The big G+ rides at HS gone by 1:07!

[DisneyFive]

Then you have more than ever showing up at rope drop earlier and earlier trying to gain an advantage because they can’t plan their park day and desired first ride/time or order of rides in advance. It’s a mess.

Amen! This was a DRASTIC change last summer when everything was standby. ...and it wasn't even rope drop, it was more like 45minutes to 1 hour before park opening that things were already getting backed up. The mass of guests waiting would be long by the time they officially opened the park, 30 minutes early for HS, and right on time for MK. What that meant is that you got ONE attraction with a "lowish" wait. I say lowish because even that first ride required you to stand around for 45 minutes at park open and then STILL wait another 25-30 minutes for that first attraction. After that first ride, headliners were slammed. This is in stark contract to all of our previous visits when the first hour of park open was much quieter.

FP had a huge impact on reducing rope drop crowds because you didn't need to be at the park so early if you already were happy with your 3 selections and could sleep in and roll from there.

Unfortunately G+ does little to reduce the rope drop crowds like FP did. It really makes you wonder who created the G+ architecture. Did they ever visit the parks? Did they know the benefits to crowd management that FP offered?

Dan

 

[MMSM]

View attachment 649309View attachment 649309 If you haven’t booked G+ plus by now, you’re gonna be out of luck…. This is at opening this am y’all!!

Was this early entry or normal time?

 

[cm8]

Runaway Railway and Rise both had posted 3 hour waits a few minutes ago. I just refreshed the wait times and both are closed along with Toy Story Mania. That leaves 6 operating rides for the entire park right now. Besides a 5th gate, the current parks (or at least all except MK) need more rides in general even if they are smaller rides like the parachute drop some other Toy Story Land's have just to help spread out lines more.

This is exactly how it’s been this past week! Not a chance in he double hockey sticks of getting these if you’re not knowledgeable about how this works

Just noticed HS has extended evening hours for deluxe resorts for April13. Anyone with a deluxe resort should move those days.

We will be back the week of the 9-16th of April so this is good to know. Thank you for this heads up!!

This is still happening with ADRs as well. Happened just 2 days ago when I was trying to change them. Lost both as I had to give up one and by the time I logged back in it was gone. I had clicked on the ADR at least 4 times.

This!! I totally forgot about this too! It’s frustrating to say the least!

 

[cm8]

Was this early entry or normal time?

This was at park opening which was 9am today. It was a nightmare

 

[kc51570]

Amen! This was a DRASTIC change last summer when everything was standby. ...and it wasn't even rope drop, it was more like 45minutes to 1 hour before park opening that things were already getting backed up. The mass of guests waiting would be long by the time they officially opened the park, 30 minutes early for HS, and right on time for MK. What that meant is that you got ONE attraction with a "lowish" wait. I say lowish because even that first ride required you to stand around for 45 minutes at park open and then STILL wait another 25-30 minutes for that first attraction. After that first ride, headliners were slammed. This is in stark contract to all of our previous visits when the first hour of park open was much quieter.

FP had a huge impact on reducing rope drop crowds because you didn't need to be at the park so early if you already were happy with your 3 selections and could sleep in and roll from there.

Unfortunately G+ does little to reduce the rope drop crowds like FP did. It really makes you wonder who created the G+ architecture. Did they ever visit the parks? Did they know the benefits to crowd management that FP offered?

Dan

Yes, we were there last summer too and it was miserable. We ended up rope dropping 7 out of 8 days and that meant 45-60 minutes before the park actually opened in line. On top of that 6 out of 7 days our chosen ride that we had already waited 45-60 minutes at open for was down. This happened in every single park. The masterminds of this Genie plus plan clearly need some courses on operations management and capacity planning. Or just try to visit the park and use it with their own families-no cheating allowed.
I‘ll try genie +, but I’m already hating having to have a similar experience every single day as we did when Rise was still a VQ ride and we get locked out of what we want to ride.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

All of the G+ capacity issues, reports of long SB waits, lack of G+ availability, etc. got me thinking about how miserably G+ has failed to deliver if they were trying to "level the playing field" for the "casual/average" guest.

One of the big complaints with FP+ was that the "super users" (i.e., people like us on these boards) who knew all the ins and outs of the system were able to leverage that knowledge and planning to get a lot more FPs "at the expense of others" who weren't familiar with the system.

The thing is... you will still have many families showing up (many of the same ones who would be clueless about FP+) not knowing the first thing about G+. They will either not have purchased it, in which case they are relegated to ALL standby lines, or they may have purchased it, but will still be at a disadvantage and not get much benefit from it because they haven't spent hours learning all the "tips and tricks" to make it work well.

Disney has even managed to create a third subset of guests... those "super users" who still end up having to wait in long SB lines because, even though they know how to leverage the system to their advantage, it's still a "race" against other knowledgeable guests to snag what you can of the limited number of LL offerings.

Under FP+, those who were "in the know" were pretty much always satisfied that they were able to get FPs. Under G+ some of those "in the know" are still able to get the LLs they want, but many "in the know" folks are not able to, leaving those who are not "in the know" with even worse scraps than they would have had under FP+.

Paying for G+ and doing the research ahead of time should optimize your chances at getting good LLs, but there seem to be an awful lot of reports indicating that planning isn't enough because LLs are rationed too much.

 

[Brett Wyman]

This is still the case. I’ve had this happen on more than one occasion this am!! This is absolutely ridiculous and it’s been happening trying to log back into MDE and using mobile pay. It made me miss my ride time because once it refreshed, the time was gone.

