Disney Genie and Genie+ at Walt Disney World

[TimeTrip]

Motley Fool likes to think of themselves as a top tier Wall Street analyst. [Edited]

That seems more accurate to me!

 

[Disstevefan1]

I am looking to watching this from the sidelines to see how this plays out, how things are changed as they dial this thing in. It’s funny, the first folks to use this in WDW will be PAYING DISNEY BIG BUCKS to be beta testers, LOL

 

[nickys]

I saw this posted by someone. What if Genie+ will just do ride drops in the app throughout the day, ensuring that popular rides will still have some availability in the evening. Disney may want to level the playing field and wants as many guests to pay for G+ ... not just the rope droppers. Only at-the-moment times will be available, and if sold out you won't be able to select that ride and have to check back later to see if passes open up again.

Would that be such a bad system?

That’s what happens at DLP just now for the standby return passes. Which is kind of equivalent to Genie+ If there are no more left it tells you when the next drop will be.

I think there’s a reasonable chance they do something like that.

 

[jpinkc]

No matter what we say or do Disney is not gonna stop this. Disney has every motivation they need to keep it (financial). I think at $15 everybody will buy it. Now if its really just good for 2 rides a day (Genie+) like LL, then this is an even bigger Rip Off than I originally thought. Disney really needs to clarify this WHOLE MESS!! I know I wont get up at 7AM to book a ride for 9AM espcially if I can only book 1 at a TIME!!! Hell we dont even know what the window is for arrival to get on the attraction with a Paid Genie+ time. They should at least allow the first 2 to be pre booked if we are getting up at 7AM on VACATION!!

 

[jpinkc]

That’s what happens at DLP just now for the standby return passes. Which is kind of equivalent to Genie+ If there are no more left it tells you when the next drop will be.

I think there’s a reasonable chance they do something like that.

Then basically its all a big Virtual Que system.... So again we will be tied to staring into our phones for the next drop from our New Magic Overlord Genie.

 

[nickys]

Also, if you look at the wording Disney has used on the Individual Attractions Selection (IAS) it explicitly says "up to 2 attractions per day". I know we have all been pointing to a Touring Plans article that suggested the 8 attractions across the 4 parks that would be part of IAS, but I think Disney is leaving themselves open to modify this. We also can't forget about the park hopping component that will allow guests to use the 2 attractions cap at two different parks.

I don’t see anything that suggests “up to 2 attractions per day” means per park, such that those who park hop get 4.

I’m pretty sure it means, and fen was stated somewhere “up to 2 attractions per day across all 4 parks”. It just means you can book in two different parks - as long as you have APs or park hoppers.

 

[nickys]

Then basically its all a big Virtual Que system.... So again we will be tied to staring into our phones for the next drop from our New Magic Overlord Genie.

Sort of. But the DLP app if you look for a ride and there are no more left it says “the next drop,will be at 1pm”. You then know when to check.

 

[mightynine]

Or, you know, the MB data wasn't able to be used because of a systemic issue that was only discovered recently. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Oh, I love speaking hypothetically.

 

[flynnibus]

But they're not. With the phone, they're only collecting data on the party "leader". They'll see what that person does and where they go but they'll have zero direct info on anyone else in the group.

WIth Magic Bands, if dad and older son went off to do Space Mountain while mom and younger daughter went off to do bibbidi bobbidi boutique, they could track that.

If someone spent time in a bathroom*, or a shop they had the ability to track that.

If any person in your party wearing a magic band was in a standby line, they'd have been able to see how long it took that person from the point of entry to boarding.

If half way through the day, half your family went back to the resort to go to the pool, they could tell how many people did that.

Before they were tracking everyone - not just the person in charge. Unless every member of your group (that includes young children and grandparents) has a smart phone, has the app installed, is logged in, and has allowed background tracking, that information will no longer be available to collect.

There's definitely going to be a hit to the data collection opportunities.

Obviously, they're comfortable with what they expect that hit to be and who knows, maybe they were never that sophisticated in their data collection to begin with but if they weren't they were incredibly foolish.

Just out of curiosity, what extra data do you think they're able to collect off your phone with this new rollout? If they use GPS to track you all day, they can obviously get more info than they could with beacons but trying to use GPS constantly is going to kill guest's batteries so the best they could do is very incremental check-ins or live data while in use which is something they've been able to do with the person managing fast-passes on their phone all along.

*not that I know they did but they could. I sort of assume they were able to visualize this kind of guest traffic like a heat map or almost like a person playing roller coaster tycoon and looking down at a map. If they weren't doing this and again, marketers have now been doing this for years with far less information voluntarially handed over to them, they wasted a huge opportunity.

start with the very basic ideas… they can generate metrics/events every time you touch the app…. How often you check times… how/when you touch anything is game… or how long you take to make decisions…

the biggest advantage the magic bands had was being a closed system that disney controlled without having to deal with interoperability, battery life, etc. all these years later the nfc story is more mature… and i bet the champion is no longer around so new folks punted the old baseline requirement in favor of byod

 

[flynnibus]

View attachment 582255
As the kids say: Ouch, Disney got ratioed.

This story is so tired and pointless.

you know disney can just delete and replace the videos when new content is ready and all the burn will magically disappear.

hyping yt likes is second only to caring what burns are in comments. The whole thing is just a gamed circle… no one really cares.

 

[monothingie]

Motley Fool likes to think of themselves as a top tier Wall Street analyst of Disney parks, but they've been so wrong in the past, that I don't tend to give them any credence, even when I agree with them.

Yes I remember the 2019 subpar SWGE launch they got terribly wrong.

 

[fractal]

After pondering this for a week or so, the only good thing that could possibly come from Genie+ is that it gives Disney incentive to create amazing attractions that someone would pay a high premium for.

That's all I got.

