The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[Jrb1979]

From reading a lot of things there really is no strategy anymore. At 7am book your headliner but after that people's best bet is take the next ride available. It would be much simpler on people if you get away from a planning mindset. Go with the flow every day at the parks.

 

[DisneyKidds]

From reading a lot of things there really is no strategy anymore. At 7am book your headliner but after that people's best bet is take the next ride available. It would be much simpler on people if you get away from a planning mindset. Go with the flow every day at the parks.

For you perhaps….but there are definitely other ways to use G+.

While the ability to do so successfully is limited by how busy the parks are (and availability of LL returns), stacking is still a valid strategy, even with the tweaks Disney made around Thanksgiving.

 

[Sydnerella]

This is the first time I have visited this board. I am wondering how WDW guests are feeling about Genie+ overall. Positive? Negative? is it working? How many LL are you getting on a busy day? How do you feel about the regular Genie service? Thank you for the sum up because there is no way I am reading 106 pages of posts!!

I think reading the last 3 pages is a reasonable investment to read the temperature of people. Generally this thread is about strategy but the challenges of the system result in commentary on the system. I’m not a fan.

Genie - worthless for touring to a seasoned WDW traveler, but interesting audio stories and reminders of experiences you might typically bypass

Genie + not a fun system to get what you want and when, and even tougher in crowded times when tech issues abound, but necessary evil to avoid lines

ILL - See G+

 

[emilymad]

This is the first time I have visited this board. I am wondering how WDW guests are feeling about Genie+ overall. Positive? Negative? is it working? How many LL are you getting on a busy day? How do you feel about the regular Genie service? Thank you for the sum up because there is no way I am reading 106 pages of posts!!

We did not like it. It never seemed worth the money with the exception of ROTR. Between the 7am start time, looking at your phone all day, and the cost it made for a no fun vacation. We had a much better time on the days we opted to not use G+. We decided this will be our last trip for awhile. We will see how things look in another 5 years.

 

[wiggy500]

This is the first time I have visited this board. I am wondering how WDW guests are feeling about Genie+ overall. Positive? Negative? is it working? How many LL are you getting on a busy day? How do you feel about the regular Genie service? Thank you for the sum up because there is no way I am reading 106 pages of posts!!

Opinions will vary wildly about Genie+.

For myself I had moments where things did not function as I expected that were very frustrating, though in the end everything worked out. I went on somewhat busy, but not crazy busy days. The first day I had 7 LL and the second day 4 LL (and I skipped out on going on a 5th LL that I had booked because I didn't feel like it). I also had one ILL$ each day. Both days I got to a point in the day where I didn't need more LL's so I stopped booking them. With two day park hoppers the longest I waited for a ride was 10 minutes for Nemo in Epcot. So I'm in the positive camp, but nobody is that happy about the additional costs.

Regular Genie I didn't bother with. I think it's only significant potential is for people unfamiliar with Walt Disney World.

 

[KrazeeK120]

We did not like it. It never seemed worth the money with the exception of ROTR. Between the 7am start time, looking at your phone all day, and the cost it made for a no fun vacation. We had a much better time on the days we opted to not use G+. We decided this will be our last trip for awhile. We will see how things look in another 5 years.

I haven’t been there since the introduction of the new products, but I didn’t think ROTR was part of G+. I understood it to be ILL$. Do I have something mixed up? I’m still trying to grasp all of this…

 

[g-dad66]

I haven’t been there since the introduction of the new products, but I didn’t think ROTR was part of G+. I understood it to be ILL$. Do I have something mixed up? I’m still trying to grasp all of this…

You're correct.

I think the opinion being expressed included both G+ and ILL$.

 

[CrimsonTideFan94]

What is the best strategy for getting RotR and SDD times early in the morning? I know both of them usually go quickly at 7am and I want to use the early entry time to ride ToT (my favorite) and RnR, then have times booked for both.

 

[OhhBother]

What is the best strategy for getting RotR and SDD times early in the morning? I know both of them usually go quickly at 7am and I want to use the early entry time to ride ToT (my favorite) and RnR, then have times booked for both.

Today is our first day using Genie+. At 7 am, I booked ROTR and my husband booked SDD on his phone. I got 9:20-10:20 for Rise, and he got 11:10-12:10 for Slinky. I then added MMRR from 10:15-11:15.

