Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[Purduevian]

I'm not doubting you... but I have no idea how you can do more rides per day with Genie+ than Express.

I know this is not for everyone, and I know people will complain that it is miserable... but spamming the refresh on G+ in a line, waiting for food, while someone is shopping, or someone else is in the restroom can really help. This was one of my days before the modify feature (which makes it easier now). 9LL, 6 standby, 1 nighttime show and 1VQ (1 LL was a show).

Rope drop Remy, then rode Figment, Soarin(LL), Nemo, Guardians (VQ), fiesta tour, Frozen (LL), Festival booth lunch, SSE (LL)
Hopped to AK around 2:30 for Safari (LL), FotLK(LL), Navi (LL), Everest x2 (single rider)
Hopped to DHS for MMRR (LL), RnRC (LL), ToT (LL)
Hopped back to EPCOT for some late night food booths and Harmonious.

A lot can still be done and this was before the modify feature

VS my USO day with express 16 express and 1 standby (Hagrid's)

At USO I had significantly less of a wait on Forbidden Journey (x3), Hippogriff, Hogwarts express, River adventure, Kong, Hulk, Spiderman, Cat in the hat, Seuss Trolley, Gringotts, Men in black, Simpsons, ET, and Despicable me. We also rode Hagrid's that day without the skip

To be fair I think we also ate a Mythos, did the wand experience and saw the Marti Gras parade that day, so really I would say 19 attractions and a sit down meal with express vs 17 attractions and no sit down meal on G+. So on my best days on each system, express gave me "more", but not a significant amount more.

I should also note that all of this was pre-baby. No way I can do either of these days with him now, just showing what is possible under "optimal" conditions with 2 adults and no kids.

 

[threvester]

Is there any new news on the pre-book coming back?

 

[DCBaker]

Genie+ at Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and the Multiple Parks option have sold out.

 

[JohnD]

Genie+ at Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and the Multiple Parks option have sold out.

View attachment 775091

Wow. Before park open. If you want to purchase G+ for that day, my rule of thumb is to always purchase before 7am. Granted, if staying off site, ILL is at park open. But you can always choose your first G+ at 7am and need to do VQ at 7am. The lesson is: Don't wait.

 

[arich35]

Wow. Before park open. If you want to purchase G+ for that day, my rule of thumb is to always purchase before 7am. Granted, if staying off site, ILL is at park open. But you can always choose your first G+ at 7am and need to do VQ at 7am. The lesson is: Don't wait.

I have clients down there and I have been buying it for them the night before just to be safe, no reason to wait and forget and get screwed

 

[JohnD]

I have clients down there and I have been buying it for them the night before just to be safe, no reason to wait and forget and get screwed

"Night before" still means after midnight. Two weeks ago after a long day at HS, we didn't get to sleep until after midnight. Before we went to sleep and since it was already after midnight, we used the opportunity to purchase G+ in HS for "today."

 

[Purduevian]

I have clients down there and I have been buying it for them the night before just to be safe, no reason to wait and forget and get screwed

No Reason to wait if you are already awake or have someone not on the trip, but asking guests to stay up to 12:01am and then be back on their phones at 6:59am to make the first LL every day of their trip would be a little insane.

 

[networkpro]

View attachment 774907

I think this tune is apropos in more ways than one :

B.o.B – Bend Over​

 

[JohnD]

No Reason to wait if you are already awake or have someone not on the trip, but asking guests to stay up to 12:01am and then be back on their phones at 6:59am to make the first LL every day of their trip would be a little insane.

I definitely wouldn't ask that of anyone. It occurred during my trip because circumstances kept us up past midnight after our HS day. As we were already awake we purchased G+ for Epcot after midnight and before we went to sleep. I would still recommend waking up at 6:30, do the pre- and at-7am routine then go back to sleep if that is what you want to do.

 

[wedenterprises]

It's not even the cost for me, it's the complicated stress of it all...plus the 7am stuff, the virtual queue "race"...everything.
Explaining the system to a newbie brings about laughter within the first few seconds.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

It's not even the cost for me, it's the complicated stress of it all...plus the 7am stuff, the virtual queue "race"...everything.
Explaining the system to a newbie brings about laughter within the first few seconds.

For me it's paying obscene amounts of money and getting less than what we used to get for free. It'd be one thing to charge and then at least be on par with FP+.

 

[allgiggles]

You are correct. Time IS money.

We paid extra to stay at Royal Pacific at Universal and walked onto every ride we wanted (except for one) any time and every time we wanted. Phones stayed in our bag for the most part. It was splendid and a welcome change. Keep doing your Disney Math for justification. They encourage that.

