About genie+

[melissa70]

I am wondering if everyone that is going to the park has purchased Genie+ And all book lightning lanes, what does that mean for lines?

 

[tx911]

There is limited availability for lightening lanes and Genie+ itself.

In other words, they sell out. For example, the lightening lane for Slinky Dog Dash may be all booked up by 8am, and would thus no longer be available for anyone trying to book after that.

 

[elvispursley]

And just to add, there are some of us who are holdouts from a bygone era who refuse to book G+. We manage just fine without purchasing.

 

[loves to dive]

And just to add, there are some of us who are holdouts from a bygone era who refuse to book G+. We manage just fine without purchasing.

Yep us too. Never bought it, never needed it.

 

[tx911]

Yep us too. Never bought it, never needed it.

I"m just the opposite, never been without it.
I might have to try it sometime.

 

[Mermaidtails1323]

And just to add, there are some of us who are holdouts from a bygone era who refuse to book G+. We manage just fine without purchasing.

Curious to hear what your experience has been like without. We can definitely get a lot done rope-dropping. We have an upcoming trip and are thinking of getting it to minimize waits for the 2yo in the group who doesn’t have much patience. We did it our last trip and loved it, but it was a quick trip and we were on a mission to get all the big rides done.

 

[reddog21]

I"m just the opposite, never been without it.
I might have to try it sometime.

same here except I don't see my self ever trying without.

 

[Minnie1222]

I am wondering if everyone that is going to the park has purchased Genie+ And all book lightning lanes, what does that mean for lines?

I haven't seen a single occasion where the LL are slower than the Standby, if that's what you're asking. There are fewer guests using G+ than FP. Most of the LL now are walk-through.

 

[SL6827]

I am wondering if everyone that is going to the park has purchased Genie+ And all book lightning lanes, what does that mean for lines?

When are you going?

 

[scrappinginontario]

We have done both. Some days we do all standby and others purchase G+. We much prefer the shorter waits G+ offers but don’t need it every day.

On our next trip we will purchase some MK and DHS days but not AK or Epcot. I will say we purchase the hopping rate the days we purchase it and we tend to hop many days.

 

[melissa70]

When are you going?

Last two weeks of March

 

[melissa70]

I haven't seen a single occasion where the LL are slower than the Standby, if that's what you're asking. There are fewer guests using G+ than FP. Most of the LL now are walk-through.

I guess I was asking what happens if literally almost everyone buys genie+, how would anyone ride anything. I didn’t realize genie+ passes are limited. That makes sense. Now I have to worry about them selling out

 

[LRdismom]

I've gone with and without buying Genie+. If my goal is to ride as many rides as I can, I'll buy it because at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, it's very hard to get on everything without it. I don't bother buying it at Animal Kingdom or Epcot. (of course this means a wait for Remy and Frozen)
I won't buy it every time I visit, it's just too expensive.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

I know there's debate, but I don't see Genie+/LL impacting standby lines any more than FP and FP+ did when they were the choices for skip-the-normal-line for attractions. It's the same process. Can you do the attractions without G+? Absolutely, but you'll wait more. If you're going the last 2 weeks of March, the combination of approaching the Easter holiday, along with spring break crowds - it's going to be busy and very crowded. If we were in your situation, we'd plan on purchasing Genie+ some days, but probably not all. We'd use it on the longer park days when we hope to do more attractions.....

I expect the standby lines in late March to be pretty long. If you do decide to purchase Genie+, keep in mind you can save a couple dollars some days by purchasing just for a single park (EP and AK tend to be a couple dollars cheaper than MK and HS or the 'all parks' option). But in the whole budget for an entire WDW trip, that savings would be very minimal!!

 

[loves to dive]

Curious to hear what your experience has been like without. We can definitely get a lot done rope-dropping. We have an upcoming trip and are thinking of getting it to minimize waits for the 2yo in the group who doesn’t have much patience. We did it our last trip and loved it, but it was a quick trip and we were on a mission to get all the big rides done.

It really depends on a lot of factors. How many days your trip is, whether you are hopping or not, what your goals are, do you want to bang out as many rides as you can or do you want to get a few done in each park. Little ones change the way you do it. We took my 2 1/2 year old grand daughter the first week in Dec. My son and I have been going since 1983 so we know the parks. She had already been two times before this. They decided they wanted to get at least one ride with her and one without done in each park and do one experience. There were days they got more done, days they got just their goals done. No Genie+ but they did buy an ILL for Tron just because virtual que for that ride doesn't give you as good an estimate for return time as GoTG does. They didn't plan on me watching her any of the time they were doing the without her ride, they planned on rider swap. I did watch her a number of times for them to ride things.

For me, if my trip is at least 5 park days (or 4 1/2) I can ride everything I want to ride and still watch shows, parades and eat at some TS restaurants and take a mid-day break back at my resort. I rely totally on Disney transportation and always have either hoppers or an AP. I do wait in some lines, but it really doesn't bother me, I have my kindle on my phone and can read or just people watch or enjoy the details of the line. For the little one, they took her little pad so she could watch cartoons in line. I tend to go to one park in the morning and a different one in the afternoon/evening. I rarely rope drop and rarely stay until park close. I try to repeat the park I was at the night before the next morning. For example: I get there around 3 pm and go to Epcot. Grab some food at booths and walk toward the front of the park. Ride a ride or two and hop to whatever park I have reservation for the next day (I'm an AP we still need reservations). I ride two or three rides that night, let's say its MK. Next morning I go to MK, ride a ride or two, grab some breakfast, maybe watch a show, ride some more rides and leave. Rinse and repeat. If my trip is longer than 4 1/2 days, I can really ride almost everything in every park with a few exceptions and those are rides I just don't want to ride (Space Mountain I'm looking at you).

