Morning LL/genie chaos advice needed....

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
Hello Disney experts!

I am in need of your opinions on if my plan will work (or even makes sense) for the morning 7am rush to get rides secured....

I am going solo for a day and hopping from Epcot to Hollywood Studios. My priority is to get on Guardians, so here is my plan...

Midnight- buy Genie plus
7am - First to try for Guardians virtual queue
Then, even if I get it, can I still also buy a LL for it as well?
After that, buy LL for Rise
Lastly, book first genie plus - Remy's?

Should I go for ROTR before Guardians? I am not sure which one sells out faster.
For information, I am staying the night at a WDW Resort and I am going on a weekday in January.
Also, do you all think Fantasmic will get added to genie plus anytime soon?

Thank you so much for your opinions on this, I really appreciate it!
I just tried to do similar, granted it was over the holiday week, which is a different beast.

ILL for Rise lasted for a bit, but the 7am Guardians VQ was gone in an instant. The BEST way to get stuff at 7am is to have the atomic clock app. Chime in exactly at 7am, or really more like 6:59:59am. Do not rely on your phone's clock.

In January, things should be better, but even with perfect timing, MDE glitched on us several mornings at 7am. this has happened at least one morning every visit we've tried to use G+, especially for Hollywood Studios.

MDE/G+ also still has the problem where the time you are first offered is NOT the actual time of your pass. There's the time in the list (which you can't see at 7am), the time offered in the second screen, and the time offered on the 3rd screen. Only that last screen matches your actual pass.

The BIG improvement now though is that you can modify. G+ still bites, but modify makes it much better.

I tried for Remy on our Epcot day. We used multiple phones. We got GoG, but MDE glitched for Rat. It initially looked like the ride was down. I quickly chose Frozen, then tried to modify. That's when Rat came up. I swear, I was initially offered a 9am pass on that second screen.

But it was our first morning, and I didn't pay attention to the 3rd screen. I was booking quickly. So at 9am we walked all the way to Rat, only to discover that our pass was for 9PM! Argh!*

We planned to hop, so 9pm didn't work. We plead our case, but the CM's saw we had Rise and had little sympathy for us. She gave us back our Frozen pass, but would not modify our Rat pass time. We never did make it onto Rat. the wait was already around 120 at 9:15am and stayed bad all day.

We tried to get GoG every morning, but we were only able to get it on the day we had a park reservation for Epcot. Maybe it was just coincidence. On our second day, We were able to get the 1pm GoG; those were all gone instantly! (they will probably last longer in January, assuming WDW keeps the current system.)

My other big takeway is that it REALLY pays in-general to use the modify feature. If you see a pass for an attraction you want, grab it. Then go into 'modify plans' if it isn't the time you want. It usually only took about 5-10 refreshes to get a significantly earlier pass time, which = about 1-2minutes of effort. Earlier in the day refreshing works better. Later in the day, and for lesser attractions you won't see as much variation.

With just a little bit of refreshing though, plus some willingness to ride what was offered, and some willingness to criss-cross the parks, on Christmas week we spent much of the day walking from G+ to G+.

My other big takeway is that G+ works best if you can spend the second part of your day in MK. Pairing HS and Epcot is not a great combo. AK also runs out of good passes pretty quickly. By 1pm every day, I swapped to looking for MK passes.

the amazing thing was mid-day, I was able to book almost every MK attraction. By 1pm, there's nothing of value left to book in HS or Epcot. You can't rebook any attractions. A Muppets pass is useless, since the attraction is always walk-on. When you hop though, you start fresh in the new park. The only option that was booked up at 1pm- was 7DMT.


*Other mornings we also saw big time skips between the 2nd and 3rd screens. On 2nd screen it might say 9:15am, but then the 3rd screen suddenly says your pass is for 11am. Refresh a few times, and you'll maybe see 11, 11:05, 10:55am, 11am, then suddenly 9:15am might pop up.
 
Last edited:

RememberWhen

Well-Known Member
We tried to get GoG every morning, but we were only able to get it on the day we had a park reservation for Epcot. Maybe it was just coincidence. On our second day, We were able to get the 1pm GoG; those were all gone instantly! (they will probably last longer in January, assuming WDW keeps the current system.)
You can only do the 7am GotG VQ on days you have an Epcot park reservation.
 

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
You can only do the 7am GotG VQ on days you have an Epcot park reservation.
That's what I thought.

We had enough phones and everyone was awake to make RD, so my group practiced any way. (=2 mornings.)

(Admittedly, I wasn't 100% certain on that detail of G+ this visit. I knew that previously, but wasn't sure if that was still the case on this visit.)
 

