Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World

[mikejs78]

- Resort guests can purchase at 9PM the night before and select one attraction at any time slot

9 PM would be worse than 7 AM IMO. That's fireworks time. I don't want to be trying to grab an early morning Slinky at 9 PM while I'm watching Harmonious. Or if I'm in queue in an attraction that doesn't have signal...

Why not just allow first selection for resort guests only on arrival day (or a week before arrival day) for length of stay? That would spread out the demand and make it so there's no mad dash at whatever time every day.

Alternatively, I'd just rather keep the 7 AM as awful as it is than having 9 PM the night before... Otherwise I agree with you.

What happens to ILLs in your scenario?

 

[JD80]

I've just returned from a 4 park day trip, first time staying on property since 2019, where I've used Genie+ for the first time The trip was between July 14-18th with just my Wife and I. A day after the vacation I came to this conclusion:

Disney Genie+ ruined my vacation and I don't think I could ever could do Walt Disney World without it.

Some context of me: I'm an uber planner, spreadsheets and all, loved the old FP+ 60 days and ADR 180 days. I liked setting up a Disney vacation so I made as little decisions each day as possible while remaining flexible. I've got a Disney podcast I've been doing for over 2 years (with @TheMaxRebo) so my Disney fandom is up there.

So how did Genie+ ruin my vacation? Well I compare giving someone like me Genie+ like taking someone with a gambling addiction and putting them in a casino. Throughout my four days on property, I could not stop thinking about the timing, the planning and the scenarios to have the best outcome. I was constantly striving to collect as many Lightning Lanes (LLs) as possible each day to maximize my investment. The minute by minute, hour by hour planning that I was doing basically never allowed me to relax and enjoy my vacation. My brain just wouldn't shut off. It started the moment I woke up and did not stop until we left the parks. I hated it.

If you asked my wife, it was the best vacation ever and we only waiting on line longer than 20-30 minutes a handful of times. We got a lot done and G+ allowed me to do that.

So why does Genie+ provide a worse user experience than Fastpass+? It's in the flexibility and pre-planning aspect. With Fastpass+, the "stress" of waking up and getting the ones you wanted was 60 days prior to your trip. Selecting your 4th, 5th, 6th... fastpass was stress free. You could easily select times, change or update your selections without losing existing selections. You did have to worry or set alarms with the 2 hour rule. You did not have to worry about finding the right time, or losing time because a selection was too far out in advance of your plans.

Fastpass+ kept your decision making DURING your vacation at a minimum. Genie+ forces you to do Disney Planning on the fly starting at 6:59am. In previous years, doing all my FP+ and ADRs 180 and 60 days in advance at least took a lot of the decision making out of my day-to-day while on vacation so I could relax. The other issue with G+ is that if you are returning to the parks later in the day, you have to hover over your phone so that you can monitor return times for later in the day so you don't miss them. Because often there was a large between 3pm selections and 6pm selections. If you missed the 5-6pm window, often you'll be out of luck with lightning lane selections for later in the day.

The complaints and issues with G+ aren't new, as they've been voices by thousands of people already. My contribution to it's failure is the mindspace it takes up.

Inherently this is a me problem and not a G+ problem, but G+ is creating an environment where it enables this type of behavior.

If you want some data, here are my notes from the four days, scroll through at your own peril. I don't typically take notes (lol), but I did it for the sake of doing a "Trip Report" show on my podcast. If you want to watch part 1 audio or video feel free to shoot me a message for the link (I assume posting your own content here is frowned upon).

I feel like a madman typing the rest.

Spoiler

With the way things are set up with Genie+ you can either:

• Restrict your selections to every 2 hours and pray to the gods that you get decent return times. This will minimize your total overall LL selections (6 or 7) just based on how many hours there are in a day if you are getting them every 2 hours and selections are still available late into the day.
• Decide to pick the earliest possible return times so that you can both re-book your next LL early as possible and get off track of everyone else doing the park open + 2 hr selection timing.

