Lots of posts today on Facebook regarding ‘stacking’ ending

[SMF_mom23]

It's why they should have went the Universal route and create their version of express pass.

I fully anticipate there being a price increase in Genie+ as an app (and the ILLs, for that matter). As much as I dislike paying for what was previously free, by setting the price as low as they have, Disney is guaranteed to end up with ticked off customers when they pay $15/pp and can only get two rides out of it, and likely only ONE of those was a ride the customer really wanted, the other being all that's left. For our family of 5, that $15 would add up quickly, but I would still be willing to spend it. Kick the price to $50/pp and I'm out (most likely) and I think a lot of other people would be, too, thereby fixing the availability issue.

Full disclosure: We are taking our first trip to UO during the second half of our vacation in June (1st half at WDW) and chose to stay in a resort that included the Unlimited Express Pass. Had the hotel not included it, I would not have bought it, nor would I have chosen this hotel.

 

[BadPinkTink]

Stacking is not ending. What has changed is the extra loophole that people people discovered. Walt Disney World people, especially the Vloggers who never used MAXPASS and the free paper Fastpass at Disneyland are spreading
in-correct information.

Stacking as we used to do in Disneyland with Maxpass and the free paper Fastpass IS still possible. You can still stack Genie+ Lightning Lane passes with later return times by getting them every 2 hours, the same as what we used to do in Disneyland.

 

[CarolynU]

I am a Disney veteran with every system but this new one, which I’m really struggling to get my head around. So if I buy lightening passes in advance for the length of stay (14 days) five adults and two children in our group it’s $1000 plus! And for that I have to get up at 7am but may be lucky to even manage to use the LL twice as everything in theory could be booked up?? And someone posted the other day that by 07:03 SDD at HS had gone already?! Also if I go and book this ride at 7am and the earliest return time is 5:30pm as another poster described can I still book another at 9am two hours after my initial selection? Then another once I’ve done that ride?
If I can’t get an ILL as the virtual queue is full is there a standby option for all those rides? Or even if you are willing to pay but can’t secure the queue system is that it? All your options are closed?
I have a very diverse party with their preferences including a three year old who is very risk averse and won’t even meet the height requirements so working all this out in my head is giving me a migraine!

 

[buzz1fan]

It's pretty simple - actually far simpler now that they've corrected this to probably what they meant it to be. Basically you can now only make a reservation 2 hours after you made your last reservation with one exception - if you tap into a reservation and aren't already holding another reservation booked within the last two hours, you can book when you tap in.

Old system example: At 7 am you book a LL for 11:30 am. You could make another reservation at 11am when your two hours (from park opening) expire AND you could make one when you tap into the 11:30 reservation.
New system: You can still make a reservation at 11am when your 2 hours come up but you cannot make a reservation when you tap in at 11:30 because you're already holding another reservation that you made less than 2 hours ago (at 11). So you can only make another reservation at the earlier of 1pm (when you two hour are up) OR when you tap into that 11am reservation (since if you tap in before 1 you won't have another reservation booked).

FWIW - I hated the system when they announced it any my hatred is just growing as I'm reading reports. I'm seeing far more people saying this really raises the stress level of trips rather than makes it easier. It's one thing to try to squeeze money from guests - it's another thing to do it in a way that also greatly detracts from their vacation. I have no desire to go back to Disney other than at the absolute lowest crowd times now as it's clear that trying to use Genie during heavy crowds is a nightmare. If it were "we're charging you more money but look what you get" I'd deal with it. But this is "we're charging you more money and look what we've taken away from you . . ." FP+ was a game changer. It made it much easier for people to plan their day according to their schedule whether you were a rope dropper, a mid-day breaker, a park hopper a late riser - you had options no matter what. I'd like to hear what the day will be like now for someone who isn't on their phone until 10am and in the park at noon . . .

So I make my first pick at 7 am- (should I pick a harder to get one)I can make my second pick at 9 then 11 etc. But I can only do this if I have used the last pass. What if there are not passes at 11 but have to schedule 1145, can I still pick again at 1?

