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

[levismom]

The magic is slowly disappearing.. seems more and more everyday, more complaints.

Just returned from Disney for the week and we had an awesome trip. Everyone was super nice and we had a great first time staying in Disney resort. Disney bus transportation worked great. Going back next year and can’t wait.

 

[gharter]

Wholeheartedly agree that G+ makes late arrival park touring difficult.

Completely disagree. That is where it shines. If you know when you will get to the park, you can start stacking Genie + at 7 am, (assuming 9am opening), 11 am, 1 pm ,3pm, arrive at 4 have 4 rides ready to go and keep adding. It takes some luck and time to get the rides and times to stack, but it can be done.

 

[Babe the Blue Ox]

Wholeheartedly agree that G+ makes late arrival park touring difficult.

I disagree with this also. Arrive too early and you’ll be tired out long before the lines start getting really short.

 

[fumanchu2488]

Completely disagree. That is where it shines. If you know when you will get to the park, you can start stacking Genie + at 7 am, (assuming 9am opening), 11 am, 1 pm ,3pm, arrive at 4 have 4 rides ready to go and keep adding. It takes some luck and time to get the rides and times to stack, but it can be done.

This is right. If the post said “getting up late” then I would agree. But as long as you book your first ride at 7 am it almost works better for people who can go later and stay in the park later.

We are early risers with a 4 and 2 YO. We don’t stay in the parks past 6 or 7 pm and take a break in the middle of the day for pool/nap. Makes G+ tough because the popular rides might not be open until after we are long gone.

 

[Disturbia]

I would say that is true compared to just doing standby.
However; with the lack of flexibility that Genie + has, we have yet to be able to ride as many rides using Genie + as we did with FP+.
But, that doesn't really matter as FP+ isn't coming back. Just wish they would add the flexibility to Genie +. Being able to modify times, switch one ride for another, and ride rides again (all of which FP+ had) would get rid of a lot of the complaints.

In March I booked POC and clicked 11:30 am but received 2 pm. You need to see the 3 dots on the top right of your booking to get to the cancellation menu for a Genie+ reservation. It didn’t appear for a good 15 mins and when it finally did I cancelled and rebooked for around 12:40.

 

[Stratman50th]

I find it hilarious that people try and say how their experience has been diminished in some way by, pick your poison apple here and others want to tell them they are wrong. Isn't this one of those "this is my experience and how I see it threads"?
Anyway, I could care less as my experience has been diminishing since mid 2000's and you can argue all day long and still won't convince me. That being said, I won't waste my time arguing about it either. Just an observation.

 

[NavyDad]

I am afraid I think it’s deliberate, creating chaos to push people to pay for what used to be free. Perhaps they think by changing its name they are fooling us. But essentially it’s the once free fast pass that is now (for my family) $60 a day for a ten day holiday. $600 to put me back in the position I was in before for free! I am at Epcot now standing in queues full of miserable people. The poor cast members are standing with rictus smiles through it all, fielding complaints that they are overly prioritisng genie +. Which they probably are. Because they’ve been told to. Its day one of our holiday, I refuse to take part in genie + because the more of us that are extorted for the money the worse it will get. I think I am done with Disney for a while until/ unless this is sorted. I am hopeful people will go home with their terrible stories and put others off and Disney will re evaluate. But I wouldn’t count on it. I am not naive. I know it was always about money. People with more bought dinners and fireworks packages and suites and concierge and boat trips. But there was a neat little egalitarian illusion for the rides in the park at least. I would lying to say that this hasn’t taken the shine off things for me. It isn’t what it has been for us for the past ten years. And I am really really sad about that and also thankful that our kids had the best of it.

"There is no such thing as a free lunch"

Nothing was ever free at WDW. It's always about whether or not the price of one thing is included in the price of another or if you pay a la carte.

We have been taking our kids to WDW for 13 years. Back in 2009, planning for our first family trip all this board was full of people who said the parks were not as good and not the same and too expensive in comparison to the 1980's and 90's. Well we had a fantastic trip in 2009 anyway and we continued to find value and return basically every 1.5 years since. We honestly had one of the best experiences over that time this last April using Genie+ and ILL. We found the CM's to be fantastic and the parks to be clean and magical.

I have to say it's interesting that from fall through early spring this board was nothing about complaints and declarations that the suits had ruined WDW and that Genie+ was OBVIOUSLY some kind of inferior product and from about May to present it has been an avalanche of people saying how great their trips were and how much they were able to get done using Genie+

No one should tell you how to spend your money. If you don't feel you are getting value for your money any more then just don't go. Everyone reaches that point eventually. The truth is that families could have a magical trip in 2009 just like they could in 1989 and families can have just as much magic in 2022 as they did in 2012. Disney has always been expensive and the company has always been about making money. Maybe you were fooled before and finally realized it.

