A former Touring Plan Pro's thoughts about Genie+

[lentesta]

Two of us decided to become the Genie+ experts, which took way more research than I really want to do for a vacation.

I laughed because I said this to someone this very morning, who's trying to shepherd a group of 6 first-timers through DHS, Genie+, and ILL.

 

[lugnut33]

So you were there last week, which was NJ week and rather crowded, correct? It sounds as if most of your issues with G+ were due to the large crowds.

Shame on the OP for not knowing it was Jersey week.

 

[jecarnl]

I would have paid $200 per ticket more to have a FP system like Universal has along with no reservation and no park hopping restrictions. Let me vacation how I want to vacation.

 

[SusanDK]

I would have paid $200 per ticket more to have a FP system like Universal has along with no reservation and no park hopping restrictions. Let me vacation how I want to vacation.

With Universal's system, can you use front-of-the-line multiple times on the same ride in the same day? I know with the Premium pass that has express lane after 4 pm, you can only use it once per ride (which is fine).

One thing I dislike about Genie+ is that you are only permitted to use it once per ride. There is so much that we can't ride that is too intense for us.

If I'm in Epcot, I'm not going to ride Mission Space or Guardians, but would love a second time on Soarin'. At DHS, we won't be riding ROTR, MFSR, RnR or ToT. But would love a few passes on TSM.

It would be worth it for me to pay for X number of rides or attractions per day with my Genie+, but let me select them, including repeats if that's how I wish to use my Genie+. Allow me to pre-book 3 (at least a day prior) with no repeats, then once in the park, let me select as I go, one at a time, regardless if I've already been on that specific ride.

 

[Tom_E_D]

With Universal's system, can you use front-of-the-line multiple times on the same ride in the same day? I know with the Premium pass that has express lane after 4 pm, you can only use it once per ride (which is fine).

One thing I dislike about Genie+ is that you are only permitted to use it once per ride. There is so much that we can't ride that is too intense for us.

If I'm in Epcot, I'm not going to ride Mission Space or Guardians, but would love a second time on Soarin'. At DHS, we won't be riding ROTR, MFSR, RnR or ToT. But would love a few passes on TSM.

It would be worth it for me to pay for X number of rides or attractions per day with my Genie+, but let me select them, including repeats if that's how I wish to use my Genie+. Allow me to pre-book 3 (at least a day prior) with no repeats, then once in the park, let me select as I go, one at a time, regardless if I've already been on that specific ride.

Universal Express is one ride per attraction per day. Universal Express Unlimited is as many rides as you want per day. You, of course, pay more for Universal Express Unlimited.

 

[DavidNYC]

Lack of control over our schedule was really frustrating for us. I might have liked G+ better if I could have selected a time slot for our return but having to take whatever time it offered was frustrating. Not being able to hop until 2pm and having to go to your reserved park first added to the overall feeling of lack of control, I'd love to see the data Disney are using to decide that it's worth the impact on the customer experience.

Bingo! So many people who defend this system base it on them staying in the park from opening to closing and don't care what they do when. As a prior poster said - for those who don't want to be in the park all day it's a disaster unless you're willing to just do whatever the app gives you. All of the "drawbacks" of Fastpass+ were easily cured with far simpler measures (and may of those drawbacks weren't cured anyway).
1. "If you were offsite nothing was left at 30 days out": OK - make it 30 days for everyone. Or make it just a single pre-booked one. Or none and just make them open at park opening everyday.
2. You had to plan so far in advance. First - you had to plan a single time for maybe 30 minutes and how hard is it to pick three rides you know you'll want to ride. The only planning you really need to do was choose which park you wanted to do that day and guess what - that part is far worse now! And now you have to be up at 7am every day.

Getting rid of choosing your time was ridiculous. They have the capacity but it's just easier for them to remove a major guest convenience to allow them to basically save money. Blah blah blah - Disney is a business - but lots of business do things that cost a little more money because they care about the quality of their product and want to please their customers - not just do the minimum needed to get their money.

Getting rid of the ability to modify a reservation is ridiculous. I can't even think of a rational reason for this one other than they maybe cutting back on the infrastructure so their system can't handle it. Old system had this capability so clearly possible.

