Genie+ can be very frustrating. PLAN AHEAD

[Violet Parr]

Plan very carefully if you plan to use it. Read everything you can. It sucked to pay to be a beta tester by visiting in the first week, but lesson learned. Listen to those who are willing to share their experiences in depth on here. They are doing a really wonderful service to the community.

ETA: I will write a longer, detailed post when I get home, but I will reiterate here to either plan to use it or plan to not use it. Don't buy it on a whim. Opening and/or closing a park plus Individual LL makes for a better value when crowd levels are 1-6s. More later!

 

[igrsod]

I haven't used it, or seen it in action yet, so I can't really have an opinion yet. BUT, my feeling is that I don't need it or want it.
I would be curious to learn what your experience was, so as to inform my own opinion on whether I want to use this or not.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Since G+ is an optional product, you can ease your frustration by skipping it altogether. And I don't mean that to be smart. I'm serious. We can do the parks without it.

 

[Violet Parr]

I haven't used it, or seen it in action yet, so I can't really have an opinion yet. BUT, my feeling is that I don't need it or want it.
I would be curious to learn what your experience was, so as to inform my own opinion on whether I want to use this or not.

I will definitely share as much as I can when I get back from my trip next week! I bought it impulsively. That is the FIRST big no-no. PLAN to buy it. Don't buy it in a moment of feeling your day is not efficient enough. Disney will NOT refund a Genie+ purchase, even if the app is glitchy or faulty. If you have a real problem, deal with it while present in the parks.

(I edited my original post to be a bit more useful to users here and not just a big, angry vent.)

 

[robinb]

I enjoyed MaxPass when I used it at Disneyland and I hated FastPass+, so I am actually looking forward to Genie+. I think it's always hard being a "beta tester" as you say after a major change like this.

I'd like to hear the problems you had.

 

[Violet Parr]

Since G+ is an optional product, you can ease your frustration by skipping it altogether. And I don't mean that to be smart. I'm serious. We can do the parks without it.

Yup, we've skipped it the last few days. I will reiterate that one should absolutely resist the temptation to buy it on a whim when it seems your park day is not going efficiently. Planning is essential.

 

[Violet Parr]

I enjoyed MaxPass when I used it at Disneyland and I hated FastPass+, so I am actually looking forward to Genie+. I think it's always hard being a "beta tester" as you say after a major change like this.

I'd like to hear the problems you had.

I will definitely share in a thoughtful, detailed post when I get back home early next week.

To those going now, PLAN to use it or PLAN to not use it, and STICK TO THE PLAN. Individual LL is actually super useful and can end up being a greater value than Genie+.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Plan very carefully if you plan to use it. Read everything you can. It sucked to pay to be a beta tester by visiting in the first week, but lesson learned. Listen to those who are willing to share their experiences in depth on here. They are doing a really wonderful service to the community.

What were your negative experiences with it?

 

[J'aime Paris]

I'm sorry you had a bad experience....your opinion is valid.

If you're willing, it would be great to know some of the specifics as to why it was a fail for you. That could really help those of us planning a trip.

I know I'm still confused by the use of Genie+ and I'm not sure if I'd buy it or not.

 

[Kimpossible1]

My daughter used it the first week at the studios and MK, and had no problems.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

I don't intend to use it at all, except for a "ride day" at MK - I have a day with an MK pass and a late Ohana dinner, which sounds like a good time to try it and hit some rides. Otherwise I don't have any reason to use it, I might use ILLs once in awhile if the occasion presents itself

 

[mom2rtk]

Since G+ is an optional product, you can ease your frustration by skipping it altogether. And I don't mean that to be smart. I'm serious. We can do the parks without it.

I think those complaining about it are fully aware they can skip it. But many are just upset that this is now the only option for avoiding long standby waits.

 

[Violet Parr]

I think those complaining about it are fully aware they can skip it. But many are just upset that this is now the only option for avoiding long standby waits.

I'm aware I could have skipped it, but it is incredibly glitchy. It will say one moment (noon, for example) that the next available LL for a ride is at, say, 3:05pm, and then after you book it and go about your day and check back to look at other things, you will see that that very ride has availability at 1:05pm. LOTS of glitchy weird things like that. Husband's Genie+ telling him a ride wait is 35 min for standby while mine tells me it is 55 min, and doesn't update to match what husband's says for a full 5 minutes. (During which time I went ahead and paid for an individual LL pass, not realizing the discrepancy.) I'll add that I actally found individual paid LL to be pretty useful.

It's not just sour grapes complaining. I have the budget to spend whatever while I'm here, but I expect what I buy to work consistently.

Also, this is *NOT* the only option for avoiding long waits, at least with park crowd levels of 1-6. Opening and/or closing parks open up a lot of short-line opportunities.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

I'm aware I could have skipped it, but it is incredibly glitchy. It will say one moment (noon, for example) that the next available LL for a ride is at, say, 3:05pm, and then after you book it and go about your day and check back to look at other things, you will see that that very ride has availability at 1:05pm. LOTS of glitchy weird things like that. Husband's Genie+ telling him a ride wait is 35 min for standby while mine tells me it is 55 min, and doesn't update to match what husband's says for a full 5 minutes. (During which time I went ahead and paid for an individual LL pass, not realizing the discrepancy.) I'll add that I actally found individual paid LL to be pretty useful.

It's not just sour grapes complaining. I have the budget to spend whatever while I'm here, but I expect what I buy to work consistently.

