The big G+ rides at HS gone by 1:07!

[Kingoglow]

Yes, exactly-the ability to stack is stealing evening passes for those who are going with the park hop method.

It is wrong to color this as 'stealing'. People stacking evening LL's:
1) paid for the service
2) are not using their LL bookings during the morning time slots. They are booking their paid for slots for a later time.

 

[Peach026]

Comparing Lines at Disney to Lines at Universal is getting old and tired. If Universal had the crowds that Disney has, they would have the same problems. And if Disney had the crowds that Universal has, then Disney would be a breeze. It's the number of people (lack of capacity) not G+ that is the problem. G+ works great if there aren't as many people around. ExpressPass works great if there aren't as many people around. Both will break if there are tons of people.

I can only speak about my personal experience, which included glitches and issues all day long. I personally didn’t have the patience to visit a blue umbrella after the first two issues. More than the pure system problems - I don’t appreciate the actual process. I felt like I was on my phone all day long. Where at universal I didn’t need my phone at all to access EP.

 

[Peach026]

The real issue I have is how are Stand By Lines just as Long as when Fastpass days are, when

A) Only 50% of guests use G+
B) No one can get the same ride twice in one day
C) Those with G+ can barely get more than 2-3 passes in a day

Fastpass, there's still times available for plenty of rides, and rides continually refresh with more availability on the app too. Also, with being able to get the same ride again, people were easily able to get 7+ passes in a day.

So why does G+, with seemingly less 'availability' for times / deplete for every ride midday, which 'should' mean shorter return lines for the 'skippers' somehow slow down the Stand-by line far worse than Fastpass ever did?

Few Reasonings could be

A) Riders Per Hour maybe below the usual for every ride. If they bring that back up to what it should be for every ride, then the system would actually work / more allotments for times become available.

B) Far less than 50% of park goers ever took advantage of Fastpass. So essentially make it 'paid to use' brought more people to 'skip' lines than push people away, thus did opposite of speeding up Stand-by lines

C) The meet n greets / train / etc are Major crowd suckers that are desperately needed to alleviate lines. I see this affecting Standby lines, but as for G+ selections, only a gain of 1 possible extra selection / still lower than could get Fastpasses

My guess is A/C are the main reasonings. I don't see B being true, but if somehow Guests are using a paid system more than a free system, then we're more doomed.


maybe more thoughts / reasonings I didn't think of, so can respond with your thoughts.

I actually find the stand by lines to be double what we are used to in fast pass days. BUT it’s my opinion that’s due to pure demand. The parks are busier than they used to be (in my opinion) 2012-2019

 

[OhDannyBoy]

I’ve read that you virtually have zero wait with G+. With FP+ I remember routinely waiting 10ish minutes for a ride. So less people using it but they cut the standby line much quicker with G+.

Rocking Roller Coaster took us almost 20 minutes to board. Soarin took about the same.

 

[snikki]

Rocking Roller Coaster took us almost 20 minutes to board. Soarin took about the same.

Then I’ve been reading the wrong threads. Lol. Or maybe that was for ILL.

 

[SealedSeven]

Rocking Roller Coaster took us almost 20 minutes to board. Soarin took about the same.

That fits usual Fastpass lines. Points to Riders per Hour being lower / lower allotment for current G+ times, or far more people taking advantage of G+ than Fastpass, causing it to be unavailable faster per rides.

HOPE it's not the latter...

 

[Mrs~Incredible]

My experience is about the same as yours but a little different. Since I had some time I decided to refresh. I started at 228 and stopped at 237. Constant refresh. I was looking at RNRC, SDD, and TOT. Nothing available until 232. SDD and TOT. SDD I refreshed them again and it was gone. TOT lasted about 5 refreshes. RNRC didn’t pop up until 2:33 (may have been 2:34) and it only lasted that refresh and one more. Then after that I didn’t see any when I quit a little after 2:37 (close to 2:38).

Ha! I experimented with this too today and saw SDD for a nanosecond sometime between 2:32 and 2:33. Glad I have some disboards friends to join me in my crazy obsessions…

 

[kc51570]

It is wrong to color this as 'stealing'. People stacking evening LL's:
1) paid for the service
2) are not using their LL bookings during the morning time slots. They are booking their paid for slots for a later time.

