Goodbye, Maxpass. Hello, Disney Genie.

[DLgal]

I'd say after the year and a half we've ALL had, it's a very good time to learn some of the lessons life has to teach us, regardless. And one of the blessings that Walt left us is that lessons are more easily and quietly learned when surrounded by magic and a little pixie dust.

We've all learned plenty about patience and waiting and sacrificing, especially the kids who are STILL waiting for a vaccine and for school to get back to normal.

If Disney is going to charge $20 per PERSON for this service, and with only 15 rides available at DLR, not allowing re rides is insulting. The only lesson that teaches us is that corporations are ruthless about lining their pockets at the expense of customer goodwill.

 

[mom2rtk]

We've all learned plenty about patience and waiting and sacrificing, especially the kids who are STILL waiting for a vaccine and for school to get back to normal.

If Disney is going to charge $20 per PERSON for this service, and with only 15 rides available at DLR, not allowing re rides is insulting. The only lesson that teaches us is that corporations are ruthless about lining their pockets at the expense of customer goodwill.

No joke.

 

[DontSpamMe]

Looks like we all will be living the standby life. Hopefully they bring back early entry for hotel guests soon.

 

[MonocularVision]

As someone who is transitioning from AP to yearly or maybe twice a year visitor, I think this makes sense. Removing the free option and giving folks one ride reservation per day will keep the standby lanes moving more quickly and cut down the wait time for LL. It also means you’ll probably be able to ride a larger selection of LL-rides in any given day instead of finding an 8pm return time for Space Mountain at 11am.

 

[DLgal]

Looks like we all will be living the standby life. Hopefully they bring back early entry for hotel guests soon.

I said it earlier and I haven't changed my mind. I will absolutely not be buying this as a daily add on to my pass. No way is it even remotely worth $20. We've been visiting the parks plenty since they reopened and have done fine with the standby waits and the (very occasional) use of DAS. We hardly even have to use DAS anymore because the lines are something my son can typically handle. We pretty much only use it for Radiator Springs Racers anymore.

 

[evilmommie]

Very interested to see what Genie+ is all about.

I'm a once a week...go in for a few hours...ride a couple of rides...get a few seasonal treats to take home...do some shopping - Park Guest/MK Holder. Once a month, I go with a group of people....and I can see this as something we'd all consider using together. Heck, an Sbux is more than 5 bucks a pop, usually. I'll princess wave to y'all in standby as I cruise down the LL's.

 

[lindyv321]

I find it very disappointing that you can only use LL once per day per attraction. We like to re-ride certain things and completely skip others so there isn’t much value in it as far as I can see. I honestly don’t think we’ll be forking over the extra $$ for it and I’m also now rethinking upgrading to a Magic Key pass in November.

I totally get that they are trying to control the crowds with Genie but it’s definitely not an enhancement in my opinion. At least not for those of us who know how to tour the parks and know how we LIKE to tour the parks. I don’t plan on utilizing the free portion of Genie at all except to remind me when to mobile order….

 

[Skyegirl1999]

As usual, I really feel for the frontline CMs who will have to deal with all of this.

The reality is that tons of people will buy Genie+ without reading the fine print and will just assume it's a "front of the line pass" for all the big rides.

They won't realize that there are separate rides that cost additional money, they won't understand that you can only ride each ride once per day (which is a weird restriction, IMO - I feel like probably most people don't re-ride things anyway, or they maybe re-ride one thing, so it has to be a pretty small population that this actually hurts in practice. But publicizing it comes across as just another stingy restriction). So, dealing with the fallout from that will fall to the CMs (many of whom have often struggled with explaining Maxpass/boarding groups/etc.). It just seems like such a needlessly complicated system.

 

[StormyCA]

I think given all the restrictions on Genie+ and MKeys, that TPTB is trying to move DLR from the perception of a 'locals park' into more of a 'tourist-friendly park' a la WDW. Since the head of the Parks Division (D'Amaro) was most recently head of WDW and now that they're moving more of the DLR team to Orlando, I think we may be seeing a lot of shifting in attendance 'philosophy'.

 

[mom2rtk]

I think given all the restrictions on Genie+ and MKeys, that TPTB is trying to move DLR from the perception of a 'locals park' into more of a 'tourist-friendly park' a la WDW. Since the head of the Parks Division (D'Amaro) was most recently head of WDW and now that they're moving more of the DLR team to Orlando, I think we may be seeing a lot of shifting in attendance 'philosophy'.

Trust me. That's not a "tourist-friendly park" approach either. This is a "profits first" approach.

 

[MonocularVision]

Trust me. That's not a "tourist-friendly park" approach either. This is a "profits first" approach.

How so?

 

[mom2rtk]

How so?

Tourists don't want travel half way across the country to spend the day waiting in long lines. Nor do they want to do the attractions only once for the cost and effort it took to be there.

 

[MonocularVision]

Tourists don't want travel half way across the country to spend the day waiting in long lines. Nor do they want to do the attractions only once for the cost and effort it took to be there.

Except the old system was able to be maximized by locals and experts in a way that normal tourists didn’t understand. I would guess these limitations are being out in place to prevent some rides reservations from being gone for the entire day by 11am. The goal is to make Genie+ something attractive to folks who want to experience a broad range of attractions which to me sounds like the more “touristy” type traveler.

But to your original statement: How does the limitation on the number of times you can reserve a ride in a day contribute to greater profits?