 

[EPCOT-O.G.]

The more genie is discussed, the details revealed and reviewed the more ill conceived, poorly presented and obviously a scam becomes apparent.

Data! So to what benefit has it proven to be for Disney? Humungous amounts of data are collected and an army of multiple degree / title / after name acronym people crunch it only to produce inaccurate / garbage projections / predictions. Data collection as with anything has its limits of benefit.

The entire subplot of Westworld is how the parks became a huge data mining operation on the guests, with the value of that information surpassing the profit from just operating the parks

 

[MrPromey]

The entire subplot of Westworld is how the parks became a huge data mining operation on the guests, with the value of that information surpassing the profit from just operating the parks

OMG, what a connection to make!

You're so right!

 

[EPCOT-O.G.]

This isn’t meant to help us through the Parks. They want to know who we are, where we live, how we spend out money, what we Google, what we order on Amazon, if we already own Disney+, what we tweet about, what we share on Facebook, etc etc.

 

[MrPromey]

start with the very basic ideas… they can generate metrics/events every time you touch the app…. How often you check times… how/when you touch anything is game… or how long you take to make decisions…

the biggest advantage the magic bands had was being a closed system that disney controlled without having to deal with interoperability, battery life, etc. all these years later the nfc story is more mature… and i bet the champion is no longer around so new folks punted the old baseline requirement in favor of byod

I get what you're saying but none of this is new stuff and it's not like people were strapping on their magic bands and leaving their phones in their rooms before, right?

How is this providing more than what they had the potential to track before when every member of the party had a magic band and at least one or more were also using the MDE app?

Unless they were too stupid to think of this during the many app updates over the years.

Again, I think pulling the magic bands out is removing a data point - not adding any.

It'll cut costs, for sure, though.

That said, if what Lentesta hinted at is true, the whole previous system may have had irreparable flaws that made whatever data they were collecting suspect - I wouldn't be surprised if whoever it was who worked on certain parts of that hadn't already been laid off.

A lot of businesses large and small have lost institutional knowledge in recent years by showing people the door from IT and other departments. We know for fact Disney's done this with their own IT due to that whole H-B1 visa controversy they got caught in before the public lost interest so if there was a problem it may have been deemed not cost-effective to try figuring out how to solve it if it would only improve things going forward.

I had another post that was way, way too long before this that I flat out deleted rather than bothering to edit. I'm a slow, learner but I'm trying to get there - maybe in another decade or two.

 

[MrPromey]

This isn’t meant to help us through the Parks. They want to know who we are, where we live, how we spend out money, what we Google, what we order on Amazon, if we already own Disney+, what we tweet about, what we share on Facebook, etc etc.

Of course, Google and Amazon and everyone else would like to know that, too.

There's a reason Google dragged their feet on updating nearly all their apps after Apple implemented the new privacy settings in iOS - they wouldn't have to reveal how they were tracking and give people an easy way to opt out until their next update gets/got pushed through and literally every day they can postpone that is priceless for them.

Disney's at lest in a position where when they do it, they can credibly act like it's about improving the guest experience.

 

[flynnibus]

I get what you're saying but none of this is new stuff and it's not like people were strapping on their magic bands and leaving their phones in their rooms before, right?

There are new decisions being made because the tasks and flows are different now.

At the base point of 'where are we collecting data from' - yes, removing the MB takes away a source - but the App is growing in what it represents too. While the app as a data collector is not new, the strategies and points of interest may very much change now. Many people don't realize just how raw the metrics modern apps collect are. The real magic (like most data) comes from how you analyze it and what you are following. The possibilities here are immense... but like NextGen before it, it is about what you actually do - not just what is possible... Meaningful business intelligence and analysis doesn't pop out of just default dashboards

The MB was a breadcrumb and a beacon. It was linked, but operated separately from the MDE app. Now the MDE app can be a direct data aggregator for both token use AND app use. That's useful.

I mean, why do you bother with trying to build and maintain a radio network for basically 'dumb' devices over so many square miles when the majority of the population are carrying an intelligent broadcaster that works with the same networks you already have in place for other things.

Just so many advantages here... I'm sure they just offset any losses of tagging every individual... data you can generalize anyway when dealing with things on a macro level.

Maybe they realized there is more hassle than value from tracking kids vs just worrying about the parents, etc.

 

[MrPromey]

There are new decisions being made because the tasks and flows are different now.

At the base point of 'where are we collecting data from' - yes, removing the MB takes away a source - but the App is growing in what it represents too. While the app as a data collector is not new, the strategies and points of interest may very much change now. Many people don't realize just how raw the metrics modern apps collect are. The real magic (like most data) comes from how you analyze it and what you are following. The possibilities here are immense... but like NextGen before it, it is about what you actually do - not just what is possible... Meaningful business intelligence and analysis doesn't pop out of just default dashboards

The MB was a breadcrumb and a beacon. It was linked, but operated separately from the MDE app. Now the MDE app can be a direct data aggregator for both token use AND app use. That's useful.

I mean, why do you bother with trying to build and maintain a radio network for basically 'dumb' devices over so many square miles when the majority of the population are carrying an intelligent broadcaster that works with the same networks you already have in place for other things.

Except they've already built it and if they plan to use the NFC, they'll still need it.

Maybe they realized there is more hassle than value from tracking kids vs just worrying about the parents, etc.

This is a good point.

So maybe they continue to sell Magic Bands because they generate revenue and effectively costs them nothing to support on the existing infrastructure they need to maintain anyway,

 

[Missing20K]

Maybe they realized there is more hassle than value from tracking kids vs just worrying about the parents, etc.

Having never used magic bands, we were planning to purchase just to have the tracking feature. One could presume this function will be eliminated, based on recent developments. I’d hope an option remains for those children who don’t have phones.