The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[scrappinginontario]

I’m glad to see this thread still active after all this time!

Chiming in with my best tip/strategy. We’ve had good experience with booking G+ LLs for rides that show as down. It’s like a golden ticket, having a LL for a closed attraction converted to an Anytime LL, so I’m always in the lookout for opportunities to book rides that are down for some reason!

We successfully did this at DL. Good tip to know for WDW too.

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Chiming in with my best tip/strategy. We’ve had good experience with booking G+ LLs for rides that show as down. It’s like a golden ticket, having a LL for a closed attraction converted to an Anytime LL, so I’m always in the lookout for opportunities to book rides that are down for some reason!

I’ve never used Genie+ so I’m not sure how this works. If you see a ride that’s down does it still allow you to book a LL? Then does it automatically convert to an anytime LL even if you haven’t tapped in? Do you then get to book another attraction and come back later to use the originally booked ride? Sorry if I’m sounding a bit dim just trying to check I’ve got this straight in my head. I wouldn’t want to rebook a different ride if it meant I lost the original if it was something I really wanted to do if that makes sense.

 

[Disneytrippin']

What is the going rate for Genie+ each day for each park? We have some first timers coming and I know prices have nearly doubled. We are trying to gently explain the added price of convenience.

We leave in two weeks. I am trying to see if we can skip using Genie+ on a day or two. I think with early entry to Animal Kingdom that is doable that day?

 

[Disturbia]

What is the going rate for Genie+ each day for each park? We have some first timers coming and I know prices have nearly doubled. We are trying to gently explain the added price of convenience.

We leave in two weeks. I am trying to see if we can skip using Genie+ on a day or two. I think with early entry to Animal Kingdom that is doable that day?

The prices during holidays (closer to Memorial Day) will be $25-39 range per person. Genie+ does sell out.

https://www.thrill-data.com/lightning-lane/wdw/price-history

If you’re going to AK on a weekday away from Memorial Day weekend you can get away with riding FOP and Navi during early entry. You need to be at the gates 30-40 mins early and transportation can take the same time depending on where you’re staying (AK lodge transportation is quickest but buses will have long lines in the morning).

If staying at a deluxe resort AK (and HS) sometimes has extended evening hours (select dates in Nov/Dec)

https://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2023...g-hours-are-coming-to-disneys-animal-kingdom/

 

[Disneytrippin']

The prices during holidays (closer to Memorial Day) will be $25-39 range per person. Genie+ does sell out.

https://www.thrill-data.com/lightning-lane/wdw/price-history

If you’re going to AK on a weekday away from Memorial Day weekend you can get away with riding FOP and Navi during early entry. You need to be at the gates 30-40 mins early and transportation can take the same time depending on where you’re staying (AK lodge transportation is quickest but buses will have long lines in the morning).

If staying at a deluxe resort AK (and HS) sometimes has extended evening hours (select dates in Dec)

https://www.disneyfoodblog.com/2023...g-hours-are-coming-to-disneys-animal-kingdom/

Thank you. You're the best! Just when I think I know enough I find some tidbit of information from somebody else. We are probably going to just take an uber that day. I booked us an early breakfast that day before I knew about the hours. We can probably rope drop Pandora and then go to breakfast for sure.
That day we plan on leaving in the afternoon to get some rest before going to MK after hours. Ak opens at 7:30 early entry. It is going to be quite the day.
We watch both of those Vlogs all the time. I didn't see the new one from Park Prodigy. We will watch that during breakfast today.
Thanks again!

 

[Tom_E_D]

I’ve never used Genie+ so I’m not sure how this works. If you see a ride that’s down does it still allow you to book a LL? Then does it automatically convert to an anytime LL even if you haven’t tapped in? Do you then get to book another attraction and come back later to use the originally booked ride? Sorry if I’m sounding a bit dim just trying to check I’ve got this straight in my head. I wouldn’t want to rebook a different ride if it meant I lost the original if it was something I really wanted to do if that makes sense.

Sometimes, but not always, MDE will allow future bookings of an attraction that is then down. I think it allows it more often than it doesn't. It may depend on how long they expect the attraction to be down for. If the attraction remains down when your return time comes, it should automatically convert the LL for that attraction to an anytime LL (also known as an MEP and by other terms). Sometimes, it will convert it even before the return time begins. If that was your most-recently-booked LL attraction, you will also then be allowed to book another LL right away. The anytime LL can always be used for the attraction that went down, as well as other attractions. It will tell you which ones it can be used for. It won't be all attractions though. Booking another LL attraction will not remove your anytime LL. Tapping into the lightning lane for another ride that accepts that anytime LL, and for which you do not have a LL for that ride would, however, use up the anytime LL, So, the potential problem isn't with booking another LL; it's with tapping into one. If you are careful about tapping in to the lightning lane only for those rides that you have a LL for that ride, you should be able to hold onto your anytime LL until you can use it for the ride of your choice.

