Disney Genie and Genie+ at Walt Disney World

aaronml

Well-Known Member
I just wanted to drop this since i actually did purchase and use the system this week.

Just got back from a week long trip and wanted to share a note on Genie+ and Standby Skipper.

We are not rope droppers, or mid day break people. We enter the parks around 10 and we stay until closing. During research on the best Genie+ strategies i came across a tool called Standby Skipper. Ive seen it mentioned here a couple times as well but there werent many hands on user reports. Also there isnt much activity on their socials so i was a bit leery at first using it especially since they need to be added as a friend on your MDE, but i decided what the heck, if anything bad happens ill just dispute the charge.

So the way this thing works is if you have Genie+ you can use the Standby Skipper to book LL passes for you. You just tell it a time frame for which to search (ASAP, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Within 2 Hours) and its starts searching and if something pops up meeting your parameters then it books it for you.

So me being the type of person that likes to sleep in, i figured id use this tool to book a LL for mid morning while im still asleep at 7am. The previous night i purchased Genie+ and then told SS to book a pass for Peter Pan in the morning, figuring since the park opens at 9am id have until 10:10 to make it to Peter Pan if the thing worked that well. Guess what, i woke up to a booked LL for Peter Pan at 9am. It worked. I then told it to book a LL for SM ASAP. The tool knew the earliest i could book again was 11. When 11 rolled around i was in the middle of the HM ride, when i left the ride i checked my phone and the SM pass was sitting right there in my account. On another day i told the app i wanted a LL for SDD around 12, since my HS day was after my MVMCP night and i wanted to sleep in. Woke up at 9:30 am, and boom, saw a SDD LL for 12:35.

So SS does its job well, it books while you are asleep and while you are in the middle of a ride. But the absolute best thing about the app is that it still grabs LL passes when MDE says there arent any more available. I told SS to search for LL passes for the following rides for which MDE showed there was ZERO LL availability: BTMR, Jingle Cruise, MF:SR, Frozen, Test Track, and Space Mountain. It took a max of 20 minutes for the app to find each of those LL, even with MDE showing as unavailable. Sure you could have found them also with CONSTANT refreshing but thats not how i want to spend my vacation, let someone else do the dirty work for me.
This seems like something that Disney will inevitably block, IMO.

I don’t think they care much about bots tracking availability, but bots actually booking LLs? That likely crosses a line.
 

phillip9698

Well-Known Member
It would be an inefficient use of Genie+ to select one and only one ILL as "the one you want" at any given time. Much more efficient to take the best available of what comes up.

Efficient comes into play when you are comparing rides of a similar caliber. You certainly wouldnt suggest someone ride Teacups, Dumbo, and Barnstormer instead of Space Mountain because its more efficient.

Jingle Cruise had a standby wait of 90 minutes and the MDE showed LL as unavailable. I told SS to look for a LL for that ride and in less than 20 minutes i had one. My family was able to skip a very long queue for a ride they really wanted to experience.

When guests really want to ride particular attractions on their vacations, riding something else because it was more efficient doesnt really hold much weight.
 

nickys

Premium Member
So has anyone tried modifying an LL yet?

Or indeed, whether you used that feature or not, did it seem to affect the G+ process much? Any difference in availability etc? I know we’ll likely have to wait a few days to see real analysis of the impact but first impressions are useful.
 

Mander

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
So has anyone tried modifying an LL yet?

Or indeed, whether you used that feature or not, did it seem to affect the G+ process much? Any difference in availability etc? I know we’ll likely have to wait a few days to see real analysis of the impact but first impressions are useful.
My folks are there now and I'm helping them with Genie+ from afar. I'm currently trying to get them a better time for Peter Pan's Flight and it seems pretty simple. Select your original booking from the "My Genie Day" tab and there is a modify option. Can choose a different time for that ride or another ride in that park. Can't select anything but the next available time.

Definitely a welcome change, even if it is a small thing.
 

phillip9698

Well-Known Member
Because it goes against how they need the system to work to try and manage crowds.

Yeah, I’m not paying Disney extra money to steer me where they want me to go in order to spread out crowds. I paid admission to ride Splash Mountain, Jingle Cruise, etc…..not Barnstormer.

