No the Magic isn’t gone but it’s at 25%

[john7994]

No matter what they do, someone will complain. An express pass would have to be at limited quantities and very expensive, like it is at Universal. as it is, if they are actually not limiting sales of Genie Plus they should probably be doing so, or raise the price, because the more people you get using it, the less effective it will be from a customer standpoint.

Ain't that the truth ...

 

[Mrs.AMC]

I wish they would go to the Express pass. Much simpler.

You just said in another post above that all skip the line systems don’t work when this many people have it and you want the express pass type system

You truly think that would work? You do realize it would be 200x worse for the exact reason you said they don’t work

 

[meremac]

No matter what they do, someone will complain.

Truth. Now, above all, I am not discounting the fact that some people are clearly having a negative experience with this new system. I get that, and I have compassion for them. It stinks if something negatively impacts your vacation so much that you feel the quality of it was diminished significantly. That being said, there is always pushback when a new system launches. There were complaints when FastPass+ launched, there were complaints when it was standby only last summer, etc, etc, etc. If Disney changed the system again, there would be complaints about that too, guaranteed. I'd bet money that, in a year or so, people will have largely accepted Genie+ and moved on, just like every other time there was a change.

Another layer here is that I don't believe this board is representative of WDW visitors as a whole. I book a decent volume of WDW vacations, and the vast majority of my clients like Genie+. More importantly, they come back happy having enjoyed their trip, and most say they can't wait to go back. Yes, this is anecdotal, but it's the truth from my vantage point. People still are visiting WDW in droves, and I don't think that Genie+ is going to change that. In fact, I don't think there's much Disney could do to change that. People are still going to go to Disney World, and a lot of people at that. Even if some folks choose to vacation elsewhere because they personally aren't happy with Disney right now, it's just not enough to make a difference. I think the biggest thing that could slow attendance down is a recession, but Disney will mitigate that as much as possible too, just like they've done with past recessions.

Bottom line: Some people are unhappy, yes. And those people are going to complain. But lots and lots of other people ARE happy.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Maybe mid-level managers have lost touch with the guests. Ya think?

Found this: Walt Disney: An American Individual by Bob Thomas, pg 263: Members of the park staff (Disneyland) urged him to build and administration building. "No," he replied, "there isn't going to be an administration building. The public isn't coming here to see an administration building. Besides, I don't want you guys sitting behind desks. I want you out in the park, watching what people are doing and finding out how you can make the place more enjoyable for them."

To be fair there are a lot of mid level managers in the parks. That’s what all those CM in dress clothes are

 

[Mrs.AMC]

I said something similar last summer when everything was standby only, and no G+ existed. At least 25% of our value was gone. *Poof* That's saying a lot when we're spending $10k on a vacation.

We'll see how G+ works for us this summer. Despite the price, it HAS to be better than last year. Hopefully I don't eat those words.

Dan

I wish I could say I felt it was better. Anything that requires getting up at 7am everyday on vacation isn’t better

 

[2goofykiddos]

All Disney resort guests get 30 minutes early entry. That is the perk of staying on site. When you pay the exorbitant fee to stay in a DISNEY deluxe resort, I don’t necessarily see the problem with EEH for them.

Don’t get me wrong though. I would rather go back to the, more often, one to two hours of extra hours in the morning or evening for all resort guests.

Dan

However when the extra hours are from
11-1 there’s not much benefit.

 

[john7994]

However when the extra hours are from
11-1 there’s not much benefit.

Extra hours are from 11 -1?

 

[meremac]

Extra hours are from 11 -1?

Not always. At Epcot, they are almost always from 9pm-11pm. At MK, it depends on what time the park closes. Lately, MK has been closing at 10pm or 11pm (mostly 11pm), so DEEH is two hours after that. I get that it's too late for some people, and I can see how it would not be beneficial to them. But we really love it. There's something just incredibly cool about being in what becomes an almost empty MK late at night.

