Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[mom2rtk]

Anyone have recent experience when EP doesn't open until 10am? We'll be there on Marathon Sunday and they just moved EP opening from 11 to 10am. Trying to decide if we should just RD Remy at the IG, or go ahead and burn a LL. Was thinking the RD crowd would be much larger for a 10am opening vs 9am.

We were there on Marathon Sunday this year. Roads and paths in and around World Showcase and Future World were impacted. Paths were split to make room for the runners. Foot traffic was held up to be allowed across in between groups of runners. Characters weren't out in the World Showcase until later in the afternoon.

That said, we still had a lovely day and it wasn't a huge deal. But we purposely chose to go on Marathon Sunday because we knew we could arrive by Skyliner. I can't address any transportation issues you might have since I don' t know where you're staying.

 

[chris1212]

How long did you wait for Tower at regular rope drop?

I want to say it was around 25 minutes? Posted time was 70 minutes though.

 

[mwmom]

After spending a week at Disney Dec. 4-9, here are my thoughts:
*Rides: Rise was the most immersive ride we have ever been on and we aren’t even huge Star Wars fans. Best Christmas overlay goes to Land of the Living. You have to ride it at night during the holiday season to get the full Christmas effect.
Hotels: WL is still my favorite hotel for theming, especially at Christmas. Our first stay at Swan was wonderful. I am a platinum member for the first time and got an upgrade to a beautiful balcony view. I loved having the Friendship boats transport us since I have foot issues.
Genie +: I have a love/hate relationship. I did love that it saved us standing in long lines and allowed us to ride more rides in a shorter period of time. I absolutely hated getting up at 7 am since our touring strategy was to spend later nights and sleep in. I was also surprised that we still had to wait in some lines for more than 20 minutes. Most rides were 10 or less, but some were quite long considering we bought G+. I wish they would just roll all rides into G+. I did not like paying for $ILL separately, but I wasn’t going to wait for 60+ minutes, so we made it work. G+ definitely adds to the cost of an already expensive vacation. Also, I hated having to fiddle faddle all day to get the times we wanted. After typing this, I see I had a lot of negative feelings, but again, it was worth it to me to save time standing.
People: I was very pleasantly surprised at the behavior of people at Disney. I had read a lot of negative comments, but that was not our experience. People were very well behaved and thoughtful. There was one family in front of us at PP who had other members further back in line and they talked about having them come up to where they were, but decided otherwise and everyone just stayed put in their spots. That was very much appreciated. We never saw anyone who was less than pleasant. Cast members were fine. I guess the one thing I noticed was that most were there to do their job, but they didn’t exude excitement like in the past. They were never rude, but just not enthusiastic. I do think that is what set Disney apart in the past. I hope for their sake that the magic can return for them. I was thinking that when they had the ability to sprinkle pixie dust during the year of a million dreams that it probably added to their enthusiasm.
Food: Due to the extra costs associated with this vacation now, we only ate table service twice, once at Whispering Canyon and once at BOG. We greatly enjoyed both experiences. The food was good and the waiter at BOG and waitress at WC were superb! They were fun, enthusiastic, and attentive. Oh wait, we also ate at Sci Fi the last night at the spur of the moment. It was our first time there. That place is a dream for anyone needing some quiet time away from the crowds. I have never eaten at such a quiet restaurant. Our quick service at Connections was meh, France QS was very good, Columbia Harbor House yummy (we always get the clam chowder and hush puppies), and Roaring Forks had a good breakfast. Geyser Point was a standout for us. The food was delicious and such a nice setting eating outside by the lake.

Overall, we had a wonderful trip. My DD loved it. I enjoyed everything we did. That said, I did not feel that magical feeling the way I have on our past 6 trips. I couldn’t really put my finger on why. We rode all the rides we wanted to, the crowds were manageable, and we didn’t have any negative experiences. Due to the cost increases and the lack of that magical feel, I think we will wait until my daughter has kids to return. I know one day we will want them to experience it, but in the meantime there are other destinations on our bucket list. With me pushing 60 soon, I want to hit those other destinations, so we will give Disney time to make the adjustments they so desperately need before we return. The memories we have of our trips are all worth storing in our minds, and we are grateful beyond words for having the opportunity to go this year at Christmas.

