Why is WDW G+ different than DL G+?

Liquidice

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 10, 2019
May be well known and understood - but I just found out that at Disneyland California, Genie+ and ILL reservations cannot be booked until you scan into the park, while WDW G+ and ILL can be booked beginning at 7am (for G+ for all guests and ILL when staying onsite / at park open for all other guests ).

I don't have any personal experience, but from what I watched (allears.net video on G+ at Disneyland) - G+ LL's remain available for much longer than at WDW. That could be because of the number of rides at DL or number of visitors but I would think it would be better if WDW followed DL and only allowed you to book your first G+ once you scan into the park - perhaps allowing lightning lanes to remain available longer.

I'm also surprised that Disney doesn't have Genie+ reservations work more like paper fastpasses where availability is dolled out slowly throughout the day instead of everything being available right away and running out pretty quickly.

I'm not an expert in queue theory or anything, but was curious if anyone had any idea on why WDW and DL work differently for G+ ?

Lately I seem to be hearing a lot of complaints that people cannot get Lightning Lanes with G+. I think some people complaining about "only" being able to get 3 E-Ticket attractions with G+ shouldn't be complaining because with FP+ you usually only got 1 Tier 1 ride and 2 Tier 2 rides, and usually you'd only get another Tier 1 by knowing how to work the system. So getting 3 with G+ seems fair, although unliked FP+ you often have them really spread out (if you're lucky one in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening), or all at the end of the day.

I'd also think that dolling out Lightning Lanes slowly throughout the day would make more sense too, but it might make availability even worse through the day and require more flippity flopping in the app to get more LLs.

I assume for ILL it makes sense to have all availability right away since you get to choose the time, but doing it the Disneyland way - only once you scan into the park I think would make more sense.
 
While I don't know the inner workings of why Disney does anything, they have thousands of rooms at WDW vs. hundreds at DL, so the incentives (like earlier booking access) to get guests to stay on site generate a lot more revenue in Florida then in California
 
While I don't know the inner workings of why Disney does anything, they have thousands of rooms at WDW vs. hundreds at DL, so the incentives (like earlier booking access) to get guests to stay on site generate a lot more revenue in Florida then in California

Currently with Genie+ at WDW everyone can make their first Lightning Lane at 7am, regardless if they're staying on site or not. It would make sense to me if they only allowed on-site guests to do this. I'm actually surprised they didn't do this.

LL's do get doled out during the day. These are known as "drops". Studying the historical LL availability charts on thrilldata for a given ride can give you a sense of when these are.

Interesting - did not know that, so when people complain that all LL's are "sold out" by 1pm, if you keep checking, there will be more during the drops? Thats good to know!
 
Lol, most people coming to DLR are driving there. SoCal local day trippers. So at 7AM they are in their cars in SoCal traffic! Having them try to get G+ passes would be dangerous!

I really do not know how G+ will work at DLR but it sounds a lot like MaxPass from the few years before COVID.
 

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