Genie Plus - Experiences and Reviews

I’m waiting in standby at WS at rope drop at DCA. My intent is to buy the LL$$ for WS so that we can ride it again. But I’m questioning whether this is a good idea since the Standby for WS now is 110 minutes while I see standby at other non-RS rides at 5 to 15 minutes.

Any thoughts on this strategy?
 
I’m waiting in standby at WS at rope drop at DCA. My intent is to buy the LL$$ for WS so that we can ride it again. But I’m questioning whether this is a good idea since the Standby for WS now is 110 minutes while I see standby at other non-RS rides at 5 to 15 minutes.

Any thoughts on this strategy?
I think your pot committed at this point. Certainly your wait won’t be anywhere close to that long since you rope dropped it. But please let us know how long it ends up being.
 
What time would you say you got in line? Assuming 5 after 8:00, that’s a pretty long wait for rope drop. I am trying to figure out our strategy so I appreciate your updates.
We got in line straight from Rope drop at DCA. My concern was that it would take up to 110 minutes…but it turned out to be roughly 52 minutes just to get onto the ride itself. I will purchase the LL$$ later for sometime after lunch. As of 908am….the purchase time for LL$$ for WS is $15 with a time slot for 910am.

For the LL$$ , im pretty much going to monitor it and wait til it’s available for the time I want to go ( after lunch time )
 
Are you going to buy the RS and hope it stays closed so you can get a multi pass? I have a feeling I am going to enjoy doing that every chance I get.
I don’t know what the Best practice approach is, but I’m going to just ride RS once via the LL$$. For the day, we will ride WS once via Standby ( at rope drop ) then purchase a LL$$ for after lunch so that we can do it again ( since this is the 1st time trying it ).
 
1024am


LL$$ for WS - 1035am / Standby - 75 min
LL$$ for RS - 1110am / Standby - 85 min
 
The only non$$$ LL that we used is for GotG mission breakout. I will probably target using the rest of the non$$ LL to be used in the afternoon to after dinner
Keep in mind Soarin’ runs out really fast and Toy Story is usually pretty far ahead so I would keep an eye on those and when the next available time works go ahead and book it
 
Keep in mind Soarin’ runs out really fast and Toy Story is usually pretty far ahead so I would keep an eye on those and when the next available time works go ahead and book it
Yeah….I’m finding that as well. For some reason , soarin is already at 250pm at 1108am…..the latest of the non-lLL$$ passes.
 
A ME pass is my abbreviation for a multiple experience pass. These replace your LL when a ride included with genie+ goes down during your return time. They always include everything including rides that don’t have a dedicated LL entrance except Rise, Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, Racers, and Toy Story. However if the ride that goes down is Space, Matterhorn, Indy, or Toy Story the ME pass includes everything except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, and Racers. These passes are valid for the rest of the day.

The all day pass I’ve been referring to is for individual lightning lane rides that are not included in genie+: Rise, WEB Slingers, and Racers. If you have a LL booked for one of those and the ride goes down during your return time your LL is converted to an all day pass valid only on that ride. So for example on this trip Rise went down on 3 separate occasions during my LL window and my LL converted to a pass valid all day only on Rise and not on any other ride whatsoever.

Whether you get a ME pass or an all day pass as I referred to them the system basically forgets you booked that ride in the first place and allows you to book it again. So for example if you book Grizzly and it goes down and converts to a ME pass you can book Grizzly again. And if you book Rise and it goes down and turns into an all day pass you can book Rise again.

