Thoughts on Genie+ at MK for "No Mountains" Plan?

[studiojmm]

DD and I have been AP holders for the past couple of years and visited frequently. On Thursday, we are bringing DH who has never been to MK and gets very motion sick. So we are not planning to ride any mountains but are considering Genie+ because we would like to do Peter Pan, Jungle Cruise, and Pirates in addition to DD's favorites, which are time consuming because they include Tiki Room, Country Bears, Carousel of Progress, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Haunted Mansion, and Pooh. We also intend to hop to Epcot by 3 pm.

I've been meaning to watch TH LL reservations for the past couple weeks but keep forgetting. Thoughts on Genie+ for Peter Pan, Jungle Cruise, and Pirates all before 2 pm?

It's a non-holiday Sunday at 7:25 as I write this and LL for Jungle Cruise is currently 12:45 and Peter Pan 12:50*. Assuming I had grabbed one of those for the earliest possible reservation at 7 am, it seems unlikely to grab another one of them for a return time before 2 pm at ~9:30 am (likely first LL time). We could rope drop whichever one those two that we don't LL and try to grab Pirates for before 2 pm at ~9:30 ish, but it does seem a bit like paying $45 for one ride given that we don't expect to get much use out of Genie+ at Epcot later in the evening.

Cost benefit may shift if LL reservations move slower on Thu (will try to watch on Tue or Wed). Thoughts?

We could flip the whole thing and visit Epcot in the morning while making evening LL+ reservations every 2 hrs for MK. . . . . Epcot plan involves World Showcase, Art Festival Stuff, the Seas, and Living with the Land (Soarin' or Remi would be too much for DH.) We have a 2nd day at Epcot we could do in the evening.

OK, I spent 35 min reading other Genie+ threads and browsing the app (it's 8:05 am) and both JC and PP reset and showed return times for 10 and 11 am respectively. 2 min later they bounced back to 3:10 and 2:10 (cancellation?). So analysis above still applies.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Are you staying onsite and planning on using ETPE? If so, I would think you could get Peter Pan done before the park opens, though 10 minutes in and that line is already 75 minutes long. Not sure if you'd be lucky enough to hit up haunted mansion quickly as park opens for a short line there. I would also use stand by for pirates.

For LLs, I could see you getting:
Jungle Cruise 10am
Haunted mansion (if you don't rope drop) 1130
Pooh 1230
Monsters inc 130
SSE (if you plan to ride) in Epcot for 330 or 4
The seas and livi

Essentially, use Genie+ as a way to shorten some lines as you don't plan to stay all day. But utilize in a way you won't be backtracking, which can be easy to do with Genie passes. Planning for afternoon stacking might be ok, but the standby lines will probably be longer, so you may not get as much done.

If doing PP during ETPE, remember to take the walkway by the old Merida meet n Greet to save time and avoid the 7dmt crowd.



Enjoy your trip!

 

[CynBeth]

We don’t go on any of the mountains either and used Genie+. Don’t forget you can use it for Small World, Philharmagic, and Little Mermaid. Even though it is not a ride that has it we enjoy the peoplemover over near COP.

 

[wiggy500]

Personally I would get Genie+ in most situations and with this one it certainly should save you time. I would think DH would have a much better first experience if he's spending less time waiting in lines.

 

[studiojmm]

Thanks. We are staying off site, so would be walking up to Peter Pan at 9:05 am at the earliest.

I'm aware you can use Genie+ for more than I mentioned, but not sure it's worth it given likely wait times. I suppose either Pooh or Haunted Mansion LL+ could be significant time savers as well.

I might think more kindly on the expense if I consider it paying for a leisurely lunch break rather than paying for the one ride I probably wouldn't do without it.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Thanks. We are staying off site, so would be walking up to Peter Pan at 9:05 am at the earliest.

I'm aware you can use Genie+ for more than I mentioned, but not sure it's worth it given likely wait times. I suppose either Pooh or Haunted Mansion LL+ could be significant time savers as well.

I might think more kindly on the expense if I consider it paying for a leisurely lunch break rather than paying for the one ride I probably wouldn't do without it.

I would honestly not rope drop PP then. With low times at Pirates first thing, I'd hope for a very early LL for Jungle Cruise and rope drop Pirates, then do tiki and jungle cruise, grab haunted mansion LL while waiting to board JC, go to country bear, then depending on when HM return was, I'd either hit that or do stand by for Peter Pan, then get the Pooh LL.