 

[thanxfornoticin]

I am a Disney veteran with every system but this new one, which I’m really struggling to get my head around. So if I buy lightening passes in advance for the length of stay (14 days) five adults and two children in our group it’s $1000 plus! And for that I have to get up at 7am but may be lucky to even manage to use the LL twice as everything in theory could be booked up?? And someone posted the other day that by 07:03 SDD at HS had gone already?! Also if I go and book this ride at 7am and the earliest return time is 5:30pm as another poster described can I still book another at 9am two hours after my initial selection? Then another once I’ve done that ride?
If I can’t get an ILL as the virtual queue is full is there a standby option for all those rides? Or even if you are willing to pay but can’t secure the queue system is that it? All your options are closed?
I have a very diverse party with their preferences including a three year old who is very risk averse and won’t even meet the height requirements so working all this out in my head is giving me a migraine!

In short, the only ride that has a VQ at WDW right now is Remy's. That ride has only ILL$ or VQ - no walk-up standby. All other attractions are either standby only (like a WedWay PeopleMover, which has no LL), Genie+ LL and standby, or ILL$ and standby. Hope that helps!

 

[Grasshopper2016]

Also if I go and book this ride at 7am and the earliest return time is 5:30pm as another poster described can I still book another at 9am two hours after my initial selection?

So I make my first pick at 7 am- (should I pick a harder to get one)I can make my second pick at 9 then 11 etc.

You cannot make your second pick until either you use your first LL or two hours after park opening. So for a park that opens at 9:00, you can make your first pick at 7:00 and your second pick at 11:00. On very crowded days, it’s already pretty slim pickings at 11:00.

 

[intertile]

I'm here now, and absolutely hate the new system. With fastpass+ even on busy weekends like Thanksgiving I could easily get 5-8 fastpass every day depending on the park. With this new system yesterday(arrival day) I was at MK and hopped to Epcot and back to MK. Got 2 ILL and 3 LL. Cost me $65 for 2 people... totally not worth it, but not sure I have a choice. For what it's worth the extra 2 hours last night at MK for Deluxe hotel guests was worth it. Lines never exceeded 25min for anything.

Today we are doing Epcot, and I overslept. So I'm basically forced to use all my LL for later in day at HS which will be my park hopper. (SDD and ROR) compelling sold out by time I got up. Remy initial VQ and ILL sold out as well.

For those trying to understand. You can make your first selection at 7am, and the second 2 hours after your initial parks open(not 9am). So epcot opens at 10am today, my second will be made at noon.

 

[CarolynU]

In short, the only ride that has a VQ at WDW right now is Remy's. That ride has only ILL$ or VQ - no walk-up standby. All other attractions are either standby only (like a WedWay PeopleMover, which has no LL), Genie+ LL and standby, or ILL$ and standby. Hope that helps!

Thank you. So even ROTR has a standby queue, as that’s prob what some of our party would want maybe later in the eve after the kiddies are tucked up in bed l!

 

[CarolynU]

You cannot make your second pick until either you use your first LL or two hours after park opening. So for a park that opens at 9:00, you can make your first pick at 7:00 and your second pick at 11:00. On very crowded days, it’s already pretty slim pickings at 11:00.

Ahh I see. Kind of pointless buying it though if there’s nothing available but my initial choice at 11am for over $1000!

 

[loves to dive]

I've seen a few vloggers use the system the way it was intended to be used, which is the way is now forcing you to use and they have managed to do most if not all of the rides. This wasn't done during the holidays when it was super busy but it is doable.

Having said that, I will be there the week of Dec. 12th and have no intention of buying it. Partly because I'm not ride centric, partly because I don't mind standing in line if I really want to ride a ride and partly because I don't really like or need to ride some of those "must do" rides. Mostly I'm just going to kind of experiment to see what I can get done by not having it. I won't even try to ride FoP because it makes me a little sick so no reason to ride it even for an experiment. I'm not really a fan of Mickey and Minnie but might ride it just for experiment purposes, the same with RoTR. It's an o.k. ride but I've ridden it a number of times and don't really need to.