Getting rid of the app saving a time for at least 10 seconds when it shows you an available time is ridiculous. Again - can't think of a good reason other than infrastructure cost cutting. Old system had this also.

The only change I can get behind (even though I personally don't like it but it's logical) is limiting to one Genie+ per ride per day. That helps ensure more availability during the day. Those who really knew FP+ were able to really get a lot of rides if they knew the refresh strategy. Nothing wrong with that - available to everyone - but the limitation does make sense.

I just got back and HATED how much the system made me run around the parks back and forth. Yes - I got to do nearly everything I wanted to but it was far more stressful, required a lot of attention during the day, and really interfered with just being able to have down times. Yes - we could have just given up some rides and relaxed more but with a three day trip we wanted to do a lot. It was definitely far less convenient than under FP+.

 

[WALTSAGOD]

So you were there last week, which was NJ week and rather crowded, correct? It sounds as if most of your issues with G+ were due to the large crowds.

Agreed, Jersey Week is to be Avoided,…..

 

[Disneymom8181]

We went the weekend before Thanksgiving in 2021, and disliked the new system. One frustrating aspect was we had a party of 13, so we couldn’t book Genie + attractions together. With the old FP system, we could work on overlapping times etc. to ride together. It was at the beginning of Genie +, but there were other technical issues as well. For example, one morning, we couldn’t purchase ILL because the system said we were offsite, when in fact we were at Shades of Green. The trip was awhile ago, but overall we were glad we went, but between the higher costs, lower quality food, and Genie +, we are in no hurry to go back.

We went to an all inclusive in Mexico this year, that included access to natural theme parks (snorkeling, cliff jumping, zip lines etc). That’s where my kids want to go next year, not Disney.

 

[Mike Marzano]

Our Oct 2-9 trip we had a very similar experience to the original poster.

We stayed on site and booked BEFORE they stopped allowing bundling Genie+ with tickets. So we had opted for Genie+ to be part of our package, it was on our tickets daily, and we didn't have to purchase it every day before using it. That was ideal and prevented one big headache.

I get that Disney wants to have "date based pricing" for Genie+, and allow the guests to decide on a day by day basis which days/parks they want Genie+ for and which they don't. But I don't see how the daily purchase (12:01am or after) is the only way. I mean the theme park tickets have date based pricing, so why can't they have Genie+ (even date based) as an add-on for packages, or individual day ticket purchases? They could have it as an add-on to packages with tickets, like the waterpark option or hopper option on tickets. If you purchase/add to your package it covers every day, or you have the option to buy each day, day of, for the date based price.

Having to select Genie+ and buy LL the morning of, starting at 7am isn't my preference and I'm not a morning person. Necessitating my getting up before 7am (to be online) on vacation isn't my idea of fun. Thankfully, Disney is the one place I always seem to get up early.

Yes, off site guests are at a disadvantage for the Individual LL purchases (the most popular rides) since they can't purchase them until park open time. Its a trade off that isn't too different than the Fastpasses at 60 days for on-site vs 30 days for off-site. Back then, fastpasses for the most popular rides got picked out by the on-site guests fast.

We too ran into the Guardians virtual queue return time changing, and were unprepared for it on our first Epcot day. It was the second day of our trip, we had planned to have only 2 people from our group get up and try for Guardians, and the rest of us would sleep and get up and around slowly since the day before was our travel day, starting with a 7am flight (left the house at 4am) and concluded with the MNSSHP, returning to the hotel after midnight. My wife got Guardians Virtual Queue at 7:00. It was Group 22 and it gave us an "Estimated Wait time: 480 minutes." Epcot opened at 8:30am. Imagine our surprise as we got ready slowly, and by 8:45am our return time had changed to 9:25am!!! Needless to say we panicked, finished getting ready as fast was we could, and ran for a bus. We did make our return window.

We also found ourselves running all over the parks, from one side to the other. And we were constantly looking our phones. We ended up with overlapping LL return windows several times that we had to manage. And some LL windows were over when we'd normally stop for lunch. The OP mentioned having no control over there day. That is a great way to put it.

We had 8 of us. All staying on property (6 of us at FQ in two rooms, and 2 in a room at Riverside). ONE was an Annual Passholder who had to purchase Genie+ each day. On our 2nd Epcot day, my Father-in-Law and his GF and their daughter (3 people) met up with us. It wasn't as bad booking for everyone as I thought.

