I was in Disney all last week and used Genie+ and ILL several times. I typically travel with my husband and kids but this trip was my very first solo trip. Since I was alone, it was easier to justify the price. Obviously as a family of four, I may not have used it so much. Of course I am not happy to pay for this system but the most frustrating part was that it just doesn’t work good. A few examples-
One day in MK, I purchased G+. For my first LL, I chose Thunder Mountain at 9:30. After tapping in, I wanted Peter Pan next. The time was for 4pm. I had a dining reservation at 4pm. Why couldn’t Genie recognize this and offer an alternate time? I chose Haunted Mansion instead. After tapping into that, I tried for Pan again. Return was 8pm, during the fireworks. This was obviously no fault of the genie but I once again chose something else. A short time later, Pan was gone. I wish you were given a few time choice instead of one.
The day I went to DHS, I decided I would purchase ILL for M&M and Rise and use standby for everything else. I was ready to go at 6:50. 7am on the dot, I refreshed, picked a time for Rise and when it went to the next page, it just kept spinning and spinning. This was my first time purchasing an ILL so I assumed my time was set and I should just let it spin. After a solid three minutes, I finally gave up, closed out the app and went back in. Rise was sold out. So then I tried for M&M and the same thing happened. I would select a time and it would just spin and spin. Finally at 7:15, the system appeared to refresh and a bunch of new times popped up. I was then able to successfully secure times for both rides but not at the times I wanted. A very stressful start to my day.
On another day, I was going to Disney Springs in the morning and AK in the afternoon. Even though I was hoping to sleep in a bit, of course I still woke up at 7 to try and get an ILL for FoP. At 7 I chose a time, it went to the purchase page, it spun for a few seconds, then said your booking has been released. I clicked through the same series of pages for 33 minutes, every time, it said my booking was release. I was finally successful at 7:33. I took many screen grabs along the way so I could show the blue umbrella people. Now because I was alone, and not rope dropping that day, I was able to sit there for 33 minutes and attempt to get this ILL. But if my kids were there, and we were all getting ready and trying to get out the door, there’s no way I could have sat there for that long. I did talk to someone about it later in the day and she said there were system wide issues that morning
Overall, I found Genie to be very stressful. I did not enjoying waking up every morning and fighting with the system. If this is the system they insist on using, it should at least work properly.
I did receive one specifically for my dinner at Artist Point and another for my stay at Music. I’m really hoping I get the Genie survey!