 

[NavyDad]

Wholeheartedly agree that G+ makes late arrival park touring difficult.

For out trip in April, Genie+ made our late arrival days fantastic! (worked best with DHS and MK)

Instead of dragging my wife and daughter out of bed at 6 AM they slept until 9. I woke up around 7 so I got an extra hour of sleep and had a Genie+ ride booked plus 1 or 2 $ILL for the day. We did late breakfast or brunch and I had another Genie+ booked before we left our resort. I was easily able on multiple days to continue stacking rides throughout the afternoon and evening at both the first park and the second park we would hop to that evening.

We rode more rides than ever before and everyone got 1-3 hours more sleep than we have ever gotten at WDW.

 

[NavyDad]

I find it hilarious that people try and say how their experience has been diminished in some way by, pick your poison apple here and others want to tell them they are wrong. Isn't this one of those "this is my experience and how I see it threads"?
Anyway, I could care less as my experience has been diminishing since mid 2000's and you can argue all day long and still won't convince me. That being said, I won't waste my time arguing about it either. Just an observation.

Right - I should be able to say something like "WDW isn't as good as it used to be for me because they moved it to Alberta, Canada" and everyone else should just nod their heads in agreement and say "Good point"

 

[MomOTwins]

"There is no such thing as a free lunch"

Nothing was ever free at WDW. It's always about whether or not the price of one thing is included in the price of another or if you pay a la carte.

We have been taking our kids to WDW for 13 years. Back in 2009, planning for our first family trip all this board was full of people who said the parks were not as good and not the same and too expensive in comparison to the 1980's and 90's. Well we had a fantastic trip in 2009 anyway and we continued to find value and return basically every 1.5 years since. We honestly had one of the best experiences over that time this last April using Genie+ and ILL. We found the CM's to be fantastic and the parks to be clean and magical.

I have to say it's interesting that from fall through early spring this board was nothing about complaints and declarations that the suits had ruined WDW and that Genie+ was OBVIOUSLY some kind of inferior product and from about May to present it has been an avalanche of people saying how great their trips were and how much they were able to get done using Genie+

No one should tell you how to spend your money. If you don't feel you are getting value for your money any more then just don't go. Everyone reaches that point eventually. The truth is that families could have a magical trip in 2009 just like they could in 1989 and families can have just as much magic in 2022 as they did in 2012. Disney has always been expensive and the company has always been about making money. Maybe you were fooled before and finally realized it.

I agree with you on most of this. I for example can't afford Adventures by Disney, or Concierge on Disney Cruise Line, or the Four Seasons in Hawaii, but it wouldn't do any good to stew about those things being out of my price range. I just have to find out how to make a vacation work for my budget. To that end, we now have had to find some economies with Disney World that we didn't used to. We bought into DVC during the pandemic and with the recent hotel rate prices that's already proving to be a big savings over time. We used to eat at character meals every day under the dining plan and now we do it maybe once per trip. We bought 5-day park tickets for an 8-day stay and plan to spend a three days at the resort pool. We've spaced out our trips a lot more--used to go 3-4 times a year and now we only go for one long (1-week) trip or two short weekend trips--and have branched out to other cheaper road trips/airbnbs for the rest of our vacation days.

One thing though: you point out the fact that guests this spring (and frankly last fall) hated G+ and it has been getting better reviews since May as a sign that G+ is a good value. I think that overlooks an important fact: for the past 5 years or so, it has consistently been the case that first four months of the year at Disney World are on average significantly more crowded than the summer months. People don't want to travel to a theme park in florida in mid-summer any more, for obvious reasons. These past few weeks have been the lowest crowds of the year. So of course you can get a lot done on G+. The ones complaining were those who were only able to book 1-2 G+ per day because everything sold out almost instantly. I do think the experience of this new product can be a lot more variable based on crowds, whereas in the old system you had a more consistent experience of being able to reserve at least 3 even when it was spring break of Thanksgiving.

 

[Jrb1979]

"There is no such thing as a free lunch"

Nothing was ever free at WDW. It's always about whether or not the price of one thing is included in the price of another or if you pay a la carte.