Worked out well for us. We actually went to the park for the resort early hours. We arrived at 7:30, and they held us outside Galaxy’s Edge until 7:45. So we rode Rise standby, rode Smuggler’s Run standby, got a snack and then rode our three booked rides - second ROTR ride, SDD and MMRR. We left the park around 11:30, and I’ve been stacking LL ressies to use when we go back to the park after dinner tonight.

It’s worked fairly well for us. Hope that helps.

 

[hayesdvc]

Today is our first day using Genie+. At 7 am, I booked ROTR and my husband booked SDD on his phone. I got 9:20-10:20 for Rise, and he got 11:10-12:10 for Slinky. I then added MMRR from 10:15-11:15.

Worked out well for us. We actually went to the park for the resort early hours. We arrived at 7:30, and they held us outside Galaxy’s Edge until 7:45. So we rode Rise standby, rode Smuggler’s Run standby, got a snack and then rode our three booked rides - second ROTR ride, SDD and MMRR. We left the park around 11:30, and I’ve been stacking LL ressies to use when we go back to the park after dinner tonight.

It’s worked fairly well for us. Hope that helps.

How do you get later times? I thought it just assigned the next time and you cannot select the time you want.

 

[OhhBother]

How do you get later times? I thought it just assigned the next time and you cannot select the time you want.

For the ones I’m stacking, I’ve just been watching the tip board throughout the afternoon (while watching football) and grabbing later ones (one by one every two hours) when they come up. I had to wait awhile to let the times get late enough to suit our schedule. It also helps that we’re having an early dinner. Hope that makes sense.

 

[hayesdvc]

For the ones I’m stacking, I’ve just been watching the tip board throughout the afternoon (while watching football) and grabbing later ones (one by one every two hours) when they come up. I had to wait awhile to let the times get late enough to suit our schedule. It also helps that we’re having an early dinner. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks

 

[katyringo]

I'm not a moderator but reminder that there is a whole other Genie+ discussion thread. This is the strategy thread!

 

[katyringo]

Ok, but you went solo. I imagine it's a lot easier to get single rider times than a family of 4 or more. So your sample or example of how the system applies to others may not be accurate.

What do you mean easier to get single rider times? Genie+ Doesn't give different return times based on the number of people in your group.... the times I saw at 9am we're the times anyone looking saw.

I also feel it necessary to tell you that while I was solo this trip- I am usually a family of 4. I can tell you that genie+ is going to work however you want it to work for your family.

rope droppers and all day park goers will book as they go, sometimes able to book after tapping in and sometimes having to wait 2 hours.

late arrivals can watch for times to get later and start booking for their late arrival. if the times aren't pushed out then you will be able to book as you go once in the park.

rope droppers with a midday break and coming back can book as they go in the morning, and during their break watch the times to book some for later or they may start stacking before they leave for their break.

park hoppers may decide to forgo selections in their first park- use low morning waits- and start to book for their hopping park for the evening.

folks with delux after hours may forgo it all together- saving the big rides for lower waits at night. (I did this with the Christmas after hours)

The do it all family will use $LL, rope drops and genie+ to do everything, maybe multiple times, in a single trip.

hate it, love it, meh about it... it's what we got.. And there is a way to use it for whatever your touring plan style is.

 

[js]

We tried G+ yesterday at MK to see how it would work for us. We arrived around 9:30 with a LL already booked for Jungle Cruise.

We rode Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, and Splash using LL. We booked the next available each instead of waiting 2 hours. We finished this plus snack, lunch, and two smaller rides by 1pm.

Around noon we decided we would park hop to Epcot. TT was already gone for the entire day. Everything else at Epcot was almost immediately available as stand by times were around 5-10 minutes with the exception of Soarin. We booked SE as the return time for Soarin was during our ADR.

So overall we got 4 rides by purposely having no plan for the day on a lower crowd day. We easily could have gotten all of the same rides with very small wait times if we had arrived for early morning hours.

Overall, we didn't like G+ and didn't think it worked for our touring strategy (mid-day breaks). We thought the app was confusing. Almost every LL entrance had people trying to ride who didn't have LL. I think a lot of this is because of how confusing the app is.

Hi. Were you able to get into Epcot at noon and not wait until 2 pm by park hopping?

Thank you.