To me, itd be worth it, especially since you're wanting to do the longer attractions and will only have about 5-6 hours in the park. And... Given that you could save time standing in lines, you could slow down for a leisure lunch

 

[g-dad66]

Since you are offsite, I would recommend starting in Adventureland. Onsite guests will have no advantage over you, because Adventureland and Frontierland don't open until regular park opening time.

You could basically walk on to Jungle Cruise, and then Pirates.

Genie+ LL would be useful for not only Peter Pan, but also Pooh and Haunted Mansion. (LL would be of virtually no value on any of the other items on your list).

If you get Peter Pan LL at 7am, you should be able to get a return time well before 11am.

As soon as you double-tap into Peter Pan, choose either Pooh or Haunted Mansion, and after you do it, you should be able to get the other one before 2:00.

I find thrill-data.com very useful for historical data on Genie+ LL return times.

 

[GBRforWDW]

You could basically walk on to Jungle Cruise, and then Pirates.

Genie+ LL would be useful for not only Peter Pan, but also Pooh and Haunted Mansion. (LL would be of virtually no value on any of the other items on your list)

That is a good point, if you can strategize your position to Adventureland, you could do both JC and Pirates with short waits while Peter Pan you get the short LL line

 

[studiojmm]

You could basically walk on to Jungle Cruise, and then Pirates.

That's what I would have thought, but the Touring Plans app is estimating that as a 35 min and 25 min wait respectively. (Jungle Cruise going up to a 57 min wait if using early entry time.)

We'd do Small World and/or Little Mermaid as standby while waiting for Pooh or Haunted Mansion and come back to Adventure Land for lunch and do Tiki Room / Country Bears / Carousel of Progress during peak crowds.

 

[g-dad66]

thrill-data.com is showing wait times for JC and Pirates today starting at 8:30, and the time keeps increasing.

So is Adventureland now actually opening at 8:30 for early entry? (If so, then ignore my advice for offsite guests.)

 

[studiojmm]

Hmm. According to sites I'm referencing, Adventure Land is not open during early entry.

Wonder if Touring Plans is just calculating the time standing at the not-yet-open ride? That would explain the 57 min.

 

[Brian4891]

DD and I have been AP holders for the past couple of years and visited frequently. On Thursday, we are bringing DH who has never been to MK and gets very motion sick. So we are not planning to ride any mountains but are considering Genie+ because we would like to do Peter Pan, Jungle Cruise, and Pirates in addition to DD's favorites, which are time consuming because they include Tiki Room, Country Bears, Carousel of Progress, Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, Haunted Mansion, and Pooh. We also intend to hop to Epcot by 3 pm.

I've been meaning to watch TH LL reservations for the past couple weeks but keep forgetting. Thoughts on Genie+ for Peter Pan, Jungle Cruise, and Pirates all before 2 pm?

It's a non-holiday Sunday at 7:25 as I write this and LL for Jungle Cruise is currently 12:45 and Peter Pan 12:50*. Assuming I had grabbed one of those for the earliest possible reservation at 7 am, it seems unlikely to grab another one of them for a return time before 2 pm at ~9:30 am (likely first LL time). We could rope drop whichever one those two that we don't LL and try to grab Pirates for before 2 pm at ~9:30 ish, but it does seem a bit like paying $45 for one ride given that we don't expect to get much use out of Genie+ at Epcot later in the evening.

Cost benefit may shift if LL reservations move slower on Thu (will try to watch on Tue or Wed). Thoughts?

We could flip the whole thing and visit Epcot in the morning while making evening LL+ reservations every 2 hrs for MK. . . . . Epcot plan involves World Showcase, Art Festival Stuff, the Seas, and Living with the Land (Soarin' or Remi would be too much for DH.) We have a 2nd day at Epcot we could do in the evening.

OK, I spent 35 min reading other Genie+ threads and browsing the app (it's 8:05 am) and both JC and PP reset and showed return times for 10 and 11 am respectively. 2 min later they bounced back to 3:10 and 2:10 (cancellation?). So analysis above still applies.

Grab a Peter Plan LL when it opens at 7am. Wait for it to get to about 9:30am and then grab it.

Rope drop Jungle Cruise. Adventureland does not open early so the early entry people will have no advantage over you. You will walk right onto Jungle cruise. Then head for Pirates and the wait will only be around 15 minutes.

At this point you can head to Peter Pan and use your LL. As soon as you scan your band, make another for Haunted Mansion. Will probably give you a time about 30-60 mins out so you can ride small world while you wait for that.