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
Rise doesn’t have a VQ anymore. The VQ for Guardians is easier than it was for Rise, and you can try that first and still easily get an ILL afterwards.
I meant the 7am VQ for Guardians, sorry if my post was unclear.

The week we were there, the VQ for GoG was instantly gone. It was not easier to get.
Not only was the 7am VQ instantly gone, but the 1pm was also instantly gone. If MDE glitched, you were out of luck.

While one could get an ILL a little longer, it is a terrible option to have to pay so much money for one attraction, IMO, if you made all the effort of attempting to get a VQ at 7am and MDE just jammed up. It has happened to us a number of times already. G+ is better than it was initially, but it STILL has problems at 7am, and is still a frustrating mess.
 

mysto

Well-Known Member
You can only do the 7am GotG VQ on days you have an Epcot park reservation.
So many rules. If they're going to use tech to control us in this much detail the tech needs to at least inform us of what the rules are, tell us why we couldn't get a VQ if we're in conflict with one rule or the other.

And all these rules are applied day-of. No time to sort out an issue beforehand. Sorry tough cookies you chose a combination unavailable to you, now everything's gone. Nothing we can do for you.
 

BASS

Well-Known Member
I was just there last week.

I forgot about the 7 am virtual queue for Guardians and logged on at 7:06. The virtual queue was gone for the 7 am batch. So I purchased the lightning lane. But note that the later you purchase the lightning lane, the later your allotted time is. If you will be at Hollywood Studios in the morning, you likely could afford to let a few minutes pass before securing a time.

Personally, I'd try and get to Hollywood Studios at rope drop and do the line for Rise.
 

nickys

Premium Member
I was just there last week.

I forgot about the 7 am virtual queue for Guardians and logged on at 7:06. The virtual queue was gone for the 7 am batch. So I purchased the lightning lane. But note that the later you purchase the lightning lane, the later your allotted time is. If you will be at Hollywood Studios in the morning, you likely could afford to let a few minutes pass before securing a time.

Personally, I'd try and get to Hollywood Studios at rope drop and do the line for Rise.
You can choose any time if you purchase an Individual Lightning Lane. Although the time shown is perhaps the earliest available, when you go to buy it you can choose a much later time if you prefer. This allows you to plan to park hop and buy an ILL for that ride in the late afternoon or evening.
 

BASS

Well-Known Member
You can choose any time if you purchase an Individual Lightning Lane. Although the time shown is perhaps the earliest available, when you go to buy it you can choose a much later time if you prefer. This allows you to plan to park hop and buy an ILL for that ride in the late afternoon or evening.
So, this was my first time using the Genie+ and Lightning Lane so I hope I'm not conveying bad information. From my experience with the Guardian ride, when I initially contemplated it, the time was around 3 pm or so and when I checked a few minutes later, it had already jumped to 4 pm or so (as examples). My point to OP is don't get it too early, otherwise you'll run into issues with trying to hit 2 parks in 1 day.
 

nickys

Premium Member
So, this was my first time using the Genie+ and Lightning Lane so I hope I'm not conveying bad information. From my experience with the Guardian ride, when I initially contemplated it, the time was around 3 pm or so and when I checked a few minutes later, it had already jumped to 4 pm or so (as examples). My point to OP is don't get it too early, otherwise you'll run into issues with trying to hit 2 parks in 1 day.
We used it for the first time at Christmas too.

The thing is, when you actually click on the buy button, on the next page you can choose your time. There are three hourly time slots shown, like 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, but that is adjustable so you can slide along and choose 7pm. You then get a choice of times for that hour, so between 7pm and 8pm. You click on the time you want and then confirm it.

If you don’t go through that process you are just confirming the time it’s already chosen for you. But at 7am you can choose to book FoP at 10 minutes before AK closes. In that sense it’s very much like the old FP+ booking system.

So when it showed you a return time of 3pm, you could still have clicked Buy and then chosen a 6pm slot to see the available times between 6pm and 7pm. You are not stuck with the time shown on the first screen.

So if you are planning to hop you should still book the ILLs as early as possible. You just need to remember to select a later hourly time slot and then choose an appropriate return time. Waiting before booking can lead to disappointment.
 

Riviera Rita

Well-Known Member
Do RotR in the evening if you can, everyone heads there at park opening and even if you can run like Usain Bolt, remember no running, you could be hard pressed to get a wait time of less than 45 minutes even if you are a resort guest.
I found going in at around 8 to 8.30pm was perfect, yes, you still have a 30 minute or so wait in line, but, I preferred doing it in the evening.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom