Disney Genie and Genie+ at Walt Disney World

[GoofGoof]

Agreed. I think it's more than just frequent visitors, it's the majority of guests. Look at how many guests go to parks do their 3 and go back to the resorts. Or those that stroll into the parks at the crack of 4pm and ride a few things a leave.

For my family it's not worth it as we go to the parks to ride attractions. We treat Disney the same as Dollywood or Cedar Point. If I'm paying that much for a ticket we want our moneys worth.

Yeah, time at the resorts, time at the pool, time at Disney Springs, etc….all factor in. Most WDW guests are focused on more than just ride count. I think you are discounting the fact that the standby lines are still an option and can be used in conjunction with a front of the line option. You don’t have to just do 3 rides you reserved then go back to your room. Fast pass and now lightning lane are systems best used to avoid long waits for popular rides.

 

[James Alucobond]

Buying in at 7am and not knowing if I’d even get 3 reservations I could use or wanted is a lot less appealing than 3 guaranteed that I know up front and most importantly that I can pick the time.

Buying at 7 and getting only 3 is nearly impossible unless you're just not using Genie+ at all. And your 3 guaranteed selections with the new system are potentially a lot less valuable to begin with given tiering.

 

[Splash4eva]

IIRC, in the days of FP+ pre-booking fewer than 3 was definitely a valid strategy, since you had to use everything you pre-booked. With LL-MP only requiring you to use 1 and potentially allowing you to modify day-of, I will be interested to see if there is any difference strategy-wise between pre-booking fewer than 3 and pre-booking 3 regardless and just modifying day-of.


That goes to my current dilemma. I have a compulsion to start adjusting my plans for LL-MP, but there's too many unknown variables, so I can't properly plan yet and my brain is stuck in stressed limbo. I mean, I've only got less than a year to optimize my park days and strategy.

Can you imagine explaining this to 1st time visitors… college sports teams nay put less effort & game planning vs an opponent than whats needed for a Disney vacation

 

[DisneyHead123]

Buying at 7 and getting only 3 is nearly impossible unless you're just not using Genie+ at all. And your 3 guaranteed selections with the new system are potentially a lot less valuable to begin with given tiering.

It depends. With a large group, during busy times, with people who can’t do a super long park day, 2 or 3 tends to be the max.

 

[GoofGoof]

Buying at 7 and getting only 3 is nearly impossible unless you're just not using Genie+ at all. And your 3 guaranteed selections with the new system are potentially a lot less valuable to begin with given tiering.

Someone posted earlier in the thread they had a day where they only got 1 that they used so it’s possible.

 

[doctornick]

Buying at 7 and getting only 3 is nearly impossible unless you're just not using Genie+ at all. And your 3 guaranteed selections with the new system are potentially a lot less valuable to begin with given tiering.

I’m sure there were guests who would get one for a bigger ride that wasn’t active until later in the day and not understand the two hour window and not start trying for another until later. Or people who used one but forgot to book another one after. Or who didn’t buy at 7am and waiting until they got to the park at 10 and sat there were lines everywhere and booked them. Etc.

My point being that a bunch of people likely have bought Genie+ and ended up not getting as much as they wanted/hoped/expected. Especially if the LL queues ended up being kinda longish.

I think having three rides set when purchasing will help to drastically reduce such situations. The people who are really hurt by this are more so active knowledgeable users especially those who used it a certain way (to stack later in the day) and they will either change their approach to maximize or just not buy.

 

[Splash4eva]

I’m sure there were guests who would get one for a bigger ride that wasn’t active until later in the day and not understand the two hour window and not start trying for another until later. Or people who used one but forgot to book another one after. Or who didn’t buy at 7am and waiting until they got to the park at 10 and sat there were lines everywhere and booked them. Etc.

My point being that a bunch of people likely have bought Genie+ and ended up not getting as much as they wanted/hoped/expected. Especially if the LL queues ended up being kinda longish.

I think having three rides set when purchasing will help to drastically reduce such situations. The people who are really hurt by this are more so active knowledgeable users especially those who used it a certain way (to stack later in the day) and they will either change their approach to maximize or just not buy.