We have been taking our kids to WDW for 13 years. Back in 2009, planning for our first family trip all this board was full of people who said the parks were not as good and not the same and too expensive in comparison to the 1980's and 90's. Well we had a fantastic trip in 2009 anyway and we continued to find value and return basically every 1.5 years since. We honestly had one of the best experiences over that time this last April using Genie+ and ILL. We found the CM's to be fantastic and the parks to be clean and magical.

I have to say it's interesting that from fall through early spring this board was nothing about complaints and declarations that the suits had ruined WDW and that Genie+ was OBVIOUSLY some kind of inferior product and from about May to present it has been an avalanche of people saying how great their trips were and how much they were able to get done using Genie+

No one should tell you how to spend your money. If you don't feel you are getting value for your money any more then just don't go. Everyone reaches that point eventually. The truth is that families could have a magical trip in 2009 just like they could in 1989 and families can have just as much magic in 2022 as they did in 2012. Disney has always been expensive and the company has always been about making money. Maybe you were fooled before and finally realized it.

I think the thing with Genie+ is around the time people started liking it is when they went down to 1 paid LL per park. It added inventory making more availability. As far as enjoying the parks, IMO it comes down those that have a good time seem to fall into the category of just happy to be there.

For my family we don't enjoy it anymore. A lot of it comes down to too much work to enjoy a theme park. From reservations, to booking return times for rides and booking ADRs it's more work then it needs to be. When you compare that to Universal and the ease of a vacation there it's night and day.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

I find it hilarious that people try and say how their experience has been diminished in some way by, pick your poison apple here and others want to tell them they are wrong. Isn't this one of those "this is my experience and how I see it threads"?
Anyway, I could care less as my experience has been diminishing since mid 2000's and you can argue all day long and still won't convince me. That being said, I won't waste my time arguing about it either. Just an observation.

they could always just yell into a pillow instead of posting if they don't want anyone else opinion on the matter haha, when you post in a public forum there is bound to be a back and forth.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

We have been taking our kids to WDW for 13 years. Back in 2009, planning for our first family trip all this board was full of people who said the parks were not as good and not the same and too expensive in comparison to the 1980's and 90's. Well we had a fantastic trip in 2009 anyway and we continued to find value and return basically every 1.5 years since. We honestly had one of the best experiences over that time this last April using Genie+ and ILL. We found the CM's to be fantastic and the parks to be clean and magical.

I have found that a lot on these boards as well. it always reminds me of what I've heard about Saturday night Live, which is essentially that everyone hates the current cast when it is the current cast, and how the previous cast was the best, until a new cast comes in and then just rinse and repeat.
I think Disney has accidentally been dishing out member berries for generations now haha

 

[Marionnette]

Right - I should be able to say something like "WDW isn't as good as it used to be for me because they moved it to Alberta, Canada" and everyone else should just nod their heads in agreement and say "Good point"

No. I should be able to say something like "WDW isn't as good as it used to be for me because they moved it to Alberta, Canada and I don't want to spend money on a passport" without someone telling me that it's a totally better move because they live in Saskatchewan and I am just resistant to change. It's not the differing of opinions that is irksome. It's about how some people can be dismissive of another's opinion.

I had a totally miserable experience with G+ last December. And it still burns me that I will have to spend more $$ for every park day just to come close to how a visit went before. I detest the park reservation system and the after-2 PM hopping restriction. But those are the new rules of the Disney Parks Game and if I want to play, then I have to abide by them.

 

[NavyDad]

I agree with you on most of this. I for example can't afford Adventures by Disney, or Concierge on Disney Cruise Line, or the Four Seasons in Hawaii, but it wouldn't do any good to stew about those things being out of my price range. I just have to find out how to make a vacation work for my budget. To that end, we now have had to find some economies with Disney World that we didn't used to. We bought into DVC during the pandemic and with the recent hotel rate prices that's already proving to be a big savings over time. We used to eat at character meals every day under the dining plan and now we do it maybe once per trip. We bought 5-day park tickets for an 8-day stay and plan to spend a three days at the resort pool. We've spaced out our trips a lot more--used to go 3-4 times a year and now we only go for one long (1-week) trip or two short weekend trips--and have branched out to other cheaper road trips/airbnbs for the rest of our vacation days.

One thing though: you point out the fact that guests this spring (and frankly last fall) hated G+ and it has been getting better reviews since May as a sign that G+ is a good value. I think that overlooks an important fact: for the past 5 years or so, it has consistently been the case that first four months of the year at Disney World are on average significantly more crowded than the summer months. People don't want to travel to a theme park in florida in mid-summer any more, for obvious reasons. These past few weeks have been the lowest crowds of the year. So of course you can get a lot done on G+. The ones complaining were those who were only able to book 1-2 G+ per day because everything sold out almost instantly. I do think the experience of this new product can be a lot more variable based on crowds, whereas in the old system you had a more consistent experience of being able to reserve at least 3 even when it was spring break of Thanksgiving.

