MAJOR changes to Genie+!

[MyTwoPrincesses]

I haven't used Genie + yet but I was surprised they didn't limit the number of people who can purchase from the outset. I actually have it added for my August vacation even though I don't actually need it for Epcot or AK because I don't want to have to purchase at 12 AM and then get up early to make reservations every day. They are making a WDW even more exhausting with these ridiculous times.

 

[rwdavis2]

IDK. Universal does dynamic pricing for EP, caps it, and allows advance purchase for it.

Universal's system is great. Free for some resort guests.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I haven't used Genie + yet but I was surprised they didn't limit the number of people who can purchase from the outset. I actually have it added for my August vacation even though I don't actually need it for Epcot or AK because I don't want to have to purchase at 12 AM and then get up early to make reservations every day. They are making a WDW even more exhausting with these ridiculous times.

I did think it was strange too considering they are limiting (how much IDK) the number of people in the park with the park reservation system but I do think part of that might have been to allow fluidity in adding park reservations to bucket. At the same time you'd think they would have wanted a lower than capacity they were allowing in number to be able to purchase it just to further limit the pool of guests even able to buy it. Perhaps they wanted their cake and eat it too? without realizing potential impacts to guests in general.

 

[NavyDad]

This is really helpful feedback as I feel the same as your first paragraph about liking the prior way with having 3 FP+ booked ahead of time (made it easier to plan ADRs as well). And like you...I have a spreadsheet with different tabs...also a major pre-planner. For our last trip, DH would joke "when in that schedule can I pee?" ...lol

We bit the bullet and added Genie+ to our trip for August. Am a bit worried too so good to hear your feedback. We did use Max Pass at Disneyland a few years ago so have a bit of an idea. One thing I'm not thrilled with is being tied to my phone...but guess we would anyways now with just checking wait times.

I started watching the Disney app to get an idea of the times and have noted the hard to get rides and suggested order (which so far seems very true to what is documented). My biggest worry...or what seems overwhelming...is the rules of when you can book your next one...and stacking. Did you find that hard to keep track of when you an book next, and what time you have booked for things?

As for ADRs, we are sticking to just 2...and one is on departure day when we aren't going to a park. It just seems stressful to try and coordinate (and nothing is standing out as a must aside from the our planned two...plus some of our budget went to Genie+...but we're ok with quick service)

1. I was not tied to my phone nearly as much as I thought I would. I actually bought one of those portable battery charger devices to charge my phone in the parks and we only used it one day. That day we did Epcot, DHS and MK all in one day and stayed late into the night. Most days I was on my phone for about 5 minutes every 1-2 hours.

2. When you try to book a genie plus on the app it tells you what time you can book the next. I just set a timer on my phone. In the morning before we started using them it was 2 hours in between. Once you start using them you can do a new one after you tap into your genie plus ride so that was easy.

3. Stacking worked out very well for us. We got to the parks later than normal an hopped to a different park each night. I started stacking each morning at 7 am and we were able to have back to back to back rides all day from around 10:30 to 6:30 without any issues. Most times when we looked for a ride early in the day, Smugglers run for example, it showed no availability in early afternoon but by late afternoon it had availability pop up for evening times. We saw this happen quite a bit.

4, We found Genie Plus and stacking to be very effective at MK and DHS. We found it to be mostly a waste at AK and Epcot just because there were not as many rides that we wanted to ride at those parks. We bought the ILL for Flight of Passage to use between 10 AM and 11 AM at 7:15 AM. Strolled into the park about 30 minutes after scheduled opening time, walked right on to Safari, did the gorilla trails and then walked on to Everest. Went back to Pandora around 10:30 and rode FOP. We easily could have made a Genie Plus for Navi River but we dislike that ride so we skipped it. At Epcot we booked ILL for Remy around lunch time, walked in late and walked on Land and Nemo before heading to World Schowcase. I did book a Genie Plus for Frozen which was great. We easily could have gotten TT and Mission Space buy DW dislikes those rides so we didn't. For us, we probably wont' get Genie Plus at Epcot or AK next trip.

5. I highly recommend the Youtube videos Molly at All Ears does for Genie Plus. She is really good at explaining the system and how to get the most out of the system. She actually shows screen shots of the app so you know what you should expect to see. I had stubbornly avoided everything regarding Genie plus for months because I was annoyed at having to pay at first and annoyed they were getting rid of FP+. About 3 weeks before I trip I shook myself out of it and started watching her videos. That's the best tutorial on Genie Plus you could ask for.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

1. I was not tied to my phone nearly as much as I thought I would. I actually bought one of those portable battery charger devices to charge my phone in the parks and we only used it one day. That day we did Epcot, DHS and MK all in one day and stayed late into the night. Most days I was on my phone for about 5 minutes every 1-2 hours.