Edit: I'm using LL to mean Genie+ lightning lane reservation, not the lightning lane itself.
You do not have to have tapped in to the ride that went down to be given an anytime LL.

 

[bluezy]

What is the going rate for Genie+ each day for each park? We have some first timers coming and I know prices have nearly doubled. We are trying to gently explain the added price of convenience.

We leave in two weeks. I am trying to see if we can skip using Genie+ on a day or two. I think with early entry to Animal Kingdom that is doable that day?

You can check the price on your MDE app every day. Just click on "learn more" or "purchase" on the Genie+ bar on the opening page and you'll see the prices for that day. You don't have to be on property or even have a reservation to check the prices. Today's prices are:

 

[SuzyQue]

You can check the price on your MDE app every day. Just click on "learn more" or "purchase" on the Genie+ bar on the opening page and you'll see the prices for that day. You don't have to be on property or even have a reservation to check the prices. Today's prices are:

View attachment 855132

I'm really surprised to see those prices today as we paid those same prices during President's week this year!

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

Sometimes, but not always, MDE will allow future bookings of an attraction that is then down. I think it allows it more often than it doesn't. It may depend on how long they expect the attraction to be down for. If the attraction remains down when your return time comes, it should automatically convert the LL for that attraction to an anytime LL (also known as an MEP and by other terms). Sometimes, it will convert it even before the return time begins. If that was your most-recently-booked LL attraction, you will also then be allowed to book another LL right away. The anytime LL can always be used for the attraction that went down, as well as other attractions. It will tell you which ones it can be used for. It won't be all attractions though. Booking another LL attraction will not remove your anytime LL. Tapping into the lightning lane for another ride that accepts that anytime LL, and for which you do not have a LL for that ride would, however, use up the anytime LL, So, the potential problem isn't with booking another LL; it's with tapping into one. If you are careful about tapping in to the lightning lane only for those rides that you have a LL for that ride, you should be able to hold onto your anytime LL until you can use it for the ride of your choice.

Edit: I'm using LL to mean Genie+ lightning lane reservation, not the lightning lane itself.
You do not have to have tapped in to the ride that went down to be given an anytime LL.

Thank you

 

[Sjm9911]

You can check the price on your MDE app every day. Just click on "learn more" or "purchase" on the Genie+ bar on the opening page and you'll see the prices for that day. You don't have to be on property or even have a reservation to check the prices. Today's prices are:

View attachment 855132

Yea, that sucks as beforehand you could book G+ throughout you stay far in advance. Now you have to wait to book and to see what it costs.

 

[bluezy]

Yea, that sucks as beforehand you could book G+ throughout you stay far in advance. Now you have to wait to book and to see what it costs.

Yes, I really enjoyed being able to purchase Genie+ for our length of stay months before we even arrived on property. They changed that about 2 weeks before we arrived on our last trip. I was really glad we had purchased it in advance. I'm not looking forward to having to do that on a daily basis on our trip this summer -- especially since I'll probably be the person doing the 7:00 a.m. LL/ILL scheduler for our group of 13. Now I'll also need to make sure that everyone has purchased G+ for the day prior to about 6:50 a.m. so that I have time to call them and remind them to do that so I can schedule at 7:00. I have visions of me needing to buy G+ for other people some days just so I can do the scheduling at 7:00....or maybe I'll just make the rule that if you haven't purchase it by 7:00, you're on your own for scheduling and hopefully you can get the same return time as the rest of us.

 

[Thinkentt]

A whole new world
A new fantastic point of view
No one to tell us, "No"
Or where to go….

Oh, wait. We have Genie now!

If this is your first foray into the world of Genie+ know this. The G+ we have today is not the same G+ that was rolled out in October. Around Thanksgiving (maybe page 90 of this thread) Disney made changes that impacted some of the usage strategies presented earlier in this thread. If you want the sordid history on how we got from there to here read on. If you want to skip the history and just get to current usage and strategy you may want to save yourself a few hours (days?) and fast forward to page 90 or so. Either way, enjoy…..but do respect the caveats below!

People need and have been asking for something like this, and I just saw someone tell someone else to start one. So I’m starting one!