I didn't say the guests that travelled to WDW in the Spring came back with bad reviews. From Fall through around early March there were a lot of negative reviews from people who had visited in the first few months of the roll out AND from a bunch of people who had not yet visited with Genie+ pre-emptively saying that it was an inferior product before they actually tried it out. I didn't see many people complaining about only getting 1-2 Genie+ per day. I saw much more complaints about the system just not working properly, or having to be on their phone too much or just basically on principle because they didn't like that you had to pay for it (separately).

We went during the busy Spring Break rush in April. I was very pleasantly by how well it worked for us and starting around that same time (Spring Break) the majority of the reviews from people who have actually used it have been positive and those folks who kept loudly insisting it was "obviously an inferior product to FP+" have stopped screeching from the rooftops. From what I remember the month of June leading up to the July 4th holiday was quite busy and most of the Genie Plus reports were quite a bit more positive than they had been November through February. I honestly believe this follow the pattern of Disney fans being initially resistant to change and then late on adapting to the change with DIS board folks quickly becoming adept at getting the most out of any kind of system WDW employs.

 

[NavyDad]

No. I should be able to say something like "WDW isn't as good as it used to be for me because they moved it to Alberta, Canada and I don't want to spend money on a passport" without someone telling me that it's a totally better move because they live in Saskatchewan and I am just resistant to change. It's not the differing of opinions that is irksome. It's about how some people can be dismissive of another's opinion.

I had a totally miserable experience with G+ last December. And it still burns me that I will have to spend more $$ for every park day just to come close to how a visit went before. I detest the park reservation system and the after-2 PM hopping restriction. But those are the new rules of the Disney Parks Game and if I want to play, then I have to abide by them.

You did a great job of outlining the difference between something that is personal preference (not wanting to spend money on a passport) and something that is just inaccurate (moving to Alberta which was my silly example).

If you say: "Visiting Disney World has gotten too expensive and I don't feel like it's a good value within my budget anymore" then you are not going to get much pushback on that.

When you say: "Disney is now terrible BECAUSE I used to get a bunch of FREE stuff when I stayed at their hotels or visited the parks and now I have to pay for those things" then you are going to get pushback from people who want to point out that what you posted is incorrect.

Airport bus service, Fast Pass and FP+ were never actually "free" because Disney paid money to offer those services and then rolled that into the price of your ticket or lodging. It was a bundle of services just like I now bundle Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu. Disney was paying Mears a certain price and then they factored that price into their hotel price. Disney paid money to implement first the legacy FP system and then more money to implement the FP+ system and then incorporated that cost into your ticket price. Even if you never used the Mears shuttle or pulled a paper Fast Pass, you were paying for those services, like it or not. Disney just used a time honored marketing trick to convince people they were getting bunch of free perks.

Then COVID happened, the world changed and prices went up for everything - including for WDW tickets and hotels. They now use a more a la carte price menu. You pay for your tickets separately and if you CHOOSE to pay for Genie+ or $ILL that's fine and if you don't that's OK too. You get to make a value judgement for yourself.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

 

[Jrb1979]

I didn't say the guests that travelled to WDW in the Spring came back with bad reviews. From Fall through around early March there were a lot of negative reviews from people who had visited in the first few months of the roll out AND from a bunch of people who had not yet visited with Genie+ pre-emptively saying that it was an inferior product before they actually tried it out. I didn't see many people complaining about only getting 1-2 Genie+ per day. I saw much more complaints about the system just not working properly, or having to be on their phone too much or just basically on principle because they didn't like that you had to pay for it (separately).

We went during the busy Spring Break rush in April. I was very pleasantly by how well it worked for us and starting around that same time (Spring Break) the majority of the reviews from people who have actually used it have been positive and those folks who kept loudly insisting it was "obviously an inferior product to FP+" have stopped screeching from the rooftops. From what I remember the month of June leading up to the July 4th holiday was quite busy and most of the Genie Plus reports were quite a bit more positive than they had been November through February. I honestly believe this follow the pattern of Disney fans being initially resistant to change and then late on adapting to the change with DIS board folks quickly becoming adept at getting the most out of any kind of system WDW employs.

