Trip Planning Questions/Complaints

[GeorgiaHoo]

We've got a trip coming up the first week of May and I have some questions (which might really just be complaints).

1. Genie/Lightning Lane - this is our first trip to Disney in about 4 years, but we've been many times before. Don't think we'll want to do rope drop at this stage in our trips, so how does that impact things (understanding that mornings are often the best times)? Do we still need to get up early to make reservations through Genie or Lightning Lane on the app? If we go to the park later in the day are all the reservations gone? I have to confess I still don't quite understand how those work. Maybe they are great, but at this point at least I understood the prior FP/FP+.
2. Park hoppers - so I guess we have to go to the early park where we have reservations before we go to the second park? What about if it's after 2 pm? Can we just go to the park where we don't have a reservation after 2 pm? I'm concerned that we have some lunch reservations at parks where we have a different park pass reservation to start the day and we may not want to get up in the morning, travel to a park just to check in, and then go to the second park for lunch.

 

[bastraker]

You do need to go to your reserved park first. This makes lunch reservations tricky since I sometimes want to eat lunch in Epcot but can't get in until after 2pm.

 

[marikujawa]

We've got a trip coming up the first week of May and I have some questions (which might really just be complaints).

1. Genie/Lightning Lane - this is our first trip to Disney in about 4 years, but we've been many times before. Don't think we'll want to do rope drop at this stage in our trips, so how does that impact things (understanding that mornings are often the best times)? Do we still need to get up early to make reservations through Genie or Lightning Lane on the app? If we go to the park later in the day are all the reservations gone? I have to confess I still don't quite understand how those work. Maybe they are great, but at this point at least I understood the prior FP/FP+.
2. Park hoppers - so I guess we have to go to the early park where we have reservations before we go to the second park? What about if it's after 2 pm? Can we just go to the park where we don't have a reservation after 2 pm? I'm concerned that we have some lunch reservations at parks where we have a different park pass reservation to start the day and we may not want to get up in the morning, travel to a park just to check in, and then go to the second park for lunch.

You don't necessarily have to travel to the first park and check in - but you would have to cancel the first park and then make a park reservation for the second one. If you do this, you aren't limited to waiting until after 2 since you are technically not park-hopping. We did this twice in October when we decided to go to a water park in the morning instead of the park we had reserved. It worked just fine.

 

[T'Lynn]

For #1 … it totally depends on the park and what you want to ride.

if you want SDD at HS then you absolutely have to either book LL at 7 am, rope drop it, or get in line at park close (if you want to avoid long waits)

but you could probably book a decent LL for MK if you slept in. Headliners require early morning action for the most part.

you should probably read the pinned thread all about Genie+ and familiarize yourself with it!

 

[GeorgiaHoo]

Thanks everyone. Planning used to be fun, now it's frustrating (at least to me).