Sweet Spot for LL Passes

[V.I.N.CENT.]

I've read a lot of threads about strategies for LL passes. As a big fan of Maxpass, I am dreading our next trip just a bit because I think I will miss the flexibility and ease of use of the old system. A typical strategy I read is to use the passes later on in the day when the ride times are longer. Totally get that and it makes sense. However, in preparation for my trip, I occasionally check pass availability on the app and I am starting to see an issue. On busy nights, as the evening runs on, the mountains and other rides are more than an hour out for the pass window. If it's like that for the majority of the day, how do you ride each LL ride once in a day? I would assume that you miss a few because of the length of the return windows and LL availability drying up.

What I think I will try is pulling my first pass for the day for Space or another ride likely to dry up. If its longer than two hours out, no big deal waiting since it will be earlier in the day and we can do other things. I am not a big fan of being on the phone a lot in the park. Seems like with this new system there's a lot more management involved trying to fit things in certain windows.

 

[duckboyone]

Excellent questions and I've been thinking about the same things. Heading to the parks next week so trying to get a strategy sorted in my mind. I had been thinking of rope dropping (or trying to, depending on the willingness of the family lol), ride as much as possible in the first couple hours of the day, then start checking for LLs towards the end of that time period.

 

[DLgal]

The only true way to maximize Genie+ is to book the ride that has the soonest available return time and then just do that all day. You will end up with some ME passes as rides inevitably break down and that can be used to your advantage as well.

 

[0nyx]

The only true way to maximize Genie+ is to book the ride that has the soonest available return time and then just do that all day. You will end up with some ME passes as rides inevitably break down and that can be used to your advantage as well.

do use the LLs as soon as possible?

 

[DLgal]

do use the LLs as soon as possible?

Yes. As soon as is convenient. You only get an hour to come back and ride. Book the next one as soon as you scan in.

 

[Lisa24jks]

The only true way to maximize Genie+ is to book the ride that has the soonest available return time and then just do that all day. You will end up with some ME passes as rides inevitably break down and that can be used to your advantage as well.

Agree with this. Also, if you haven't used Genie+ before and you're just looking at it in the app, it can feel very confusing. But once you are in the park, you will get the hang of it. I can't explain it, but it feels MUCH difference when you're hands on and actually able to book things rather than just browsing the app. I tried to do this before my first trip with Genie+ and was nervous about it too, but once I actually used it in the parks, it was fine.

Also, if you're there for multiple days, by the second day, you're going to feel like an expert. There was a little bit of a learning curve on Day 1 on my first Genie+ trip, but on Day 2, I was like... I HAVE MASTERED THIS SYSTEM.

 

[sweethannah]

If you've done Maxpass you'll get the hang of it. I hear what you're saying though and I've been stalking return times to gauge when I should book my LL if I want to try to 'stack' rides for an evening return. It was tricky even with Maxpass but I feel that it's a bit harder with LL.

 

[serene56]

do use the LLs as soon as possible?

thats my plans. But MANY say no to do it this way. We have no intention of riding anything at all twice in the same day so I will be grabbing as we go. Space mountain have a return time about 10 min after we get in-- so riding buzzz standby and grabbing space as we enter the park when we scan in I will be getting for Autopia riding and scanning for matterhorn riding alice stayby ride matterhorn and and scnaning for splash then I have to look-- then HM and then Indiana jones and eat at Cafe orleans take the train to the front and leave The time for lunch should be 1pm

 

[Becca1007]

We fished for multiple experience passes for the first hour or two of the day and did rides that we wanted to do twice in the day. Then just grabbed and used passes as they came up. It worked out well.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

We rarely used G+ in the morning (9-10am), and instead booked a popular ride for early afternoon once the window got there. A couple times, I mistimed checking and either didn't end up with the LL I wanted at all that day, or had more than 2 hours to wait, but this wasn't a problem because we did afternoon breaks and I was able to stack several for the evening when we returned.

I did not really try to fish for MEPs, but it definitely is a great strategy and ends up making the system a bit more like MaxPass with multiple rides possible.

 

[Lisa24jks]

We rarely used G+ in the morning (9-10am), and instead booked a popular ride for early afternoon once the window got there. A couple times, I mistimed checking and either didn't end up with the LL I wanted at all that day, or had more than 2 hours to wait, but this wasn't a problem because we did afternoon breaks and I was able to stack several for the evening when we returned.

I did not really try to fish for MEPs, but it definitely is a great strategy and ends up making the system a bit more like MaxPass with multiple rides possible.

It's funny, I've never fished for MEPs either, just sort of accidentally lucked my way into them. But, it's always exciting to get them, and I've never had it happen where the ride that broke down didn't come back up later. So then I use the LL again for that ride when it comes back, and use the MEP to ride something a second time.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

I found the system really cumbersome and restrictive. We were there on a very busy day a few weeks ago with park hoppers and the wait times were so far out that by the time we hit our second park we could only ride a few LL rides. Like three, four and five hours out. I also found the platform really hard to use and scroll through. Because we started in DCA it always defaulted back to that park when I opened it up even though we spent the last 8 hours in DL.

