The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[Jrits]

Here is how I did this on Thursday 1/20. We were having a pool day and heading into Hollywood Studios at night for dinner, toy story land and one other ride.

Woke up at 6:30am and purchased Genie Plus for my group.

At exactly 7am everything opens. I wanted Slinky Dog for around 7:30pm so I needed to wait a few seconds for the booking time to move to that point. Remember with Genie Plus reservations you cannot choose a time slot. You get the earliest available. Slinky Dog moves extremely quickly. Every time I refreshed the page it moved about one hour. Right at 7am, the first available time is 9am. After one refresh, the first available time is now 10am. Another refresh and it moves to 11am and so on. So I would say around 30 seconds after 7am, I grabbed Slinky Dog for 7:30pm - 8:30pm.

At this point I am done until 11am. I cannot book my next Genie Plus until two hours after the park has opened.

At 11am I look again but the return times for everything I am interested in is only at around 3pm. I’m not heading into the park until around 5pm so I wait another half hour and check again.

At 11:30am, Rock n Roller Coaster has moved to 5pm so I book it. Now I cannot make another one until 1:30pm.

1:30 pm I check and see that Toy Story Mania is at 6pm. Not bad but it interferes with my dinner so I keep checking every few mins for the next half hour. Finally it has moved to 7pm and I grab it. Now I cannot make another one until 3:30pm.

The only thing remaining that I want at this point is AlienSwirling Saucers and I want it late, for around 8pm. Checking at 3:30pm it’s only out to around 5pm. I keep checking for the rest of the night and eventually grab it for 8pm.

So that’s a summary of how you can stack. When I walked into the park at 5pm I had 4 Lightning Lanes ready to go. The week before my trip I would kinda practice every day. I would check the app throughout the day and pretend I was in the park and see if I could book the things I wanted at the times I wanted. It helped a lot to get a feel for what time slots would be available at different booking times throughout the day. Good luck!

How are you able to see what genie+ is available without having genie+ that day to practice?

 

[scrappinginontario]

How are you able to see what genie+ is available without having genie+ that day to practice?

- Open your MyDisneyExperience app
- Look for 'My Plans' (probably near the top of the screen)
- Select 'My Day'
- Select 'Tip Board'

It will default to showing today in the MK. You can change parks by clicking that option

You can now see today's current wait times and LL availability.

Hope this helps.

 

[Brian4891]

How are you able to see what genie+ is available without having genie+ that day to practice?

You only need pay for genie+ if you want to actually book something. Anyone with the app can view the available times whenever they want.

 

[TigerlilyAJ]

Payment: Are G+ and ILL strictly CC? I'm using Disney GCs for a lot, but need to know if I can buy GCs for this. How and when do you set up payment? Can you do it before you need, like the day before your trip?
Yikes. Trying to see the Tip Board from Canada on an Android and getting nothing. Starting to sweat my May trip already because I need G and ILL to work for me. Day 1 I'll be at the airport when 7am drops.

 

[g-dad66]

Payment: Are G+ and ILL strictly CC? I'm using Disney GCs for a lot, but need to know if I can buy GCs for this. How and when do you set up payment? Can you do it before you need, like the day before your trip?
Yikes. Trying to see the Tip Board from Canada on an Android and getting nothing. Starting to sweat my May trip already because I need G and ILL to work for me. Day 1 I'll be at the airport when 7am drops.

I used a Disney gift card for both G+ and ILL.

You can buy G+ for the day, as early as midnight. If you want G+ for every park day, you can buy it in advance (you can buy tickets that include G+ if you don't already have tickets).

For ILL, you pay after you select the attraction and time.

 

[TheMick424]

For those of you who have used G+ at HS and attempted to secure SDD at 7am, did you check the return time before selecting or just click buttons as fast as possible? While I know it gives you next available time, does it make sense to have a first and second choice when you are making the selections each day, or just target one based on your plans for the day? We typically rope drop, but then head out mid-afternoon for pool time, clean-up for dinner or evening plans. Seems like G+ at HS requires more of a time commitment because of the uncertainty of return times. Any advice on how to tour HS over 2 days?