Grab Pooh after tapping into Haunted Mansion. Everything else you listed are shows with no wait so don’t waste LL on those.

There ya go!

 

[g-dad66]

Hmm. According to sites I'm referencing, Adventure Land is not open during early entry.

Wonder if Touring Plans is just calculating the time standing at the not-yet-open ride? That would explain the 57 min.

thrill-data.com is supposed to be showing WDW posted wait times.

Why is it showing wait times for Jungle Cruise & Pirates from 8:30 to 9:00 if Adventureland doesn't open until 9:00?

Has anyone been to Magic Kingdom lately and entered Adventureland (or Frontierland) before park opening time?

 

[studiojmm]

So, just to report back: This was not terribly successful. Purchased Genie+ around 6 am, so was ready to go but I wasn't fast enough when booking opened. It was probably 7:00:20 by the time I hit "book experience" on Peter Pan. It showed 10:30 am when I clicked it, by the time it went through, Genie+ confirmed 1:40 pm.

By the time I backed out to the list again, Peter Pan was showing 4 pm-ish. Jungle Cruise was also showing afternoon returns.

Thursday ended up being very busy at MK with wait times higher than Thrill Data projected all day (didn't look at Touring Plans ride projection vs actual). Touring Plans was predicting a 4 or 5 when we initially made this plan, but revised it to 7 in retrospect. I'm guessing because it had been rainy and cool for a couple days and Thursday was predicted to be clear and moderate before a couple days of even colder weather. It felt very busy.

By the time 11 am rolled around, I had a choice between Small World and Pooh with a 12:30 pm return time (both of which had 45 min or higher posted waits at 11 am).

By the time we redeemed SW at 12:40, there wasn't really anything left that made sense for us. Pirates was showing 2:21 return, so I booked it while waiting for our SW boat, but I later saw that it confirmed a ~4pm return time and cancelled because we were still planning to leave before then (DD was done with the crowd).

Ultimately, hopping to Epcot in the afternoon meant we got very little use out of Genie+ (but was still the right choice for us).

We could have could have gotten more use out of Genie+ at MK if we'd been staying into the evening or if I'd booked simply anything for 9:30 and then booked the next available attraction. But I suspect this would have involved criss crossing the park a lot on what turned out to be a very busy day, which doesn't make my favorite activities list.

If we had wanted to park hop but get more use out of Genie+, it would have helped if we'd wanted to ride Test Track, Soarin' (yes, DH gets that motion sick), or Mission Space (? I don't know I didn't even look). Standby for everything else was really short.

Anyway, just reporting back about the Genie+ booking strategy with a few target rides on a part-day visit. I knew it was a risk and it didn't pan out how we hoped.

We had considered flipping our plan and starting at Epcot, booking MK Genie+ rides all morning so we'd have a stack of them when we arrived at MK. I think that would have worked reasonably well, but we chose to stick with MK in the morning out of concern we would have been too tired to stay into evening at MK. I think that was right.

We are doing that order today (with a late start) with a super laid back Epcot agenda ("visit manatees," find Figment, eat snacks). At almost 10 am, Peter Pan and Jungle Cruise are showing return times around 4 pm now and I think overall LL+ is booking more slowly (It's 45 deg with a predicted high of 48). Trying Genie+ again just because I'm curious how it will go and we might hit more of our "must dos with Daddy" (even though we aren't really that attached to any individual objective).

 

[GBRforWDW]

So, just to report back: This was not terribly successful. Purchased Genie+ around 6 am, so was ready to go but I wasn't fast enough when booking opened. It was probably 7:00:20 by the time I hit "book experience" on Peter Pan. It showed 10:30 am when I clicked it, by the time it went through, Genie+ confirmed 1:40 pm.

By the time I backed out to the list again, Peter Pan was showing 4 pm-ish. Jungle Cruise was also showing afternoon returns.

Thursday ended up being very busy at MK with wait times higher than Thrill Data projected all day (didn't look at Touring Plans ride projection vs actual). Touring Plans was predicting a 4 or 5 when we initially made this plan, but revised it to 7 in retrospect. I'm guessing because it had been rainy and cool for a couple days and Thursday was predicted to be clear and moderate before a couple days of even colder weather. It felt very busy.

By the time 11 am rolled around, I had a choice between Small World and Pooh with a 12:30 pm return time (both of which had 45 min or higher posted waits at 11 am).