I think this is an individual thing. People have different things they want and different scheduling. From what I've been reading in multiple threads the newfound "fiddle" or "fiddle faddle" term to mean refreshing to eternity (because the times are just next available vs old FP+ when you could select what time you wanted from a list of available ones) has been needed for people depending on when they went and what rides they were wanting and when. Some were doing in the parks, some while at the pool, some while at an ADR but it's not something that I would describe 5 mins every 1-2 hours because that doesn't jive with a lot of reports and even being realistic to some having their phone out even as much/little as you did would be "constantly tied to a phone".

To some people though their amount of phone usage doesn't increase or decrease appreciable enough to place Genie+ as the culprit especially if someone has been during FP+ times. From someone who only did SB lines while at WDW a few weeks back we were on our phones because we were checking wait times and then I was also checking for mobile ordering or for Space 220 Lounge or for a different random ADR but I would say in the end it was probably less than when we used FP+ because I wasn't searching for that added component to our touring plans. On the other hand I can tell you my phone usage would have probably, personally speaking, increased with Genie+ due to the time in the morning needed to get it and start my list going AND trying to time out when I wanted my LLs to be. We typically park hop in the afternoon and I probably would used the same strategy I did back when we had FP+ by making selections for the afternoon in the second park, this may have needed me to check, hold off, check, hold off, etc on the available LL times so I don't book too early.

We had portable chargers with us period because MDE itself is a battery hog (it'll run in the background unless you force stop it all the time and then when you need it it will be slower to pop up again if you do that). Even my husband who wasn't on his phone much (I am primarily the one who does the MDE stuff) needed to charge his phone. Smart phones are battery eater uppers a lot lol.

 

[Frozen2014]

1. I was not tied to my phone nearly as much as I thought I would. I actually bought one of those portable battery charger devices to charge my phone in the parks and we only used it one day. That day we did Epcot, DHS and MK all in one day and stayed late into the night. Most days I was on my phone for about 5 minutes every 1-2 hours.

2. When you try to book a genie plus on the app it tells you what time you can book the next. I just set a timer on my phone. In the morning before we started using them it was 2 hours in between. Once you start using them you can do a new one after you tap into your genie plus ride so that was easy.

3. Stacking worked out very well for us. We got to the parks later than normal an hopped to a different park each night. I started stacking each morning at 7 am and we were able to have back to back to back rides all day from around 10:30 to 6:30 without any issues. Most times when we looked for a ride early in the day, Smugglers run for example, it showed no availability in early afternoon but by late afternoon it had availability pop up for evening times. We saw this happen quite a bit.

4, We found Genie Plus and stacking to be very effective at MK and DHS. We found it to be mostly a waste at AK and Epcot just because there were not as many rides that we wanted to ride at those parks. We bought the ILL for Flight of Passage to use between 10 AM and 11 AM at 7:15 AM. Strolled into the park about 30 minutes after scheduled opening time, walked right on to Safari, did the gorilla trails and then walked on to Everest. Went back to Pandora around 10:30 and rode FOP. We easily could have made a Genie Plus for Navi River but we dislike that ride so we skipped it. At Epcot we booked ILL for Remy around lunch time, walked in late and walked on Land and Nemo before heading to World Schowcase. I did book a Genie Plus for Frozen which was great. We easily could have gotten TT and Mission Space buy DW dislikes those rides so we didn't. For us, we probably wont' get Genie Plus at Epcot or AK next trip.

5. I highly recommend the Youtube videos Molly at All Ears does for Genie Plus. She is really good at explaining the system and how to get the most out of the system. She actually shows screen shots of the app so you know what you should expect to see. I had stubbornly avoided everything regarding Genie plus for months because I was annoyed at having to pay at first and annoyed they were getting rid of FP+. About 3 weeks before I trip I shook myself out of it and started watching her videos. That's the best tutorial on Genie Plus you could ask for.

Thank you so much for taking the time to response and sharing your experience. Will definitely "study" and look up the Molly videos.

PS - DH has a couple of those battery chargers we will definitely be bringing.