But the best way to utilize G+ is to use both strategies based on your overall itinerary for the day - are you going back the resort/leaving the parks for a good amount of time. Are you sitting down for a meal? Are you utilizing Genie+ grace periods before and after your window to get on early or use an older LL reservation? Here's an outline of what I did with details to follow:

Thursday - Land MCO after 8AM, Resort > HS > MK
Friday - AK > Sanaa > Resort > HS > Epcot > MK
Saturday - Epcot - Resort - Epcot
Sunday - MK - Monorail Tour (Contemporary Lunch, Trader Sams, Grand Flo) - MK

Overall Notes:

• G+ is worthless at Epcot unless you want to secure Remy - you can also use it to skip a 5-10 minute line on some of the older rides (Soarin, Living with the Land, Imagination, Mission Space etc.)
• It's worthwhile at AK because it gets you out of the park in a few hours and allows you to do other things if you wish. Or do rides over and over throughout the day if you want to stay.
• You save a lot of time at Hollywood studios if you can manage to ropedrop Slinky and snag ToT early and Falcon late.
• At Magic Kingdom it's a wonderful tool. Especially if you have kids (we have three and I've already gotten it for our December trip) because you're never waiting long for anything.

You can see the times I interact with G+, but I'm constantly checking times throughout the day relentlessly.

Thursday (9 LL many others lost due to weather)
7AM - Rise ILL at 315 // SDD for 5:15pm
8:30AM Change SDD to TOT for 12
9:30AM get to room
10:00 AM arrive at HS
10:30AM Mmrr booked for 1pm
Star tours walkon standby
Slinky standby 70m wait
12:30 Midway mania booked for 3pm
12:30 TOT
Lunch
Booked minetrain for 820
2:00pm MMRR
2:30pm Big thunder booked for 520pm
3:00 Midway mania
3:30 Rise
4:04 Leave park
4:20 back to hotel in room
4:30 HM booked for 650
520 caught bus to mk
535 Bus arrive at MK
5:55 Big Thunder closed due to lightning... free LL
6:25 dinner at Skippers Canteen
RAIN!!!!!!
THUNDER!!!!!!
HAIL!!!!!!!
ALL Lightning Lanes are Canceled!! (I had 5 free anytimes for the day at this point)
820 booked Mermaid
830 Used mermaid
838 booked space for 945pm (left the park before we could use it)

Friday (9 LL used)
7am - ILL FOR FOP AND LL FOR NAVI RIVER FOR 9AM
737 - ILL FOR COSMIC REWIND FOR 435
7:30 - Arrive at AK
800 EE #1
810 EE #2
822 EE #3
832 EE #4
910 navi
910 LL for safari at 1035
940 fop
1010 kali standby 25m wait
1050 marahaja jungle trail
1120 safari
1120 book ll for mmrr at 320
1210 bus for akl
1230 sanaa
130 to dhs ... resort first
320 back from pool heading to dhs
339 mmrr
340 booked soarin for 420
417 skyliner to epcot
440 Epcot arrival
510 Cosmic rewind (September)
547 Soarin
540 booked LL for SSE FOR SAME TIME
612 Soarin done heading to SSE
625 SSE
630 booked speedway for 740
740 speedway
740 ll for Dumbo for 740
800 Dumbo down change to small world for 800
816 harbor house pickup
846 small world
846 booked pirates LL for now
918 pirates
930 standby splash!! Long wait
1007 splash complete
Heading home

Saturday (only 3 LL)
700 ll for remy at 940
700 no Virtual Queue, ILL for Cosmic at 1130
748 epcot skyliner
757 off of skyliner
758 tap in to EPCOT
805 rope drop remy walkon
815 remy over
830 frozen standby walkon
838 frozen done
848 test track standby 45m wait posted
900 space 220 booked (what a waste of money by the way)
937 test track done
943 grand Fiesta tour walkon
1023 remy ll used
1024 get frozen ll for 130
1039 remy done
1045 crepes
1140 guardians ILL used
1202 guardians done "one way by blonde"
100 exit space 220
100 VQ for 730
120 frozen ll used
135 frozen done back to resort
220 back to resort
700 arrived epcot
700 - 900pm - ate and drank alot, Harmonius

NOTE: G+ not worth it at all except to make sure we got on Remy.

