Just back from week long family group of 16 (week after Easter). This is our experience. Hopefully it may help others with future trips.
Several of us had watched the vloggers, read the tips for using Genie, and made sure we were familiar with app. We did not like it and it was not a great way to start a Disney day at 7:00. Our approach was for 4 of us to meet at 7:00 each morning, we divided the group in half with two taking one half and the other taking the other half. Our group was trying to spend parts of each morning together, have lunch together as a group (lunch together worked great), and then go our separate ways. We were hoping the two groups could get overlapping lightning lanes at two attractions each morning (one with Genie+ and one with ILL)--but with constantly changing return times as we would use the app between 7:00 and 7:20, it simply didn't happen most days. So I would recommend not using this approach.
A couple of comments:
1. The return time for ILL attractions changed every single time AFTER we purchased the ILL. Whether we purchased a few minutes after 7:00 (the app usually errored at 7:00) or purchased at the later 7:11 drop, the return time would change as much as several hours. Disney guest relations said they could correct it but it would bog the whole system down. This was the most frustrating part of using Genie+ and resulted in several blue umbrella visits.
2. The app will give you a warning that you cannot have more than 10 people in your Genie party. We thought it was up to 12 but learned that our first day of trying to use the app.
3. I could only book a lightning lane if I was included in the group.
4. We all agreed that we needed to purchase Genie+ to enjoy the parks; standby lines were too long except early in the morning and even then the most popular rides got long quickly.
5. Rides, especially ILL rides, were constantly breaking down and made using Genie+ frustrating. Our first 3 days, all 3 ILL rides we bought that day broke down for our return times, forcing us to re-arrange our day. 7 Dwards, Remy, ROTR
6. Genie would randomly drop people from our groups (we would select members of our group and the two rides we wanted to start with prior to 7:00 each morning). We never could figure out why or how that happened, which made riding together with overlapping groups impossible when that happened.
Only one member (a young adult) like Genie. She treated it like a video game with a challenge of getting attractions she or someone wanted throughout the day.
The rest of us found Genie frustrating and took away some of the joy/fun of the trip. However, it is necessary to ride most of the attractions. We purchased 5 of the 7 days of our trip.
My advice (take it or leave it): Don't try to have a large group ride any ride together if it's a Genie+ or ILL ride.
Several of us had watched the vloggers, read the tips for using Genie, and made sure we were familiar with app. We did not like it and it was not a great way to start a Disney day at 7:00. Our approach was for 4 of us to meet at 7:00 each morning, we divided the group in half with two taking one half and the other taking the other half. Our group was trying to spend parts of each morning together, have lunch together as a group (lunch together worked great), and then go our separate ways. We were hoping the two groups could get overlapping lightning lanes at two attractions each morning (one with Genie+ and one with ILL)--but with constantly changing return times as we would use the app between 7:00 and 7:20, it simply didn't happen most days. So I would recommend not using this approach.
A couple of comments:
1. The return time for ILL attractions changed every single time AFTER we purchased the ILL. Whether we purchased a few minutes after 7:00 (the app usually errored at 7:00) or purchased at the later 7:11 drop, the return time would change as much as several hours. Disney guest relations said they could correct it but it would bog the whole system down. This was the most frustrating part of using Genie+ and resulted in several blue umbrella visits.
2. The app will give you a warning that you cannot have more than 10 people in your Genie party. We thought it was up to 12 but learned that our first day of trying to use the app.
3. I could only book a lightning lane if I was included in the group.
4. We all agreed that we needed to purchase Genie+ to enjoy the parks; standby lines were too long except early in the morning and even then the most popular rides got long quickly.
5. Rides, especially ILL rides, were constantly breaking down and made using Genie+ frustrating. Our first 3 days, all 3 ILL rides we bought that day broke down for our return times, forcing us to re-arrange our day. 7 Dwards, Remy, ROTR
6. Genie would randomly drop people from our groups (we would select members of our group and the two rides we wanted to start with prior to 7:00 each morning). We never could figure out why or how that happened, which made riding together with overlapping groups impossible when that happened.
Only one member (a young adult) like Genie. She treated it like a video game with a challenge of getting attractions she or someone wanted throughout the day.
The rest of us found Genie frustrating and took away some of the joy/fun of the trip. However, it is necessary to ride most of the attractions. We purchased 5 of the 7 days of our trip.
My advice (take it or leave it): Don't try to have a large group ride any ride together if it's a Genie+ or ILL ride.
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