New Disney Genie

[Jatoas]

As a person who goes once a year and spends regularly roughly £12,000 per trip, I actually welcome this. The paid fast pass was always going to happen and so fine yeah expecting it. As to the IRS it is only going to be 8 or so rides so let us assume $20 a ride this comes to 12 X 2 X 40 a £1000 approximately, but for this I am going on Ride of the resistance, Tron etc. I am not travelling 4000 miles and under virtual queue not get on, I know I will be getting on. Is that worth and increase on my holiday of 8%, for me yes! On the promo side I expect the Genie+ to be included if you are staying in a Disney Hotel and buy a 2 week pass, that would make sense.

 

[gismo1554]

I was thinking it makes probably more sense for them to include this on the UK tickets rather than the photo pass in all honesty. $210 for the $15 charge on a 14 day pass is more than the $150 memory maker but doesn't involve as much extra costs (from having to have the photo people around). It wouldn't surprise me if we see it suddenly appear as an extra and the photo pass drop off.

 

[Lee Matthews]

I think Genie+ will just replace free dinning when the times comes and they need visitors

 

[chefski]

I was thinking it makes probably more sense for them to include this on the UK tickets rather than the photo pass in all honesty. $210 for the $15 charge on a 14 day pass is more than the $150 memory maker but doesn't involve as much extra costs (from having to have the photo people around). It wouldn't surprise me if we see it suddenly appear as an extra and the photo pass drop off.

But a family of 4 only really pays once for memory maker, where as they would need the Genie + on all 4 tickets ($840) dont think they do a UK ticket without memory maker do they?

 

[gismo1554]

But a family of 4 only really pays once for memory maker, where as they would need the Genie + on all 4 tickets ($840) dont think they do a UK ticket without memory maker do they?

No what I'm saying is they may replace memory maker with it going forward. Yes in thoery a family only needs 1 memory maker between them but they work out staffing etc based on how many memory makers are out there so there is a lot of staff costs in having it automatically included (which none of the US tickets have ever had). It just wouldn't surprise me thats all if they change it over to Genie+ once its fully in place

 

[Kbrb]

I think Genie+ will just replace free dinning when the times comes and they need visitors

To me its the only way im going to book 14 nights onsite again, or i will stay off site do less days at disney and use the money saved to pay for a few days genie and visit other parks.

 

[chefski]

To me its the only way im going to book 14 nights onsite again, or i will stay off site do less days at disney and use the money saved to pay for a few days genie and visit other parks.

Agree although probably not going i have booked 6 days at Disney, 5 days at US, 3 Days SW/DC. would usually have just been 10 days Disney 4 Days US

 

[Kbrb]

Agree although probably not going i have booked 6 days at Disney, 5 days at US, 3 Days SW/DC. would usually have just been 10 days Disney 4 Days US

Im currently booked for 14 nights at pop, planned on a single day out at Uni and one at sea world via Lyft. Since the Genie i have moved to all star and saved £500 next will be offsite for a week and save even more.

 

[chefski]

Im currently booked for 14 nights at pop, planned on a single day out at Uni and one at sea world via Lyft. Since the Genie i have moved to all star and saved £500 next will be offsite for a week and save even more.

If we re book it will be at a Universal Hotel, its cheaper to stop at Loews Sapphire Falls than it is to stop at All Stars. Thats just crazy. In fact its only slightly more expensive to stop at Hard Rock with free Express Pass than it is All Stars (For the dates im looking at)

 

[Kbrb]

If we re book it will be at a Universal Hotel, its cheaper to stop at Loews Sapphire Falls than it is to stop at All Stars. Thats just crazy. In fact its only slightly more expensive to stop at Hard Rock with free Express Pass than it is All Stars (For the dates im looking at)

Not a huge fan of splitting stay but if i can get near the cost and get express passes? Thats a bit of a no brainer

 

[chefski]

Not a huge fan of splitting stay but if i can get near the cost and get express passes? Thats a bit of a no brainer

example was for feb with virgin.
Loews Sapphire Falls. £1300 pp
All Star Resort. £1420 pp
Hard Rock. £1650 pp

These are rough prices but you get dining credits with Disney hotel but not worth the difference.
Hard Rock has Express Pass which is worth around $130 pp per day.

Disney need to start offering things its just a rip off at present with everything they are taking away.

 

[Jatoas]

What I find interesting is that none of us are cancelling our trips. We are adjusting our accommodation, but we are still going! Maybe Pete was right on the Tuesday show when he said this was going to be a bonanza for Universal!

 

[chefski]

What I find interesting is that none of us are cancelling our trips. We are adjusting our accommodation, but we are still going! Maybe Pete was right on the Tuesday show when he said this was going to be a bonanza for Universal!

I agree with Pete on that it can only be good for Universal, they seem to be doing things right while Disney are getting thing after thing wrong all at once.
They certainly seem to be trying to price out the average family.
I usually pay up to 7k with tickets but then I spend about 5k while there, if we go universal more then they get that spend, or the majority of it.
There is no way that someone who pays for a Deluxe hotel, or a value at the price of a deluxe (the way its going) they won't spend any more while there. Perhaps they just want parks full of rich people

 

[MichelinMan]

What I find interesting is that none of us are cancelling our trips. We are adjusting our accommodation, but we are still going! Maybe Pete was right on the Tuesday show when he said this was going to be a bonanza for Universal!