Wondering too about Wifi...if it's strong/reliable enough for Genie+. Or if we should purchase a data plan (we're Canadian, so that's why I'm asking)

 

[NavyDad]

I think this is an individual thing. People have different things they want and different scheduling. From what I've been reading in multiple threads the newfound "fiddle" or "fiddle faddle" term to mean refreshing to eternity (because the times are just next available vs old FP+ when you could select what time you wanted from a list of available ones) has been needed for people depending on when they went and what rides they were wanting and when. Some were doing in the parks, some while at the pool, some while at an ADR but it's not something that I would describe 5 mins every 1-2 hours because that doesn't jive with a lot of reports and even being realistic to some having their phone out even as much/little as you did would be "constantly tied to a phone".

To some people though their amount of phone usage doesn't increase or decrease appreciable enough to place Genie+ as the culprit especially if someone has been during FP+ times. From someone who only did SB lines while at WDW a few weeks back we were on our phones because we were checking wait times and then I was also checking for mobile ordering or for Space 220 Lounge or for a different random ADR but I would say in the end it was probably less than when we used FP+ because I wasn't searching for that added component to our touring plans. On the other hand I can tell you my phone usage would have probably, personally speaking, increased with Genie+ due to the time in the morning needed to get it and start my list going AND trying to time out when I wanted my LLs to be. We typically park hop in the afternoon and I probably would used the same strategy I did back when we had FP+ by making selections for the afternoon in the second park, this may have needed me to check, hold off, check, hold off, etc on the available LL times so I don't book too early.

We had portable chargers with us period because MDE itself is a battery hog (it'll run in the background unless you force stop it all the time and then when you need it it will be slower to pop up again if you do that). Even my husband who wasn't on his phone much (I am primarily the one who does the MDE stuff) needed to charge his phone. Smart phones are battery eater uppers a lot lol.

Yeah - everyone is going to have individual experiences based on their unique circumstances. I was comparing my individual experience using Genie Plus mid April to our previous experiences using Fast Pass Plus.

Our phone usage was down probably at least 75% from previous trips and I went in thinking we would have to use our phones at least double. In the past we tried to book our 3 FP+ for early in the day so we could start getting our "extra" FP+ as soon as possible. Even though they let you pick times previously for FP+ we always found availability to be a bit tough and would refresh quite a bit. With Genie Plus, I believe because their are less people using it than the old "free" system, so we had no issues with availability and didn't find we had to "fiddle-faddle" too much.

There were some personal contributing factors that I think helped us with Genie Plus availability as well:

We were arriving late so I had plenty of time to sit in my room and get that ILL booked and then book a Genie Plus for the "priority" Genie Plus ride at each park. For example on our DHS day I booked RoR for the time I wanted and then grabbed the first available Slinky Dog Dash which at that point was like 1-2 PM. We actually started our day at Epcot and did the festival through lunch time. By the time we set foot in DHS we had our ILL booked and we had 3 Genie Plus rides booked which required no "fiddle-faddle" at all. After using our first Genie Plus we were able to book another pretty easily. The only difficult Genie Plus to get was ToT and Smugglers run. We decided to just take the next ToT when it popped then Smugglers run popped for later in the evening.

Long story short - because we had the ability to stack Genie Plus, we changed our touring style a bit. If we would have rope-dropped DHS and tried to push hard to ride as many rides as possible as quickly as we could, I'm sure there would have been more time messing with the phone.

I also think we spent less time on our phones because we spent less time waiting in lines altogether. Being able to purchase a LL for the most popular ride in the park, plus stack 5-6 Genie Plus passes for the rest of our top choices through the afternoon and into the evening meant that the only attractions we did without some kind of "fast pass" were things that were walk on or little wait. We used to spend a lot of time looking at wait times on MDE and comparing them to the Lines app from Touring Plans. This trip we did very little of that because we had stacked Genie Plus for everything we wanted to ride.

 

[NavyDad]

Thank you so much for taking the time to response and sharing your experience. Will definitely "study" and look up the Molly videos.

PS - DH has a couple of those battery chargers we will definitely be bringing.

Wondering too about Wifi...if it's strong/reliable enough for Genie+. Or if we should purchase a data plan (we're Canadian, so that's why I'm asking)

I generally don't use Disney's Wifi because whenever I have it usually not great. We have ATT here in the states and my internet was fast and reliable. Can you add a data plan that can be used in the United States for like 1 month?

 

[lugnut33]

Yes. From things I have heard they also didn't expect this many people to buy Genie+. IMO a limit should have been in place from the beginning.

Trust me, Disney want's every single person buying Genie+. Fact is, in order to extract the most value from a trip you need to be utilizing all advantages you can get, including Genie+, ILL (paired with early morning hours. Most people realize this and that's why it's so popular. The problem is there are not enough rides to handle the number of people in the parks. It's why Disney dropped ILL from a ride in each park.