My guess is Disney went back to pre books to completely eliminate ANY refunds going forward from the cash cow Genie had begun

 

[GoofGoof]

My guess is Disney went back to pre books to completely eliminate ANY refunds going forward from the cash cow Genie had begun

Were they giving a lot of refunds for Genie+?

 

[Splash4eva]

Were they giving a lot of refunds for Genie+?

There were reports that there were. How many and how recent i dont know but now there truly is no reason for any to be given out barring you not being able to get to the park for some reason…

 

[Dranth]

Someone posted earlier in the thread they had a day where they only got 1 that they used so it’s possible.

There had to be some other mitigating circumstances for that to occur. Something like lots of rides being down all day or buying it late in the afternoon as it was near impossible to use the service on even a busy day and get less than three selections. That would imply that every single attraction in an entire park had used an entire day’s worth of inventory within 2 hours of opening at the latest.

I know they had some issues early on before they started limiting sales with people only getting a few on extremely busy days but that was changed a good while ago and would not be a valid complaint about the current system.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Since you can see what's available (or what's not available) before you purchase LL MultiPass, now that pre booking is here, will this result in less LL MultiPasses purchased?

 

[GoofGoof]

Since you can see what's available (or what's not available) before you purchase LL MultiPass, now that pre booking is here, will this result in less LL MultiPasses purchased?

I doubt it. If anything it may increase sales. If sales drop then the new system will be a huge win for anyone using it.

It’s simple supply and demand here. Demand starts out very high (perceived value is highest when all rides and times are available) and as what people perceive as more “valuable” reservations disappear the natural demand will drop and that will be accelerated with dynamic pricing where the price goes up as more people buy in. The question of will this sell better or worse than Genie+ will come down to how many people value the convenience of booking ahead and choosing a return time with a guarantee of 3 rides vs giving up the possibility with Genie+ of booking more rides but not knowing at time of purchase what you will get.

Disney knows how to make money so my gut says they are fairly confident this new system will sell more but time will tell.

 

[Purduevian]

It depends. With a large group, during busy times, with people who can’t do a super long park day, 2 or 3 tends to be the max.

Someone posted earlier in the thread they had a day where they only got 1 that they used so it’s possible.

I would challenge someone to find a day using thrill data where all G+ rides were sold out in any park 4 hours after park opening (which would mean people should be on their 3rd LL at minimum). Its possible people only got 1 or 2 because they didn't know the system, or they didn't like the rides that were left... but there was always availability for 3 rides (yes star tours counts as a ride).

My open questions for Mutiple LL pass which I don't think we will get until July 24th

• Modifying day of:
  • Can you modify a prebooked tier 2 into a tier 1 at some point?
  • Can you modify a prebooked LL to another park at some point?
    • If yes to either of them, at what time/trigger can this happen?
• When can you book for a date-based ticket?
  • 7/3 days from the start that your ticket is valid?
  • 7/3 days from your first park day?
• How much overlap in time can 2 or 3 LLs have?

 

[GhostHost1000]

I would challenge someone to find a day using thrill data where all G+ rides were sold out in any park 4 hours after park opening (which would mean people should be on their 3rd LL at minimum). Its possible people only got 1 or 2 because they didn't know the system, or they didn't like the rides that were left... but there was always availability for 3 rides (yes star tours counts as a ride).

My open questions for Mutiple LL pass which I don't think we will get until July 24th

• Modifying day of:
  • Can you modify a prebooked tier 2 into a tier 1 at some point?
  • Can you modify a prebooked LL another park at some point?
    • If yes to either of them, at what time/trigger can this happen?
• When can you book for a date-based ticket?
  • 7/3 days from the start that your ticket is valid?
  • 7/3 days from your first park day?
• How much overlap in time can 2 or 3 LLs have?

the answer to your last question is 15 minutes


the modifying the day of I'm curious about as well as inventory the day of throughout the day. I'm not sure July 24th will give us a good indication however as crowds will likely be low

 

[GoofGoof]

There had to be some other mitigating circumstances for that to occur. Something like lots of rides being down all day or buying it late in the afternoon as it was near impossible to use the service on even a busy day and get less than three selections. That would imply that every single attraction in an entire park had used an entire day’s worth of inventory within 2 hours of opening at the latest.

