Help! We are taking my daughter and 5 of her friends to DL Thursday and Friday.

[mickeymatt]

So we have been to DL 2 times before but are mostly veterans of WDW. So my wife and I are bringing our daughter for her 18th birthday with 5 of her friends. I plan on buying Genie + each morning . I'm just not sure how that works with a large party. Should each teen download the app and sign up for an account? I have all their tickets and plans on my app but I'm sure that both days my wife and I will do our thing and they will all go their way. This new Genie plus thing has me confused and I hope it all goes smoothly.

Thanks for any and all advice!

 

[waltography]

So we have been to DL 2 times before but are mostly veterans of WDW. So my wife and I are bringing our daughter for her 18th birthday with 5 of her friends. I plan on buying Genie + each morning . I'm just not sure how that works with a large party. Should each teen download the app and sign up for an account? I have all their tickets and plans on my app but I'm sure that both days my wife and I will do our thing and they will all go their way. This new Genie plus thing has me confused and I hope it all goes smoothly.

Thanks for any and all advice!

I haven't encountered this situation myself, but I think you can do it this way: have your daughter download the app if she hasn't already, then have her scan her and her friends' tickets to her app (since multiple people can link the same Disney tickets to their accounts). That way, you can purchase Genie+ for everyone but then they can manage their own plans since Genie+ is tethered to admission, not device; just make sure when you reserve your own Lightning Lanes you don't reserve for them too.

 

[mickeymatt]

Just a trip update. The night before our first park day I talked with a very helpful cast member. She suggested making my daughter a group captain. The key is to be able to make purchases and reservations one must be 18. Fortunately, my daughter turned 18 the next day so I made an account for her and downloaded the app. I then linked our tickets so she had the ability to choose lightening lanes for her and her friends while my wife and I did our own. It worked great. We also purchased rise of the resistance, radiator springs racers, and webslingers. While the price stung a bit I felt that it was nice walking right on those rides. I was surprised that most of the wait times weren’t that bad. And on a side note fantasmic did not disappoint. It’s so much better than the WDW version.

Also we stayed off property at Hotel lulu. It’s a nice resort run by best western only a block and a half from the parks. The homeless/ mentally ill problem in the area (as well as all of California) is really taken a toll. We got scared a few times walking back to hotel. In fact shortly after we got back a race car driver was murdered at a gas station not far from Disneyland. The suspect was known to frequent Anaheim. For this reason if we ever go back I will pony up and stay on property. We have stayed at the Grand Californian and Disneyland Hotel on previous trips but decided to stay off property to save money since we needed two rooms. Not again for us. Too many vagrants walking around for us to feel safe anymore. In fact one of the city bus drivers told us that they won’t even drop off on our corner sometimes because they don’t feel safe stopping.
Anyway. I hope California will get it together. Such a beautiful place but it’s a mess right now.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Hopefully you and your family enjoyed yourselves.

 

[mickeymatt]

Thanks. It was a great trip and we loved Disneyland as always!

 

[chadwpalm]

Also we stayed off property at Hotel lulu. It’s a nice resort run by best western only a block and a half from the parks. The homeless/ mentally ill problem in the area (as well as all of California) is really taken a toll. We got scared a few times walking back to hotel. In fact shortly after we got back a race car driver was murdered at a gas station not far from Disneyland. The suspect was known to frequent Anaheim. For this reason if we ever go back I will pony up and stay on property. We have stayed at the Grand Californian and Disneyland Hotel on previous trips but decided to stay off property to save money since we needed two rooms. Not again for us. Too many vagrants walking around for us to feel safe anymore. In fact one of the city bus drivers told us that they won’t even drop off on our corner sometimes because they don’t feel safe stopping.
Anyway. I hope California will get it together. Such a beautiful place but it’s a mess right now.

Glad you had a good trip. I stayed on that property a couple of times when it was still The Red Lion before it was bought out by BW. We always just walked over to the Toy Story buses to get to the parks. I did once stay at the King's Inn a little bit east on Katella and did the full walk to the parks. I found crossing over to the west side of Harbor felt safer than walking up the east side. The northeast corner of Harbor and Katella has that liquor store and bus stop which tends to attract the more shady crowds.

 

[mickeymatt]

Glad you had a good trip. I stayed on that property a couple of times when it was still The Red Lion before it was bought out by BW. We always just walked over to the Toy Story buses to get to the parks. I did once stay at the King's Inn a little bit east on Katella and did the full walk to the parks. I found crossing over to the west side of Harbor felt safer than walking up the east side. The northeast corner of Harbor and Katella has that liquor store and bus stop which tends to attract the more shady crowds.

Oh I wish I had known I could ride the toy story busses! That would have been nice. Yes we crossed over to the west side each time but it was on that corner where we had someone crazy get a little to close for comfort. Thanks!