 

[wisblue]

For those of you who have used G+ at HS and attempted to secure SDD at 7am, did you check the return time before selecting or just click buttons as fast as possible? While I know it gives you next available time, does it make sense to have a first and second choice when you are making the selections each day, or just target one based on your plans for the day? We typically rope drop, but then head out mid-afternoon for pool time, clean-up for dinner or evening plans. Seems like G+ at HS requires more of a time commitment because of the uncertainty of return times. Any advice on how to tour HS over 2 days?

We should consider a separate thread just for getting LL for SDD and ROTR because questions about them come up so often and they are by far the attractions for which the LL run out the fastest.

If your goal is to get a LL for SDD with a return time before, say 2 PM, I would suggest this:

1. Have Genie + purchased and set SDD at the top of your tip board before 7:00.

2. At 7:00:00 refresh the Tip Board and see what time is offered for SDD. Assuming a 9 AM opening, that time should be 9 AM.

3. Click on that time and make sure your party is correct. It should include everyone in your party that has a park reservation for DHS and has purchased Genie+.

4. Note what return time you are actually being offered. It may well be later than 9 AM, but if you are moving quickly it shouldn’t be much later. Twice we have gotten return times of 9:10 AM.

5. If the time is acceptable, click to confirm and you should be all set.

This sounds like a lot, but you can go through these steps in 10-15 seconds or less.

As for having a backup, that isn’t a bad idea. But, if SDD is really your first choice, I wouldn’t give up if you don’t get an acceptable time right at 7.

As discussed in some other posts (see my post 2805 in this thread), although times for SDD often run out within a minute, at about 7:08, or a few minutes later, more times pop up, and those usually remain available for a few minutes. You might be able to get a time as early as 9AM, but you have a much better chance of getting something later in the morning or early afternoon.

 

[Brian4891]

SDD is easier than the paid LL rides because there is no credit card payment so there is a lot less clicking through screens. You select the time on the tip board, it takes you to another page where it displays the timeframe and the people in your party. You click confirm and you are done. When I did mine I clicked on 7pm on the tip board. The window I was given on the next page was 7:30pm - 8:30pm. I clicked confirm and that's the time I ended up with.

We did Hollywood Studios over 2 days and we got everything done with plenty of time to spare and with no rope dropping. One of those days we showed up at 5pm and did all of Toy Story Land and Rockin Roller Coaster. That being said, we paid for Genie+, paid for Rise of Resistance, and paid for Runaway Railway.

 

[scrappinginontario]

We should consider a separate thread just for getting LL for SDD and ROTR because questions about them come up so often and they are by far the attractions for which the LL run out the fastest.

If your goal is to get a LL for SDD with a return time before, say 2 PM, I would suggest this:

1. Have Genie + purchased and set SDD at the top of your tip board before 7:00.

2. At 7:00:00 refresh the Tip Board and see what time is offered for SDD. Assuming a 9 AM opening, that time should be 9 AM.

3. Click on that time and make sure your party is correct. It should include everyone in your party that has a park reservation for DHS and has purchased Genie+.

4. Note what return time you are actually being offered. It may well be later than 9 AM, but if you are moving quickly it shouldn’t be much later. Twice we have gotten return times of 9:10 AM.

5. If the time is acceptable, click to confirm and you should be all set.

This sounds like a lot, but you can go through these steps in 10-15 seconds or less.

As for having a backup, that isn’t a bad idea. But, if SDD is really your first choice, I wouldn’t give up if you don’t get an acceptable time right at 7.

As discussed in some other posts (see my post 2805 in this thread), although times for SDD often run out within a minute, at about 7:08, or a few minutes later, more times pop up, and those usually remain available for a few minutes. You might be able to get a time as early as 9AM, but you have a much better chance of getting something later in the morning or early afternoon.

There's a lot of helpful information here. Please feel free to start a new thread to help people out with booking SDD and RotR.

 

[jmparry]

- Open your MyDisneyExperience app
- Look for 'My Plans' (probably near the top of the screen)
- Select 'My Day'
- Select 'Tip Board'

It will default to showing today in the MK. You can change parks by clicking that option

You can now see today's current wait times and LL availability.

Hope this helps.

This helps a lot! Thank you!!!! I'm practicing for Friday!