 

[jlstwinmommy]

Just got back from a one week trip. I am one of those who is very much irritated that we have to pay for something that used to be included, but that is neither here nor there.

I met a friend for the first 2 days of my trip (Sunday and Monday 2/4 and 2/5) who wanted to see everything in those 2 days (she had never been before). We bought Genie for those 2 days, but I probably could have done without it on Monday.

Sunday, we went to AK and MK. We got to AK around 7am. Did everything we wanted in AK except Na'avi. We were able to rope drop Avatar, ride the safari with about a 10 min wait, ride Everest (single rider) and Dinosaur and Triceratop spin. We stacked rides for MK all morning. Between Genie+ and judicious use of standby, we were able to ride every ride we wanted to including Tron which we had a VQ for (even though Tron was down for most of the day and by the time they got to our BG it was 8pm). We did Jungle cruise, Pirates, Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Small World, Pooh, Buzz, Monster's Inc, People Mover, Space Mountain, Tron.

Monday, we went to HS and EP. We were able to get on Rise at rope drop (15 min wait), then Smuggler's run (about 10 min wait). Slinky was late to open that morning, so even though I had a LL for Slinky, we rode standby with about a 25 min wait. I changed my LL to MMRR. We were also able to ride Toy Story and see Muppets. The only things we didn't get to were ToT and Star Tours. We then went to Epcot where we had a VQ for Guardians. Monday was extended hours so we really could have not bought Genie and done everything we wanted during extended hours. I did use Genie to do Soarin'. We did Test Track single rider. We used Genie for Spaceship Earth. We rode Remy and Frozen during extended hours with about a 15 min wait. We also got a second ride on Guardians thanks to my sister's amazing skill at getting VQ.

The rest of the week we did not buy Genie. To be fair, this was a girl's trip with my mother and my sister. My mother has DAS so we were able to do some rides with her on that, but my sister and I were also able to ride many rides without Genie. We did find that early was best for low waits (especially early entry).

 

[Eastern]

Yep us too. Never bought it, never needed it.

Never bought it either, but I think that a few times, I needed it.

 

[elvispursley]

Curious to hear what your experience has been like without. We can definitely get a lot done rope-dropping. We have an upcoming trip and are thinking of getting it to minimize waits for the 2yo in the group who doesn’t have much patience. We did it our last trip and loved it, but it was a quick trip and we were on a mission to get all the big rides done.

So we tend to go for a minimum of 10-days so aren’t rushed to see a ton in one day and we do park hop. We’ve been going the last few years in late Aug or early Sep when the parks are less “crowded“. Lately it’s just been a girl’s trip with me and my 71 yo mom. We fly in from the west coast and Hawaii so that EST time difference is a killer for us. We don’t rope drop since we’d never make it the rest of the trip We do have a DAS pass we use for waits over 30 min but we only end up using it a few times during the day, since you do have to wait the standby queue time, just with the ability to do so elsewhere.

Now, if I had a kid with us (mine are now 20 and 18), we’d likely bite the bullet and do genie+. But when my kids were younger, we pulled them out f school and they used the Waits we had in the standby queue to do their homework. But when we took them as toddlers, we definitely were trying to cut down on wait times.

I guess I was asking what happens if literally almost everyone buys genie+, how would anyone ride anything. I didn’t realize genie+ passes are limited. That makes sense. Now I have to worry about them selling out

Depending on when you go, some definitely sellout, even with surge pricing!

 

[Mermaidtails1323]

So we tend to go for a minimum of 10-days so aren’t rushed to see a ton in one day and we do park hop. We’ve been going the last few years in late Aug or early Sep when the parks are less “crowded“. Lately it’s just been a girl’s trip with me and my 71 yo mom. We fly in from the west coast and Hawaii so that EST time difference is a killer for us. We don’t rope drop since we’d never make it the rest of the trip We do have a DAS pass we use for waits over 30 min but we only end up using it a few times during the day, since you do have to wait the standby queue time, just with the ability to do so elsewhere.

Now, if I had a kid with us (mine are now 20 and 18), we’d likely bite the bullet and do genie+. But when my kids were younger, we pulled them out f school and they used the Waits we had in the standby queue to do their homework. But when we took them as toddlers, we definitely were trying to cut down on wait times.

Depending on when you go, some definitely sellout, even with surge pricing!

Our next trip will be our longest, so I’m tempted to do a combination. Our kids are early risers, so rope drop isn’t an issue. I guess we will see how it goes!

 

[snowwite]

I am wondering if everyone that is going to the park has purchased Genie+ And all book lightning lanes, what does that mean for lines?

We got it for Epcot last time but we rope dropped and rode everything we wanted before our times even came up! I won’t be spending money on that again.