Also, this is *NOT* the only option for avoiding long waits, at least with park crowd levels of 1-6. Opening and/or closing parks open up a lot of short-line opportunities.

Are there not 3 pieces to the new technology? Genie (free), Genie+ (pay), and ILL$ (pay). The wait times I believe are provided by the free app, not G+. ILL$ is also outside of G+. But free or paid, those wait times that drive decisions really have to be consistent. I can see that frustration.

 

[Violet Parr]

I'm aware I could have skipped it, but it is incredibly glitchy. It will say one moment (noon, for example) that the next available LL for a ride is at, say, 3:05pm, and then after you book it and go about your day and check back to look at other things, you will see that that very ride has availability at 1:05pm. LOTS of glitchy weird things like that. Husband's Genie+ telling him a ride wait is 35 min for standby while mine tells me it is 55 min, and doesn't update to match what husband's says for a full 5 minutes. (During which time I went ahead and paid for an individual LL pass, not realizing the discrepancy.) I'll add that I actally found individual paid LL to be pretty useful.

It's not just sour grapes complaining. I have the budget to spend whatever while I'm here, but I expect what I buy to work consistently.

Also, this is *NOT* the only option for avoiding long waits, at least with park crowd levels of 1-6. Opening and/or closing parks open up a lot of short-line opportunities.

Are there not 3 pieces to the new technology? Genie (free), Genie+ (pay), and ILL$ (pay). The wait times I believe are provided by the free app, not G+. ILL$ is also outside of G+. But free or paid, those wait times that drive decisions really have to be consistent. I can see that frustration.

In terms of user experience, there is virtually nothing differentiating the three pieces. (My husband is a ux design consultant and we've talked about this a great deal. They're all intertwined in the tech, all a part of the same app. They should work in harmony. They don't always do that.)

Basically, there is no Genie app, no Genie+ app, no LL app. It's all My Disney Experience still. When you use the three services, you are still in MDE and it's sometimes hard to even find where to upgrade to Genie+. It's not like a separate app. It's more like adding park hopper. You don't go to your park hopper app to view your park hopper status. You don't go to a Genie+ app to view your genie+. With both genie (which is just an update to the MDE app) and genie+, you go to "my day" and "tip board." It's all the same thing.

 

[Farro]

Just another perspective.

We arrived on 20th. Didn't use first night, but did buy for Rat first evening, well worth it.

We bought day by day as needed. Used at least once for each park.

We found it easy to use, were able to book all rides we wanted except Slinky because we waited too long and it ran out. But we booked that for this evening.

At night you can probably wait in most lines without using if you don't mind 25 minute waits.

This week was hot and very humid, so we were very happy to have zero waits with Genie +.

Are we happy about paying- of course not.

But no complaints with service itself. Found the app pretty self-explanatory, my tip is to always go straight to tip board and do everything from there!

 

[luv2cheer92]

I'm aware I could have skipped it, but it is incredibly glitchy. It will say one moment (noon, for example) that the next available LL for a ride is at, say, 3:05pm, and then after you book it and go about your day and check back to look at other things, you will see that that very ride has availability at 1:05pm. LOTS of glitchy weird things like that. Husband's Genie+ telling him a ride wait is 35 min for standby while mine tells me it is 55 min, and doesn't update to match what husband's says for a full 5 minutes. (During which time I went ahead and paid for an individual LL pass, not realizing the discrepancy.) I'll add that I actally found individual paid LL to be pretty useful.

It's not just sour grapes complaining. I have the budget to spend whatever while I'm here, but I expect what I buy to work consistently.

Also, this is *NOT* the only option for avoiding long waits, at least with park crowd levels of 1-6. Opening and/or closing parks open up a lot of short-line opportunities.

Those are more likely to be people canceling, not glitches. It has been happening since day 1. The same thing happened with FP+, which is why refreshing was so widely supported. And why people have said since it started that refreshing can continue to be used for this.

 

[Violet Parr]

Those are more likely to be people canceling, not glitches. It has been happening since day 1. The same thing happened with FP+, which is why refreshing was so widely supported. And why people have said since it started that refreshing can continue to be used for this.

I'm probaby not being clear. We definitely refreshed, but these were not cancellations. We would see nothing for 3-4 hours at all, and then a very short time later there were slots for every hour of the day. Very frequently, the app showed absolutely nothing available for any ride for any hour of the day, then 5 minutes later, the app would repopulate. (That actually happened a lot.)

When I say it's glitchy, I'm saying this from a software design perspective. I'm an experienced FP+ user. This is not a FP+ parallel.

 

[cakebaker]

Also, this is *NOT* the only option for avoiding long waits, at least with park crowd levels of 1-6. Opening and/or closing parks open up a lot of short-line opportunities.

But it is the only option for riding more popular rides with a shorter wait on busier days and if you want to ride them during the day, not just a couple of hours in the morning or very late at night.

No one needs ride options when the parks aren't crowded, but we never seem to be there for those times. Anytime we go, the parks are jam packed.

 

[Maleficent_Hades]

i'm going first week of december, but from the vlogs that i've seen so far the only parks i might buy it for is MK and HS and i'm not 100% sure i'll buy it for MK still since i'm doing the christmas AH. i will however buy the individual LL for rise, FOP, and rat as i haven't been on them yet. possibly buy it for mickey but i might try and rope drop that on one of my HS days.