We have no desire to do a trip to Universal so your little analogy is wasted on us. Four of our five kids have been there for a day or two and said that was more than enough for them and they have no desire to go back (and one of them regrets cutting 2 days off of their Disney trip to go there). I've never had any desire to step foot in those parks and my kids experiences just confirmed what I already knew: it's not a park I'm interested in going to. So we'll continue to spend our money buying G+/ILL at Disney to skip the lines. I can use Disney Math (and believe me, I'm very aware that it's Disney Math...I'm good with numbers) to justify whatever I want to -- it's my money to spend how I wish. I don't need anyone's permission to spend my money or *not* spend my money. And you can go ahead and continue to use your Universal math to justify your choices. We all get to decide how to spend our money. Oh, and I wasn't on my phone all day using Genie+. I'd schedule something; set an alarm on my phone for 5 minutes before our next schedule time; put the phone away. I'd use my phone for maybe 5-7 minutes every few hours. I didn't walk around constantly looking at my phone -- it spent the vast majority of the day in my pocket. We just scheduled our next ride and went off to do standby lines until our next LL came up. We aren't the type of people who have to constantly be trying to get something "better" so we weren't constantly trying to modify our existing reservations. Our plan worked great and we got on everything we wanted to and more and had nice long breaks every afternoon. People *not* using G+ use their phones more than I did with G+.

 

[Jrb1979]

We have no desire to do a trip to Universal so your little analogy is wasted on us. Four of our five kids have been there for a day or two and said that was more than enough for them and they have no desire to go back (and one of them regrets cutting 2 days off of their Disney trip to go there). I've never had any desire to step foot in those parks and my kids experiences just confirmed what I already knew: it's not a park I'm interested in going to. So we'll continue to spend our money buying G+/ILL at Disney to skip the lines. I can use Disney Math (and believe me, I'm very aware that it's Disney Math...I'm good with numbers) to justify whatever I want to -- it's my money to spend how I wish. I don't need anyone's permission to spend my money or *not* spend my money. And you can go ahead and continue to use your Universal math to justify your choices. We all get to decide how to spend our money. Oh, and I wasn't on my phone all day using Genie+. I'd schedule something; set an alarm on my phone for 5 minutes before our next schedule time; put the phone away. I'd use my phone for maybe 5-7 minutes every few hours. I didn't walk around constantly looking at my phone -- it spent the vast majority of the day in my pocket. We just scheduled our next ride and went off to do standby lines until our next LL came up. We aren't the type of people who have to constantly be trying to get something "better" so we weren't constantly trying to modify our existing reservations. Our plan worked great and we got on everything we wanted to and more and had nice long breaks every afternoon. People *not* using G+ use their phones more than I did with G+.

You not into thrills and coasters?

 

[allgiggles]

You not into thrills and coasters?

I used to LOVE roller coasters (and some thrill rides)!!! We would go to a few different amusement parks every year just to ride the roller coasters. But as I've gotten older, my body doesn't tolerate them very well. I can do something like 7DMT, but Slinky Dog Dash was a once and done for me and thankfully I rode it just before we were leaving the park because I didn't feel well for the next hour or so. I finally gave up on BTMRR and Space Mtn. on our trip in 2022. And I haven't ridden any coasters at other parks in probably 10 years. It kills me not to be able to ride them anymore but it's not worth feeling sick for a few hours just to ride one particular ride. And motion sickness meds either don't work for me (the non-drowsy ones) or make me too drowsy to enjoy anything else. I also tried the pressure point wrist bands. No luck. <sigh>

 

[surfsupdon]

We have no desire to do a trip to Universal so your little analogy is wasted on us. Four of our five kids have been there for a day or two and said that was more than enough for them and they have no desire to go back (and one of them regrets cutting 2 days off of their Disney trip to go there). I've never had any desire to step foot in those parks and my kids experiences just confirmed what I already knew: it's not a park I'm interested in going to. So we'll continue to spend our money buying G+/ILL at Disney to skip the lines. I can use Disney Math (and believe me, I'm very aware that it's Disney Math...I'm good with numbers) to justify whatever I want to -- it's my money to spend how I wish. I don't need anyone's permission to spend my money or *not* spend my money. And you can go ahead and continue to use your Universal math to justify your choices. We all get to decide how to spend our money. Oh, and I wasn't on my phone all day using Genie+. I'd schedule something; set an alarm on my phone for 5 minutes before our next schedule time; put the phone away. I'd use my phone for maybe 5-7 minutes every few hours. I didn't walk around constantly looking at my phone -- it spent the vast majority of the day in my pocket. We just scheduled our next ride and went off to do standby lines until our next LL came up. We aren't the type of people who have to constantly be trying to get something "better" so we weren't constantly trying to modify our existing reservations. Our plan worked great and we got on everything we wanted to and more and had nice long breaks every afternoon. People *not* using G+ use their phones more than I did with G+.