I’m sure it sells out sometimes but it seems to always be available the day of. Of course it can cost nearly $200 per person per day which keeps demand down. But they also offer it as a “free” perk if you stay at a deluxe hotel which makes it a great deal.

Demand is so much higher at Disney I can’t see them adopting this model. If they did it would probably cost double what Universal charges and still be an instant sell out.

Super interested to see where the price goes to on Genie+. We are already paying around $30 (Genie+ and ILL), so I would think they could easily go to $40 (G+ and ILL) and it won't effect the number of people purchasing it.

This is what I was hoping G+ would be in the first place. It's priced way too low right now, so it's for the masses. They're getting their wish with us, booking VIP Tours far more regularly to avoid all of G+ annoyance.

I can only hope that some day everyone has to book VIP tours to get in to WDW.

Fence sitter here who bought genie plus for an 8 day ticket for a family of 3 this morning.

If everything stays the same, no price increase, no cap, no issues, I will be mad that I bought it today, but less mad than if I can't buy it on site. Less upset than I would be waking in a panic in the middle of the night or staring at a spinning wheel over a cup of coffee unable to get value out of my theme park admission.

I have now paid over $2700 for park hopper genie plus 8 day tickets for 3 people. FOR THEME PARK TICKETS. Where I might not get anything I want.

I have a lot of thinking to do.

That $2700 number is absolutely staggering. Fun little thing from our trip at the end of April, I still had a bunch of Water Park days left over from some non-expiring tickets I purchased in 2010. I felt like I was ripping the mouse off when I used them. I want to say at the time I purchased the 10 day non-expiring with water parks and more tickets it cost about $20 per day to add the water park days.

 

[Frozen2014]

I generally don't use Disney's Wifi because whenever I have it usually not great. We have ATT here in the states and my internet was fast and reliable. Can you add a data plan that can be used in the United States for like 1 month?

Thanks. Yes, we can purchase data...and will probably go that route on say, 2 devices. DH was hoping wifi would be enough but I'm thinking probably not...esp if many others are doing the same.

 

[Carlnne]

5. I highly recommend the Youtube videos Molly at All Ears does for Genie Plus. She is really good at explaining the system and how to get the most out of the system. She actually shows screen shots of the app so you know what you should expect to see. I had stubbornly avoided everything regarding Genie plus for months because I was annoyed at having to pay at first and annoyed they were getting rid of FP+. About 3 weeks before I trip I shook myself out of it and started watching her videos. That's the best tutorial on Genie Plus you could ask for.

Absolutely agree- Molly's videos are the best Ive seen. Disney should seriously hire her becuase its better than anything they have put out. I plan to rewatch them all again before our trip in a few weeks.

 

[john7994]

Yeah - everyone is going to have individual experiences based on their unique circumstances. I was comparing my individual experience using Genie Plus mid April to our previous experiences using Fast Pass Plus.

Our phone usage was down probably at least 75% from previous trips and I went in thinking we would have to use our phones at least double. In the past we tried to book our 3 FP+ for early in the day so we could start getting our "extra" FP+ as soon as possible. Even though they let you pick times previously for FP+ we always found availability to be a bit tough and would refresh quite a bit. With Genie Plus, I believe because their are less people using it than the old "free" system, so we had no issues with availability and didn't find we had to "fiddle-faddle" too much.

There were some personal contributing factors that I think helped us with Genie Plus availability as well:

We were arriving late so I had plenty of time to sit in my room and get that ILL booked and then book a Genie Plus for the "priority" Genie Plus ride at each park. For example on our DHS day I booked RoR for the time I wanted and then grabbed the first available Slinky Dog Dash which at that point was like 1-2 PM. We actually started our day at Epcot and did the festival through lunch time. By the time we set foot in DHS we had our ILL booked and we had 3 Genie Plus rides booked which required no "fiddle-faddle" at all. After using our first Genie Plus we were able to book another pretty easily. The only difficult Genie Plus to get was ToT and Smugglers run. We decided to just take the next ToT when it popped then Smugglers run popped for later in the evening.

Long story short - because we had the ability to stack Genie Plus, we changed our touring style a bit. If we would have rope-dropped DHS and tried to push hard to ride as many rides as possible as quickly as we could, I'm sure there would have been more time messing with the phone.

I also think we spent less time on our phones because we spent less time waiting in lines altogether. Being able to purchase a LL for the most popular ride in the park, plus stack 5-6 Genie Plus passes for the rest of our top choices through the afternoon and into the evening meant that the only attractions we did without some kind of "fast pass" were things that were walk on or little wait. We used to spend a lot of time looking at wait times on MDE and comparing them to the Lines app from Touring Plans. This trip we did very little of that because we had stacked Genie Plus for everything we wanted to ride.