When a ride goes down you can still book a LL at some point, although they push back the next available time. So for example normally Grizzly LLs are immediately but if it goes down the next LL might be in a half hour. But you can book the next available time and hope it stays down until then. The point at which it converts to a ME pass is different every time. Sometimes it converts 20 minutes before the LL window, sometimes it converts right before, sometimes it converts 30 minutes into the window, and occasionally it never converts. Once it does convert though it’s a completely bonus LL and you can immediately book another one. But if it hasn’t converted yet you have to wait until one of four things happen in order to book another LL: for the LL to convert to a ME pass, for the ride to come back up and you actually use the LL at that ride, for 2 hours to pass, or for the LL to expire. If a ride continues to be down you can continue to book for that ride as long as it keeps converting to a ME pass. I was never successful in doing it twice in a row for a ride just because it always came back up before that was possible. But if the temporary closure is really long you could certainly get multiple ME passes from that.

If you want to go land by land my suggestion would be to make sure you book the rides that are the biggest priority to you regardless of current ride breakdowns. So if you’re gonna be in Tomorrowland soon and you for sure want to do Space Mountain (and trust me you do NOT want to wait in that standby line because LL is way over prioritized there) then make sure to book Space Mountain. But if you see that a ride is broken down with a fairly soon return time and there’s a lot of things in the land you’re in without LL that you want to do go ahead and book the LL for the broken down ride and then you might be able to use that to your advantage later in the day. For example, say you’re in Fantasyland and want to do a lot of rides there but hardly anything over there even has LL and you see that Buzz is broken down. Go ahead and book a Buzz LL and do rides like Peter Pan, Snow White, etc and keep checking to see if your LL converts to a ME pass or if Buzz comes back up. If it converts to a ME pass during that time you haven’t wasted any time you could be using to use LLs but now you have a bonus LL that you could use on Millennium Falcon later when you’re in Galaxy’s Edge.

Also keep in mind that there are a good number of rides that typically have LLs available immediately. These are typically (from my experience) Star Tours, Buzz, Autopia, Small World, Roger Rabbit, Thunder (sometimes), Falcon, Splash (because it’s January but also it’s closed now), Grizzly, Monsters Inc, Incredicoaster, and Goofy’s Sky School. The others are usually about 30-60 minutes ahead (except Soarin’ is usually over 2 hours away and Toy Story is usually about 90 minutes away). If there’s plenty of ride breakdowns that you want to take advantage of, use the breaks in between LL conversions to ME passes to knock out the LLs that are immediate. For example say Matterhorn is down and you book a LL for it and it eventually converts to a ME pass. You want to book Matterhorn again but you’re in Tomorrowland and want to do Autopia, Star Tours, and Buzz. Before booking Matterhorn again quickly knock out those Tomorrowland rides and then book Matterhorn.

Also when you purposely book a LL for a ride that’s broken down keep checking as often as you can to see if the ride comes back up. Once it comes back up there is no longer hope for a ME pass for that specific situation.

Hopefully this helped answer your questions, is there anything else I can clarify?

This is very helpful, thank you very much!

I think we will try to take advantage of some downed rides if the opportunity comes up. I appreciate your insight on when LL's are available for near immediate return, that will help in putting together an outline for our days. We'll be there in a week, can't wait!
 
I spent the weekend at DL and DCA using the Genie+ and LL$$ passes.

I would say that if you're one of those visitors that loves to go on the popular rides that Genie+ and LL$$ caters to and is okay with going on it once ( cuz you don't want to wait in lines ), then paying extra for what amounts to Fastpass is worth it.

Some of my thoughts below:

- Genie+ / LL$$ pass is totally worth it at DL compared to using it at DCA. At DL; because there are so many options to use the passes that you can pretty much space it out where you wait in some ride for 45 minutes, book some LL pass for the next hour and then "rinse and repeat" for the rest of the day. You can probably fill up the vast majority of the day where you are riding something once every 30 to 45 minutes. At DCA; because there are far fewer rides that utilize the LL pass, this translates into waiting in Standby Lines more often than not.
- Remember, you get to only use the LL pass for each ride, once a day. This means that once you use the LL pass for ( let's say ) Space Mountain, then you won't have the option to book it later.
- I was under the impression that for non-LL$$ passes ( as in, what is only included in the Genie+ pass ) that you can book passes at specific time slots later in the day ( like booking one for 4pm, even if the next available slot is at 12pm ). But it looks like the LL passes ( both for Genie+ and LL$$ ) are available only for the next time slot that is available for that ride.
- Ride that uses LL that sells out - Soarin' ( DCA ) and Indiana Jones Ride ( DL ).
- Although this weekend appeared to be far less crowded compared to other weekends, I found that the LL passes were mainly available no more than 1 to 2 hours from the current time ( for the more popular rides ) and even as low as 5 minutes ( for the less popular rides ). The only exceptions were Soarin' ( DCA ) and the Indiana Jones ride ( DL ) where the availability of those rides were up to 3 hours away from the current time.
- Just like Fastpass, you can't get a new non-LL$$ pass until you redeem the current pass that you signed up for. I think that if the pass is several hours away, then there is some time limit ( like 2 hours or something ) where you will then be available to make another request.
- I found that the LL$$ for RotR, Spiderman WS and Cars RS were still available for purchase until mid to late afternoon. It was far less crowded when I went, so it's possible that it may not be available earlier in the afternoon.
- For all LL passes, all I really did was continue to monitor the app to see what the next timeslot. For the very popular rides, I knew that if I could wait it out while going on other rides with short standby or use another LL pass; I could wait it out so that I'm not stuck in Standby lines only.

I think that the best strategy to follow when using Genie+ and LL$$ is to arrive as early as possible and ride as many of your favorite rides via Standby and then save your LL passes for later in the afternoon and evening. Since the wait times are far more reasonable compared to later in the morning and afternoon, I'd rather have waited in line for 45 minutes to an hour for the most popular ride and then use the LL pass later in the day. I did that for WS on the first day and we waited in line for about 52 minutes ( at rope drop ) and then use the LL$$ pass for the ride again later in the afternoon. For Space Mountain, I did the same where we rode SM at 9am ( waiting only 25 minutes ) and then saved the LL pass for SM after riding RotR and Smugglers Run. This was in the late afternoon, which means that we rode those 3 popular rides all in sequence in the span of 90 minutes.

In the end, I will admit that I hate paying for stuff like this because it's just another way for Disney to "nickel and dime" us. But because my Wife hates to wait in line, I was able to pay for it and take advantage of cutting the wait times down to 10 to 25 minutes ( which is far more palatable for her ).
 
Last edited:
What would most folks say is a reasonable wait time for RoTR, Websligers and RS Racers if arriving to the esplanade at about 30-45 minutes prior to park opening? It seems like some of the die hards that review here and on other boards are arriving 1–1.5 hours before rope drop and I just dont think that’s feasible for everyone. I am trying to get an idea of a realistic wait time at rope drop for someone in the middle or near the back of the pack.
 
What would most folks say is a reasonable wait time for RoTR, Websligers and RS Racers if arriving to the esplanade at about 30-45 minutes prior to park opening? It seems like some of the die hards that review here and on other boards are arriving 1–1.5 hours before rope drop and I just dont think that’s feasible for everyone. I am trying to get an idea of a realistic wait time at rope drop for someone in the middle or near the back of the pack.
If you’re arriving 30-45 minutes before park opening and not necessarily rushing to the ride your wait time isn’t gonna be much better (in fact it might be worse) than it would be later in the day because EVERYONE goes to those rides first.

All 3 times I did Rise first last week I got there 1-1.5 hours before park opening and was able to maneuver myself to the front of the crowd and walk on to Rise. But each of those times when I got off the entire queue was full (except for the additional exterior queue by Critter Country) and the line was stretching all the way through Galaxy’s edge almost to the entrance to Frontierland. Later in the day the queue (including the exterior queue) was full but it wasn’t stretching outside the queue at all, let alone all the way through the very massive Galaxy’s Edge 😬

When I started at WS on 1/7 I arrived 1-1.5 hours before the park opened and was at the very front. I was one of the very first but when I got off the entire queue was full just like it usually is in the middle of the day.