 

[DsneyDude1]

Are annual passholders able to buy Genie + before 7 AM yet day of? Or is that still an issue?

 

[CJK]

Are annual passholders able to buy Genie + before 7 AM yet day of? Or is that still an issue?

No, we still have to buy day of.

 

[elgerber]

Are annual passholders able to buy Genie + before 7 AM yet day of? Or is that still an issue?

That is an issue, if you are linked to others who have already pre-purchased Genie +. If you are not, then yes, you can buy between midnight and 7 am.

 

[mickey916]

Not sure if I've seen an answer to this. Here's my question regarding grabbing Genie+ LLs (and specifically those hard to get ones like SDD). I recently learned that my brother's family will be coming and so we'll all be linked in MDE and will all have park passes for the same parks on the same days. However our touring styles are completely different. If I go at 7 to grab SDD LLs, I'm assuming it will snag them for his family as well since we're linked and they have park passes for that day too. I'm afraid if I stop to uncheck them (if the time doesn't work for them, they are arrive late/leave early people) before final processing that it will mess with the time I'm trying to get. So, is there a way after booking it to then have them just cancel the ones I made for them and keep ours or is it an "all or nothing" thing?

 

[mickey916]

That is an issue, if you are linked to others who have already pre-purchased Genie +. If you are not, then yes, you can buy between midnight and 7 am.

and that's now going to be my issue too since they have pre-purchased Genie+, I'm an AP and my family just had regular tickets. Really hoping that problem is solved before May.

 

[twodogs]

Not sure if I've seen an answer to this. Here's my question regarding grabbing Genie+ LLs (and specifically those hard to get ones like SDD). I recently learned that my brother's family will be coming and so we'll all be linked in MDE and will all have park passes for the same parks on the same days. However our touring styles are completely different. If I go at 7 to grab SDD LLs, I'm assuming it will snag them for his family as well since we're linked and they have park passes for that day too. I'm afraid if I stop to uncheck them (if the time doesn't work for them, they are arrive late/leave early people) before final processing that it will mess with the time I'm trying to get. So, is there a way after booking it to then have them just cancel the ones I made for them and keep ours or is it an "all or nothing" thing?

It will default to getting it for everyone in the party. Then after you confirm and are booked, you can go in and cancel the LL for those that won’t make that time. Just make sure that you cancel it before the LL expires, or that ride will be blocked for them to make another LL later in the day since the system counts a “no show” as a burned LL for that ride that day.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Are annual passholders able to buy Genie + before 7 AM yet day of? Or is that still an issue?

and that's now going to be my issue too since they have pre-purchased Genie+, I'm an AP and my family just had regular tickets. Really hoping that problem is solved before May.

These challenges still exist but there are workarounds for both.

Please read the 7th post in the pinned, Genie, Genie+ and ILL thread. It should hopefully help both scenarios. While not ideal, until a permanent fix is in place, people have found a fix that works for the time being.

 

[twodogs]

N

and that's now going to be my issue too since they have pre-purchased Genie+, I'm an AP and my family just had regular tickets. Really hoping that problem is solved before May.

Not sure if this would work…. Could one of your immediate family who you DO want on your party for the early morning LLs make their own MDE account, but only link their account to your immediate family (not your brother’s family), and then use that person’s account for booking your early morning LLs, and then use your MDE account later in the day when you are all together and all want to book the same things together?

 

[mickey916]

It will default to getting it for everyone in the party. Then after you confirm and are booked, you can go in and cancel the LL for those that won’t make that time. Just make sure that you cancel it before the LL expires, or that ride will be blocked for them to make another LL later in the day since the system counts a “no show” as a burned LL for that ride that day.

Thank you! That's what I was hoping to hear. I did know that if they didn't use it and I didn't cancel it they'd be out of luck. Good to know that I can go through the process though and cancel them afterwards.

 

[twodogs]

Thank you! That's what I was hoping to hear. I did know that if they didn't use it and I didn't cancel it they'd be out of luck. Good to know that I can go through the process though and cancel them afterwards.

I did this for myself this Christmas trip because I can’t ride MS or other rides that give me motion sickness. It was easier just to book for all 4 of us, and then I could cancel only my LL and keep theirs intact.