Yup same happened to me last week. Although luckily I didn't miss a ride time. Basically it's Disney IT saying "You're accessing your account too much in X time period"...but they are the ones forcing us to!

Paying for G+ and doing the research ahead of time should optimize your chances at getting good LLs, but there seem to be an awful lot of reports indicating that planning isn't enough because LLs are rationed too much.

Yeah this is certainly true. I was a UBER FP+ user. I could usually ride FoP any day of the week I wanted multiple times as long as I kept at it. The advantage now goes to those who know how GP+ works AND are early risers. One small benefit is, in less a ride broke down, LL really is always a lightning lane wait wise. But unless you plan to get there 30 minute before park opens, and work at it, there isn't much benefit to G+, with maybe the exception of MK(although you still need to start early). With the number of rides at Epcot and AK buying it there is just a slap in the face.

 

[romanr27]

Does anybody here have experience with using G+ over the Christmas/New Year period where they dropped down to one $ILL per park, and can compare that to this holiday weekend? Did having that one extra attraction as part of G+ significantly improve the experience at all?

 

[dd316]

Runaway Railway and Rise both had posted 3 hour waits a few minutes ago. I just refreshed the wait times and both are closed along with Toy Story Mania. That leaves 6 operating rides for the entire park right now. Besides a 5th gate, the current parks (or at least all except MK) need more rides in general even if they are smaller rides like the parachute drop some other Toy Story Land's have just to help spread out lines more.

It's not more rides they need - they need all the parades, shows, character meet & greets.... everything else that normally pulls people away from rides.

 

[Turksmom]

It's not more rides they need - they need all the parades, shows, character meet & greets.... everything else that normally pulls people away from rides.

And more rides

 

[Disturbia]

Rnrc still available! Star tours 6:10 pm; all shows except Indiana Jones.

 

[Disturbia]

And more rides

And play areas. How about Andy’s backyard with Rodeo horses and a splash pad with squirting Toys, or a fun Air Conditioned mini Star cruiser kids can play on and pretend lasers. Also why not build some Waterfalls to cool the air. That’s just me thinking out loud in 3 mins.

 

[Kbrb]

And play areas. How about Andy’s backyard with Rodeo horses and a splash pad with squirting Toys, or a fun Air Conditioned mini Star cruiser kids can play on and pretend lasers. Also why not build some Waterfalls to cool the air. That’s just me thinking out loud in 3 mins.

Can you imagine the level of a chepek lead cheapy play area? Let’s face it they had untold budget for the star cruiser and that’s looking awful.

I dread to think of the Epcot refurbishment..

The latest trip advisor review title “Disney hates children”

 

[brockash]

Runaway Railway and Rise both had posted 3 hour waits a few minutes ago. I just refreshed the wait times and both are closed along with Toy Story Mania. That leaves 6 operating rides for the entire park right now. Besides a 5th gate, the current parks (or at least all except MK) need more rides in general even if they are smaller rides like the parachute drop some other Toy Story Land's have just to help spread out lines more.

Yes, we've been at DHS today and Rise, MMRR and TSM down for an extended time was noticeable and rough. Add on top of that only 1 side of ToT working..
it's been a mess. It took us 43 mins to get through the Lightning Lane of Rise today. Very busy.

Star Tours was 70 minutes today....70 mins. for Star Tours!

 

[Garyjames220]

We did this in Nov so one of us grabbed ROTR and the other SDD (kids don’t like MFSR) We did have some screen freezing issues. After booking those on the dot (still took 5+ mins), I booked MMRR which took 20 mins as the system kept logging me out (still got 10:10-11:10 am) and I had to copy paste a code and login again (3-4 times).

In the parks MMRR broke down for over 2 hrs and we were given an anytime pass. During the ride, part of it was stuck and not functioning so we were issued a pass for just half the party (2/4 riders).

Does the anytime passes need to be used the same day

 

[DduzDis]

Did you try only at 2 hours or 2 hours and a few min? I have read that say you book at 7am but really it didn't go through till 7:10 you can't book another till say 11:10.

I tried a number of ways on separate days as well. I did get a time when I could book the next one and it was always the 120 min rule.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

The advantage now goes to those who know how GP+ works AND are early risers.

And even then, you have to be really fast and not experience a glitch for even a few seconds or else the only times left are late in the afternoon/evening for some of the popular rides. Too bad if you were hoping for earlier times in order to leave the park before closing.

 

[brockash]

Does the anytime passes need to be used the same day

In our experience Yes...it says good for anytime on the date.

 

[RamblingMad]

Feb 15 2021, no availability left by 1:07 for:
SDD
MF
RnR coaster
ToT
Mickey Minnie Railway (ILL)

If I were there now, paid for G+ and was only able to get 3 of the big rides (by booking at 7, 11, and 1) I’d be

Disney needs to do something to fix this mess.

the standbys for all of those are 80 minutes or greater.

boy how I miss the old days of scheduling FPs (generally) when I wanted them, having it included in my highly priced ticket, and also being able to re-ride with FP at times!

I remember before Chapek, they cared about guest experience and studied how many “experiences” guests needed in order to want to come back. Something tells me that paying for G+ to skip the line on just a few rides that really need it ain’t it. At least not for my family.

this is the pits

If you were staying offsite in the past, you ended up stuck in those long lines because all of the good fast passes would be gone. This is why I stuck to Disneyland. Now, everyone gets to feel the pain.

 

[Haagen Dawgs]

I would loathe to be a customer service rep at Disney the next 60 days. You couldn’t pay me enough. Disney is going to maximize profits, then give something back they took away, and all will be rainbows and lollipops