I will say this though. Sure we felt rushed, out of control, had lots of walking, but we managed to get on every ride we wanted to (most having little to no wait due to LL), saw every show we wanted to, and ate where we wanted to (had 3 table services, Space 220 was on our 2nd EP day, rather than 1st which we wanted). So we did have a good time. But this was one of the first Disney vacations I came home from feeling mentally drained.

 

[NavyDad]

We just got back yesterday from an adults only WDW trip. We've done WDW many times over the years, and I have to say, overall, I was not thrilled with Genie+/ILL's, etc. I'll try to make this as concise as possible.

A brief background: We have 4 kids, and the last time we went as a family was 6-7 years ago. We like to stay on site, preferably the Beach Club Villas. We would be there at rope drop, use a touring plan to hit all the highlights, then be back at the room around lunch for pool and rest time before hitting Epcot for one of the international restaurants. Since our last trip, I've also chaperoned 2 HS band trips, where we stayed offsite, getting our tickets each day the morning of, and usually not getting to the parks until 1-2 hours after opening but then are there until closing. Not my preferred way to see the parks, but we were still able to see/do quite a bit.

This trip we were gifted a condo at the Sheraton Vista for 7 days. Due to timing and school, we made it adults only with 2 sets of friends. All of us have done WDW with our kids, and we really just wanted to hit the highlights (Galaxy's Edge, Avatar, the Food & Wine festival) while getting some relaxation in by the pool and eating good food.

Two of us decided to become the Genie+ experts, which took way more research than I really want to do for a vacation.

I HATED having to either be awake past midnight, or get up before 7:00, in order to have G+ purchased in time to start looking for LL's. If there was a way to choose a later time than what was given, other than to refresh and hope for the best, I didn't see it. Then I hated that we had to do that all again at park opening time to hope there were any ILL's for the rides we'd really hoped to ride. This generally resulted in us getting mid-morning LL's, and only once getting an ILL, for early evening So much for a relaxing start to our day and having time out of the park to hang out by the pool.

I didn't mind using the phone to continue to use G+ during the day, and would generally just check it quickly once we tapped into the current LL. That worked well for HWS, though we NEVER had a chance at a ROTR ILL. Not so much for Epcot, where it would have had us running all over the park. For Epcot, we really just wanted Guardians and Remy. We got an estimated arrival time of 5:45 for Guardians with the VQ, and 2:30 for Remy after one refresh at 7:00am for Remy. Good thing we kept checking the times as our Guardians arrival time moved drastically, to hover around 2:15. We then spent quite a bit of time obsessing over it was going to move again, and barely made our Guardians time, with 5 minutes to spare, after hoofing it across the park. We really enjoyed Remy, and LOVED Guardians. Really, the best rollercoaster I've ever done. But with competing times, it was not fun.

Some of us ended up going back to HWS at 8:00 to just ride standby for ROTR, as that seemed the only way to ride it without waiting 2+ hours. We waited exactly one hour between entering the line and starting the experience. We agreed more than that might not have been "worth it" and that was from a Star Wars fan.

Epcot was stupid busy. We were there the night of a race and it's after party. We took the highliner from HWS, and the line to go thru the IG was 25 minutes long, stretching back to the entrance of the Beach Club. I'd love to know if that is common now or due to the race, as when we finally got to the front, we were told that non-race participants could suddenly move to a shorter line. It really felt like the CM's there had no clue what they were doing. The international section of Epcot was packed, body to body. Seriously not fun that night.

We had Space 220 reservations and just getting to the front of the park was a huge PITA. Space 220 was great, with some caveats. The food is good, and not cheap. We managed a somewhat early dinner time, which meant lots of kids were still there. So we spent a good deal of money, trying to enjoy our good food, while surrounded by cranky, loud kids. (Hey, I have kids, and it is Disney, I get it. But if you're looking for an experience to match the cost, this is a consideration.)

Staying off site, I had no idea until yesterday that only deluxe resorts get extended hours, and that they no longer deliver purchases to your resort. WTH??

