Okay, we are home from 3 days of
Genie+ and here are some of my big takeaways:
The Bad:
- Doesn't work reliably! This is, I think, the worst. I had issues on our check-in day with it simultaneously recognizing my tickets/reservations in some parts of the app while refusing to recognize them in other parts. I had issues on the third day with it recognizing that we were on Park Hoppers. This is a paid product and as such it's particularly egregious that not only does it not work reliably but it's not even working consistently with itself - one screen would tell me I was eligible and the next would say no one in our party had a park reservation.
- Booking a new ride doesn't feel very intuitive, or didn't to me. I kept clicking on the "+" instead of scrolling down the tip board, I don't really get why I'm booking a new attraction on something called a "tip board" but maybe that's just my own mental block.
- The constant refreshing. In line, on slow rides, while talking with my family. I tried not to, but the way the more popular rides go, the only way to get LLs is to refresh, refresh, refresh.
- The changes in time on the second screen. My advice to anyone is to really make sure you look at the time on that second screen if you're about to modify an LL you were excited to get. For rides with low availability I'd book anything remotely in our window and then try to modify to a better time. Refresh, refresh, refresh, ooh a time I like confirm, oh crud what did I just book?! Time windows 4 hours later. Happened twice because I was refreshing while trying to do something else and not paying enough attention to the second screen.
- 7 AM. Every. single. day.
The Good:
- It is easier to get LL for really popular attractions than it was for FP, simply because no one can book in advance. You are nearly guaranteed to get your first pick LL selection, whatever it is, and every day I was able to later grab LLs for rides that were sold out for LL earlier in the day by refreshing.
- Stacking is nice, and that you're allowed to overlap plans makes stacking effective. We did a nice little run of HS on our last night where I was able to, while at the pool in the afternoon, stack TSM, Aliens, Star Tours, and MMRR all between 5:45-7:30 and get to Fantasmic by 7:40. Couldn't have done that with Fastpass, definitely not at the last minute.
-The big bold "Book your next attraction" screen is really helpful, if I wasn't trying to modify anything I knew I could just put my phone away until then.
- The ability to book LL at multiple parks when you have Park Hoppers is nice too, FP was much more restrictive about that. At one point I had LLs at AK, Epcot, and HS simultaneously.
One thought I had on the 7 AM issue is that if the purpose is to be more of an equalizer it would be nice if they'd maybe split the difference between 60 days out and 7 AM day-of, maybe like 1 PM the day before. Something that would eliminate the need to mega advance-plan but also the need to set an alarm for 6:45 every morning of your vacation.