 

[mom2rtk]

Except the old system was able to be maximized by locals and experts in a way that normal tourists didn’t understand. I would guess these limitations are being out in place to prevent some rides reservations from being gone for the entire day by 11am. The goal is to make Genie+ something attractive to folks who want to experience a broad range of attractions which to me sounds like the more “touristy” type traveler.

But to your original statement: How does the limitation on the number of times you can reserve a ride in a day contribute to greater profits?

I think you underestimate the tourists.

And my own personal suspicion is that Disney intends to monetize more of the ride capacity in a way we haven't seen yet. That's how it will contribute to greater profits.

 

[mel2014]

No details yet on the DL roll out, but a 10/19 WDW roll out was announced today:
https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/...stpass-replacement-will-launch-and-a-lot-more
So far nothing official from Disney on limiting re-rides.

 

[Skyegirl1999]

No details yet on the DL roll out, but a 10/19 WDW roll out was announced today:
https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/...stpass-replacement-will-launch-and-a-lot-more
So far nothing official from Disney on limiting re-rides.

I notice that all four WDW parks have two individual LL attractions, so if that holds here, we’d be looking at ROTR and Space Mountain at DL and Webslingers and RSR at DCA.

I wonder when it’s rolling out on our coast…

 

[dieumeye]

No details yet on the DL roll out, but a 10/19 WDW roll out was announced today:
https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/...stpass-replacement-will-launch-and-a-lot-more
So far nothing official from Disney on limiting re-rides.

Glad to see that it doesn’t seem limited to one ride per attraction. That is a relief! Although the article does say that the max wait time is 2hrs. So I wonder if DL will get 2hrs or 90mins like MaxPass.

The main thing I am wondering at this point is how quickly the return times will go, now that the system is paid. In the past it wasn’t uncommon for the top rides to run out early in the day, and on busy days practically every FP could be gone by the evening.

I hope that a paid system would have better availability, since it theoretically will have fewer users. But who knows. It would be pretty unfortunate to pay $20 only to find out that, say, Indiana Jones or Matterhorn are already sold out. I don’t love all that they are doing with Genie+, but I admit that it actually might turn out for the best (at least for people willing to pay).

 

[mel2014]

Glad to see that it doesn’t seem limited to one ride per attraction. That is a relief! Although the article does say that the max wait time is 2hrs. So I wonder if DL will get 2hrs or 90mins like MaxPass.

The main thing I am wondering at this point is how quickly the return times will go, now that the system is paid. In the past it wasn’t uncommon for the top rides to run out early in the day, and on busy days practically every FP could be gone by the evening.

I hope that a paid system would have better availability, since it theoretically will have fewer users. But who knows. It would be pretty unfortunate to pay $20 only to find out that, say, Indiana Jones or Matterhorn are already sold out. I don’t love all that they are doing with Genie+, but I admit that it actually might turn out for the best (at least for people willing to pay).

I obviously have zero actual data to draw from, but it seemed to me that immediately pre-COVID-19 closing, most people were using MaxPass rather than the legacy system -- I rarely saw people at FP machines. So I don't think it being at 100% paid system will necessarily slow down how quickly rides run out.

I think the bigger factor, particularly at DCA, is that RSR will be an ala carte selection, which means that Genie+ purchasers that previously would have prioritized that, to the exclusion of other rides, for a FP/MP, will now be in the pool competing for other ride options for those critical first few hours of the day, which may mean that other rides at DCA actually run out faster with the new 100% paid system.

The other factor is whether people will be able to cancel a Genie+ selection, which allowed for some of the top rides to go back into the mix later in the day.

 

[tlcdoula]

I obviously have zero actual data to draw from, but it seemed to me that immediately pre-COVID-19 closing, most people were using MaxPass rather than the legacy system -- I rarely saw people at FP machines. So I don't think it being at 100% paid system will necessarily slow down how quickly rides run out.

I think the bigger factor, particularly at DCA, is that RSR will be an ala carte selection, which means that Genie+ purchasers that previously would have prioritized that, to the exclusion of other rides, for a FP/MP, will now be in the pool competing for other ride options for those critical first few hours of the day, which may mean that other rides at DCA actually run out faster with the new 100% paid system.

The other factor is whether people will be able to cancel a Genie+ selection, which allowed for some of the top rides to go back into the mix later in the day.

That is a good question... with Max pass we could cancel one to grab something else instead. It is going to be interesting to see how the all plays out when it is launched in DW. Wish they would give a date for DL so we would know ahead of time.

 

[dieumeye]

RSR will be an ala carte selection, which means that Genie+ purchasers that previously would have prioritized that, to the exclusion of other rides, for a FP/MP, will now be in the pool competing for other ride options for those critical first few hours of the day, which may mean that other rides at DCA actually run out faster with the new 100% paid system.

Hmm. I hadn’t considered the fact that the Individual Lightning Lane selections being taken out of the system will mean a huge chunk of people obviously won’t have those attractions “taking up” their LL slot, meaning that crowd will get distributed to the other top attractions.

I was going to say there’s no way they will be able to sell a $20 Genie+ where you can’t book the top attractions because they sell out if you don’t grab them first thing in the morning. BUT here I am sitting with a Dream Key that basically can’t be used any weekend the rest of the year. So, selling something with the caveat that what you are paying for might not actually be available seems like the new standard.