 

[MrWreckless]

Just got back from a week long trip and wanted to share a note on Genie+ and Standby Skipper.

We are not rope droppers, or mid day break people. We enter the parks around 10 and we stay until closing. During research on the best Genie+ strategies i came across a tool called Standby Skipper. Ive seen it mentioned here a couple times as well but there werent many hands on user reports. Also there isnt much activity on their socials so i was a bit leery at first using it especially since they need to be added as a friend on your MDE, but i decided what the heck, if anything bad happens ill just dispute the charge.

So the way this thing works is if you have Genie+ you can use the Standby Skipper to book LL passes for you. You just tell it a time frame for which to search (ASAP, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Within 2 Hours) and its starts searching and if something pops up meeting your parameters then it books it for you.

So me being the type of person that likes to sleep in, i figured id use this tool to book a LL for mid morning while im still asleep at 7am. The previous night i purchased Genie+ and then told SS to book a pass for Peter Pan in the morning, figuring since the park opens at 9am id have until 10:10 to make it to Peter Pan if the thing worked that well. Guess what, i woke up to a booked LL for Peter Pan at 9am. It worked. I then told it to book a LL for SM ASAP. The tool knew the earliest i could book again was 11. When 11 rolled around i was in the middle of the HM ride, when i left the ride i checked my phone and the SM pass was sitting right there in my account.

So SS does its job well, it books while you are asleep and while you are in the middle of a ride. But the absolute best thing about the app is that it still grabs LL passes when MDE says there arent any more available. I told SS to search for LL passes for the following rides for which MDE showed there was ZERO LL availability: BTMR, Jingle Cruise, MF:SR, Frozen, Test Track, and Space Mountain. It took a max of 20 minutes for the app to find each of those LL, even with MDE showing as unavailable. Sure you could have found them also with CONSTANT refreshing but thats not how i want to spend my vacation, let someone else do the dirty work for me.

 

[WIll C]

Just got back from a week long trip and wanted to share a note on Genie+ and Standby Skipper.

We are not rope droppers, or mid day break people. We enter the parks around 10 and we stay until closing. During research on the best Genie+ strategies i came across a tool called Standby Skipper. Ive seen it mentioned here a couple times as well but there werent many hands on user reports. Also there isnt much activity on their socials so i was a bit leery at first using it especially since they need to be added as a friend on your MDE, but i decided what the heck, if anything bad happens ill just dispute the charge.

So the way this thing works is if you have Genie+ you can use the Standby Skipper to book LL passes for you. You just tell it a time frame for which to search (ASAP, Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Within 2 Hours) and its starts searching and if something pops up meeting your parameters then it books it for you.

So me being the type of person that likes to sleep in, i figured id use this tool to book a LL for mid morning while im still asleep at 7am. The previous night i purchased Genie+ and then told SS to book a pass for Peter Pan in the morning, figuring since the park opens at 9am id have until 10:10 to make it to Peter Pan if the thing worked that well. Guess what, i woke up to a booked LL for Peter Pan at 9am. It worked. I then told it to book a LL for SM ASAP. The tool knew the earliest i could book again was 11. When 11 rolled around i was in the middle of the HM ride, when i left the ride i checked my phone and the SM pass was sitting right there in my account.

So SS does its job well, it books while you are asleep and while you are in the middle of a ride. But the absolute best thing about the app is that it still grabs LL passes when MDE says there arent any more available. I told SS to search for LL passes for the following rides for which MDE showed there was ZERO LL availability: BTMR, Jingle Cruise, MF:SR, Frozen, Test Track, and Space Mountain. It took a max of 20 minutes for the app to find each of those LL, even with MDE showing as unavailable. Sure you could have found them also with CONSTANT refreshing but thats not how i want to spend my vacation, let someone else do the dirty work for me.

Thanks for trying this out! I wonder how long until Disney pushes back to stop this?

 

[igrsod]

Thanks for trying this out! I wonder how long until Disney pushes back to stop this?

I feel like Disney should add these features to Genie +... then it might be something I would buy. I just don't like so many things in the way that Genie + works. Standby Skipper helps to alleviate some of those.

