The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[DisneyKidds]

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us, "No"
Or where to go….

Oh, wait. We have Genie now!

If this is your first foray into the world of Genie+ know this. The G+ we have today is not the same G+ that was rolled out in October. Around Thanksgiving (maybe page 90 of this thread) Disney made changes that impacted some of the usage strategies presented earlier in this thread. If you want the sordid history on how we got from there to here read on. If you want to skip the history and just get to current usage and strategy you may want to save yourself a few hours (days?) and fast forward to page 90 or so. Either way, enjoy…..but do respect the caveats below!

People need and have been asking for something like this, and I just saw someone tell someone else to start one. So I’m starting one!

Post up your actual usage experiences and tips here, and your usage strategy or questions IF you plan on using it. No commentary on whether it’s good or bad, no comparisons to things that don’t exist any more (FP+).

This will keep the crybabies and arrogant jerks who don’t like it (myself among them!**) from keeping people from seeing info that will actually help them use it!

** a triple or quadruple hop stack has great potential to alter this!

 

[tguz]

We are going for 10 nights in early December. Our strategy is to not buy genie+ for the first 4 days (each park) and see how wait times are and how many of our "must do" attractions we were able to experience. We would then consider buying Genie+ on our second go round through the parks if there are "must do's" that we were not able to do on the first park visit. That is just our plan and I hope it works out for us.

 

[MainMom]

People need and have been asking for something like this, and I just saw a Mod tell someone else to start one. So I’m starting one!

Post up your actual usage experiences here, and your usage strategy or question IF you plan on using it. No commentary on whether it’s good or bad, no comparisons to things that don’t exist any more (FP+).

This will keep the crybabies and arrogant jerks who don’t like it (myself among them!) from keeping people from seeing info that will actually help them use it!

It would also be nice ito know how many are in your group. I’m traveling with 7 next June and am looking for reports with bigger groups.
Thanks for starting this thread!

 

[OhDannyBoy]

Thanks for this!!

I have a monster group of 15 + 1 under 2. Messing with the app it seems I can only set plans / reservations for 12 at a time. Am I correct on this? If so, I'll have to recruit a copilot and split our group which means we may not all ride at the same time. Such is life with a group my size I know.

Any insight or idea is welcomed.

 

[DisneyKidds]

Thanks for this!!

I have a monster group of 15 + 1 under 2. Messing with the app it seems I can only set plans / reservations for 12 at a time. Am I correct on this? If so, I'll have to recruit a copilot and split our group which means we may not all ride at the same time. Such is life with a group my size I know.

Any insight or idea is welcomed.

We have a group of 19 going next July so I’m interested in actual experiences with big groups as well. I’ve read the same thing about one person only being able to book for 12. Wondering if that will make it hard to get everyone together in the same G+ LL return with multiple people booking. ILL$ would seem to be less of a problem. No speculation here, let’s wait and see how it’s actually working out for people with parties larger than 12!

 

[catnik]

People need and have been asking for something like this, and I just saw someone tell someone else to start one. So I’m starting one!

Post up your actual usage experiences here, and your usage strategy or question IF you plan on using it. No commentary on whether it’s good or bad, no comparisons to things that don’t exist any more (FP+).

This will keep the crybabies and arrogant jerks who don’t like it (myself among them!) from keeping people from seeing info that will actually help them use it!

Thanks for starting this, DisneyKidds!
I am headed back the second week in November. Expecting Jersey week and the federal holiday to really pump up the midweek crowds. Gleaning info to create a successful touring plan for our party of 10 is my goal

 

[SomDayMyPrnceWillCom]

We'll be there Christmas week and I'm waiting to hear some reports on best strategies as well. I have a feeling that I will buy Genie + for MK, Epcot and HS but not necessarily AK. I'm NOT purchasing ahead of time since you have to purchase for all days and I don't think I'll need it for all days as we have 2 park days for every park except AK and Epcot has a day and 1/2 day on departure day for us. MK has extended night time hours we can utilize our first day so I hope that will also allow us to get in any rides we may have missed earlier in the day. While I usually don't do late at the parks anymore, I'm hoping to head back to room for break and nap etc. and then go back out that night for the extra hours.

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

We have a group of 19 going next July so I’m interested in actual experiences with big groups as well. I’ve read the same thing about one person only being able to book for 12. Wondering if that will make it hard to get everyone together in the same G+ LL return with multiple people booking. ILL$ would seem to be less of a problem. No speculation here, let’s wait and see how it’s actually working out for people with parties larger than 12!

With both legacy FP and FP+, groups would sometimes not be able to get exactly the same return times. But it was almost always possible to get times that were overlapping so everyone could ride together.

Since the times for G+ will be "next available" like it was for legacy FP, I think there would only be a few extreme examples where the times wouldn't be really close to each other if you book the first 12 of your group and then book for the rest immediately afterwards. The return times would have to be getting taken at a frantic pace for it to advance more than an hour within the few seconds it will take you to book the first part of the group.

ETA: Alternatively, you could have two people managing G+ for each half of the group. That way, you'd be selecting the times practically simultaneously and would know they overlap before committing part of the group to that return time.

 

[katyringo]

Thanks for starting this. I will be looking at my trip here soon and making a plan after watching the last few days of patters. I am not park hopping on my trip and I am a "my husband and I were the first ones at HS and got escorted straight to MMRR by security" early arriver...