 

[mrd7896]

My experience for our first Genie+ day today:
Group of 11! Thought it would be very challenging and not worth it for HS, we are all adults so we didn’t want to do slinky which helped
-7AM booked Smugglers, in the midst of selecting, our return time dropped from the 10 o clock hour to 11:05. By 7:04 i saw Slinky was already booked up for the day! I’m glad i selected smugglers because that immediately had about a 3PM genie+ Return time while the other attractions available were for 930/940ish.

-Got to the park, rope dropped Tower and Rnr with a walk on
-Headed over to Rise-posted 70 minutes, it was about 35 but it’s difficult to say since you’re on the ride before you’re actually on the ride.
-TSM posted a 35, but the line was wrapped all around the outside. Midway through our wait it shot up to 50 minutes and it was pretty much exactly that.
-Tapped into smugglers
-At 11, our next Genie+ choice was a 1:25 ToT. By that point of the day ToT and TSM both had around the same return times. RnR was already around 3 PM for the next Genie+ time and Smugglers was about 7PM iirc.
-Once we tapped in to tower i grabbed a 5:25 RnR.
-That 1:30-5:25 stretch was a bit brutal since that was a pretty peak time at the park.
-We watched a parade, went on Star Tours with a 10 ish minute wait, ended up waiting for MMRR-posted 65 and was just about 50.
-at 3:17 i realized i could make another selection and grabbed TSM for 6:50

(Cut out a lot of our day since this is mostly about my genie+ observations)

Overall, i was pleased with our day. I was definitely very nervous that especially for a group of our size and what I’ve been reading that genie wouldn’t be worth it. But we clearly got everything that we wanted, and multiple times for a few things too.

It definitely is glitchy, 100% of the time when i selected a choice, the actual confirmed time was later. Sometimes a decent bit later which was frustrating

I hate that you can’t easily modify or refresh the time. There were occasions where i saw an earlier RnR than our 5:25 but i didn’t want to risk taking the time to cancel ours and hope to get an earlier one. That’s rather annoying that they didn’t make that a feature, especially when you have literally 0 control over the time you get.

We didn’t have any set dining reservations today which definitely helped our case because our day was around the Genie+ times, not the other way around.

5 pm leeway ahead of time is nice i guess. We almost always tapped in at the grace period before.

I’m sure if i swapped my selection choices and went for RnR second instead of ToT we could’ve squished things together a bit more but oh well. I really wanted to get back to back times but it never panned out

I’d give it about a 6/10. It was stressful and i kept freaking out that we wouldn’t get to make another selection, or for what we wanted. It ended up working out for sure, but it’s just not the same experience than what I’ve ever been used to.

This is the only park we are doing Genie+ for so at least i don’t have to worry about it again!

 

[scrappinginontario]

Hi. Were you able to get into Epcot at noon and not wait until 2 pm by park hopping?

Thank you.

They decided earlier that they wanted to hop but you are correct that hopping is not allowed until 2PM. You may book a LL before you tap into a park though.

 

[TikiRob]

They decided earlier that they wanted to hop but you are correct that hopping is not allowed until 2PM. You may book a LL before you tap into a park though.

So if you have hoppers and plan to park hop, you could theoretically be at Magic Kingdom and book for late afternoon for a hop to HS and evening for a night hop to EPCOT? I think I heard you could also purchase ILL in any park with hoppers, but still max 2. Thinking of grabbing a ROTR and Remi on our MK day to maximize our hops.

 

[GBRforWDW]

So if you have hoppers and plan to park hop, you could theoretically be at Magic Kingdom and book for late afternoon for a hop to HS and evening for a night hop to EPCOT? I think I heard you could also purchase ILL in any park with hoppers, but still max 2. Thinking of grabbing a ROTR and Remi on our MK day to maximize our hops.

Yes you can do that. If you book LLs for a park where you're not starting, you will get times for after 2pm. So if you're starting in MK, you could book a SDD at 7am and get an afternoon/evening time slot. Same with the ILL$.

Just remember tho, the 2 hour park opening window starts when the park you book that LL in opens, not the park you're starting. I think MK and HS usually always starts at 9, but MK on party days does open at 8, so if you were at MK one of those days and wanted to book your second LL in MK, you'd have to wait until 11.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Also in case any offsite guests are waiting to enter their park and looking on here instead of the tip board, RotR still has availability this morning, meaning you might be able to grab an RotR ILL$ as an offsite guest when DHS
opens in 5 minutes.

ETA: And they're gone, lasted a little over a minute after 9am.