I know they had some issues early on before they started limiting sales with people only getting a few on extremely busy days but that was changed a good while ago and would not be a valid complaint about the current system.

I believe the example given was DHS on a crowded day. I can go back and look.

I think what some people are missing is the return time and also which rides are available matter. At 1pm when going to book reservation 3 there could be return times left but what if they are for rides you already did earlier that day or you are hopping to EPCOT for dinner and an 8PM return time is useless to you. I agree with you that if you start at 7am and stay at a park until closing you will almost certainly get more than 3 genie+ reservations, on lower crowd days possibly many more. Under the new system this will likely also be true. The difference is for at least the first 3 you can pick the times now which can be a major advantage for anyone not planning to stay from opening to close.

 

[JAB]

Since you can see what's available (or what's not available) before you purchase LL MultiPass, now that pre booking is here, will this result in less LL MultiPasses purchased?

I could see that happening, since you purchase by day, so some people might only purchase LL-MP for days that they can pre-book 3 attractions that they wanted. Some might even balk altogether if what they want isn't available for their first day.

This might be especially true for those who don't understand that there could be more day-of availability and mistakenly assume that a "sold out" pre-book means no chance for a LL. There were people that bought G+ that had no idea how to use it. On our last trip, while at a blue umbrella (fixing our LL, because my wife's last tap didn't register), the woman next to us asked, "I bought this Genie Plus thing. What do do with it?".

 

[Purduevian]

the answer to your last question is 15 minutes

I thought it was confirmed that it was at least 15 mins, but no indication if someone could do 30 or even full overlap? However, I seemed to have missed the OG post that said 15 mins so I'm not sure.

 

[JAB]

Modifying day of:

• Can you modify a prebooked tier 2 into a tier 1 at some point?
• Can you modify a prebooked LL another park at some point?
  • If yes to either of them, at what time/trigger can this happen?

These are some of the unanswered questions we're all interested to find out.

When can you book for a date-based ticket?

• 7/3 days from the start that your ticket is valid?
• 7/3 days from your first park day?

The 7-day window is tied to your on-property hotel stay, not your ticket. The window starts 7 days before your check-in date.

For off-site guests with date-based tickets the 3-day window starts 3 days before the date you selected as the start date for your tickets.

 

[GoofGoof]

My open questions for Mutiple LL pass which I don't think we will get until July 24th

• Modifying day of:
  • Can you modify a prebooked tier 2 into a tier 1 at some point?
  • Can you modify a prebooked LL another park at some point?
    • If yes to either of them, at what time/trigger can this happen?
• When can you book for a date-based ticket?
  • 7/3 days from the start that your ticket is valid?
  • 7/3 days from your first park day?
• How much overlap in time can 2 or 3 LLs have?

1. I believe it was confirmed you could modify reservations based on availability (you are only limited to carrying 3 reservations at a time)
2. It was also confirmed that after using one reservation and booking a 4th the tiers are dropped so you can book a second tier 1 and you can also book #4 in a different park.

What we don’t know is when the “park day“ in the app officially starts. Any modification prior to the start of the “park day“ would be subject to tiers and also subject to the 1 park limitation. We know reservations will not begin before the parks open but we don’t know if they will open the “park day” at 7am like genie+ or you will have to wait until park open. We also don’t know for sure whether you have to use a reservation to trigger dropping the limitations for reservation #4 or if you can modify one of the first 3 once the park day begins. The assumption is a modification will be same as using a reservation and limitations would be dropped, but someone needs to test that on 7/24.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I doubt it. If anything it may increase sales.

I cant see how it will increase sales.

First folks in the system who see and gobble up all the good return times purchase LL Multipass.

With advance selection, Its the same old problem with FastPass plus, all the good return times are gone.

The good thing is folks can see what's left before they purchase.