Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[nickys]

HS is ranked a 6 today on touring Plans...............

So if I woke up at 6:55am,bought Genie+, got my first Genie+ for SDD return time of 5:30pm and then got to the park at 10:45am today (no reason to get there earlier) then I would have to wait in 45+ minute lines until my second Genie+ at TSMM at 4:30?

Cant wait until its busy..........

This system is terrible

And how is it easier than FP+ for planning? wake up early every day and then no rides available beyond my first selection?

Not true.

You would be able to book your second one at 11am. You then have a choice. Use it to pick up a few G+ in rapid succession for an hour and then jump in and book for a headliner a few hours ahead. After 2pm you could then book another if your first one is still 2 hrs away.

Or skip the rapid succession ones and simply book another headliner, and do the same at 1pm. As soon as you get on a G+ ride you book another. At any point if your next rpass is 2 hrs away you can book another one. Stack them for the evening. You could even take a pool break, or lunch somewhere and return to the park with a few lined up until park closing.

I’m not saying this is necessarily good. That it makes it worthwhile. But you don’t have to wait until you’ve used your first to book another.

 

[mikejs78]

I'm thinking that on the busy days, families will be much better off spending money on the ILL purchases than on Genie+. At least then you're guaranteed rides on one of the headliner attractions instead of paying $15 per person for maybe only one or two of the next tier down.

What I think they are going to do is create Tiers like FP+ had

If they dont and keep as is, they could institute resort only Genie+ selections at 7am and everyone else at park opening like ILL

The system is in its early days still, and reports have been very mixed so far. By the time I return to WDW, I'll have a much better sense of what I can and can't expect to get out of Genie+. I'm not terribly optimistic, truth be told, but it is what it is.

I'm convinced that LL allocation is low right now so they can work on getting the kinks out. I wouldn't be surprised if they raise the limits going into the holiday season and into the new year.

 

[Purduevian]

Concerns seem to be around DHS: at 1:15 everyone should be looking for FP 3 at a minimum. Selections include:
Alien @2:40
BatB @1:40
DJP&D @2:30
Frozen @2:05
MMRR @ 7:40 ($8 upcharge)
Muppet @ 1:20
RnRC @6:15
ST @1:25
TSMM @5:55PM
ToT @5:36 PM

So kind of grouping things into tiers
Tier S: SDD and Smugglers Gone
Tier A: ToT, TSMM, and RnRC are all 4-5ish hours out
Tier B: ST and Alien are both within an hour and a half
Tier C: All shows have next available

If it was my DHS day I would have taken MFSR@7am for whatever time available, ToT@11am for whatever time, and would now have grabbed a RnRC. It will be interesting to see what is still available around 3pm.

 

[UNCgolf]

I'm convinced that LL allocation is low right now so they can work on getting the kinks out. I wouldn't be surprised if they raise the limits going into the holiday season and into the new year.

It's a fine line for Disney to walk. They obviously want people to be able to get LLs or else people would stop paying for Genie+, but I'm sure they don't want people to be able to get one for every single ride every day -- not so much because of standby line issues (which I don't think they really care about for the most part), but because there's not much else for people to do if they aren't ever waiting in line for an attraction, especially at DHS. EPCOT at least has the World Showcase and DAK has the animal trails, and MK just has far more to do in general.

People aren't going to spend all day eating and shopping, especially since there's very little to shop for these days. It would turn into a bunch of people just sitting around waiting for their next LL time and jamming up all the common areas.

 

[mikejs78]

It's a fine line for Disney to walk. They obviously want people to be able to get LLs or else people would stop paying for Genie+, but I'm sure they don't want people to be able to get one for every single ride every day -- not so much because of standby line issues (which I don't think they really care about for the most part), but because there's not much else for people to do if they aren't ever waiting in line for an attraction, especially at DHS. EPCOT at least has the World Showcase and DAK has the animal trails, and MK just has far more to do in general.

People aren't going to spend all day eating and shopping, especially since there's very little to shop for these days. It would turn into a bunch of people just sitting around waiting for their next LL time and jamming up all the common areas.

That's all fine and good, but if everything's sold out after my first attraction it's not worth the money. I think they need to ensure that people get about three or four attractions in fairly easily in order to maintain that satisfaction level. So in DHS's case that would mean using standby for about half the attractions and using lightning lane for the other half.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

That's all fine and good, but if everything's sold out after my first attraction it's not worth the money. I think they need to ensure that people get about three or four attractions in fairly easily in order to maintain that satisfaction level. So in DHS's case that would mean using standby for about half the attractions and using lightning lane for the other half.