I was quoting someone else-I know it’s not stealing, but it seems like the ability to stack is most likely one of the MANY contributors to reducing the availability of later LLs. You can now be holding 5 or more combined LL and ILL passes at a time when you could only hold 3FPs before. Like I also said, if it’s still an option when I go I’ll try this strategy myself. Just wish I was a person who could fall back asleep after my alarm going off at 6:45am or earlier on vacation.

 

[Mrs~Incredible]

At 3:11 pm
View attachment 649659
so, keep refreshing!! Hopefully one of the headliners pops up

3:13 I see Indiana Jones 4 pm show
3:14 I see Star Tours going back to 4:55

Outstanding research, @Disturbia!

 

[pens4821]

Ha! I experimented with this too today and saw SDD for a nanosecond sometime between 2:32 and 2:33. Glad I have some disboards friends to join me in my crazy obsessions…

Haha. We will be there the week of the 12th. HS will be our evening park so my plan was to get SDD, RNRC, and TOT. Up until recently that didn’t look like a problem getting the third at 1. Now I’m worried that it won’t happen. Hoping this 2:30ish drop works for me if I can’t get all three by 1.

Genie+ isn’t great but if I can get those three rides (and I’ll probably pay for ROTR and end of night MMRR) I’ll be ok with it.

 

[twodogs]

I was curious about the Universal Express Pass so I looked it up. On March 1st and 2nd--I chose those dates because I will be at WDW then--the unlimited pass (you can reride attractions at will) is $129.99. I guess that doesn't include tax, but I didn't go further, so I didn't see.

If WDW charged $130 for a front-of-line pass with unlimited rerides (excluding, say, RotR and FoP, which you could use the pass only once for) and limited the number of passes it sold, these would sell out. I would probably buy this for DHS for one day of my trip, but hardly for every day. It costs a heckuva lot more than G+ but the convenience it offers is a heckuva lot more.

Will Disney go to a system like this? Maybe. Maybe G+ is their method of paving the way for something a lot more expensive. Knowing Disney, though, their unlimited express pass will cost 3x what Uni's does and it won't come with a deluxe hotel stay like it does at Uni. Maybe a deluxe club-level stay, assuming a CL room will cost $1,500/night, although I may have underpriced that.

There is no leveling of the playing field if WDW keeps charging for G+ or whatever system it will have. Because as soon as there's an extra cost, the playing field is automatically not level, since there are people--imagine that!--who actually can't afford to add another $15.98/person/day to their trip cost.

There was kind of a level playing field for RotR when it first opened--the mad rush to, in a sense, win the RotR daily lottery. There were innumerable complaints about this, but unless you didn't have a smartphone, which has become a necessity at WDW, the playing field was as level as it could possibly be. Whoever you were, you had the same chance as anyone else of getting or not getting a RotR BG.

Now this has been replaced by the mad rush at 7 am to pay, and if you aren't staying at a WDW resort, the playing field for you is not only not level, you're probably completely out of luck. How this has made anything easier or more appealing for anyone, I do not know.

But I suspect that all the "Disney, you have to raise the price" commentary on the DIS is fueling Disney's plans to raise the price of G+. DISers, please, don't tell Disney they should raise the price on their resorts. Have you looked at rack rate lately? Sheesh. Unbelievable. And few discounts. No bouncebacks. Still no new AP sales. And let's not forget there's all but no housekeeping lately.

Disney already has this. It is the VIP tour. It is around $4000-5000 per day (not including park tickets). For up to 10 people. You have a guide that acts as a human FP, but you still wait in the LL lines. You can only ride ROTR and Remy’s once per day, the others you can re-ride. So your pricing suggested above is way too low. If you have 10 people on the VIP, it is at best $400-500/day/person. Most VIP tours don’t have the full 10 people on them, so it is even more per person.

