My family visited WDW from August 12-18, 2023. (Despite what you're about to read, it was an absolutely beautiful week, and we had a truly wonderful time!) This was our first visit after the introduction of G+, and although I'd resolved ahead of time not to try it, the rest of the family felt otherwise, especially as we had ample gift card monies to burn.
So we gave it a shot, purchasing G+ for 1 day at HS and 2 days at MK. Here's a summary of our experiences, what we got out of it, and my morning-after feelings about the offering.
At MK, the best use of G+ seemed to be to make them for the earliest possible time at the next big attraction we planned to do, since the return times were typically 20 minutes or less into the future (or could be modified to closer times with a little refreshing). Using a pre-rope-drop arrival, G+, and the Tron VQ (but not purchasing any ILLs - we hit 7DMT at rope drop), we ended up doing almost every attraction at MK (we skipped the Barnstormer, Enchanted Tales, Tom Sawyer Island, Liberty Belle, Hall of Presidents, Aladdin's Magic Carpets, Dumbo, Teacups, the AstroOrbiter, and Swiss Family Treehouse -- and saved Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan for extra evening hours) in one day this way, with no standby or LL waits over 20 minutes.
It was annoying to be on my phone frequently, but I spent way less time overall using the one-at-a-time method at MK than I did on our HS day. At the same time, it was clear that in most cases, we were only saving a few minutes in line by using G+, especially if I credited the touringplans app wait time estimates rather than the much-higher WDW ones. And to be fair, with a good touring plan and rope drop arrival, we used to get just as much done in a day at MK, with no long waits, EVEN BEFORE G+. Disney has accomplished what all of us cynics knew it was going to do with G+: artificially create a "problem" (longer, slower-moving lines, because of G+), and then sell us the "solution" (G+) at a premium.
In contrast, for the day we purchased G+ for HS, I stacked G+ reservations like it was my job, because the attraction lineup is so much more limited, with some attractions "sold out" well before the day was through. We had parkhopper tickets, so we spent the first half of our day touring AK in standby, whilst making HS G+ reservations at 7am and then every 2 hours after HS opened. (Actually, I had to wait for over 3 hours post-opening, since when I was initially eligible for make our first G+ after park opening, none of the return times at GS except for Slinky (where I'd already made a G+ at 7am) were pushed beyond 2pm, so the system wouldn't "let" me make any G+ with my parkhopper ticket until after that happened.)
Once I could start making G+ reservations, I had to come back regularly to modify them and push them back to get the return windows we wanted, so we wouldn't be criss-crossing the park all evening. The plus side: we waltzed over to HS around 5pm, with G+ for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway (5pm) and Rock 'n' Rollercoaster (5pm), and then after our 6pm dinner at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, G+ for Slinky Dog Dash (7pm), Toy Story Midway Mania (7pm), and Millennium Falcon (8pm). (I could potentially have tried for Tower of Terror after that, but nobody wanted to do it.) That meant that when we returned to HS the next morning, only Rise of the Resistance, and the "anytime" attractions and shows, were left, and those were all easily accomplished in standby. Had we opted to skip Fantasmic! the night before (which in hindsight I wish we'd done), we could have done Rise at the end of the night then, and not even needed to be at HS at rope drop the next day. The minus side: I didn't get to enjoy being "in the moment" that day, with alarms on my phone reminding me to check/make/modify G+ every 2 hours, and frequently returning to look for better return windows in between. And of course, as with MK, we used to be able to do HS in 2/3 of a day before G+ came along, so all G+ did for us was to save us from the effects of itself.
As for my overall feelings about G+, I absolutely hated the idea that I was spending more money on top of our park tickets to do this. I felt like a sell-out and a sucker, and even worse, I felt like an entitled d*$%he-bag walking by the people waiting in standby lines whenever we used a lightning lane. Conversely, when we were the ones waiting in standby on all of the days when we didn't purchase G+, I found myself feeling resentful of those in the lightning lanes, and angry at Disney for treating the majority of its guests like second-class citizens. The feeling was clearly shared by other guests in standby, a few of whom I witnessed making sarcastic remarks, or rolling their eyes, at the CMs who had the unfortunate job of stopping and holding back thepoors standby line every time someone sauntered up through the lightning lane. Obviously, this is not any CM's fault: they should not have to tolerate rudeness from any guest, and I tried to give a smile and an encouraging word to those I saw in that position, but I am convinced that the guest attitudes I saw were symptomatic of (or at least being exacerbated by) the in-your-face caste system that Disney has created for queues, and expects its employees to maintain. Seriously, G+ just couldn't win with me -- I hated it when we had it, and I hated it when we didn't! 
If we were to visit again with G+ running the way it does now (which is not likely to happen, simply because our kids are on the threshold of college, which is going to occupy our incomes for the next few years -- maybe by then something will have changed!), I think we would opt to purchase it for MK and HS, but subtract 1-2 days from our multi-day tickets and a night from our hotel stay, to recoup the cost and account for the fact that we'd need less time in the parks to cover everything.
I used to enjoy using Fastpass and Fastpass+, and I loved our post-COVID visit when everything was standby-only (albeit with a VQ for RoTR). Those systems were simpler and more egalitarian, and I felt like they were tools to help me, rather than a sort of pyramid scheme designed to get me to endlessly increase my investment in a parks visit, first in terms of money, and then in terms of precious vacation time spent on my phone, without any guaranteed return.