I still think every park but MK should only have 1 ILL selection since they've gone down this road of separating certain rides from the rest. MK is the only park with enough rides to accommodate 2 ILL options (and even at that, I personally wouldn't pay for either of the 2 options - maybe I'd pay for Tron when it opens). The other 3 are probably losing out on G+ sales from people who look at the list of available attractions and think it's not worth the $15 and it doesn't seem like the current situation is creating good word of mouth for the system.

 

[Jeff4272]

Not my fault you didn't rope drop. This system is setup for rope drop.

I think it will eventually get better. I think they are still trying to figure out the balance for how many LL to give out each hour. From everything I have heard LL waits are low for the most part. I think they need to up availability as well as up the LL to standby ratio. If they really want to make Genie+ better make the ratio 8:1.

Rope drop isnt that helpful at HS if you are not a resort guest

 

[UNCgolf]

That's all fine and good, but if everything's sold out after my first attraction it's not worth the money. I think they need to ensure that people get about three or four attractions in fairly easily in order to maintain that satisfaction level. So in DHS's case that would mean using standby for about half the attractions and using lightning lane for the other half.

Oh, I completely agree.

I meant they were probably still working to try to figure out the proper mix (as you suggested) to make Genie+ worth it without essentially turning it into a VQ system for every ride.

Eliminating ILLs and putting everything on Genie+ would be a nice step -- even cutting down to just one ILL instead of two per park would be helpful -- but they aren't going to do that.

 

[Jeff4272]

Not true.

You would be able to book your second one at 11am. You then have a choice. Use it to pick up a few G+ in rapid succession for an hour and then jump in and book for a headliner a few hours ahead. After 2pm you could then book another if your first one is still 2 hrs away.

Or skip the rapid succession ones and simply book another headliner, and do the same at 1pm. As soon as you get on a G+ ride you book another. At any point if your next rpass is 2 hrs away you can book another one. Stack them for the evening. You could even take a pool break, or lunch somewhere and return to the park with a few lined up until park closing.

I’m not saying this is necessarily good. That it makes it worthwhile. But you don’t have to wait until you’ve used your first to book another.

Yeah true......at 11am, the closest return time was TSMM at 4:30

 

[Jeff4272]

Seems to me that the best strategy for HS if you are not a resort guest that can rope drop is to Park Hop...........

There's no Genie+ selections available from 11am-4pm every day and the standby lines are the longest then

Book SDD at 7am for after 2pm then book your second Genie+ for 4pm+ and keep stacking from there.......I think with everyone clearing out later in the day you can get in as many rides as someone who goes at 11am while not waiting in lines as much

Can also pay for the 2 ILL's, pick later return times and you will have 5 rides booked before you ever show up at 2pm

Then take Skyliner and hop to Epcot at 9pm once HS closes for Harmonious

 

[Chi84]

The posts I recall reading here wouldn't appear to substantiate such a correlation. If anything, I would say that the hardcore all-day types were likelier than not to be fans of FP+.

The people who are posting here are not your typical WDW guest.

 

[spresso81]

Hello just to throw in my review of Disney Genie plus. We stayed a WDW from November 1st to 7th. Trip consisted of me, my wife, a 3YO, a 9 month old and two sets of grandparents (one pair never went to WDW before)

Pros:
- Genie Plus shines at the MK. We never waited standby (when it made sense) or Genie Plus for a ride more than 30 minutes and got on all the headlines except for JC. Standby times for many big rides were over 45 minutes so without Genie Plus we would have gotten on a lot less.
- I found the app to be pretty easy to use after a couple of ride reservations.
- HS is the only other park I think Genie Plus makes sense for. However, as many people have stated the lack of attractions really shows up as even by getting on the app around 7, I found myself facing going with an early TT and then getting a new ride time or SDD l;ate in the day and facing poor choices at 11 AM.
- Park hoping/resort relax time - I think if you plan a resort break/lunch the app will be nice so you can stack rides for later in the day.
- We had one rain out day so not having to be locked out of FP + and being able to just show up and do Genie Plus reservations for new park was nice.

Cons:
- Epcot and AK with current ride line-ups are a total waste for Genie Plus. Why pay $15 for maybe one decent LL?
- Technical Problems - While I was ok with the app itself, the background IT info twice on the trip did not recognize that one of my family members had the Genie Plus add on so we had to go to guest services a few times. They could have probably at least offered a free ride to make up for it but we did not push too hard.
- I did not love having to wake up early and fear missing the right booking.
- I preferred having FP + planned in advance rather than being on my phone a bunch. (Despite my last pro above)
- The 7 AM early booking for resort guests is really not a huge advantage and far less than the early booking window provided by FP +. I would say Disney should look to improve this but they do not seem to care very much about hotel guests anymore.