So, we had a great time with our friends, and the G+ system mostly worked for us, though staying off site is a distinct disadvantage, so much so as to be punitive if your goal is the rides. It still galled me, though, that I had to PAY for that ability. If we'd been paying for our 4 kids on top of all that, it would be more galling yet. This system, if you want to ride rides, pretty much insures you will not have significant control over your schedule on any given day, and that you will likely spend a very long day in the park.

I didn't love that we had to reserve park days ahead of time, and hated that we couldn't park hop until 2:00. Again, no significant control of your day.

I probably won't consider another family trip to WDW for a good while. There is a long recent thread on if WDW is "worth it" now. For how we like to travel as a family, no. I can spend the same, or perhaps more, money on other trips, but know that I have control of what I'm doing that day, without dealing with the crowds, the constant juggling of our schedule, or trying to get fleeting chances at things we really want to do.

You are normally a Rope Drop family but you absolutely hated the fact that you had to get up at 7 AM to purchase G+ and book your first LL?

You normally stay an on-site in a DVC Villa that is a 5 minute walk to the back gate of Epcot, but this time you stayed off-site during a notoriously busy week and found the parks to be very busy?

You had dinner at a WDW restaurant and there were noisy kids present?

I was a big fan of the old Legacy Fast Pass system as well as FP+ and actually found Genie Plus to work really well for us this Spring. Each system had it's own benefits and drawbacks for sure. For people who like to have three FP booked for the day I can see why the new system would have a major drawback. I'm just wondering how much of your frustrations on this trip were actually due to staying off-site during a very busy week and which parts of the frustration were actually about the system itself.

 

[tiggspring]

We just got back yesterday from an adults only WDW trip. We've done WDW many times over the years, and I have to say, overall, I was not thrilled with Genie+/ILL's, etc. I'll try to make this as concise as possible.

A brief background: We have 4 kids, and the last time we went as a family was 6-7 years ago. We like to stay on site, preferably the Beach Club Villas. We would be there at rope drop, use a touring plan to hit all the highlights, then be back at the room around lunch for pool and rest time before hitting Epcot for one of the international restaurants. Since our last trip, I've also chaperoned 2 HS band trips, where we stayed offsite, getting our tickets each day the morning of, and usually not getting to the parks until 1-2 hours after opening but then are there until closing. Not my preferred way to see the parks, but we were still able to see/do quite a bit.

This trip we were gifted a condo at the Sheraton Vista for 7 days. Due to timing and school, we made it adults only with 2 sets of friends. All of us have done WDW with our kids, and we really just wanted to hit the highlights (Galaxy's Edge, Avatar, the Food & Wine festival) while getting some relaxation in by the pool and eating good food.

Two of us decided to become the Genie+ experts, which took way more research than I really want to do for a vacation.

I HATED having to either be awake past midnight, or get up before 7:00, in order to have G+ purchased in time to start looking for LL's. If there was a way to choose a later time than what was given, other than to refresh and hope for the best, I didn't see it. Then I hated that we had to do that all again at park opening time to hope there were any ILL's for the rides we'd really hoped to ride. This generally resulted in us getting mid-morning LL's, and only once getting an ILL, for early evening So much for a relaxing start to our day and having time out of the park to hang out by the pool.

I didn't mind using the phone to continue to use G+ during the day, and would generally just check it quickly once we tapped into the current LL. That worked well for HWS, though we NEVER had a chance at a ROTR ILL. Not so much for Epcot, where it would have had us running all over the park. For Epcot, we really just wanted Guardians and Remy. We got an estimated arrival time of 5:45 for Guardians with the VQ, and 2:30 for Remy after one refresh at 7:00am for Remy. Good thing we kept checking the times as our Guardians arrival time moved drastically, to hover around 2:15. We then spent quite a bit of time obsessing over it was going to move again, and barely made our Guardians time, with 5 minutes to spare, after hoofing it across the park. We really enjoyed Remy, and LOVED Guardians. Really, the best rollercoaster I've ever done. But with competing times, it was not fun.

Some of us ended up going back to HWS at 8:00 to just ride standby for ROTR, as that seemed the only way to ride it without waiting 2+ hours. We waited exactly one hour between entering the line and starting the experience. We agreed more than that might not have been "worth it" and that was from a Star Wars fan.