Obviously, others will feel differently about how G+ performs -- I've read some positive reviews -- and hopefully most people will have less emotional baggage associated with buying and it, or with not having it, than I did. Still, at the end of the day:
So we gave it a shot, purchasing G+ for 1 day at HS and 2 days at MK. Here's a summary of our experiences, what we got out of it, and my morning-after feelings about the offering.
At MK, the best use of G+ seemed to be to make them for the earliest possible time at the next big attraction we planned to do, since the return times were typically 20 minutes or less into the future (or could be modified to closer times with a little refreshing). Using a pre-rope-drop arrival, G+, and the Tron VQ (but not purchasing any ILLs - we hit 7DMT at rope drop), we ended up doing almost every attraction at MK (we skipped the Barnstormer, Enchanted Tales, Tom Sawyer Island, Liberty Belle, Hall of Presidents, Aladdin's Magic Carpets, Dumbo, Teacups, the AstroOrbiter, and Swiss Family Treehouse -- and saved Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan for extra evening hours) in one day this way, with no standby or LL waits over 20 minutes.
It was annoying to be on my phone frequently, but I spent way less time overall using the one-at-a-time method at MK than I did on our HS day. At the same time, it was clear that in most cases, we were only saving a few minutes in line by using G+, especially if I credited the touringplans app wait time estimates rather than the much-higher WDW ones. And to be fair, with a good touring plan and rope drop arrival, we used to get just as much done in a day at MK, with no long waits, EVEN BEFORE G+. Disney has accomplished what all of us cynics knew it was going to do with G+: artificially create a "problem" (longer, slower-moving lines, because of G+), and then sell us the "solution" (G+) at a premium.
In contrast, for the day we purchased G+ for HS, I stacked G+ reservations like it was my job, because the attraction lineup is so much more limited, with some attractions "sold out" well before the day was through. We had parkhopper tickets, so we spent the first half of our day touring AK in standby, whilst making HS G+ reservations at 7am and then every 2 hours after HS opened. (Actually, I had to wait for over 3 hours post-opening, since when I was initially eligible for make our first G+ after park opening, none of the return times at GS except for Slinky (where I'd already made a G+ at 7am) were pushed beyond 2pm, so the system wouldn't "let" me make any G+ with my parkhopper ticket until after that happened.)
Once I could start making G+ reservations, I had to come back regularly to modify them and push them back to get the return windows we wanted, so we wouldn't be criss-crossing the park all evening. The plus side: we waltzed over to HS around 5pm, with G+ for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway (5pm) and Rock 'n' Rollercoaster (5pm), and then after our 6pm dinner at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, G+ for Slinky Dog Dash (7pm), Toy Story Midway Mania (7pm), and Millennium Falcon (8pm). (I could potentially have tried for Tower of Terror after that, but nobody wanted to do it.) That meant that when we returned to HS the next morning, only Rise of the Resistance, and the "anytime" attractions and shows, were left, and those were all easily accomplished in standby. Had we opted to skip Fantasmic! the night before (which in hindsight I wish we'd done), we could have done Rise at the end of the night then, and not even needed to be at HS at rope drop the next day. The minus side: I didn't get to enjoy being "in the moment" that day, with alarms on my phone reminding me to check/make/modify G+ every 2 hours, and frequently returning to look for better return windows in between. And of course, as with MK, we used to be able to do HS in 2/3 of a day before G+ came along, so all G+ did for us was to save us from the effects of itself.
As for my overall feelings about G+, I absolutely hated the idea that I was spending more money on top of our park tickets to do this. I felt like a sell-out and a sucker, and even worse, I felt like an entitled d*$%he-bag walking by the people waiting in standby lines whenever we used a lightning lane. Conversely, when we were the ones waiting in standby on all of the days when we didn't purchase G+, I found myself feeling resentful of those in the lightning lanes, and angry at Disney for treating the majority of its guests like second-class citizens. The feeling was clearly shared by other guests in standby, a few of whom I witnessed making sarcastic remarks, or rolling their eyes, at the CMs who had the unfortunate job of stopping and holding back the
If we were to visit again with G+ running the way it does now (which is not likely to happen, simply because our kids are on the threshold of college, which is going to occupy our incomes for the next few years -- maybe by then something will have changed!), I think we would opt to purchase it for MK and HS, but subtract 1-2 days from our multi-day tickets and a night from our hotel stay, to recoup the cost and account for the fact that we'd need less time in the parks to cover everything.
I used to enjoy using Fastpass and Fastpass+, and I loved our post-COVID visit when everything was standby-only (albeit with a VQ for RoTR). Those systems were simpler and more egalitarian, and I felt like they were tools to help me, rather than a sort of pyramid scheme designed to get me to endlessly increase my investment in a parks visit, first in terms of money, and then in terms of precious vacation time spent on my phone, without any guaranteed return.
Obviously, others will feel differently about how G+ performs -- I've read some positive reviews -- and hopefully most people will have less emotional baggage associated with buying and it, or with not having it, than I did. Still, at the end of the day:
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