I am truly happy your trip was great. I apologize that my post illicited strong emotions from you as I never intended to offend. I love a Disney vacation as much as the next- my post implied that as far as line skipping goes, Universal does it better. And I still runDisney on the regular.

I still visit Disney fairly regularly, but I am there solely to run their races and visit Parks with a gifted free ticket. As such, I purchase Genie+ and, for my tastes, it is always so annoying.

But I am still a huge proponent of Resort stays, dining, recreation, water parks, and runDisney. All the stuff outside of the Genie+ bubble.

Thank you for your response

 

[DCBaker]

Disney's Hollywood Studios and the Multiple Parks option for Genie+ are no longer available for new purchase today.

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

Checked at 8:02 for the heck of it and Multiple & DHS are sold out for the day. DHS opens at 9am.

 

[allgiggles]

I am truly happy your trip was great. I apologize that my post illicited strong emotions from you as I never intended to offend. I love a Disney vacation as much as the next- my post implied that as far as line skipping goes, Universal does it better. And I still runDisney on the regular.

I still visit Disney fairly regularly, but I am there solely to run their races and visit Parks with a gifted free ticket. As such, I purchase Genie+ and, for my tastes, it is always so annoying.

But I am still a huge proponent of Resort stays, dining, recreation, water parks, and runDisney. All the stuff outside of the Genie+ bubble.

Thank you for your response

No worries. I should have waited to respond to your post so that I had more time to think about how to say what I wanted to say (I was getting ready to run out the door to a meeting that I knew would be stressful and would last a few hours. Not a good time to respond to a post on a message board. ). And my vent wasn't (or at least shouldn't have appeared to be) directed at you personally. I just get frustrated when people (again, not directed at you personally -- broad generalization) are constantly saying something along the lines of "Go to Universal. It's so much better. They have a better "skip-the-line" feature/option and better hotels, food, whatever." (Major paraphrase there) There are many of us who have no desire to go to Universal. It's not so much that we (general "we", not just my family) feel that Disney is far superior and no other park can compare. It's that Universal doesn't appeal to us for various reasons. For me personally (as I mentioned in a previous post), I can't really do thrill rides and roller coasters anymore, and while I know Universal has more than just those things, looking at their website, I don't think there are enough other things there to make it worth the price of admission for me (I'm also not a Harry Potter fan so that's not a draw for me either). No big deal -- there are a lot of other amusement parks I won't go to anymore due to there not being enough things there for me to do. So to me, there really isn't a comparison between the two parks and their corresponding skip-the-line programs since Universal isn't an option for me. The "go to Universal instead" comments have gotten to be a common comment from people who do not like G+ (and it's ok not to like it. I understand and agree with many of the comments, but I still managed to have great success with it. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. I felt the previous $15/day was a fair price, but free was better.). To me, it's like saying, "The seafood at this restaurant is fabulous, it's so much better than the steak at that restaurant. And the seafood entrees are less expensive and a much nicer presentation and atmosphere than that restaurant. You need to have the seafood at this restaurant!" Well, if someone doesn't like seafood, there's no desire or point in going to that seafood restaurant no matter how inexpensive it is or how lovely the food presentation is.

I'm glad there are plenty of options when it comes to amusement/theme parks and we can all do what best suits our family financially and logistically. I don't begrudge people going to Universal. I'm sure if I was 20 years younger and still able to do all the coasters and thrill rides, I'd be headed there as well and taking advantage of their skip-the-line options.

 

[DCBaker]

Magic Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios and the Multiple Parks option for Genie+ have sold out for the day. Magic Kingdom/Multiple Parks sold out around 8:30am.

 

[Basil of Baker Street]

I was there last week. It was fairly busy but not unmanageable. We purchased G+ for MK and I got my moneys worth. We rode pretty everything but JC and the spinners.

As far as the other parks, we would just go later in the evening and get everything done. We did smugglers as a single rider walk on and Rise was about a 30 minute wait before close. We took advantage of Test Track and Everest's SR lines as well riding multiple times. Flight of Passage was a 48 min wait before close the night we did it. Epcot waits weren't bad either. If you don't have little ones and and stay out a little late, save your money.