Epcot was stupid busy. We were there the night of a race and it's after party. We took the highliner from HWS, and the line to go thru the IG was 25 minutes long, stretching back to the entrance of the Beach Club. I'd love to know if that is common now or due to the race, as when we finally got to the front, we were told that non-race participants could suddenly move to a shorter line. It really felt like the CM's there had no clue what they were doing. The international section of Epcot was packed, body to body. Seriously not fun that night.

We had Space 220 reservations and just getting to the front of the park was a huge PITA. Space 220 was great, with some caveats. The food is good, and not cheap. We managed a somewhat early dinner time, which meant lots of kids were still there. So we spent a good deal of money, trying to enjoy our good food, while surrounded by cranky, loud kids. (Hey, I have kids, and it is Disney, I get it. But if you're looking for an experience to match the cost, this is a consideration.)

Staying off site, I had no idea until yesterday that only deluxe resorts get extended hours, and that they no longer deliver purchases to your resort. WTH??

So, we had a great time with our friends, and the G+ system mostly worked for us, though staying off site is a distinct disadvantage, so much so as to be punitive if your goal is the rides. It still galled me, though, that I had to PAY for that ability. If we'd been paying for our 4 kids on top of all that, it would be more galling yet. This system, if you want to ride rides, pretty much insures you will not have significant control over your schedule on any given day, and that you will likely spend a very long day in the park.

I didn't love that we had to reserve park days ahead of time, and hated that we couldn't park hop until 2:00. Again, no significant control of your day.

I probably won't consider another family trip to WDW for a good while. There is a long recent thread on if WDW is "worth it" now. For how we like to travel as a family, no. I can spend the same, or perhaps more, money on other trips, but know that I have control of what I'm doing that day, without dealing with the crowds, the constant juggling of our schedule, or trying to get fleeting chances at things we really want to do.

It has been many years since we were in the parks. We used to use ridemax and found it very effective. Is that even an option now? To use a plan and scheduale a few things with Geni system. Sounds like a nightmare where not only can you not just go to an area and explore but even super planners like me would be thrown into chaos with new times. I have fibromyalgia so pacing and distance are critical for me to enjoy the park. A plan where I knew the easiest way to get from A to B with breaks inside an A/C show and no super long lines. When kids were little we were first ones on Dumbo because we knew 5 min too late and you were looking at long lines all day. Because it would mess with Peter Pan etc etc etc. I refuse to use a scooter or wheel chair. I go to Disney to try and forget my disability and they are exhausting to use in crowds but it does require not standing or sitting too long, not getting too hot etc. usually I tolerate things in 30 min chunks so standing in a line followed by a ride a little rest etc. It Sounds horrid but it was quite seamless using shows, meal breaks transportation like the train and staying at monorail hotel and Going back to the room to nap if necessary. TBH I usually napped in shows But break that flow and my day is done. Our last trip on DCL landed me in bed for weeks because my kids were older and had activities when we got home. Any sort of pacing no matter how much you plan seems impossible from what I am hearing. What is the point of the Geni if the times change?
thank you for the info.

 

[tiggspring]

Bingo! So many people who defend this system base it on them staying in the park from opening to closing and don't care what they do when. As a prior poster said - for those who don't want to be in the park all day it's a disaster unless you're willing to just do whatever the app gives you. All of the "drawbacks" of Fastpass+ were easily cured with far simpler measures (and may of those drawbacks weren't cured anyway).
1. "If you were offsite nothing was left at 30 days out": OK - make it 30 days for everyone. Or make it just a single pre-booked one. Or none and just make them open at park opening everyday.
2. You had to plan so far in advance. First - you had to plan a single time for maybe 30 minutes and how hard is it to pick three rides you know you'll want to ride. The only planning you really need to do was choose which park you wanted to do that day and guess what - that part is far worse now! And now you have to be up at 7am every day.

Getting rid of choosing your time was ridiculous. They have the capacity but it's just easier for them to remove a major guest convenience to allow them to basically save money. Blah blah blah - Disney is a business - but lots of business do things that cost a little more money because they care about the quality of their product and want to please their customers - not just do the minimum needed to get their money.

Getting rid of the ability to modify a reservation is ridiculous. I can't even think of a rational reason for this one other than they maybe cutting back on the infrastructure so their system can't handle it. Old system had this capability so clearly possible.