Definitely. We are now spending less days at Disney (just 12 nights now), and 9 nights at Universal resorts. We swapped 5 of our POP Disney nights for 5 nights Volcano Bay view room at Cabana Bay - slightly cheaper and better rooms.

 

[MichelinMan]

Universal's system is much better, though. There's no paying extra for their most popular rides. A couple of their newer rides are excluded, but they run a free virtual queue system instead. For most rides you just go to the ride and join the express queue. There's no having to get online at 7 am to compete against everybody else with a Genie+ pass to get a good time for a popular ride. There's no constantly checking your phone during the day to see what you'll be able to go on within the next half-hour or hour. That also means I won't have to carry a power bank around with me to make sure my phone stays charged. I'm guessing that $100 ticket you've quoted is the unlimited express pass, which lets you repeat rides. My son loved the Spider-man ride at UO, so we rode it 4 times in just over half an hour. My daughter loved the Hulk ride and did the same there. Good luck doing that with your Genie+ pass.

On our trips to UO we've been able to ride every ride in each park in one day, with multiple goes on favourites. Good luck getting on every ride at DHS or MK in one day with Genie+, even with the upgrade that you pay extra for.

Plus, as a family of four, it provides an incentive for me to stay onsite as it's included in the cost of the hotel room. I get two days of unlimited express passes for the four of us and a nice hotel room for less than the cost of one day's worth of passes for the four of us. It works out at about $50 per person per day.

So, yeah, Genie+ is cheaper (though not by as much as you make out), but it's not as good and I know which I prefer.

100% agree with this. The Universal system is much superior than what Genie + will offer. One drawback of Genie + is that the fastpasses that you book will depend upon availability. So for example, you might be able to get a fastpass for Peter Pan, but still have an 8 hour wait. There is also the potential that availability runs out completely for a ride (there is a 'subject to availability' clause in the Genie + system I believe). Whereas at Universal you just pop into whatever line you like whenever you want. The Universal express pass is just wonderful - I couldn't envisage doing UO without it having used it before. Makes it worth spending a few nights in a luxury hotel at Universal for a few nights. UO are really going to get a lot of business from this decision, as people decided to stay more nights at UO to get their perks.

 

[Kbrb]

For me it was a complete vacation, Free DDP, free transfers, FP all sorted meals booked. Its all taken care of. I get off the plane get the bags and im done for 2 weeks.

Now its hassle and if im going to suffer hassle i might as well stay else where and save money and see more things.

 

[disneyholic family]

Certainly interesting as the price point per day even for a family of 4 or 5 isn’t stupid, but if they’re trying to encourage uk visitors to spend 14-21 days in the parks then it just gets a bit silly.

however covid clearly drove a lot of domestic us tourism this summer so I do wonder if they will continue to court the uk market in the same way now?

as a dvc owner I’m somewhat invested here…

disney has definitely noticed the importance of international visitors.
The crowd levels at the end of august/beginning of september were even lower than the normally low crowds.
One of the reasons cited was the lack of international guests due to border closures.
I sure hope they take this into account when they figure out what to do with the UK tickets.

I'm still hoping they'll bring back the 21 day ticket.

TBH in not too bothered about it. I've ridden most of these things a lot already and get almost as much pleasure in (most of) the queue lines as on the rides - and it gives me less time to wander round finding snacks to spend money on.

What I'm waiting to find out is how the Individual Attraction Selections is going to pan out for the big ticket rides, which will be the newer ones I've not ridden much if at all. eg. What are the likely price ranges, given it's dynamic?

it seems you have to buy genie+ to have access to the special paid attractions.
So you can't just pay for that special ride, you also have to have genie+

It sounds stressful! I understand that for people who live locally or visit at short notice booking Fast Passes in advance might have been tricky, but for me ( and I suspect most uk guests) having 3 planned attractions per day already booked made for a much more relaxing holiday. It says you can book and pay! At 7 am each morning - that doesn’t sound like the most relaxing start to a Disney day! This is without taking cost into consideration which for a 14 day trip is ridiculous - I feel grumpy

that was exactly my daughter's immediate reaction.
Just as we're trying to get everyone up and fed and ready to go, we'll have the tension of trying to get everything like a boarding group for rides that have boarding groups or paid lightning lanes, plus the free lightening lane ride.....
my head explodes just thinking about it...
we used to have everything planned out, rope drop rides, fastpass rides, meals, etc
now we'll have nothing at all known going in. Total chaos. Very upsetting. We're feeling grumpy too!

 

[disneyholic family]

For me it was a complete vacation, Free DDP, free transfers, FP all sorted meals booked. Its all taken care of. I get off the plane get the bags and im done for 2 weeks.

Now its hassle and if im going to suffer hassle i might as well stay else where and save money and see more things.

well said!!!
a hassle free vacation that they're now turning into a hassle on steroids vacation.

 

[disneyholic family]

my son thinks disney is going to include genie+ in the UK ultimate tickets ('for free').
Fingers crossed he's correct.

 

[itf]

my son thinks disney is going to include genie+ in the UK ultimate tickets ('for free').
Fingers crossed he's correct.

wonder what happens to those of us who already bought ultimate for next year if so…