The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[Bill McKinley]

We have a trip coming up in less than 3 weeks. We'll be there before major Christmas crowds arrive (I hope). We have not been since February of '20 so no experience with G+, we LOVED the FP+ system and from the sounds of it, it's going to take some getting used to for G+. A couple questions if they haven't been answered yet...

1. Why no re-rides??
2. At what capacity are the parks operating at now?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[dmunsil]

I wonder if they are applying the same eligibility check to cancelled LL reservations?

Yeah, I've been curious about that myself.

If yes, it would be important to understand that, otherwise you could risk losing a reservation entirely. eg. Book a late LL, wait 2+ hours, book a second LL. I paid my 2h eligibility "penalty", so I'm entitled to hold and ride two LLs. But if the system applies the same eligibility check to cancellations, and I decide to cancel my late LL and replace it with something earlier, I will be out of luck. I don't get to rebook it, because my eligibility timer for that ride has already passed, and I also don't get to ride it, since I cancelled. Poof, gone.

That's exactly why I suspect that cancellation probably still resets eligibility, but someone should test it.

If no, rebooking that cancelled LL to an earlier time would, in effect, reset the eligibility timer for that particular LL, thus leaving a path to creating a second rolling stack. Albeit one that comes at the very high "cost" of sacrificing your first LL pick of the day.

@dmunsil, have you seen anything yet that could confirm this either way?

I kinda think that if cancellation still resets your booking eligibility, it doesn't really allow for rolling over your multi-reservation stack, and that's the whole value. There's no point in waiting to build a multi-reservation stack unless either you're going to arrive to the park later (and that still works), or you can keep your two reservations all day by leapfrogging them. You can't leapfrog any more, so there's typically no point in deliberately creating a stack. You could just book reservations and use them during that time.

I was going to get a park reservation today and test cancelling, but I couldn't get one for annual passholders. Also it could be a pain trying to test things on a crazy busy day, so I may wait until next week. By then someone else may have tested it and saved me $16.

Edit: I did end up testing this shortly after posting this, and cancelling any reservation allowed you to rebook at that time. However, Disney changed the rules at some point in the last few weeks. Cancelling any reservation other than the one you most recently booked does nothing as of 1/30/22.

 

[lorenae]

From where?

Facebook groups with people currently there reporting their experiences.

 

[Sunelis]

We have a trip coming up in less than 3 weeks. We'll be there before major Christmas crowds arrive (I hope). We have not been since February of '20 so no experience with G+, we LOVED the FP+ system and from the sounds of it, it's going to take some getting used to for G+. A couple questions if they haven't been answered yet...

1. Why no re-rides??
2. At what capacity are the parks operating at now?

Thanks in advance for the help!

1. No official reason given. The best people can come up with is to give a chance to everyone to ride every ride once.
2. No official number given by Disney. From what I've seen at the beginning of November I would guess pretty close to pre-pandemic capacity.

 

[katyringo]

I wonder if we aren't seeing a "loop hole" close but a glitchy system due to really high demand.

I too am seeing the Facebook reports that contradict yesterday's report.

I go Saturday sooo... YOLO!

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I wonder if we aren't seeing a "loop hole" close but a glitchy system due to really high demand.

I too am seeing the Facebook reports that contradict yesterday's report.

I go Saturday sooo... YOLO!

I suppose with Disney the old adage "never ascribe to malice what can be instead ascribed to incompetence" is always true.

 

[Figment1990]

Hearing reports now that today’s Genie+ again allows stacking and booking another LL after tapping in to one.

Ok, here is what I have set up for tonight. We purposely didn’t use any at Epcot this morning as we knew we wanted to focus on tonight prior to the extended evening hours after we meet my folks.

At 10am we booked Jungle Cruise 6:55-7:55
At 12pm we booked BTMRR 7:45-8:45
At 2pm we booked Haunted Mansion 8:05-9:05
(Still waiting to see if we can book anything at 4)

Based on yesterday, I don’t expect to be able to book anything after we ride Jungle Cruise or BTMRR (if we ride those before HM) but I will try to if there’s anything left and report back the results.

 

[jlud57]

Currently reading through this to prepare for 1st week of December- what is the code requirement that is generated through the email for genie+ (sorry not understanding this)?

 

[princesswahooey]

Ok, here is what I have set up for tonight. We purposely didn’t use any at Epcot this morning as we knew we wanted to focus on tonight prior to the extended evening hours after we meet my folks.

At 10am we booked Jungle Cruise 6:55-7:55
At 12pm we booked BTMRR 7:45-8:45
At 2pm we booked Haunted Mansion 8:05-9:05
(Still waiting to see if we can book anything at 4)

Based on yesterday, I don’t expect to be able to book anything after we ride Jungle Cruise or BTMRR (if we ride those before HM) but I will try to if there’s anything left and report back the results.

Thanks for being on the front lines and reporting

 

[buckeyeguy1]

Currently reading through this to prepare for 1st week of December- what is the code requirement that is generated through the email for genie+ (sorry not understanding this)?

I have gotten it a couple times. When I purchased G+ both mornings, there was a second verification for sign in that they send a 6 digit code to your email you have to enter on the app.

I got it even though I was already signed into the app.

 

[MikeandReneePlus5]

As of 2:20 PM today every single lightning lane in animal kingdom is gone. Not just the rides, every show too. Even animation experience, for which the fastpass is usually not even worth it, is gone. Every. Single. One. I would love to see what Disney castmembers are going to say to people who showed up in the park for the afternoon and paid money for Genie+ only to not be able to use it at all. This system is a disaster. Maybe they'll start offering LL's to kite tails.