Getting rid of the app saving a time for at least 10 seconds when it shows you an available time is ridiculous. Again - can't think of a good reason other than infrastructure cost cutting. Old system had this also.

The only change I can get behind (even though I personally don't like it but it's logical) is limiting to one Genie+ per ride per day. That helps ensure more availability during the day. Those who really knew FP+ were able to really get a lot of rides if they knew the refresh strategy. Nothing wrong with that - available to everyone - but the limitation does make sense.

I just got back and HATED how much the system made me run around the parks back and forth. Yes - I got to do nearly everything I wanted to but it was far more stressful, required a lot of attention during the day, and really interfered with just being able to have down times. Yes - we could have just given up some rides and relaxed more but with a three day trip we wanted to do a lot. It was definitely far less convenient than under FP+.

This is sadly very helpful

 

[aggiedog]

You are normally a Rope Drop family but you absolutely hated the fact that you had to get up at 7 AM to purchase G+ and book your first LL?

You normally stay an on-site in a DVC Villa that is a 5 minute walk to the back gate of Epcot, but this time you stayed off-site during a notoriously busy week and found the parks to be very busy?

You had dinner at a WDW restaurant and there were noisy kids present?

I was a big fan of the old Legacy Fast Pass system as well as FP+ and actually found Genie Plus to work really well for us this Spring. Each system had it's own benefits and drawbacks for sure. For people who like to have three FP booked for the day I can see why the new system would have a major drawback. I'm just wondering how much of your frustrations on this trip were actually due to staying off-site during a very busy week and which parts of the frustration were actually about the system itself.

Feeling contrary today? Read the rest of my sentences - we liked to rope drop...so we could go back around lunch and rest, which is difficult to do if you want to ride rides using G+.

We were gifted a condo - it was off site, and several different crowd calculators called this a low crowd week. Who knew the entire state of NJ emptied out?? Perhaps you, but not me or any of the other people in our group who ALL tried looking for a good week to go.

I was not surprised dinner was loud - as I said, it's something to think about when spending that sort of money on a prix fixe menu. If you want a more upscale experience, book later.

A question for everyone - is the IG way more crowded in general now that the highliner is dropping people off there? It was a total cluster when we went, or was that due to the after race party influx?

 

[MomOTwins]

Yes, we were there last week. I've never even heard of Jersey Week, and every crowd predictor site I found listed those dates as "low crowds." You live and learn. It does totally explain some of the more unique fashion choices (and butt cheeks) that we saw last week!

I don't think the Jersey folks made the difference on the fact that we had to get up at 6:45am to use the G+ system, or that there is a 2 hour lock out for each G+, or that we were staying off site and so had little to no chance of getting ILL's.

It does amaze me how oblivious the crowd calendars to these kinds of things. Reminds me of another thread I saw recently talking about going in January because that seemed to be a low crowd time and then asking which was better of two weekends in January--Marathon weekend or MLK weekend! Of course this board knew right away about those things and let them know. But it does seem to me, if you are not on disboards and not a super internet sleuth, it is really hard to know when the crowded times will be. When in doubt, ask disboards!

It does actually make a difference to G+ how crowded the parks are. On low crowd times, fewer people buy G+ because the standby lines aren't bad, making it much easier to sleep in past 7 and still ride a bunch of things in the morning via G+ and leave for a midday break. On high-crowd times, everyone gets G+ because they don't want to wait in long standby queues, making the 7am competition fierce and pushing G+ return times into the afternoon/evening. I am definitely not looking forward to it for our upcoming Thanksgiving trip, though. Agree with you 100% it would just be better if they had a paid version of the former fastpass--although to be fair, there was even more of an off-site penalty attached to that system.

 

[SusanDK]

A question for everyone - is the IG way more crowded in general now that the highliner is dropping people off there? It was a total cluster when we went, or was that due to the after race party influx?

We use the IG a lot because when we go to the Garden Rocks or Eat to the Beat concerts, we prefer to park at HS and walk the path to Epcot to enter at IG. It is a more pleasant walk than parking in the Epcot main lot and walking through the crowds from the main entrance to the America theatre. We are usually heading over between 5 and 7 pm.