 

[gottalovepluto]

…Best Christmas overlay goes to Land of the Living...

Makes me want to see a Land of the Dead overlay for Halloween

 

[Smugpugmug]

Thanks for trying this out! I wonder how long until Disney pushes back to stop this?

Yeah, I have a feeling that Disney will try to stop this, especially since a lot more people are talking about it. If Standby Skipper costs money to use, then Disney will absolutely stop it. I do find it funny that Genie+ is such a pain to use that you have to download third party apps to improve the experience lol

 

[Jrb1979]

Yeah, I have a feeling that Disney will try to stop this, especially since a lot more people are talking about it. If Standby Skipper costs money to use, then Disney will absolutely stop it. I do find it funny that Genie+ is such a pain to use that you have to download third party apps to improve the experience lol

Genie+ becomes a pain due to most people trying to make it like FP+. Everyone is trying to stack and setup their day like they did with FP. Genie+ doesn't work well when you do that.

I still think they should have went with the Universal system but without the free ones. I would have priced it at $150 per person for hoppers and MK. $100 per person at all other parks.

 

[wilkydelts]

Any one giving a 3rd Party website access to their MDE is tempting fate. Massive risk, little reward

 

[Smugpugmug]

Genie+ becomes a pain due to most people trying to make it like FP+. Everyone is trying to stack and setup their day like they did with FP. Genie+ doesn't work well when you do that.

I still think they should have went with the Universal system but without the free ones. I would have priced it at $150 per person for hoppers and MK. $100 per person at all other parks.

I'm not going into any of that here as I don't want to derail the thread. Enough people are having trouble with Genie+ if a third party app that books lightning lanes for you was created. On their site, it does say that they are charging money for this so I think this will eventually be blocked by Disney.

 

[Jrb1979]

I'm not going into any of that here as I don't want to derail the thread. Enough people are having trouble with Genie+ if a third party app that books lightning lanes for you was created. On their site, it does say that they are charging money for this so I think this will eventually be blocked by Disney.

I still maintain the reason so many are having difficulty is they are trying to get return times that work for their day. The way it's supposed to work is you open Genie+ and take what's available.

 

[MrWreckless]

I still maintain the reason so many are having difficulty is they are trying to get return times that work for their day. The way it's supposed to work is you open Genie+ and take what's available.

But what if "whats available" doesnt work for your day at that point in time? I mean lets be honest, nobody is buying Genie+ because they want to skip a 10 minute queue for the tea cups. If Disney thinks people want to do that and will feel as though the system was worth their money then they need to get rid of the whole thing right now. People want to skip the line for the headliners and maximize the number of those they can ride. Its the entire selling point of the system.

You go to the MK and you want to see the parade, you want to see the fireworks, you may have a dining reservation, etc....all these other things that take up portions of your day. You cant just "take whats available" because whats available may fall into the same bucket of time as the parade or fireworks you want to see.

If im paying for a booking system why wouldnt i want to book for times where i can maximize my park time and money?

 

[lugnut33]

I still maintain the reason so many are having difficulty is they are trying to get return times that work for their day. The way it's supposed to work is you open Genie+ and take what's available.

Not sure about that. Disney literally advertises G+ as "service offers convenience and flexibility".

 

[leeniewdw]

We were there on Marathon Sunday this year. Roads and paths in and around World Showcase and Future World were impacted. Paths were split to make room for the runners. Foot traffic was held up to be allowed across in between groups of runners. Characters weren't out in the World Showcase until later in the afternoon.

That said, we still had a lovely day and it wasn't a huge deal. But we purposely chose to go on Marathon Sunday because we knew we could arrive by Skyliner. I can't address any transportation issues you might have since I don' t know where you're staying.

Thanks for that feedback! We are staying at POP (took a little work to get there as this trip was delayed due to hurricane Nicole and we had to move our trip), so we were thinking arriving via Int’l Gateway would help.

 

[mom2rtk]

Thanks for that feedback! We are staying at POP (took a little work to get there as this trip was delayed due to hurricane Nicole and we had to move our trip), so we were thinking arriving via Int’l Gateway would help.