I have never started (nor will I ever start) at RSR because of the amazing single rider line. What I’ve observed about that SR line is you basically walk onto the ride if you do it the first few hours the park is open and then it does build as the day goes on but it’s never more than a 25-30 minute wait. They have closed it in the evenings before but I’m not sure if they’re doing that anymore. If SR isn’t an option for you (you have young kids, you really want to ride together, etc), I don’t think it’s any different from Rise and WS in that many people rush there first and the line is as long or longer as it will be later in the day.

Personally I wouldn’t wait in those lines in the morning if I wasn’t near the front. However they may actually go quicker earlier in the day before a lot of people start using lightning lanes and are significantly prioritized. If staying until park closing is an option for you that will likely give you better results for standby wait times and the wait won’t cut into your park time (unless you’re park hopping and one park closes before another like is common for DCA to close an hour or two earlier than DL)

I’ve only done WS once at park closing (well kind of). That was on Halloween at Oogie Boogie Bash. The virtual queue was still in use and converted to standby right when OBB started and that’s when I got in line. I think I waited about 20 minutes. The situation is way different now that WS is always standby and the park doesn’t close at 6. But I have heard that the wait gets pretty short toward the end of the day.

I did RSR last with my sister last July when SR was closed but we wanted to do it when it was dark (as mentioned earlier they closed SR in the evening then) so we got in line soon before park closing and I think we waited about an hour but part of that was because it broke down for probably 15-20 minutes. I’ve heard other people say the wait has been much shorter at park closing since then.

Rise at park closing is a little more complicated. It’s pretty much never ever open past 9:30 so if the park closes at 10 or later your wait time at Rise is gonna cut into park time. Usually they say Rise is gonna be open until 8 and then update it on the app if it’s gonna close later. I was there on 1/7-1/8 and 1/10-1/12. I think it closed at 9 on 1/7 and 1/8 when the park was open until midnight and the line looked pretty long when it was about to close both times if I remember right. On 1/10 and 1/11 the park was open until 9 and Rise ended up being open until then and both days I only waited about 20-30 minutes from getting in line until sitting down on the final ride. It had been a lot longer an hour earlier so it really dies down in that last hour apparently. On 1/12 the park closed at 9 but Rise closed at 8 and I didn’t do it because I didn’t want the wait to cut into my last hour of my last park day.

Anyway my point is you’re likely better off trying to do WS and RSR at park closing than at rope drop. Rise is a little more complicated but if the park has an early closing (like 8 or 9) doing it last is probably a good bet. Keep in mind these rides (especially Rise and RSR) break down a LOT. So if you only have a day there and you’d be devastated if you don’t do those rides don’t risk waiting until the end of the day.

If you’re going to be at the park 30-45 minutes before it opens I think better rides to do first would be rides like Space, Indy, Guardians, and Soarin’. These will certainly have long waits later in the day but not everyone rushes to them first.

Hopefully this helps even if it’s not what you wanted to hear!
 
If you’re arriving 30-45 minutes before park opening and not necessarily rushing to the ride your wait time isn’t gonna be much better (in fact it might be worse) than it would be later in the day because EVERYONE goes to those rides first.

All 3 times I did Rise first last week I got there 1-1.5 hours before park opening and was able to maneuver myself to the front of the crowd and walk on to Rise. But each of those times when I got off the entire queue was full (except for the additional exterior queue by Critter Country) and the line was stretching all the way through Galaxy’s edge almost to the entrance to Frontierland. Later in the day the queue (including the exterior queue) was full but it wasn’t stretching outside the queue at all, let alone all the way through the very massive Galaxy’s Edge 😬

When I started at WS on 1/7 I arrived 1-1.5 hours before the park opened and was at the very front. I was one of the very first but when I got off the entire queue was full just like it usually is in the middle of the day.