Conclusion - I think for MK and HS (we had a huge group so rope-drop and racing around park made a good strategy hard) Genie Plus is good but not a huge if any improvement over FP +. The paid ILL was nice for the big tickets if you are willing to pay which again is not for everyone (we did for ROR, MMR and FOP = win). Overall, I would do it again for MK and HS and not for AK or Epcot.

 

[wutisgood]

I think some of the people may not realize how much of a poor experience Disney world in particular has been for many years now for guests not in the know. These capacity issues are now a huge problem for the people on the boards because they used to be able to outplan most people with the fastpass system. Now day of scheduling with the new system has given a ton of people who sucked at planning or used to pay the same ticket prices for much less the ability to book late and pay additional to get ahead of the more frequent visitors. When you add in they took away the rope drop advantage it gets even more apparent that disney has read the data from frequent guests and systematically worked to decrease the value that group gets from a day in the parks.

Now you would think that people in the past would tell others their vacation wasn't worth the money as they couldn't get on major rides, but I think that people are basically too ashamed to admit they spent so much money to not get a lot of value or often go to disney as a social status thing more than an experience. In any case people can go to universal and not need to lie about the time they had.

Even Sea World seems to be packed AF because from people I have talked to they either can't get in or don't find another day worth it at disney. I don't know if they actually need to do a great job there as they are now cheaper with all day dining than a 1 day at disney. Sea world just needs to not spend 500 million of a single ride.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

People aren't going to spend all day eating and shopping, especially since there's very little to shop for these days. It would turn into a bunch of people just sitting around waiting for their next LL time and jamming up all the common areas.

Have to agree on this, while I enjoy eating and shopping around the parks, the limited amount of merchandise is kind of getting annoying. Each room in the Emporium is starting to look identical, I've spent a lot of time in the parks the past few weeks, and they just keep rearranging the shelves to add more of the same product because a) they can't keep anything in stock & b) very little options right now. I know there are global supply chain issues and am not blaming Disney solely, however, it seems that when they want to, they can get certain things in stock. I digress, this isn't really the thread for this and I can go on and on, but this comes from frustration from searching the parks for Winnie the Pooh merch for a family members christmas gift, and there is almost 0 Pooh stuff right now.

 

[matt9112]

Disney is still pumping billions in their parks.

What exactly is the amount of money these other parks are spending?

Whos fault is it that they get amazingly poor return on there money? They overpay like its no tommorow.

 

[matt9112]

Or just rope drop Slinky at opening…

The same thing you could do with fp....and with rotr...what one do you rope drop? Your points valid but it's also a misdirection. If you buy a 15 dollar service that advertises skipping lines....you expect to....oh i don't know? Skip lines. Everyones excuse is plan better....rope drop this...take advantage of x....wake up at this time....wait till this time....

It shouldn't be so complex. At the best its no less planning than the old system just instead of doing it months in advance your trying to do it on the same day your trying to enjoy your vacation.

 

[dirtnap101]

Random notes from this morning:

• Rise made it to 8:40am before selling out, and it seemed to progress very orderly while I was watching it - 7pm, 7:05, 7:10, 7:15, etc. I keep saying this, but maybe more capacity devoted to ILL?
• I can see the impact of more people using G+ in MK as well - JC was 2:10pm around 8am, and PP was 12:55. Those are much farther out than a month ago when G+ started

 

[Casper Gutman]

Random notes from this morning:

• Rise made it to 8:40am before selling out, and it seemed to progress very orderly while I was watching it - 7pm, 7:05, 7:10, 7:15, etc. I keep saying this, but maybe more capacity devoted to ILL?
• I can see the impact of more people using G+ in MK as well - JC was 2:10pm around 8am, and PP was 12:55. Those are much farther out than a month ago when G+ started

Just so I’m crystal clear, this means nobody staying off property has any shot at RotR LL?

 

[MagicHappens1971]

Just so I’m crystal clear, this means nobody staying off property has any shot at RotR LL?

That’s what I’ve been hearing

 

[dreday3]

Just so I’m crystal clear, this means nobody staying off property has any shot at RotR LL?

That’s what I’ve been hearing

Well, by default it's become an on-site resort perk at least...