Sunday (8 LL booked with 5 hours out of park)
Anytime minetrain (Our ILL was transferred to today due to weather on Thursday)
700 jungle cruise booked for 915
752 on bus to mk
834 Peterpan rope drop get on line
859 off of pan
910 cruise LL used
912 booked splash for 1210 (I got screwed on the time, I thought it was for 1015AM)
925 cruise over
930 main st for food
950 food outside Casey's
1007 people mover
1022 cop closed
1030 dumbo standby
1040 barnstormer standby
1048 mermaid standby
1130 country bear standby
1150 festival of Fantasy
1225 line for splash
1225
112 try to stack for after 5 ... no choices yet
105 off splash... got stuck on drop b4 laughing place
105 heading to Steak House 71
130 SH71
145 book space LL for 5pm
330 poly
3:45 book thunder for 650
500 trader sams
540 grand flo
545 LL for pooh
606 space
624 cop
703 thunder
720 minetrain
729 off minetrain
732 booked pan for 1010
735 pooh
745 off of pooh
756 lined up treats and seats
Fireworks
933 book pirates for same time
957 pirates
957 used pirates booked hm
1027 hm
1043 hm dome
Time to go

 

[Disney Glimpses]

I've just returned from a 4 park day trip, first time staying on property since 2019, where I've used Genie+ for the first time The trip was between July 14-18th with just my Wife and I. A day after the vacation I came to this conclusion:

Disney Genie+ ruined my vacation and I don't think I could ever could do Walt Disney World without it.

Some context of me: I'm an uber planner, spreadsheets and all, loved the old FP+ 60 days and ADR 180 days. I liked setting up a Disney vacation so I made as little decisions each day as possible while remaining flexible. I've got a Disney podcast I've been doing for over 2 years (with @TheMaxRebo) so my Disney fandom is up there.

So how did Genie+ ruin my vacation? Well I compare giving someone like me Genie+ like taking someone with a gambling addiction and putting them in a casino. Throughout my four days on property, I could not stop thinking about the timing, the planning and the scenarios to have the best outcome. I was constantly striving to collect as many Lightning Lanes (LLs) as possible each day to maximize my investment. The minute by minute, hour by hour planning that I was doing basically never allowed me to relax and enjoy my vacation. My brain just wouldn't shut off. It started the moment I woke up and did not stop until we left the parks. I hated it.

If you asked my wife, it was the best vacation ever and we only waiting on line longer than 20-30 minutes a handful of times. We got a lot done and G+ allowed me to do that.

So why does Genie+ provide a worse user experience than Fastpass+? It's in the flexibility and pre-planning aspect. With Fastpass+, the "stress" of waking up and getting the ones you wanted was 60 days prior to your trip. Selecting your 4th, 5th, 6th... fastpass was stress free. You could easily select times, change or update your selections without losing existing selections. You did have to worry or set alarms with the 2 hour rule. You did not have to worry about finding the right time, or losing time because a selection was too far out in advance of your plans.

Fastpass+ kept your decision making DURING your vacation at a minimum. Genie+ forces you to do Disney Planning on the fly starting at 6:59am. In previous years, doing all my FP+ and ADRs 180 and 60 days in advance at least took a lot of the decision making out of my day-to-day while on vacation so I could relax. The other issue with G+ is that if you are returning to the parks later in the day, you have to hover over your phone so that you can monitor return times for later in the day so you don't miss them. Because often there was a large between 3pm selections and 6pm selections. If you missed the 5-6pm window, often you'll be out of luck with lightning lane selections for later in the day.

The complaints and issues with G+ aren't new, as they've been voices by thousands of people already. My contribution to it's failure is the mindspace it takes up.

Inherently this is a me problem and not a G+ problem, but G+ is creating an environment where it enables this type of behavior.