Disagree. The reason Genie+ is better now has nothing to do with people resistant to change. It's the changes Disney has made to Genie+. Having only 1 paid LL per park helps a lot and ending the ability to pre purchase Genie+ helps.
Don't worry come next year when they up the price and less people are using it Genie+ will be great.

 

[Marionnette]

I didn't say the guests that travelled to WDW in the Spring came back with bad reviews. From Fall through around early March there were a lot of negative reviews from people who had visited in the first few months of the roll out AND from a bunch of people who had not yet visited with Genie+ pre-emptively saying that it was an inferior product before they actually tried it out. I didn't see many people complaining about only getting 1-2 Genie+ per day. I saw much more complaints about the system just not working properly, or having to be on their phone too much or just basically on principle because they didn't like that you had to pay for it (separately).

We went during the busy Spring Break rush in April. I was very pleasantly by how well it worked for us and starting around that same time (Spring Break) the majority of the reviews from people who have actually used it have been positive and those folks who kept loudly insisting it was "obviously an inferior product to FP+" have stopped screeching from the rooftops. From what I remember the month of June leading up to the July 4th holiday was quite busy and most of the Genie Plus reports were quite a bit more positive than they had been November through February. I honestly believe this follow the pattern of Disney fans being initially resistant to change and then late on adapting to the change with DIS board folks quickly becoming adept at getting the most out of any kind of system WDW employs.

In late February, Disney changed the number of ILL$ attractions to one at each park. That was supposed to be a temporary change but it added a lot to guests' satisfaction with G+ due to there being more G+ slots at each park. HS was particularly bad and worthy of every negative comment made about it.

Once GotG opened in late May, that took Remi out of VQ/ILL$ and changed it to G+/standby line. Another positive change for G+.

There has also been a lot of time for strategies to develop since those early days and Disney continues to tweak G+. I will say that @NavyDad 's posts from his trip and other more recent reports have made me re-evaluate my stance on G+/ILL$. I still hate the thought of paying Disney's ransome after paying so much to just walk into the park. And there are still G+ features that I dislike (not being able to book until the day of, having to book "next available" times or else fiddle-faddling to get a better time, for examples). And I still maintain that G+ is inferior to FP+ in many ways. But if you want to join the game, you gotta play with the cards you are dealt. So if my choice is either to wait in long standby lines or pay the Genie, I will most likely pay the Genie.

 

[NavyDad]

In late February, Disney changed the number of ILL$ attractions to one at each park. That was supposed to be a temporary change but it added a lot to guests' satisfaction with G+ due to there being more G+ slots at each park. HS was particularly bad and worthy of every negative comment made about it.

Once GotG opened in late May, that took Remi out of VQ/ILL$ and changed it to G+/standby line. Another positive change for G+.

There has also been a lot of time for strategies to develop since those early days and Disney continues to tweak G+. I will say that @NavyDad 's posts from his trip and other more recent reports have made me re-evaluate my stance on G+/ILL$. I still hate the thought of paying Disney's ransome after paying so much to just walk into the park. And there are still G+ features that I dislike (not being able to book until the day of, having to book "next available" times or else fiddle-faddling to get a better time, for examples). And I still maintain that G+ is inferior to FP+ in many ways. But if you want to join the game, you gotta play with the cards you are dealt. So if my choice is either to wait in long standby lines or pay the Genie, I will most likely pay the Genie.

I hope that adjustment remains permanent. One of the biggest limiting factor of any FP type systems is capacity so anything they can do with that is great.

Serious question that is not supposed to be snarky: Would you feel better about Genie Plus if Disney just raised the ticket prices for everyone by $15 and included the service in the price? A quick google says the lowest daily price is $109, so if they raised that to $124 would that make it "feel" better?

 

[tink2424]

I hope that adjustment remains permanent. One of the biggest limiting factor of any FP type systems is capacity so anything they can do with that is great.

Serious question that is not supposed to be snarky: Would you feel better about Genie Plus if Disney just raised the ticket prices for everyone by $15 and included the service in the price? A quick google says the lowest daily price is $109, so if they raised that to $124 would that make it "feel" better?

For me I am fine with the extra price but the price needs to be higher so that not as many people use it and so it doesn't make the stand-by lines that much longer. This is why it works better at Universal as it is limited to a smaller group using the benefit. I think that would, in the end, make everyone happier. Everyone would feel like they are getting value.

Also, just to add I don't think that Disney is operating at full capacity all of the time either with their rides. If they aren't then they need to operate at full capacity to allow for a better guest experience along with adding more attractions to each park.