allgiggles
Well-Known Member
This is exactly how I look at it. Time is money. On our trip in June 2022 (our first with G+/ILL), the amount we spent on G+/ILL (for 4 adults) was a little less than 7% of the total cost of our trip (including travel and souvenirs) and we felt it was well worth the cost for us. Our previous trip was in 2018 and we had 3 trips cancelled due to Covid. We had a lot of new stuff to see on the 2022 trip. We knew that we would probably have to skip a few "classics" in order to have time to do all of the new stuff a well as our "must do" rides. We were there for 8 days and thanks to G+/ILL, we had more time to relax in our room or at the pool than we've ever had before. We were a party of 11 including a 5 month old baby on that trip -- we moved slowly. And despite the parks being pretty crowded (compared to all of the other times we've been there the same week), we not only got to do all of the new things, but we hit all of our must do's *and* classics...many of them twice. I know a lot of people don't like the constant nickel & diming (I don't either), but I prefer to go to Disney less often and take advantage of G+/ILL to make our trips more efficient. I've had people tell me that (as an example) 7DMT isn't worth a $10 ILL (or whatever it happens to cost that day) -- you can ride it with a relatively short wait at rope drop. I agree. 7DMT isn't worth $10. However, buying an ILL for $10 so I can ride 3 other rides in that 30 minutes of EE time and then ride 7DMT later in the day with a 5 minute wait is totally worth $10 to me. I don't *want* G+ to cost $50, but if/when it hits that price point, I still would probably buy it at least one day at each park. We're heading back to Disney in a few months and I know G+ won't be $15/day (which we were able to purchase for the length of stay prior to arrival in 2018) like our last trip, but I will still buy it probably every day (I'm assuming it will be $30-35 or less per day while we're there).I'm still not sure what my price limit is for G+... but I actually I know I'm not there yet.
Currently my family is just my wife, my <3 year old son, and myself.
My last Disney trip... for 2 park days I spent $417.11 a day on tickets (park hoppers), $315.85 per night at the Swan, $75 per day on photo pass, and averaged $131.40 a day on food and drink. So for 2 people (son was "free"), I'm spending $939.36 to enjoy a day in the park ($447.25 on non-park days). This doesn't even include the plane tickets or transportation to WDW from MCO. My son gets up early allowing us to make an 8:30am rope drop, but we have to leave the parks by 7:30pm to get him to bed. Meaning I have ~11 hours of park time a day. Every hour I am in the park, it costs my family ~$85.40 or $1.42 a minute.
Waiting in line is "wasted" time in my day. In order to be worth it to me is the cost of G+ it must save my family: The cost of G+/$1.42 to be "worth it".
If Genie plus is $40 per person (total of 80), 80/1.42= 56 minutes saved... A single LL for many of the big name rides can easily save 56 minutes, I usually get at least 2-3 "big" rides a day.
As awful as it sounds... $40 per person is only ~8.5% increase on the price of my park day... If 8.5% less of my day is spent in lines...
I wish this wasn't the system we had... but this system is still worth it for me.