If you want some data, here are my notes from the four days, scroll through at your own peril. I don't typically take notes (lol), but I did it for the sake of doing a "Trip Report" show on my podcast. If you want to watch part 1 audio or video feel free to shoot me a message for the link (I assume posting your own content here is frowned upon).

I feel like a madman typing the rest.

Spoiler

With the way things are set up with Genie+ you can either:

• Restrict your selections to every 2 hours and pray to the gods that you get decent return times. This will minimize your total overall LL selections (6 or 7) just based on how many hours there are in a day if you are getting them every 2 hours and selections are still available late into the day.
• Decide to pick the earliest possible return times so that you can both re-book your next LL early as possible and get off track of everyone else doing the park open + 2 hr selection timing.

But the best way to utilize G+ is to use both strategies based on your overall itinerary for the day - are you going back the resort/leaving the parks for a good amount of time. Are you sitting down for a meal? Are you utilizing Genie+ grace periods before and after your window to get on early or use an older LL reservation? Here's an outline of what I did with details to follow:

Thursday - Land MCO after 8AM, Resort > HS > MK
Friday - AK > Sanaa > Resort > HS > Epcot > MK
Saturday - Epcot - Resort - Epcot
Sunday - MK - Monorail Tour (Contemporary Lunch, Trader Sams, Grand Flo) - MK

Overall Notes:

• G+ is worthless at Epcot unless you want to secure Remy - you can also use it to skip a 5-10 minute line on some of the older rides (Soarin, Living with the Land, Imagination, Mission Space etc.)
• It's worthwhile at AK because it gets you out of the park in a few hours and allows you to do other things if you wish. Or do rides over and over throughout the day if you want to stay.
• You save a lot of time at Hollywood studios if you can manage to ropedrop Slinky and snag ToT early and Falcon late.
• At Magic Kingdom it's a wonderful tool. Especially if you have kids (we have three and I've already gotten it for our December trip) because you're never waiting long for anything.

You can see the times I interact with G+, but I'm constantly checking times throughout the day relentlessly.

Thursday (9 LL many others lost due to weather)
7AM - Rise ILL at 315 // SDD for 5:15pm
8:30AM Change SDD to TOT for 12
9:30AM get to room
10:00 AM arrive at HS
10:30AM Mmrr booked for 1pm
Star tours walkon standby
Slinky standby 70m wait
12:30 Midway mania booked for 3pm
12:30 TOT
Lunch
Booked minetrain for 820
2:00pm MMRR
2:30pm Big thunder booked for 520pm
3:00 Midway mania
3:30 Rise
4:04 Leave park
4:20 back to hotel in room
4:30 HM booked for 650
520 caught bus to mk
535 Bus arrive at MK
5:55 Big Thunder closed due to lightning... free LL
6:25 dinner at Skippers Canteen
RAIN!!!!!!
THUNDER!!!!!!
HAIL!!!!!!!
ALL Lightning Lanes are Canceled!! (I had 5 free anytimes for the day at this point)
820 booked Mermaid
830 Used mermaid
838 booked space for 945pm (left the park before we could use it)

Friday (9 LL used)
7am - ILL FOR FOP AND LL FOR NAVI RIVER FOR 9AM
737 - ILL FOR COSMIC REWIND FOR 435
7:30 - Arrive at AK
800 EE #1
810 EE #2
822 EE #3
832 EE #4
910 navi
910 LL for safari at 1035
940 fop
1010 kali standby 25m wait
1050 marahaja jungle trail
1120 safari
1120 book ll for mmrr at 320
1210 bus for akl
1230 sanaa
130 to dhs ... resort first
320 back from pool heading to dhs
339 mmrr
340 booked soarin for 420
417 skyliner to epcot
440 Epcot arrival
510 Cosmic rewind (September)
547 Soarin
540 booked LL for SSE FOR SAME TIME
612 Soarin done heading to SSE
625 SSE
630 booked speedway for 740
740 speedway
740 ll for Dumbo for 740
800 Dumbo down change to small world for 800
816 harbor house pickup
846 small world
846 booked pirates LL for now
918 pirates
930 standby splash!! Long wait
1007 splash complete
Heading home