Almost exactly what we did and even used the same Youtube videos as a guide - same experience overall as you outlined. It was a game-changer to be honest. We even remarked at the end of our trip, how much less stressful it actually was versus what we were expecting.

 

[Memorymakerfor4]

I haven't made it through this entire thread yet, so this may have already been addressed, but I was just able to buy park tickets for this November and add Genie+ without having to call in. I'd heard some people say they were having difficulty adding it and had to call to get it manually added, so I just wanted to say I had no issue.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Absolutely agree- Molly's videos are the best Ive seen. Disney should seriously hire her becuase its better than anything they have put out. I plan to rewatch them all again before our trip in a few weeks.

Molly is actually a former cast member.

 

[john7994]

Absolutely agree- Molly's videos are the best Ive seen. Disney should seriously hire her becuase its better than anything they have put out. I plan to rewatch them all again before our trip in a few weeks.

We were watching Molly nightly leading up to our last trip. They do a great job.

 

[CeeCee101]

Another one I really liked was Mermaid Nina’s YouTube videos, honestly her explanation using straws was very helpful on understanding how to use ILL/Genie+ for someone who knew nothing.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Yeah - everyone is going to have individual experiences based on their unique circumstances. I was comparing my individual experience using Genie Plus mid April to our previous experiences using Fast Pass Plus.

Our phone usage was down probably at least 75% from previous trips and I went in thinking we would have to use our phones at least double. In the past we tried to book our 3 FP+ for early in the day so we could start getting our "extra" FP+ as soon as possible. Even though they let you pick times previously for FP+ we always found availability to be a bit tough and would refresh quite a bit. With Genie Plus, I believe because their are less people using it than the old "free" system, so we had no issues with availability and didn't find we had to "fiddle-faddle" too much.

There were some personal contributing factors that I think helped us with Genie Plus availability as well:

We were arriving late so I had plenty of time to sit in my room and get that ILL booked and then book a Genie Plus for the "priority" Genie Plus ride at each park. For example on our DHS day I booked RoR for the time I wanted and then grabbed the first available Slinky Dog Dash which at that point was like 1-2 PM. We actually started our day at Epcot and did the festival through lunch time. By the time we set foot in DHS we had our ILL booked and we had 3 Genie Plus rides booked which required no "fiddle-faddle" at all. After using our first Genie Plus we were able to book another pretty easily. The only difficult Genie Plus to get was ToT and Smugglers run. We decided to just take the next ToT when it popped then Smugglers run popped for later in the evening.

Long story short - because we had the ability to stack Genie Plus, we changed our touring style a bit. If we would have rope-dropped DHS and tried to push hard to ride as many rides as possible as quickly as we could, I'm sure there would have been more time messing with the phone.

I also think we spent less time on our phones because we spent less time waiting in lines altogether. Being able to purchase a LL for the most popular ride in the park, plus stack 5-6 Genie Plus passes for the rest of our top choices through the afternoon and into the evening meant that the only attractions we did without some kind of "fast pass" were things that were walk on or little wait. We used to spend a lot of time looking at wait times on MDE and comparing them to the Lines app from Touring Plans. This trip we did very little of that because we had stacked Genie Plus for everything we wanted to ride.

I also found that we spent way less time on the phone than we did with FP+. Last week, we were able to get 8 or 9 good G+ attraction each day without much effort.

We didn’t purchase any ILL rides as the lines for those get very short near the end of the day and don’t justify the additional charges.

 

[Mamiamjo]

Can we add Genie+ to existing tickets in advance, if we do it before June 8th?

 

[melking23]

Can we add Genie+ to existing tickets in advance, if we do it before June 8th?

Yes, no later than June 7th. You may be able to do it yourself through MDE. Be mindful of the price if you’re upgrading tickets purchased before the most recent price increase. I’ve read that many people have had to call in to add G+ to prevent having to pay the increased ticket cost as well.

 

[AquaDame]

Count us among those who were going to wait and see but jumped to do it now that they’re taking the choice away. As others have said I can’t burn the candle at both ends, nor would we want to on “vacation”.

If it really comes down to needing to purchase at midnight AND be awake before 7 then we have another good reason to make this our last trip for a long time. Rides are still very important to us, and trips on the short side at 5-6 days (especially with the 6 hour flight meaning we get in late day 1 and leave midday on the last day).