 

[SLThomas318]

It is great that times show up with refreshing, but playing the refresh game contributes to the "on the phone all day" feeling. I hated it. We also rarely used more then the 3 fp+ we pre-booked. With young kids we rope dropped, used our 3 fast passes, and then shopped/ate/relaxed at the pool. We typically had an evening ADR and might pull a 4th or 5th fast pass for the evening park, but not always. Our frustration with genie+ is mainly the inability to plan ANYTHING. It seems like the only viable planning strategy with genie+ is an evening stack and then that only works if it's not too crowded and you don't have a dinner ADR. It also assumes that my younger kids are going to be able to hang later in the evening. I saw either a review or a previous post that mentioned "Disney hates kids" and I'm feeling that a little at the moment. With younger ones you have to have a little more of a plan/schedule and that feels impossible with genie+. My husband and I both said that if it was just the 2 of us, we could make it work, but with kids and grandparents it was really frustrating. And obviously having to pay for it just feels like rubbing salt in a wound....

 

[Disturbia]

Disney already has this. It is the VIP tour. It is around $4000-5000 per day (not including park tickets). For up to 10 people. You have a guide that acts as a human FP, but you still wait in the LL lines. You can only ride ROTR and Remy’s once per day, the others you can re-ride. So your pricing suggested above is way too low. If you have 10 people on the VIP, it is at best $400-500/day/person. Most VIP tours don’t have the full 10 people on them, so it is even more per person.

There is another tour for the 50th anniversary that incl. BOG dinner, a treat at Space220 and Remy; it’s $6,000 for 6 people.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/50th-anniversary-vip-tour/

 

[Mrs~Incredible]

There is another tour for the 50th anniversary that incl. BOG dinner, a treat at Space220 and Remy; it’s $6,000 for 6 people.

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/50th-anniversary-vip-tour/

I shoulda married John Stamos. Haha just kidding.

 

[Disturbia]

There is no way my MDE is going to go through with any of those millisecond availabilities with my luck. It’s good that I have Oga’s in the morning-I’ll definitely need a couple of fuzzy tauntauns.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had like a sudden pop up (remember bonus fast passes). Genie has scavenged the galaxy and found you a drink at the nearest watering hole, head on over to Oga’s Cantina for a special surprise. Genie has summoned you over for a galactic treat in Outer Space. Oh wait that’s just for the Uber rich who are paying for the star cruiser.

I think I’m in a virtual brain freeze zone.

 

[Mrs~Incredible]

The trip advisor reviews submitted today and yesterday-

I sure hope someone from Disney keeps an eye on those and will consider some foresight (do they want people to come back?) and make some
Positive changes.

 

[ScarletFire]

I use Slopes when I ski. It tells the amount of time skiing, on lifts and standing around in lift lines. It also gives your vertical per day, mph, number of runs and total time at the end of the day.

I wish Disney had something comparable. I like quantitative data. It
may not be good for business….

 

[mom2rtk]

The trip advisor reviews submitted today and yesterday-

I sure hope someone from Disney keeps an eye on those and will consider some foresight (do they want people to come back?) and make some
Positive changes.

Wow. Those reviews are really bad. I hope Disney is paying attention.

I looked at Universal's reviews. Some bad ones there as well, but many more positive ones. And Universal is actually responding.

 

[Haagen Dawgs]

The trip advisor reviews submitted today and yesterday-

I sure hope someone from Disney keeps an eye on those and will consider some foresight (do they want people to come back?) and make some
Positive changes.

OMG. I just saw them. I need to get out of this trip. Must find a worthy alternative that the family will be excited in order to cancel. I’m going to feel like an idiot if I ignore all this forewarning and still make the trip. The 6-year old is the tricky part with other theme parks. Scramble mode has begun.

 

[Mrs~Incredible]

OMG. I just saw them. I need to get out of this trip. Must find a worthy alternative that the family will be excited in order to cancel. I’m going to feel like an idiot if I ignore all this forewarning and still make the trip. The 6-year old is the tricky part with other theme parks. Scramble mode has begun.

Remember, those with the worst times are the ones who write. I’m sure there are still lots of good things there. Hopefully Disney will do something immediately to improve things- pay overtime for more hours, add a ILL to the G+ pickings, etc… but it does seem risky