 

[OhDannyBoy]

Since the times for G+ will be "next available" like it was for legacy FP, I think there would only be a few extreme examples where the times wouldn't be really close to each other if you book the first 12 of your group and then book for the rest immediately afterwards.

Ahhh I didn't think of that.

There is one other in my group I "trust" will follow my lead on this so we can have, for lack of a better term, boarding groups. LOL Okay i can make that work.

Good call Grumpy!!

 

[DisneyKidds]

With both legacy FP and FP+, groups would sometimes not be able to get exactly the same return times. But it was almost always possible to get times that were overlapping so everyone could ride together.

Which is exactly what we did, with great success. Hoping G+ eventually will net similar results. I’m skeptical, but that’s talk for a different thread! Can’t wait to see how some actual large party booking experiences go….

 

[CarolynFH]

@scrappinginontario, is your thread https://www.disboards.com/threads/c...ease-read-posts-1-4-work-in-progress.3856734/ almost ready to be unlocked?

 

[DisneyFive]

I plan to purchase G+ every day (maybe not AK) because our favorite rides, FOP and EE are ILL. That leaves VERY little reason to purchase G+ there.

I plan to book my first G+ for, hopefully, about 30 minutes after park opening (this will have a window of 30 minutes to 90 minutes after park open) That way when rope drop crowds build I have a G+ to use instead. Then I will book the heck out of my day using as many G+ I can.

On our arrival day, I will book G+ selections in the park we intent to hop to. That way I can stack a few up. Yes, we will have to tap into our reserved park first and then immediately hop, but I'm o.k. with that.

I can't wait for Tron to open in MK because I can't stand the fact that Space is a ILL selection. I want Space on the G+ list instead.

Dan

 

[DisneyKidds]

@scrappinginontario, is your thread https://www.disboards.com/threads/c...ease-read-posts-1-4-work-in-progress.3856734/ almost ready to be unlocked?

Yeah, I saw that. Being “Everything”, including discussion of what worked for people (and will naturally get discussion of what didn’t work for people), I hope it doesn’t become Genie Announcement 2.0, Sticky Version. Hopefully they can ring fence actual usage reports so that info is easier to find!

 

[kilik64]

I can't wait for Tron to open in MK because I can't stand the fact that Space is a ILL selection. I want Space on the G+ list instead.

Dan

If I were a betting man (which I am) id put money on Tron being the 3rd ILL and there not being a drop of Space...

 

[MainMom]

If I were a betting man (which I am) id put money on Tron being the 3rd ILL and there not being a drop of Space...

I think if they were going to do 3 they would have added Slinky as an ILL$ with the current 2. Or maybe they are just waiting for Tron and Guardians to open to make it 3 in all of the parks. Safari for AK?

 

[leeniewdw]

On our arrival day, I will book G+ selections in the park we intent to hop to. That way I can stack a few up. Yes, we will have to tap into our reserved park first and then immediately hop, but I'm o.k. with that.

I'll have to decide about this. I think I can make it work if the 2 parks are EPCOT and DHS, but I'd really hate for there to be a snag in our arriving flights that would put a wrench in the whole thing. Our party is arriving on 2 different flights, so that could mess things up.

The other strategy is to plan this way and attempt the park reservation switch to eliminate the "tap in" step. Will be curious to see if that works.

The "safest way" would be to just pick 1 park for arrival day and spend the travel day (and airplane wifi) refreshing return times until it looks like it will work. Along with reserving late ILL$s.

How much time would you allow from landing at MCO, getting a rental (no baggage claim) and getting to an onsite hotel? We'll be landing at 1:30pm on a Thursday in Feb. In March 2020, we landed at 6:30am on a Thursday, picked up bags from baggage claim, a rental car and still made it INTO DHS with 3 minutes to spare before grabbing a BG for RotR at 8am (driving directly to the park). So that's less than 90 minutes. If we added in a hotel stop, it's probably at least another 30-45 I'd guess. Ugh, it looks like we're not going to be in the parks until almost 4pm. LOTS of $$s spent for that day. I truly hate the SW schedules this go round! Looks like I'll be refreshing no matter what park configuration we choose.

 

[Welsh_Dragon]

Touring Plans are doing a live stream today at 4pm EST (YouTube). They have been testing (free) Genie against one of their plans in MK.

 

[dinsdalep]

I will be visiting in mid-February (family of four) for a week, with 6 full park days.

For Magic Kingdom, we will have two early entry mornings and one extra magic evening, which should be enough to accomplish everything without using Genie+ at all.

For Epcot, we have two full days which should also be sufficient.

Animal Kingdom has few enough rides (Everest will be down during our visit) that we can probably get it done in well under a day without paying extra, although if we did it would be ILL for FOP to save time standing in line.

That leaves the Studios, which is the most likely day for us to use G+. I think it's absolutely worth $15 to fit in SDD, Smuggler's Run, Midway Mania, ToT, RnRC, and Star Tours with minimal waits, leaving time to enjoy shows and dining. RotR and MMRR can be done either at rope drop or park close, or ILL if we want to re-ride either one.

So we're looking at spending in the range of $60-$140 total, or about $10-20 per day, which is not a horrible deal to improve a week for four people. It should help that it's a slower time of year.

 

[DizBelle]

I can't find anywhere when you can make your second ILL$ purchase. Can you make your 2 for the day both at 7 am?