I have never started (nor will I ever start) at RSR because of the amazing single rider line. What I’ve observed about that SR line is you basically walk onto the ride if you do it the first few hours the park is open and then it does build as the day goes on but it’s never more than a 25-30 minute wait. They have closed it in the evenings before but I’m not sure if they’re doing that anymore. If SR isn’t an option for you (you have young kids, you really want to ride together, etc), I don’t think it’s any different from Rise and WS in that many people rush there first and the line is as long or longer as it will be later in the day.

Personally I wouldn’t wait in those lines in the morning if I wasn’t near the front. However they may actually go quicker earlier in the day before a lot of people start using lightning lanes and are significantly prioritized. If staying until park closing is an option for you that will likely give you better results for standby wait times and the wait won’t cut into your park time (unless you’re park hopping and one park closes before another like is common for DCA to close an hour or two earlier than DL)

I’ve only done WS once at park closing (well kind of). That was on Halloween at Oogie Boogie Bash. The virtual queue was still in use and converted to standby right when OBB started and that’s when I got in line. I think I waited about 20 minutes. The situation is way different now that WS is always standby and the park doesn’t close at 6. But I have heard that the wait gets pretty short toward the end of the day.

I did RSR last with my sister last July when SR was closed but we wanted to do it when it was dark (as mentioned earlier they closed SR in the evening then) so we got in line soon before park closing and I think we waited about an hour but part of that was because it broke down for probably 15-20 minutes. I’ve heard other people say the wait has been much shorter at park closing since then.

Rise at park closing is a little more complicated. It’s pretty much never ever open past 9:30 so if the park closes at 10 or later your wait time at Rise is gonna cut into park time. Usually they say Rise is gonna be open until 8 and then update it on the app if it’s gonna close later. I was there on 1/7-1/8 and 1/10-1/12. I think it closed at 9 on 1/7 and 1/8 when the park was open until midnight and the line looked pretty long when it was about to close both times if I remember right. On 1/10 and 1/11 the park was open until 9 and Rise ended up being open until then and both days I only waited about 20-30 minutes from getting in line until sitting down on the final ride. It had been a lot longer an hour earlier so it really dies down in that last hour apparently. On 1/12 the park closed at 9 but Rise closed at 8 and I didn’t do it because I didn’t want the wait to cut into my last hour of my last park day.

Anyway my point is you’re likely better off trying to do WS and RSR at park closing than at rope drop. Rise is a little more complicated but if the park has an early closing (like 8 or 9) doing it last is probably a good bet. Keep in mind these rides (especially Rise and RSR) break down a LOT. So if you only have a day there and you’d be devastated if you don’t do those rides don’t risk waiting until the end of the day.

If you’re going to be at the park 30-45 minutes before it opens I think better rides to do first would be rides like Space, Indy, Guardians, and Soarin’. These will certainly have long waits later in the day but not everyone rushes to them first.

Hopefully this helps even if it’s not what you wanted to hear!
This was very helpful and makes sense. We will be there 3 days with park hoppers and will purchase Genie plus all days. I also don’t have a problem paying for the $LL but would prefer not to have to pay for it more than once for Rise for 4 people at $80 a day on top of whatever the going rate is for RSR and Web. I think your strategy makes sense so we will likely avoid the $LL rides at rope drop and stick to the older classics.
 
What would most folks say is a reasonable wait time for RoTR, Websligers and RS Racers if arriving to the esplanade at about 30-45 minutes prior to park opening? It seems like some of the die hards that review here and on other boards are arriving 1–1.5 hours before rope drop and I just dont think that’s feasible for everyone. I am trying to get an idea of a realistic wait time at rope drop for someone in the middle or near the back of the pack.
For WebSlingers Standby at Rope Drop on a Saturday at DCA, I got on the ride at 8:52am ( 52 min wait ).
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!











facebook twitter
Top