 

[john7994]

Not always. At Epcot, they are almost always from 9pm-11pm. At MK, it depends on what time the park closes. Lately, MK has been closing at 10pm or 11pm (mostly 11pm), so DEEH is two hours after that. I get that it's too late for some people, and I can see how it would not be beneficial to them. But we really love it. There's something just incredibly cool about being in what becomes an almost empty MK late at night.

Ohhh haha - Thank you. I was thinking 11A- 1P - I was like is there an extra-dimensional portal somewheres in Genie+ that I hadn't tapped into yet - Yeah I don't vacation at 11P - 1A either - but likely for reasons related to relaxing at dinner with a few adult beverages

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yes the lines last year moved faster but they were also so much longer.

From the local DISers we know (one being a CM)...they would much rather have SB only. They dearly miss the time when SB was the only option, they milked that for all they could. As one put it "Pirates is now ruined with LL" (it was at least less so to them with FP+).

One couple who probably has the strongest emotions of the local DISers had just moved down to Orlando in November 2020 so they were used to traveling as a visitor before. The CM had moved down in April 2019 but had been going to Disney their whole life over at DLR and was used to being a frequent visitor to WDW.

With comparison you have to compare SB to SB. It doesn't make sense to compare SB to FP+ or LL as in how long you would have waited for a ride. So for you who went in August 2021 you'd have to compare your SB wait times with your SB wait times of present.

 

[Melemonie]

We will see for sure. If they aren't going to cap sales then it makes no sense to stop advanced sales.

Another theory I've heard is that day-to-day sales more easily allow dynamic pricing, so Disney could charge more on days they think will be high demand.

 

[NavyDad]

Am I misunderstanding something, if we can't Park Hop until 2:00, how could you book a Genie+ at your second Park (for SDD) for 12:30-1:30? Are you able to pick a time before 2:00 and then extend your ride window past the stated time to ride after 2:00 in this case?

IIRC - that time popped up and I selected it. Once I booked it I got a message that read something like "automatically adjusting time for park hopping" and it shifted the time to the right to 2-3.

Not sure if this is good or bad but on both that day and the day we hopped to MK we had moments where we were almost overwhelmed with how many rides we had back to back to back. They were mostly Star Wars and Toy Story land rides which are close together so there wasn't too much back tracking but it was a lot of rides.

 

[NavyDad]

No. Genie will automatically show you times 2:00 pm or after for your second park of the day. If PP was able to book Slinky for 12:30 for the second park, it was a glitch and would have unfortunately been expired by the time park hopping was allowed with the 5 minutes before/15 minutes after grace period.

IIRC we were able to see times prior to 2 PM (on multiple days we hopped) but when we tried to select those times we got a message saying something like "automatically adjusting times for park-hopping" or a similar message. Some of our times for rides then over-lapped and we also got a message that times conflicted but we were able to accept that or cancel. For the day we hopped to DHS this made for a lot short windows from ride to ride. For us it was fun going from ride to ride because Galaxy's edge was completely new to us and we love the new TS stuff as well. I will say it was quite a frantic pace for a few hours though...

 

[NavyDad]

I think Genie Plus seems to work great for those who take the time to figure out how to game it. Most vacationers don't want to game it. They want to walk up and get onto their preferred rides without waiting forever, and they don't want to spend the day thinking about how they are going to do that. That's the preference for fast pass, which you had to decide what to book 2 months out and then all you had to do was show up.

Paper fastpass was just like the Genie, except it gave you something tangible that told you what time to come back; the only game you had to play was how early you needed to get to the park to get that popular ride.

This just doesn't seem to compute.

Back in 2008 there pages and pages of tips on this board on how to "game" the old legacy FP system. Who amongst us never had the fun job of being a runner? LOL. 99% of the complaints on this board when they changed to FP+ was that people had learned to maximize the legacy FP so well, they were going to lose rides per day moving to a system they couldn't game as easily.