Perfect! As long as the Skyliner is running, you should be good to go. When we were there in January, we had breakfast at Topolino on our way to Epcot that morning. Line was running and all was grand. Those heading to DHS weren't as lucky. That line was down.

We'll be there heading to DHS this year on Marathon Sunday. See you at the Skyliner station!

 

[KGolf31]

Any one giving a 3rd Party website access to their MDE is tempting fate. Massive risk, little reward

Not only this, but for the actual implementation of this app is using it's clients data (IE you have to allow access to your MDE) for allow the third party app itself to leverage it's querying system.

IE - If they are having 10 people utilize this app for a given single day, a workflow of how it works could consist of the following:

Person 1: Skipper uses their MDE Account to access the API of Disney's G+ to poll current line status, availability etc
10 seconds later, Person 2
20 seconds later, Person 3
etc etc

By spreading out the querying system, they are probably masking some attempts to not get caught by Disney (instead of constantly refreshing data with 1 person every 5 seconds for example)

They're probably using YOUR data to help their data and thus help other customers of theirs obtain the information they need and make the whole system work.

You are paying this app to make the whole system work. It seems very sketch.

 

[MrWreckless]

Not only this, but for the actual implementation of this app is using it's clients data (IE you have to allow access to your MDE) for allow the third party app itself to leverage it's querying system.

IE - If they are having 10 people utilize this app for a given single day, a workflow of how it works could consist of the following:

Person 1: Skipper uses their MDE Account to access the API of Disney's G+ to poll current line status, availability etc
10 seconds later, Person 2
20 seconds later, Person 3
etc etc

By spreading out the querying system, they are probably masking some attempts to not get caught by Disney (instead of constantly refreshing data with 1 person every 5 seconds for example)

They're probably using YOUR data to help their data and thus help other customers of theirs obtain the information they need and make the whole system work.

You are paying this app to make the whole system work. It seems very sketch.

That’s not what it’s doing at all.

The app used next to none of my data at all the entire week I was using it. And when I say next to none I mean a couple kb, it used a FRACTION of the data compared to apps I don’t even use.

I ran queries using the Lines app ONE day and it used 1200 times more data than SS used all week.

 

[leeniewdw]

Not only this, but for the actual implementation of this app is using it's clients data (IE you have to allow access to your MDE) for allow the third party app itself to leverage it's querying system.

IE - If they are having 10 people utilize this app for a given single day, a workflow of how it works could consist of the following:

Person 1: Skipper uses their MDE Account to access the API of Disney's G+ to poll current line status, availability etc
10 seconds later, Person 2
20 seconds later, Person 3
etc etc

By spreading out the querying system, they are probably masking some attempts to not get caught by Disney (instead of constantly refreshing data with 1 person every 5 seconds for example)

They're probably using YOUR data to help their data and thus help other customers of theirs obtain the information they need and make the whole system work.

You are paying this app to make the whole system work. It seems very sketch.

That’s not what it’s doing at all.

The app used next to none of my data at all the entire week I was using it. And when I say next to none I mean a couple kb, it used a FRACTION of the data compared to apps I don’t even use.

I ran queries using the Lines app one day and it used 1200 times more data.

Are we talking about the same “data”? I think the first poster is talking about your information as stored and used in MDE, not your mobile data.

However I’m not really familiar with this new app/service aside from what’s been posted here.

I think the original concern is the sharing of your personal/MDE information with a 3rd party. But I could be wrong.

 

[KGolf31]

Are we talking about the same “data”? I think the first poster is talking about your information as stored and used in MDE, not your mobile data.

However I’m not really familiar with this new app/service aside from what’s been posted here.

I think the original concern is the sharing of your personal/MDE information with a 3rd party. But I could be wrong.

No, we're not.

By allowing SS to access your MDE account, they're using physical (or virtual really it doesn't matter) servers on their end to process all the data and send/receive requests. They're not using your actual phone to use as actual "backend" for the processing requests. They are, however most likely masking these requests across multiple MDE accounts.

It's complex to explain, but SS saying all you need to do is add them to your F&F within MDE is simply not telling the whole story and is indeed violating some sort of privacy agreement Disney has in place (presumably)