And here we are. Lines are worse, Disney makes more and more money. Disney shareholders are happy. Guests are not, but that is ok with management since they get paid/promoted/retain their job only if they increase shareholder value. They are not paid to increase guest-perceived value. And it is showing.

 

[starlite_]

We were at DL yesterday afternoon/evening. We had a 1 day, 1 park ticket with G+ that we'd bought months ago. Our plan was DL yesterday on arrival day, OBB tonight, then off to the cruise port tomorrow. So not a real DLR vacation, just a couple days tacked on because we were here anyway.

My mistake was not doing more research before buying G+. We are WDW APs, so I made the stupid assumption that it worked the same way. Doh! G+ was useless yesterday with our late (2pm) arrival combined with the crowds, the weather and the breakdowns. At WDW, I would have been stacking LLs all morning pre-arrival. At DL, by the time we got there only crappy rides and/or very late return times were left. And we knew we wouldn't make it to park close because we were on east coast time.

Used LL for IASW and Buzz, did Nemo sub, Pirates and Jungle Cruise standby, ate at Blue Bayou, shopped a bit and gave up. Indiana Jones was either down or had stupidly long lines pretty much all day. HMH had very long lines and no LL return times by the time we scanned into the park, so didn't bother with it either. Luckily, our goal was dinner and only the couple of our favs that are different or not at WDW, so it wasn't the worst outcome for the day, but the G+ system is way more effective at WDW. No idea why, but I'm not sure I'd bother with G+ at DLR on future trips, even though we always buy it at WDW even for a short day.

I do not envy DL regulars. Your park and your G+ system is a mess.

I honestly prefer it to the WDW one. It's fair for everyone regardless of where you are staying. I'm sorry your trip didn't go as expected tho. We went on August and the longest line we had was RotR at 30 min. Genie+ works great if you do your research on it.

I hate that it cost so much money and I hate that they are doing dynamic pricing but Genie+ worked so much better that MP and free fastpass. We got a Space Mountain LL at like 9pm , which would have been impossible before.

 

[Peachy0118]

I have been going to the parks for years, and loved fast pass and max pass. I cannot understand why Genie+ is such a mess. I went to the parks in August 2021 and there were no annual passes, and no fast/max passes, and it was the lowest crowds and lines I had seen in forever. I almost passed on going because I did not want to wait in lines forever with young ones. It was seriously the best!

Now the rides go down all the time, lines are long, crowds are horrendous, people are stressed. I don’t understand why genie+ is so bad…..how did they screw this up??!

We heard lots about this, but just as others have echoed, there was no tourism at that time. In fact, most borders were closed. I get that Disneyland is a "locals" park, but that is hardly everyone, and with there being no APs at that time either, it totally makes sense that the visit was really not crowded at the time.

Now, personally, I am super jealous you got to experience that! How awesome!

 

[RoseGold]

Raising the price is good. There need to be less users to make G+ actually worth anything.

 

[cm8]

Raising the price is good. There need to be less users to make G+ actually worth anything.

While there this past weekend, we used it in 3 parks. I found that on Saturday, our HS day, the LL lines were much shorter and so were the waits. Most families were not paying for access.

 

[limace]

While there this past weekend, we used it in 3 parks. I found that on Saturday, our HS day, the LL lines were much shorter and so were the waits. Most families were not paying for access.

This is a Disneyland board thread but interesting to hear.

 

[jecarnl]

Charge me $100, get rid of the stupid app and booking times, and tie it to my Magic Band. Let me enjoy my vacation without looking at a stupid phone all day.

 

[#1DisneylandFan]

My next trip is a splurge when the cheapest resort is 200$+ a night. We stretched and took 5 days of tickets but no Park Hopper for the first time. We will not purchase Genie+ and we hope that Disney makes it expensive enough for the Standby lines to become manageable and not bottlenecked with LL users.

We went to DL last Wednesday and we purchased one lightning lane. We rode 4 rides in standby; each ride was literally HALF the wait time indicated on the app and signage at ride entrance. The park was packed but no line was greater than 35 minutes - that’s a win to us!

 

[Disturbia]

We thought $30 Genie+ would be on Christmas Day. I suppose I now have to brace for $50 Genie on New Years (going to WDW). Multiply by 5. I suppose we won’t be using it for our entire trip.