Once everyone got up to speed on FP+ there were a million different tips and tricks shared here to show how to best game the FP+ system to get the most bang for your buck. People eventually got very wise to that system and became very comfortable with how to maximize it for the most rides possible.

Now with Genie Plus, many of the strategies to maximize are actually very similar to previous systems but with some changes in the nuance.

For the last 15 years Disney vacations have been a story about hyper planners who could make the most of their vacation versus people who just showed up at Noon and complained about how long the standby lines were. This is not something new with Genie Plus.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

Actually, we enjoyed the trip that didn't have Genie + and was standby only. The waits overall were shorter and the standby lines moved.
The hard part was when they social distanced the lines, so the lines looked much worse than they were.

Same! I think longest we waited was posted 65 minutes waited 50 something. Everything else was off by a lot

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

This just doesn't seem to compute.

Back in 2008 there pages and pages of tips on this board on how to "game" the old legacy FP system. Who amongst us never had the fun job of being a runner? LOL. 99% of the complaints on this board when they changed to FP+ was that people had learned to maximize the legacy FP so well, they were going to lose rides per day moving to a system they couldn't game as easily.

Once everyone got up to speed on FP+ there were a million different tips and tricks shared here to show how to best game the FP+ system to get the most bang for your buck. People eventually got very wise to that system and became very comfortable with how to maximize it for the most rides possible.

Now with Genie Plus, many of the strategies to maximize are actually very similar to previous systems but with some changes in the nuance.

For the last 15 years Disney vacations have been a story about hyper planners who could make the most of their vacation versus people who just showed up at Noon and complained about how long the standby lines were. This is not something new with Genie Plus.

I agree with what you're saying.

Although I do agree with the PP when they said most vacationers don't want to game it but I'll probably put that most vacationers don't know how to game any system that Disney comes up with be it legacy FP, FP+ or Genie+/LL.

In some ways I think there is more unintended stuff though happening as more and more people are used to digital ways of touring by way of apps so more are using it, someone may be stacking LLs without realizing that's what they are doing. We see that as a strategy and maybe that person just sees it as this is what the app tells me/allows me to do.

I think what we're seeing now is that with Genie+ it's leveled the playing field so far as giving the non-planner ability to use the system but you're also probably seeing more people use Genie+ because like I mentioned apps..many people are used to apps, it's part of so many people's everyday lives. You're always going to have uninformed guests (which is fine really) but you may be having less than when people thought Legacy FP was a paid system or when they didn't realize that FP+ was pre-planned 60/30 days in advance.

I too remember seeing all the ways people reported using with Legacy FP when I joined this Board in 2015 and you can count me in on someone who had no idea how to "game the system" back then, we just didn't utilize Legacy FP much but the crowds were different back in 2011 when our last trip under Legacy FP.

 

[Jrb1979]

You just said in another post above that all skip the line systems don’t work when this many people have it and you want the express pass type system

You truly think that would work? You do realize it would be 200x worse for the exact reason you said they don’t work

Express pass isn't available to everyone like Genie+ is.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Express pass isn't available to everyone like Genie+ is.

Sure it is. Anyone that wants to buy it can
Explain to me just how that's different?

 

[Jrb1979]

Sure it is. Anyone that wants to buy it can
Explain to me just how that's different?

I know if feels like it always available at Universal. Due to the price many don't buy it. It does have limited availability.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

IIRC we were able to see times prior to 2 PM (on multiple days we hopped) but when we tried to select those times we got a message saying something like "automatically adjusting times for park-hopping" or a similar message. Some of our times for rides then over-lapped and we also got a message that times conflicted but we were able to accept that or cancel. For the day we hopped to DHS this made for a lot short windows from ride to ride. For us it was fun going from ride to ride because Galaxy's edge was completely new to us and we love the new TS stuff as well. I will say it was quite a frantic pace for a few hours though...

When was your last trip?
I was there on Monday this week.
I know for ILL they did not offer any times on the 2nd park prior to 2:00 positively. Either ILL is different from they Genie options or they've tweaked the system since then