 

[FeistyDisneyMom]

I found the system really cumbersome and restrictive. We were there on a very busy day a few weeks ago with park hoppers and the wait times were so far out that by the time we hit our second park we could only ride a few LL rides. Like three, four and five hours out. I also found the platform really hard to use and scroll through. Because we started in DCA it always defaulted back to that park when I opened it up even though we spent the last 8 hours in DL.

It definitely helped that I had practiced using it to check wait times many, many times. Ok, so maybe I was a tiny bit obsessed with it for the weeks leading up to my trip, and checked wait and LL times for when I expected us to get to the park, again at lunch time, and periodically throughout the day so I'd know roughly when to be checking for LL that I wanted in specific ranges. If I hadn't done so much practicing (many hours spread over 2 weeks), I'm not sure I could have done anything successfully. I only used the 'select your favorites' for planning your day for our first day, and just got used to scrolling. Thankfully the system here in DLR isn't as competitive as that in WDW where the popular rides are gone before the park opens!

I actually found the app to default to DL no matter which park I was in, so it is funny we had the same problem, but for opposite parks!

 

[PHXscuba]

The TL;DR: standby, LLs, afternoon break, LLs

In detail:
Our strategy since we wanted re-rides on several of the headliners was to rope drop and ride standby for the first hour and a half. That got us on to Hyperspace Mountain, Star Tours, Jungle Cruise, Indiana Jones, (Dole Whip break) and Big Thunder with less than 10-minute waits for everything until Big Thunder, which was maybe 20? I had actually booked a LL for Indy but canceled it when we got there because there was zero standby line before the merge at the doorway.

Somewhere in there I booked a LL for Millenium Falcon. Rode it and then Rise of the Resistance in standby (the only long line of the day, by our choice no ILL x8). We made another LL for Splash for after our Carnation Cafe lunch.

Afternoon break, during which I got a LL for Hyperspace Mountain (the only one booking far out then), then we did (in rough order) with LLs: Hyperspace, Indy, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, Matterhorn, (built lightsabers), Haunted Mansion, Star Tours, and Buzz Lightyear. We had one multi-experience pass from ?? and tried to use it at Big Thunder later but it was closed so we did Haunted Mansion again.

Even on busy-ish days the return times for Disneyland rides didn't push out much except for Hyperspace Mountain and Indiana Jones, and even then they had availability til late in the day.

I will say that we didn't have quite as smooth a LL experience in DCA with RSR closure spreading crowds differently, and TSM closed much of the afternoon/evening, but we used the same standby-first strategy and rode nearly everything big twice, with an afternoon break.

I agree with PPs that if you've used MaxPass then the app-based part of it will be easy, you just only get one per ride.

PHXscuba

 

[V.I.N.CENT.]

The TL;DR: standby, LLs, afternoon break, LLs

PHXscuba

Thank you all for the replies. PHXscuba, that's exactly what I was thinking would work. Will be a bit of a balancing act based on the crowd levels that day. Will try not to stress too much

 

[James33]

If your goal is to use up all the LL, then definitely start first thing in the morning. That way the return times are short, though the difference between LL and not may just not be much. That way you can ensure usage of all LL, but will have long waits for many non-LL rides. 5 min rides in the morning become 30 mins.

I think the best balance is to rope drop and start schedule your LL for when the golden hour is over, usually for 10am depending on the day. Any time you see a time within the hour that normally distributes longer, go for it as it will reduce the time between LLs.

 

[sheilafri]

I actually use your proposed strategy as we don’t want to be constantly crisscrossing the park in search of the next quick ride. We walk enough using a more geographic approach. We have fallbacks of less popular attractions that we like that we will fill in with. We concentrate on booking the attractions more likely to sell out, and fill in with the medium and low wait time rides. We don’t get G+ to everything that way, but it works for us.

 

[Brandonius]

What I like to do is (with park hoppers) as soon as you scan into DL, book guardians in DCA. That pass will be forced to 1:00. Then at the 2 hours later mark, book space mountain, which will probably be about 90 minutes out from your booking. After riding space, book soarin’. Use all the extra time in the morning to just ride things - lines don’t get bad until like 11:00 and even then there are shows and rides that are good to do. At park hop you now have 2 of the 3 major LL rides ready in DCA. Once you can, book toy story. Around 5:00-6:00 PM or so when you park hop back, all the DL rides will have LL availability within like 45 minutes except Indy which always becomes a true walk on for the last hour of the night. Leverage morning and night low lines at DL to stack passes at DCA. Then use the late afternoon and evening to cash in on LLs at DL. This gets you 2-3 rides on a lot of the headliners at DL. This is the general idea of what I’ve done my last 3 days there and it’s gone great.