RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
Usage of Genie+ is far more guest friendly in Disneyland than in Disney World. This is likely due to the number of locals that visit the parks and don't use it.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
The key to the success of Genie+ is not to use it
My biggest issue with Genie+ is it's a one and done. Once you've used the Genie+ on say BTMRR, you cannot get another pass for BTMRR. If I was able to get multiple passes like you could with FP+, I wouldn't care as much, but the one pass per ride thing is really what burns me about the new system.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
It's especially bad for people (like me) who aren't interested in a number of attractions. I'd much rather ride certain attractions multiple times than ride everything once, and it makes Genie+ a hard sell. If I can get line skips for 4 rides, but they're all rides I don't care about... what's the point?
I understand why they don't allow re-rides, though. They simply don't have the capacity for it without significantly limiting Genie+ purchases.
Disney Glimpses
Well-Known Member
Kinda crazy how bad availability can get without re-rides.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I think even if they allowed re-rides very few people would actually get one, and almost certainly not more than one.
Unless it was for something with very low demand, but in that case you could just wait in the short standby line.
Was FP+ that underutilized? I mean, we often got two or three FP+ passes for marquee attractions in MK when we would go after we used our three pre-reserved FP’s.
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
I’m still confused how it’s worse now than when we had FP+ that was free and likely used by more
For us, it’s the lack of the ability to use G+ on multiple rides multiple times. We could regularly pick up multiple FP+ passes for headliners after burning our initial three. With G+ being only able to use it once per ride is a major downgrade.
I don’t understand how there isn’t enough capacity to allow G+ to be used multiple times on the same ride. Surely less people use G+ than used FP+?
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I'm assuming the number of Genie+ passes available is less than it was for FP+. They likely expected less usage and so fewer slots were needed.
There are also fewer options for Genie+ than there were for FP+, although that's starting to change with the addition of meet and greets etc.
Disney Glimpses
Well-Known Member
We've discussed the macro reasons at length but in reality I think the major difference is that you had 60 days worth of time to spread out reservations and I think many of those people who selected 3 didn't attempt to make any more (guessing, I don't actually know any numbers here).
With Genie+ it's just a complete on demand all day circus with everyone smashing the servers all at once fighting over availability.
TheGuyThatMakesSwords
Well-Known Member
Just say no - just don't go. It's what we are doing.
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
A circus might be the best explanation of this I have seen haha
TheMaxRebo
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I think the big thing is people are paying for this and want to get their money worth so are much more active is maximizing their usage of it than for the free service which many people just took what they could get and moved on (obviously some power users of FP+, but percentage of the total that are power users will be much higher with a paid system)
Purduevian
Well-Known Member
I also feel like they are advertising G+ a lot more than FP+ was advertised at the end of it's life. I don't know the numbers, but the first time I went to WDW with my now wife's family, I blew their mind when we went through the FP+ lane. Her dad immediately came to me after with a worried look on his face and asked how much extra he paid to skip the line. FYI his park experience before WDW was a local cedar fair park where the fastlane is twice the price of the ticket.
Open the MDE app right now. The top of the page says hello, below it takes about Genie, below that Genie+. I know fastpass wasn't a secret, but was it the 3rd thing listed on the app before?
Open the MDE app right now. The top of the page says hello, below it takes about Genie, below that Genie+. I know fastpass wasn't a secret, but was it the 3rd thing listed on the app before?
DisneyDebRob
Well-Known Member
What I remember was very little being said about Fp+. I still can think of many people in the parks asking how people are going in this orher lane and getting on quicker. My wife is a Disney travel agent up north and I would venture to guess that 60-70% of her clients, first time visitors, had no idea what it was when she was booking their trips. I would say that its reversed now with most clients knowing about g+ because of all the ads.. where its placed on the app.. and conplaints on FB about it from what they have read.
IMO, the paid service,G+ will get pushed hard by Disney where in the free service,FP barely was talked about. All my opinion of course from what i hear and have read.
FromMaldonia
Member
Also (at least in my memory) FP+ was advertised as 3 passes. G+ is advertised much more as just skip lines all day long...even though they've had to add the "expect only 2 or 3" message after the mass frustration. Add that to the above points about getting what you paid for. PLUS (I still feel people miss this point) FP+ had tiers. I also don't know the numbers but I'd wager at least 50% (I suspect much higher) of the guests that used FP+ only booked their three, only one was a tier 1, and never booked another pass for the day. Now everyone picks whatever they want at 7am and of course everyone is picking the most popular rides. Everyone is on the same schedule all trying to make selections at the same time.
Before:
60 days to pick your 3 rides, only 1 top tier. Sure, the experts know the tricks and get their top choice at their preferred time. But most can get one of the top tier rides. People get their 3 free fast passes and plan around them.
After:
Everyone who purchased genie+ races (on their phone) to get the same top rides at 7am. Everyone races to get the 2nd top ride at 11am. Repeat at 1pm. Now people are mad because they got Slinky Dog and Tower of Terror, but can't get Millennium Falcon and Rock'n'Rollercoaster. But the majority weren't getting more than one of them with FP+. The experts on this board were, but precisely because most people weren't.
Before:
60 days to pick your 3 rides, only 1 top tier. Sure, the experts know the tricks and get their top choice at their preferred time. But most can get one of the top tier rides. People get their 3 free fast passes and plan around them.
After:
Everyone who purchased genie+ races (on their phone) to get the same top rides at 7am. Everyone races to get the 2nd top ride at 11am. Repeat at 1pm. Now people are mad because they got Slinky Dog and Tower of Terror, but can't get Millennium Falcon and Rock'n'Rollercoaster. But the majority weren't getting more than one of them with FP+. The experts on this board were, but precisely because most people weren't.
Last edited:
Disney Glimpses
Well-Known Member
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.
- 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.
mikejs78
Well-Known Member
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?