Question and frustration...and sadness.

[courtney1188]

Lovers of spontaneity should be thrilled about FP+ being replaced by Genie. You will now be able to wake up in the morning, pick an available park on the spur of the moment, and be able to ride most or all of the best rides with very little wait, something that was impossible with FP+ unless you preplanned. And while people complain about having to use their phone, phones have vastly helped with being spontaneous, whether by letting people know about an unexpectedly short SB line somewhere, or an ADR for a restaurant suddenly becoming available.

I’m not counting on that just yet - let’s wait and see what availability is like. Especially if you’re staying off site - since on site can book starting at 7am and off site can’t until they’re in the park, I wouldn’t be surprised if by then the popular attractions only have FPS available quite late in the day. So it would be like:

- Get to AK at 9am for opening and pay the extra for FOP, but the soonest ride time available is 5pm.

- Wait two hours to be able to book another lightning lane attraction. So it’s now 11am, and none of the rides have passes available until 1pm.


Depending on availability, you could end up only being able to get on 2 or 3 rides using lightning lane! Of course…we don’t know what the availability will look like. I’m very curious to see how that goes.

 

[GatorChris]

Yeah, there's a part of that I miss. My first trip to WDW was in 2002 on our Honeymoon. We arrived not knowing anything. And it was still amazing! Our first day, we walked up to Crystal Palace and got a reservation for dinner that evening. Imagine that! Ressies for Crystal Palace for dinner the day of!!! Went to Epcot, hit the Future World stuff. Then at 11am, walked into the Mexico Pavilion and made lunch ADRs for noon. One hour later!!!

Two years later, you couldn't do that. Personal Fan Theory: I blame the internet. 2002, Disney online knowledge was limited and most people still had dial up. The internet was a pain. But in a few years, DSL was a hit, Disney info grew, Disney boards developed, and suddenly everyone knew what everyone knew. Off-season times became busy, the best restaurants and character meals booked months in advance, everyone uncovered going left is faster. These boards gave us the ability to plan ahead, beating all those newbies and rookies to the punch. If you want to know what killed spontaneity, you're posting on it right now.

Disneyland has been what WDW used to be. At least until this pandemic. With all the reservations for park days and now Genie+, it's taken some of that free-flowing feeling out. Probably for good.