Would not have survived Thanksgiving Week without these boards! The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

[jimmymc]

The biggest thing is that it's priced high enough that most don't buy it. Less people that have it the better the system works.

My biggest problem with Genie+ right there.

 

[JakeAZ]

My biggest problem with Genie+ right there.

I agree it's priced so that way too many people buy it, but IMO, it's a garbage program right now. It really is the worst of all the "skip the line" programs.

I'm sure Disney will raise the prices soon, but the whole waking up before 7am and monitoring times all day is really awful.

 

[jimmymc]

I agree it's priced so that way too many people buy it, but IMO, it's a garbage program right now. It really is the worst of all the "skip the line" programs.

I'm sure Disney will raise the prices soon, but the whole waking up before 7am and monitoring times all day is really awful.

Universal, Cedar Fair, and other local parks do it right with their Fastlane or Express Pass Systems. Have it include everything but price it so only a small percentage of guests will purchase it. Then you don't have to bother with reservations and the standby line isn't too affected.

 

[iheartglaciers]

I was also there Thanksgiving week and used Genie+ while I had some first timers with me Mon-Wed. I didn't like having to wake up for the stressful 7am LL race. And it was a pain that I couldn't tell my friends/family our schedule for the next day because it depended what we got at 7am. For our HS day (Tues) we ended up getting our Rise LL and first Genie+ selction (Millenium Falcon) for nighttime (another pain point is that you might click on 10am, but then by the time it processes, you actually get 5pm). It worked out fine because we ended up having a leisurely morning and went to the park later, but my friends all woke up at 7am to see what we were doing (and one started a run at 6:30am in case we were mobilizing for park open).

I didn't encounter the verification issue that you (and many others) have encountered. I did have the app glitch on me and had to start over a couple times.

Genie+/LL really helped us do everything we wanted during the holiday week with minimal waits, but it was really stressful for me as the planner. The biggest pain points were:

• Clicking to book a time, but it actually books something hours later (since everyone is trying for the same limited LLs)... we didn't have any ADRs, so we were fleixble, but this could be really problematic--especially for ILL which you can't cancel/rebook another time
• Lack of modification (we ran into the same issue where we didn't want to risk cancelling to try and pick up something better)
• Having to wake up at 6:50am on vacation to go through the stress of trying to book the LL you want
• More challenging to book a logical park plan flow (and not feel like you're darting across the park to make your different LLs)

 

[JakeAZ]

Genie+/LL really helped us do everything we wanted during the holiday week with minimal waits, but it was really stressful for me as the planner

And it was a pain that I couldn't tell my friends/family our schedule for the next day because it depended what we got at 7am

I 100% agree with both of these!

I'd come downstairs in the morning and everyone would look at me like "so, what are we doing today?" haha

 

[Jrb1979]

I 100% agree with both of these!

I'd come downstairs in the morning and everyone would look at me like "so, what are we doing today?" haha

Til I came across Disney fans, I've never heard of people planning their vacation days out so much. I understand part of that is Disney created people to be that way.

For me I do enough planning in my every day life, my vacation I want to that as little as possible. My best vacations are ones where my family booked our flights, hotel and that's it. We played each day by ear. I have never understood the point of having a spreadsheet for each day.

 

[jimmymc]

Til I came across Disney fans, I've never heard of people planning their vacation days out so much. I understand part of that is Disney created people to be that way.

For me I do enough planning in my every day life, my vacation I want to that as little as possible. My best vacations are ones where my family booked our flights, hotel and that's it. We played each day by ear. I have never understood the point of having a spreadsheet for each day.

This is one reason why I prefer Genie+ to Fastpass+. I don't want to schedule ride times at 60 days out.

 

[iheartglaciers]

Til I came across Disney fans, I've never heard of people planning their vacation days out so much. I understand part of that is Disney created people to be that way.

For me I do enough planning in my every day life, my vacation I want to that as little as possible. My best vacations are ones where my family booked our flights, hotel and that's it. We played each day by ear. I have never understood the point of having a spreadsheet for each day.

It’s not that I need to have it all planned out months in advance, but even if we could book Genie+/LL the day before, I could’ve told my friends/family what time we were heading to the park before they went to bed.

Instead, my friends were running at 6:30am and waking up at 7am only to find out our LLs were for the evening and they could’ve slept in (not to mention me… I really don’t like waking up at 7am on vacation!).

 

[ttintagel]

This report was very comforting; I no longer feel badly that I won’t be able to afford a WDW trip for a long time, because a trip like what you’ve described would be no fun at all for me. I don’t want to spend all day in my phone booking rides and mobile-ordering meals, and paying more and more for less and less. I’m glad I still have all my happy memories of fun Disney trips.

 

[TB'sWidow]

We were there Thanksgiving as well. We did not use genie + for me it’s too much money. We did purchase 2 Ll for Rotr and space mountain. We did stand by lines for the rest I found the wait times on MDE greatly exaggerated and had I paid attention to that I would have skipped those rides instead we took a chance and got in line. While I still had a magical time over all I think my trips will be farther apart and I am looking elsewhere for trips. Thanks for your report Op