Saturday (only 3 LL)
700 ll for remy at 940
700 no Virtual Queue, ILL for Cosmic at 1130
748 epcot skyliner
757 off of skyliner
758 tap in to EPCOT
805 rope drop remy walkon
815 remy over
830 frozen standby walkon
838 frozen done
848 test track standby 45m wait posted
900 space 220 booked (what a waste of money by the way)
937 test track done
943 grand Fiesta tour walkon
1023 remy ll used
1024 get frozen ll for 130
1039 remy done
1045 crepes
1140 guardians ILL used
1202 guardians done "one way by blonde"
100 exit space 220
100 VQ for 730
120 frozen ll used
135 frozen done back to resort
220 back to resort
700 arrived epcot
700 - 900pm - ate and drank alot, Harmonius

NOTE: G+ not worth it at all except to make sure we got on Remy.

Sunday (8 LL booked with 5 hours out of park)
Anytime minetrain (Our ILL was transferred to today due to weather on Thursday)
700 jungle cruise booked for 915
752 on bus to mk
834 Peterpan rope drop get on line
859 off of pan
910 cruise LL used
912 booked splash for 1210 (I got screwed on the time, I thought it was for 1015AM)
925 cruise over
930 main st for food
950 food outside Casey's
1007 people mover
1022 cop closed
1030 dumbo standby
1040 barnstormer standby
1048 mermaid standby
1130 country bear standby
1150 festival of Fantasy
1225 line for splash
1225
112 try to stack for after 5 ... no choices yet
105 off splash... got stuck on drop b4 laughing place
105 heading to Steak House 71
130 SH71
145 book space LL for 5pm
330 poly
3:45 book thunder for 650
500 trader sams
540 grand flo
545 LL for pooh
606 space
624 cop
703 thunder
720 minetrain
729 off minetrain
732 booked pan for 1010
735 pooh
745 off of pooh
756 lined up treats and seats
Fireworks
933 book pirates for same time
957 pirates
957 used pirates booked hm
1027 hm
1043 hm dome
Time to go

Thanks for sharing. I have had a lot of success with Genie+ but it came with way, way, way too much work. I think that's the gist of the issue?

 

[HoustonHorn]

So how did Genie+ ruin my vacation? Well I compare giving someone like me Genie+ like taking someone with a gambling addiction and putting them in a casino. Throughout my four days on property, I could not stop thinking about the timing, the planning and the scenarios to have the best outcome. I was constantly striving to collect as many Lightning Lanes (LLs) as possible each day to maximize my investment. The minute by minute, hour by hour planning that I was doing basically never allowed me to relax and enjoy my vacation. My brain just wouldn't shut off. It started the moment I woke up and did not stop until we left the parks. I hated it.

This is really well said. After my trip last Thanksgiving, where it was me, my 7 yo and my 69 yo parents (which meant me and 3 children), I was absolutely spent. The three of them had an amazing time, and while I did as well, I was constantly stressed out. My dad told me several times that he wishes I could relax, which was nice. But I knew that was likely going to be his and mom's last trip, and there was so much I wanted to make sure we got to do because it's such a special place for us, and we only had 3.5 days to do it, and their stamina is really poor, so I was going to maximize our trip come hell or high water.

The fact that I was relieved the day that the three of them left MGM at 4, which let me have 6 park hours all to myself, is so....wrong.

 

[mikejs78]

The other issue with G+ is that if you are returning to the parks later in the day, you have to hover over your phone so that you can monitor return times for later in the day so you don't miss them. Because often there was a large between 3pm selections and 6pm selections. If you missed the 5-6pm window, often you'll be out of luck with lightning lane selections for later in the day.

This, this, this! We are hoppers and we always take a midday break to go back to the resort or sometimes Disney Springs. Having to stalk return times so we could make sure we can grab LL's when we were planning on being back in the park was the biggest pain of this entire trip, even more so than the 7:00 a.m. wake up. I would be so happy if Disney even kept Genie plus as it is, despite its other flaws, but allowed you to select times and modify times but I don't think that's the direction they are going in, so it will just be more work for people like us to make sure our families have a good trip.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

I just shared this with another forum member and figured I would post here (in case some of you were unaware).