It’s their fault they let the parks languish to a point where they don’t have capacity to meet demand, not mine.
 
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Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I’m not paying Disney extra money to steer me where they want me to go in order to spread out crowds. I paid admission to ride Splash Mountain, Jingle Cruise, etc…..not Barnstormer.

It’s their fault they let the parks languish ti a point where they don’t have capacity to meet demand, not mine.
Can you really blame Disney? People continue to fill the parks without adding much new capacity.
 

CalebS

Well-Known Member
So has anyone tried modifying an LL yet?

Or indeed, whether you used that feature or not, did it seem to affect the G+ process much? Any difference in availability etc? I know we’ll likely have to wait a few days to see real analysis of the impact but first impressions are useful.
I modified a lot of lightning lanes on this trip. Being able to modify actually increased the chances of getting better times by quite a lot in my opinion. On saturday I was able to get a LL for every ride in HS except for slinky. When I went to epcot i was able to get rat, test track, soarin, and frozen.The last time I went to DW i never had a day with nearly that many LL rides. I will say the standby lines are terrible and barely move. Disney defintely rigged the system where you either buy it or stand in barely moving lines all day.
 

dmw

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
I modified a lot of lightning lanes on this trip. Being able to modify actually increased the chances of getting better times by quite a lot in my opinion. On saturday I was able to get a LL for every ride in HS except for slinky. When I went to epcot i was able to get rat, test track, soarin, and frozen.The last time I went to DW i never had a day with nearly that many LL rides. I will say the standby lines are terrible and barely move. Disney defintely rigged the system where you either buy it or stand in barely moving lines all day.
what were the LL lines like for your visit? In the past I was surprised that the FP+ lines sometimes had over 15 minute waits.
 

nickys

Premium Member
I modified a lot of lightning lanes on this trip. Being able to modify actually increased the chances of getting better times by quite a lot in my opinion. On saturday I was able to get a LL for every ride in HS except for slinky. When I went to epcot i was able to get rat, test track, soarin, and frozen.The last time I went to DW i never had a day with nearly that many LL rides. I will say the standby lines are terrible and barely move. Disney defintely rigged the system where you either buy it or stand in barely moving lines all day.
Did you actually have a modify button or did you need to cancel and rebook? Either way, if you modified last week it reset your booking window to the time you modified at.

As of this week that no longer happens. It’s more like the FP+ process in that regard. Which is why I wondered what impact that may have had, if any, on availability.
 

CalebS

Well-Known Member
Did you actually have a modify button or did you need to cancel and rebook? Either way, if you modified last week it reset your booking window to the time you modified at.

As of this week that no longer happens. It’s more like the FP+ process in that regard. Which is why I wondered what impact that may have had, if any, on availability.
It was a modify button. It defintely made the experience better and helped me to get better times and more rides
 

nickys

Premium Member
It was a modify button. It defintely made the experience better and helped me to get better times and more rides
Interesting, I thought it was only starting yesterday? Or maybe the button was there but it still reset the clock. Of course people wouldn’t notice that unless they were stacking LL return times.
 

Purduevian

Well-Known Member
I wonder if they have any data to show this design actually helps managed crowds. Would love to see that because I don’t see how it is
I think all it does is push people to attractions they might not otherwise spend time on. A family might see teacups, philharmgaic, monsters inc, figment, muppets, ect available for LL and might grab that instead of waiting for a larger attraction. I would be curious what would happen if they added LL to country bear and tiki room... Do they fill the theater more?
 

dreday3

Well-Known Member
So were these all the changes that were talked about earlier this year that were supposed to happen for 2023? Just the latest update and the change to date-based/pick your park tickets instead of reservations? (for single days)

I'm slightly disappointed, thought bigger changes were coming.
 

nickys

Premium Member
So were these all the changes that were talked about earlier this year that were supposed to happen for 2023? Just the latest update and the change to date-based/pick your park tickets instead of reservations? (for single days)

I'm slightly disappointed, thought bigger changes were coming.
It isn’t 2023 yet. 😉

I think further changes are coming around both park reservations and Genie+
 

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