GatorChris
Not of This World
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2014
Me and my family of 5 just got back from a 5-day trip to Disneyland/Park Place Inn last week. Disney is always a good trip. Lots of fun rides, good food, too many treats, and a few character experiences. I bought my tickets earlier this year from GAT. Since I knew we'd come in either June or October, I opted to spend the extra $100/day ($500 for the week) for my family and get the G+. Let me say this: I'm glad I did. Because without it, Disneyland would've been crap. Once you get the hang of it, it's not a bad system to use to avoid some lines. We tried to maximize it since we shelled out the dough, though it did feel like we bypassed other good but "lesser" experiences because we felt we had to get a return on an investment.
There were a few times we tried to do a ride that had G+ but our window wasn't open. That's where it got ugly. At Monsters Inc, we got in a line that said 45 minutes (which is too long for that ride but we had time to kill). 60 minutes went by and we didn't even get out of the outside queue. They were letting in about 50 G+ folks for every 5 people in line. NO JOKE. And then right before we got to go to the inside queue, it broke down. That's when the world ended for a good dozen people in that line. It got ...rowdy. I wasn't super thrilled, that's for sure.
Then on rides with ILL, it was more of the same. Radiator Springs Racers would throw about 50 people through for every 2-4 in line. It made the line move painfully slow and just made everyone mad. I get it - they paid and Disney's obliged to let them through quickly. The worst was when we did Rise of the Resistance. We got in line when it said 50 minutes. It must've been that time of day when all the Vegas winners showed up with their winnings and bought a crap-load of ILL passes. We waited 90 minutes to get on that ride. 90!!! I was hot and ready to rip apart the guy who came up with this pay-to-play scheme. It definitely was a bad moment for me.
That got me to thinking though, how many people came for a day or two and didn't spend the extra for G+ and had to deal with that same garbage all day on every ride? That had to totally suck. I can imagine how livid I would be, seeing all these people walk past me all day. Disney has turned the great equalizer, FastPass, where everyone was on equal footing when you walked through the gate, into class warfare on a very visible battleground. And that's not a phrase I throw around lightly. But it's definitely happening.
What's worse is that even though Genie+ relieved some pain, it didn't always work. Multiple times we'd get in line and wait a really long time to get through. At Space Mt on Thursday night, we waited 30 minutes in the Lightening Lane. I guess all those "Multiple Experience" passes all came to Space. Buzz, Haunted Mansion, and Thunder did the same thing. I've got pictures below to back it up.
I guess my beef is this. There used to be a free system that worked well enough. Now we have a system that costs money and doesn't work well enough. Not for the people who buy G+ and not for the people left out who didn't/couldn't buy it. Without a doubt, it lessened my experience this last week. And if I hadn't bought it, I probably would've waved goodby forever. I can't imagine anyone wanting to go through that again.
The simple conclusion: Genie+ has got to go the way of the ticket books. Yesterday!
Buzz at 5:45
Big Thunder at 11:30am
Space Mountain at 8:11pm. The LL line was all the way down to the bottom where you scan in and then wrapped around up top.
There were a few times we tried to do a ride that had G+ but our window wasn't open. That's where it got ugly. At Monsters Inc, we got in a line that said 45 minutes (which is too long for that ride but we had time to kill). 60 minutes went by and we didn't even get out of the outside queue. They were letting in about 50 G+ folks for every 5 people in line. NO JOKE. And then right before we got to go to the inside queue, it broke down. That's when the world ended for a good dozen people in that line. It got ...rowdy. I wasn't super thrilled, that's for sure.
Then on rides with ILL, it was more of the same. Radiator Springs Racers would throw about 50 people through for every 2-4 in line. It made the line move painfully slow and just made everyone mad. I get it - they paid and Disney's obliged to let them through quickly. The worst was when we did Rise of the Resistance. We got in line when it said 50 minutes. It must've been that time of day when all the Vegas winners showed up with their winnings and bought a crap-load of ILL passes. We waited 90 minutes to get on that ride. 90!!! I was hot and ready to rip apart the guy who came up with this pay-to-play scheme. It definitely was a bad moment for me.
That got me to thinking though, how many people came for a day or two and didn't spend the extra for G+ and had to deal with that same garbage all day on every ride? That had to totally suck. I can imagine how livid I would be, seeing all these people walk past me all day. Disney has turned the great equalizer, FastPass, where everyone was on equal footing when you walked through the gate, into class warfare on a very visible battleground. And that's not a phrase I throw around lightly. But it's definitely happening.
What's worse is that even though Genie+ relieved some pain, it didn't always work. Multiple times we'd get in line and wait a really long time to get through. At Space Mt on Thursday night, we waited 30 minutes in the Lightening Lane. I guess all those "Multiple Experience" passes all came to Space. Buzz, Haunted Mansion, and Thunder did the same thing. I've got pictures below to back it up.
I guess my beef is this. There used to be a free system that worked well enough. Now we have a system that costs money and doesn't work well enough. Not for the people who buy G+ and not for the people left out who didn't/couldn't buy it. Without a doubt, it lessened my experience this last week. And if I hadn't bought it, I probably would've waved goodby forever. I can't imagine anyone wanting to go through that again.
The simple conclusion: Genie+ has got to go the way of the ticket books. Yesterday!
Buzz at 5:45
Big Thunder at 11:30am
Space Mountain at 8:11pm. The LL line was all the way down to the bottom where you scan in and then wrapped around up top.