Post up your actual usage experiences and tips here, and your usage strategy or questions IF you plan on using it. No commentary on whether it’s good or bad, no comparisons to things that don’t exist any more (FP+).

This will keep the crybabies and arrogant jerks who don’t like it (myself among them!**) from keeping people from seeing info that will actually help them use it!

** a triple or quadruple hop stack has great potential to alter this!

Wow, thanks for starting this thread! It's awesome to have a space dedicated to sharing real experiences and tips with Genie+. Can't wait to see everyone's strategies and make the most of it!

 

[scrappinginontario]

Yes, I really enjoyed being able to purchase Genie+ for our length of stay months before we even arrived on property. They changed that about 2 weeks before we arrived on our last trip. I was really glad we had purchased it in advance. I'm not looking forward to having to do that on a daily basis on our trip this summer -- especially since I'll probably be the person doing the 7:00 a.m. LL/ILL scheduler for our group of 13. Now I'll also need to make sure that everyone has purchased G+ for the day prior to about 6:50 a.m. so that I have time to call them and remind them to do that so I can schedule at 7:00. I have visions of me needing to buy G+ for other people some days just so I can do the scheduling at 7:00....or maybe I'll just make the rule that if you haven't purchase it by 7:00, you're on your own for scheduling and hopefully you can get the same return time as the rest of us.

I think your second option is a better one as it has potential to become a burden to you. You're offering to book which is huge. They will quickly learn to purchase it if they miss out one day.

One up side to purchasing daily is, you may find you don't really need Genie+ for all the parks. We have not found it worth the cost at AK and not really for Epcot either. It's helpful at Epcot but I cannot justify the cost when purchasing for only that one park. YMMV.

 

[bluezy]

I think your second option is a better one as it has potential to become a burden to you. You're offering to book which is huge. They will quickly learn to purchase it if they miss out one day.

One up side to purchasing daily is, you may find you don't really need Genie+ for all the parks. We have not found it worth the cost at AK and not really for Epcot either. It's helpful at Epcot but I cannot justify the cost when purchasing for only that one park. YMMV.

I'm not really that concerned about the "kids" not buying G+ in time. We'll have a game plan for if that happens (most likely I'll pay for it and they'll just pay me back). But I also don't have a problem letting them suffer if they don't want me to buy it and say they will do it on their own, but don't. We more than got our money's worth out of G+/ILL on the last trip. I agree that we might not need it every day, but I think we will use it most days (oh, who am I kidding, we'll probably buy it every day just for the convenience ). We all agreed that we got on more rides *and* had more relaxation time on that trip than we ever had before (and we were pretty savvy FP+ users. Our FP+ record was 17 in one day at MK. We had even taken a 4 hour break in the afternoon. We could have gotten more FPs, but at that point we we ready to call it a day.). Who knows if we'll be able to repeat our G+ success on our upcoming trip.

We like to have several "sleep in"/non-rope drop days so I know we'll be stacking LLs those days so that we can still do a lot of attractions even though we won't get to the park until late morning or early afternoon.

We're the opposite of you for using it at EP. G+ allowed us to have a very efficient arrival day at EP on our last trip. We didn't get to the park until about 2:30, but we already had 3 LLs and an ILL booked by then and booked a few more while we were in the park. We did all of those rides (I think it was7 total...maybe 8), had dinner, and were back at our hotel by about 9:00 (we made sure to head back to AoA *before* the fireworks were over so we didn't get caught in that line! ).

I think G+ is a little bit like the Dining Plan. Both of them are YMMV situations. Some people can't imagine a good trip without it and others can't imagine paying for something that they won't get their money's worth out of every single day. And some of us are somewhere in the middle. I suspect we will use G+ every day on this trip, but it's nice to have the option to be flexible and only buy it if we think we will need it. It would still be nice to be able to buy it prior to the day you want to use it, though. I know we will use it one day at each of the parks. I'd love to be able to purchase those days now (or even a few days ahead of time) rather than having to do it each day. The other days are still up in the air as to what we'll be doing and if we'll need it, so it is nice to have the flexibility to wait until that day to purchase it.

AK is the one park I'm not sure about yet. I did like that last time we did rope drop and schedule a few LLs/ILLs there and were able to leave the park having done everything we wanted to (including most of us having done FOP twice) by about 1:00. That allowed us a nice long afternoon break and we headed to MK for the evening where we had some LLs scheduled and also did several speedy standby lines during the fireworks (which we watched a different night). <sigh> So much to think about....(which is probably why I really liked just having G+ purchased in advance for every day of our stay last time. )