 

[motherof5]

After hearing over and over about how-to stack LL reservations (at 7 AM, using the 120 rule, and tapping into to a ride after the 120 time, etc), today I’m seeing many posts stating that it’s not working that way as of today.
I’m curious if anybody there today can confirm or deny that there have been some closures to this loophole? The posts said that while they could book at 7, 10, 12, 2, 4, 6, they could not grab another once tapped in two places into their first ride.

People were saying Disney fixed this. Saw alot of complaints of people only using 1-2 ride after paying for Lighting.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Ahh I see. Kind of pointless buying it though if there’s nothing available but my initial choice at 11am for over $1000!

Keep in mind, you actually can buy Genie+ on a day-of basis. So if you decide you only want to buy it one of your days, after midnight of the day you want to purchase it, you can go on MDE/Genie and buy it just for that day. The 'entire stay' purchase is only if you wish to do it in advance. Annual Pass holders need to buy it day-of, too (not that the AP situation is of concern to you!). But you have some lesser expensive options, based on what parks you're doing and where you might want to utilize G+.

 

[CarolynU]

Keep in mind, you actually can buy Genie+ on a day-of basis. So if you decide you only want to buy it one of your days, after midnight of the day you want to purchase it, you can go on MDE/Genie and buy it just for that day. The 'entire stay' purchase is only if you wish to do it in advance. Annual Pass holders need to buy it day-of, too (not that the AP situation is of concern to you!). But you have some lesser expensive options, based on what parks you're doing and where you might want to utilize G+.

Yes thank you that was what I was originally going to do and then saw the length of stay option and just felt is if it would make life easier but if ride availability is so scarce it seems a waste, so I’m torn now. I was thinking back to the old days of legacy FP and even over the Christmas period we still managed to do a lot but unless my mind was playing tricks on me there was still some FP availability.
I’m just trying to cut down the standing in line time for the two little kiddies as their tolerance for long lines is possibly minimal. I don’t care what I do or don’t do as an adult.

 

[DisneyKidds]

Stacking is not ending. What has changed is the extra loophole that people people discovered. Walt Disney World people, especially the Vloggers who never used MAXPASS and the free paper Fastpass at Disneyland are spreading
in-correct information.

Stacking as we used to do in Disneyland with Maxpass and the free paper Fastpass IS still possible. You can still stack Genie+ Lightning Lane passes with later return times by getting them every 2 hours, the same as what we used to do in Disneyland.

Stacking hasn’t changed, you can still stack. Prior to this change you could use those as rolling stacks. Each time you tapped into a LL reservation you could book a replacement. Now you no longer have rolling stacks. If you hold more than one LL reservation (a stack) you you can’t book a new reservation upon use, unless it’s the last reservation in your stack.

 

[sleepymouse]

This actually seems a bit worse than the recent MaxPass at Disneyland. I will preface this by saying that I used MaxPass the first year it was rolled out and not since then. Anyway, I remember that you could get a FP for RSR at 10am in the morning that had a return time for 3pm. Then 2 hours later at noon, book a FP for Goofy at 12:30, use it right away, and after tapping in, immediately book another FP. You did not have to wait until 2pm. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

 

[kmrobins03]

So basically now it works like MaxPass used to at Disneyland and how I'm sure this was supposed to work in the first place.

This is how I understand it to… to work like max pass

 

[LSUmiss]

Given what happened this week stacking is going to be largely irrelevant anyway. You’ll be lucky if you pull 2 lightning lane attractions total before everything sells out. AK was out of every single lightning lane including all the shows by 2:20 pm today.

Yep which is outrageous for the price!

 

[LSUmiss]

So basically now it works like MaxPass used to at Disneyland and how I'm sure this was supposed to work in the first place.

Maybe but it’s doesn’t work that well at all b/c it’s sold out by early afternoon of pretty much everything of its crowded.

 

[Jrb1979]

Maybe but it’s doesn’t work that well at all b/c it’s sold out by early afternoon of pretty much everything of its crowded.

It's why they should have went the Universal route. Charge a premium for it and let people get in queues whenever they want.

 

[LSUmiss]

It's why they should have went the Universal route. Charge a premium for it and let people get in queues whenever they want.

That would be worth the price to me.