While it can be a bit crowded and we regularly see groups gather to enter together, it sounds like your experience was exceptionally bad so I'm guessing it was related to the after race party. One time when we arrived, there was a queue all the way past the boat dock that we initially thought was the general admission queue, but one of the guys in line near us walked up front to check it out and it turned out that it was a separate queue for a special group. So we were able to walk around them and enter. I'm not sure if you would have been able to bypass that insane queue if you had tried.

 

[DSLRuser]

G+ works great. I don't find myself looking at my phone all the time. We tend to try an "stack" return times for late afternoon and night. So I just book my 7am time and ILL times, then set a 2 hour alarm on my phone. And keep doing that cycle all day long.

Have had no problem lining up our night with 7 or 8 return slots starting at 4 or 5.

I don't mind paying for it as it is a time saver for sure. Disney can keep raising prices for a bit before I tap out. I hope the higher prices start to reduce crowds soon.

 

[DSLRuser]

Reminds me of another thread I saw recently talking about going in January because that seemed to be a low crowd time and then asking which was better of two weekends in January--Marathon weekend or MLK weekend! Of course this board knew right away about those things and let them know. But it does seem to me, if you are not on disboards and not a super internet sleuth, it is really hard to know when the crowded times will be. When in doubt, ask disboards!

People just fail to understand that Disney has an entire marketing department whose entire job is to make sure the parks ar as close to capacity as possible 365 days a year. If there is an "off" season, someone didn't do their job and will be fired.

 

[ars0525]

When we got our VQs in July, they didn’t have an end time. The notification just said our BG was open.

On Friday (11/11), when I got the notification for my BG it said to return by XX:XX time which was a 1 hour window. So IDK if they are enforcing the return times yet, but they have started putting the verbiage out there so if they want to they can.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

Thank you for the report. You expressed a little bit of what I felt after our trip in September. There is no longer a sense of control and that is what I loved about Disney vacations. I loved having every detail planned ... times to eat, times to ride, which park, which show, resort room type etc. I am able to still plan some of this but there is little control outside of dining and choosing our resort (this trip we literally received the opposite of every room request we made and our inquiries to change were usually met with a shrug lol...which is fine I understand but still). I laughed our morning of MK sitting on the bus at the BC...sun wasn't up everyone with their nose buried in the phone buying Genie +...in line at gates everyone trying to get a good ride time. Definitely not relaxing. I think staying off site is not ideal.

Were you there during the hurricane? We were there during Ian and I must say... no control there lol...

Thanks again for report.

This is G+ in a nutshell and this is our biggest issue with it. We went from relaxing trips, getting up at 8ish, already knowing we had 3 rides reserved at times that I decided on and able to do what we want with little stress the rest of the day. To now getting up before I want to and immediately jumping on my iphone trying to get rides that I have no control over the time slots, more frustration sets in if you swipe wrong and yell at the phone "you stupid thing", because you missed a time slot Then add in the fact that I am now paying extra, times 4, for this, UGH!
Our neighbors just went last month and I talked to the husband and he made me feel more optimistic about G+, by saying it was not bad and he was hardly on his phone, so i'm thinking Wow that's great! Only to talk to his wife a bit later and she said "OMG, I have no idea what he's talking about, he was always on his phone throughout the day and first thing in the morning talking to it like it was a person" I laughed and then got sad because, it sounds like nothing changed from the last and only time I used G+ back in January for 1 park. Well, I am going to enjoy our trip in a few days even if it kills me.

 

[snikki]

We were there 11/3-11/12 and G+ worked well for us. It was Jersey week but nothing unbearable with a good plan. It was probably wasn't as bad since TS Nicole came through and people probably had to cancel or move out a few days.

With G+, a few RD's, a few late nights with inflated wait times (TSM posted at 50 minutes but had no one in standby) and just knowing when to zig when they zag we didn't wait in any line longer than 20 minutes. We rode our favorites multiple times and stacked G+ very well, especially at DHS. G+ sucks at Epcot if you are going for Remy, TT and Frozen. Now it's not a perfect system, can be aggravating and makes you walk a lot but we got way more LL than we used to get FP+ since we booked our FP for our PM parks and never got to pull additional ones. I don't feel like I was stuck on my phone. I would just set an alarm for 2 hours if I was stacking or have my selections ready when I entered my LL so I could book the next one.

I still prefer FP+ would love if FP+ came back but that's not happening.