Wow. And great point about late arrivers. I think the original paper FP system worked so well because a lot of people didn't know about. now we are basically back to that except a) it is more widely known and b) so much easier to use because it is your phone instead of having to visit a physical FP machine.

What a mess.

 

[Missmaureen78]

I wonder how big of an impact parkhoppers have on late-day availability. If people spend their mornings stacking LL's for their second park, that would eat up availability that might otherwise be distributed in a more "natural" way. So instead of LL return times progressing steadily forward as people book them and use them and book again, some percentage of that availability is booked up at the start of the day. Maybe that's a marginal number but I wonder.

 

[BridgetR3]

We’ve been at Disney for about a week now and had not used Genie + (or been on the DISboards) so imagine my surprise today when I could no longer grab a second fast pass after the first…. Yeah yeah LL.
Today we hit Magic Kingdom and at 7 I pulled Jingle Cruise. At 11 I pulled Haunted Mansion. At 1 I pulled Peter Pan. At 3 I pulled splash and just now at 5 I pulled buzz light year. We have had luck in getting what we wanted but jingle cruise was still a 25 minutes wait with LL. Also every single one of our LLs was for a time after 3:30.
It’s been a wild wild week but we are here often and have really just enjoyed being back in the parks with people again. It’s definitely a very different experience from last thanksgiving for sure!!

 

[twodogs]

Trying to search and get the "stacking" option down, but couldn't find a post that if you have multiple people doing the LL selections in your group.

So, if I select a LL selection for Tower of Terror, can I put everyone in my party as included? If someone else, for example, my wife, were to go into her account and try to select a LL for Slinky Dog, would it allow her to select or say she is not available due to the 120 rule?

If your wife is included in your party for the LL for ToT, she will be limited by the 120 minute rule (or tap in rule), regardless of who books the LL on their account. So no, you can't double dip by getting LLs from two different accounts, if that is what you are asking.

 

[Jrb1979]

Hearing reports now that today’s Genie+ again allows stacking and booking another LL after tapping in to one.

That's not the loop hole that was closed. The one they closed was thee hack that if you let your LL1 expire, you could book LL2, then redeem LL1 during the 15-minute grace period and then book LL3.

 

[princesswahooey]

It's funny to me that Disney closed the loopholes on G+ and yet the analytics from today are not much different than Monday. Clearly there is a capacity issue. They simply don't have enough LL availability for what they are selling.

The more I think about this, I realize that by making certain rides ILL$, what Disney essentially did was make FP+ cost about $40 per day, not $15. The limited availability for G+ LL attractions is skewed because some of the most popular rides have been eliminated from that pool. Paying $15 does not get you the equivalent of the old FP+ setup.

Once upon a time we got 3 scheduled FP+ to start our day. We can still do that, but only if we pay more and our choices include the ILL$ rides. Everything after that is a bonus.

I wonder if the availability would balance itself out a little better if they had put rides like SDD or Test Track as ILL$ (instead of MMRR and Remy. Both are new, but not necessarily as popular as others.) If the most coveted rides were actually the pay rides, maybe the 7am first LL G+ picks would be a little more evenly spread among other rides so fewer attractions would run out so early in the morning.

 

[cgattis]

Having watched a lot of resort tv 1 streaming, I don’t think there are really large areas that have neither a wifi signal or a cell signal, and certainly not for large segments of queues.

Well I only know what I experienced, and I know I couldn’t get that app to load at ALL (on WiFi or cell) in Test Track or Soarin queues, nor in the fully indoor part of Remy. Also had trouble up near the building at TOT and in parts of Galaxy’s Edge (but wasn’t paying close enough attention at that point to say where). Finally just had to go up to Docking Bay 7 and show them my blank screen so they’d let me go in to order. YMMV.

 

[cgattis]

I think you are not acknowledging the frustration of being in the midst of a vacation and trying to plan and adjust and figure out things… all the while dealing with Holiday crowds, a crashing app, understaffed and breaking down rides. Reasonable or not - it sucks to be the testers when your on a weeks vacation at these prices and not able to just go anytime.

Totally agree with this post and your reply to mine. Terrible. We actually left early because it was just literally no fun. We enjoyed HS because we hadn’t been since TSL opened but the rest was miserable. I’ll be emailing Guest Relations and Billing tomorrow; today was still too fresh.

 

[cgattis]

Swan and Dolphin are known glitches. Screenshot attempts and more importantly, it sounds like you need the hotel to confirm something with front desk at check-in to make sure it doesn’t occur. It happened for me trying to book IAS for my inlaws on their first day. We are at Riviera and could book no problem but I couldn’t book their ROTR or MMRR. So had to talk to GET. They said the above. Not sure what the hotel staff can really do though. And they also said to book what you can if you have guests not at those hotels. Which we had done.
On the plus side it hasn’t happened since their first day when I’ve tried to book the IAS paid LLs

It happened to me on my second day (but first day was fine!). Missed getting ROTR. GET said too bad. Ugh.

 

[cgattis]

On crowded days, how fast are the Remy ILL$ selling out? I plan to purchase it for later in the day -- around 5:00. And I want to try to get a G+ LL for TT as early as possible. I'm thinking try to book TT first, and then purchase Remy. But I don't want Remy to sell out -- or be available only in the late evening, when it would conflict with my ADR -- by the time I am able to buy it.

On Monday I managed to get one and by the time I got my confirmation and then refreshed to see what time I actually got, it showed no more available and my clock still showed 7:00…….and to top it off, we waited 45 minutes once we were called. FOR $30!!! Sorry—rant over.

ETA: Sorry, I mixed apples and oranges! The VQ was gone at 7 and we waited 45 minutes for that, but it was free. I purchased the ILL$ right after that, so about 7:03 I think, and got a 1:55-2:55 return time. Didn’t check back to see when they sold out; sorry!