Refreshing attraction times can be a real pain but on iOS there's somewhat of a hack to do it more quickly (you can test this on the Tip Board now):

1. Go to the Tip Board
2. Scroll to the attraction you want to make a selection for
3. Tap "View Details" on that specific attraction
4. Click the back arrow in the top left
5. Tap above "Disney Genie Service" title at the top center of the screen to quickly scroll to the top
6. Tap, hold and drag the entire page down to refresh all the times
7. The UI will automatically scroll down to the attraction you are looking for with new times (which may be near the bottom)
8. Repeat steps 5 and 6 to keep refreshing the times

 

[mysto]

Almost any change to g+ would improve it.

almost

 

[GhostHost1000]

Aside from the UI/design complaints, I've spent a good amount of time thinking about this and I think I landed on what I'd like to see:

- Price increase to $25 with strict inventory limits
- Resort guests can purchase at 9PM the night before and select one attraction at any time slot
- When the park opens, all guests (including resort guests who pre-selected an attraction the night before) can select one attraction at a time, every two hours or after using a LL selection (current procedure)

This would keep the company's profit margins healthy, ensure good inventory for guests and give resort guests a guaranteed extra LL selection.

Nothing will ever be as good for resort guests as free FP+. So this isn't really what I want, this is what I want that's realistic under the circumstances.

9pm would be bad timing the previous night. Especially those still trying to enjoy the parks or a nighttime show during that timeframe.

I would like for it to go back to pre-vacation. How about 30 days prior. Buy and book your first. Maybe even 2. (One from each tier if necessary). More ability to plan ahead and not go in stressed and playing the Genie+ race game during your vacation. Plus we shouldn’t have to book ILL and our first LLs at the same time.

There are so many better ways to take what they have and improve on it, taking a step back and looking at what worked better with FP+ would be a good start

 

[DCBaker]

Saw a post today from someone at the parks and there has been changes. One being that return times didn't show up til 7:30 and when you select a return time you no longer see what else is available.

To expand on this...

"When Guests were first able to book Lightning Lane entry at 7 a.m., availability could quickly change. Sometimes the arrival window shown on the Tip Board was different than what the Guest was able to book.

Now, during periods where there are many Guests attempting to book experiences with Lightning Lane entry, the Tip Board will show "Check Availability" instead of an arrival window that could change, reducing the number of different arrival windows being displayed to a Guest. At this time, "Check Availability" will appear between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. each day for all experiences offering Lightning Lane entry (including both those offered through Disney Genie+ service and those available through individual à la carte purchase)."

Enhanced Disney Genie+ Features Now Available in the Latest Version of the My Disney Experience App

Daily news, rumors, and photo-reports from all of Central Florida's theme parks, water parks, minor attractions, and more!

www.orlandoparksnews.com

 

[G00fyDad]

To expand on this...

"When Guests were first able to book Lightning Lane entry at 7 a.m., availability could quickly change. Sometimes the arrival window shown on the Tip Board was different than what the Guest was able to book.

Now, during periods where there are many Guests attempting to book experiences with Lightning Lane entry, the Tip Board will show "Check Availability" instead of an arrival window that could change, reducing the number of different arrival windows being displayed to a Guest. At this time, "Check Availability" will appear between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. each day for all experiences offering Lightning Lane entry (including both those offered through Disney Genie+ service and those available through individual à la carte purchase)."

Enhanced Disney Genie+ Features Now Available in the Latest Version of the My Disney Experience App

Daily news, rumors, and photo-reports from all of Central Florida's theme parks, water parks, minor attractions, and more!

www.orlandoparksnews.com

This is kind of like polishing a turd.

 

[mysto]

This is kind of like polishing a turd.

Functionally identical but harder to complain about.

 

[GhostHost1000]

This is kind of like polishing a turd.

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[LittleBuford]

To expand on this...