By the time we redeemed SW at 12:40, there wasn't really anything left that made sense for us. Pirates was showing 2:21 return, so I booked it while waiting for our SW boat, but I later saw that it confirmed a ~4pm return time and cancelled because we were still planning to leave before then (DD was done with the crowd).

Ultimately, hopping to Epcot in the afternoon meant we got very little use out of Genie+ (but was still the right choice for us).

We could have could have gotten more use out of Genie+ at MK if we'd been staying into the evening or if I'd booked simply anything for 9:30 and then booked the next available attraction. But I suspect this would have involved criss crossing the park a lot on what turned out to be a very busy day, which doesn't make my favorite activities list.

If we had wanted to park hop but get more use out of Genie+, it would have helped if we'd wanted to ride Test Track, Soarin' (yes, DH gets that motion sick), or Mission Space (? I don't know I didn't even look). Standby for everything else was really short.

Anyway, just reporting back about the Genie+ booking strategy with a few target rides on a part-day visit. I knew it was a risk and it didn't pan out how we hoped.

We had considered flipping our plan and starting at Epcot, booking MK Genie+ rides all morning so we'd have a stack of them when we arrived at MK. I think that would have worked reasonably well, but we chose to stick with MK in the morning out of concern we would have been too tired to stay into evening at MK. I think that was right.

We are doing that order today (with a late start) with a super laid back Epcot agenda ("visit manatees," find Figment, eat snacks). At almost 10 am, Peter Pan and Jungle Cruise are showing return times around 4 pm now and I think overall LL+ is booking more slowly (It's 45 deg with a predicted high of 48). Trying Genie+ again just because I'm curious how it will go and we might hit more of our "must dos with Daddy" (even though we aren't really that attached to any individual objective).

Sorry things didn't work out so well on Day 1. It's definitely hard to predict how things go sometimes. Look forward to hearing your experience today.

 

[studiojmm]

Well, yesterday we had the opposite problem. LL+ at MK was booking was slower than it had on Thursday and it was hard to book attractions for an evening arrival.

Ultimately, we did everything we wanted via LL+ along with several standby attractions, but definitely didn't hit a sweet on spot for cost/ride.

It was around 11 am before I managed to book our first afternoon attraction, Jungle Cruise for 4:30-5:30 pm and after 2 before anything else we wanted to book was available after 4 pm.

If we had been planning to hop right at 2 pm, I could have booked a lot more. We also could have hit multiple top Genie+ recommendations. Peter Pan was available until almost 6 pm. Jungle Cruise didn't run out until fireworks. Big Thunder was available every time I looked.

The side-by-side below shows what I mean. The first attraction to go red yesterday - with return times substantially later than booking - was Seven Dwarfs, but that was bookable for hours longer than it had been on Thursday.


https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/park/wdw/magic-kingdom/2022/01/29
https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/park/wdw/magic-kingdom/2022/01/27
My booking strategy yesterday assumed more attractions went yellow/orange by 11 am, like they had on Thursday, so I could book them from Epcot.

Either way, I'm fine. I basically did Genie+ this week for my own entertainment and I'm not upset about any of the choices I made.

World Showcase was (expected) madness yesterday, btw. We theorized that more people with kids were deterred by the cold than folks who wanted to drink their way around Epcot. By the time we hit MK, the sea of strollers was pretty navigable. We departed 15 min before fireworks and there was a lot of pavement on Main Street.

Overall, I can see how folks are more frustrated with Genie+ than Fastpass, besides issue of paying for line skipping. It's hard to feel like you get your money's worth. There's a big learning curve and the learning costs money and time. With FP+, if all you did was your 3 pre-booked fastpasses, at least you didn't feel like you wasted $.

Now, I'm not making a judgement on overall park experience with Genie+ vs FP+. I can see the argument that FP+ extended wait times for standby. We haven't really missed FP+ except for SDMT and the always other long wait rides and we've managed to time our visits so we've ridden everything we want. We've ridden SDMT, FOP, and SDD via standby without absurd waits. But we often travelled during lower crowd times and aren't doing one and done trips where we feel like we have to do everything (though we are wrapping up our AP and will not be renewing so my perspective may shift).

 

[GBRforWDW]

Yeah the opposite swing is crazy too where the return times are too soon. To want to grab but also too far out that you can't go from one ride to the next easily. Hopefully you got more of the rides you wanted yesterday, but yeah, not booking your first until 11am really slows things down!