"When Guests were first able to book Lightning Lane entry at 7 a.m., availability could quickly change. Sometimes the arrival window shown on the Tip Board was different than what the Guest was able to book.

Now, during periods where there are many Guests attempting to book experiences with Lightning Lane entry, the Tip Board will show "Check Availability" instead of an arrival window that could change, reducing the number of different arrival windows being displayed to a Guest. At this time, "Check Availability" will appear between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. each day for all experiences offering Lightning Lane entry (including both those offered through Disney Genie+ service and those available through individual à la carte purchase)."

Enhanced Disney Genie+ Features Now Available in the Latest Version of the My Disney Experience App

Daily news, rumors, and photo-reports from all of Central Florida's theme parks, water parks, minor attractions, and more!

www.orlandoparksnews.com

Am I the only one struggling to understand this? Can someone explain what this means for guests trying to pick specific return times?

 

[UNCgolf]

Am I the only one struggling to understand this? Can someone explain what this means for guests trying to pick specific return times?

I'm confused too. Maybe it makes sense to someone who's used the current iteration of Genie+, which I haven't?

It sounds to me like the only difference is that it doesn't show you times right away; you have to click on check availability first. I don't see how that will really change anything unless the check availability feature also locks you in to return window for 30 seconds (e.g), giving you a chance to actually purchase it before the time changes to something else.

 

[MissingDisney]

Am I the only one struggling to understand this? Can someone explain what this means for guests trying to pick specific return times?

You still can’t pick a specific times.

 

[MissingDisney]

I'm confused too. Maybe it makes sense to someone who's used the current iteration of Genie+, which I haven't?

It sounds to me like the only difference is that it doesn't show you times right away; you have to click on check availability first. I don't see how that will really change anything, though, unless the check availability feature also locks you in to return window for 30 seconds or whatever, giving you a chance to actually purchase it before it changes to something else.

Because before it was changing so quickly when everyone was doing the mad panic first thing in the morning it would show say, 11:00 am and you’d be fine with that but then When you’d go to select it, you’d get a confirmed time at 1:30 or something way later. It was very frustrating.

 

[UNCgolf]

Because before it was changing so quickly when everyone was doing the mad panic first thing in the morning it would show say, 11:00 am and you’d be fine with that but then When you’d go to select it, you’d get a confirmed time at 1:30 or something way later. It was very frustrating.

I know, but it sounds like this won't fix that. It just adds an extra step before that happens. You could hit check availability, see 11:30, and then by the time you actually book it the time has still changed to a couple of hours later.

Unless, as I said, the new check availability button also gives you a period of time where you're locked in to that window.

 

[pdude81]

To expand on this...

"When Guests were first able to book Lightning Lane entry at 7 a.m., availability could quickly change. Sometimes the arrival window shown on the Tip Board was different than what the Guest was able to book.

Now, during periods where there are many Guests attempting to book experiences with Lightning Lane entry, the Tip Board will show "Check Availability" instead of an arrival window that could change, reducing the number of different arrival windows being displayed to a Guest. At this time, "Check Availability" will appear between 7 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. each day for all experiences offering Lightning Lane entry (including both those offered through Disney Genie+ service and those available through individual à la carte purchase)."

Enhanced Disney Genie+ Features Now Available in the Latest Version of the My Disney Experience App

Daily news, rumors, and photo-reports from all of Central Florida's theme parks, water parks, minor attractions, and more!

www.orlandoparksnews.com

That's far worse IMO

 

[FromMaldonia]

I'm also curious if there are now any limits in place for the number of sales of Genie+ each day.

 

[LittleBuford]

I'm confused too. Maybe it makes sense to someone who's used the current iteration of Genie+, which I haven't?

It sounds to me like the only difference is that it doesn't show you times right away; you have to click on check availability first. I don't see how that will really change anything unless the check availability feature also locks you in to return window for 30 seconds (e.g), giving you a chance to actually purchase it before the time changes to something else.

This is exactly where my confusion lies. Perhaps someone who gets it will clarify for us!