The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[emmabelle]

No

No, you can choose to only book rides in Hollywood Studios. You will only be able to book attractions for after 2pm. Just keep in mind that you must physically tap into Epcot, before going to HS after 2pm.

Thank You! I think I'll just change my park ressie to HS. . Maybe we'll just hang by the pool until late afternoon

 

[Bayoumomof3]

Thanks everyone for contributing here... I think I now understand the new rules (after learning the original rules)! I'm stuck on an airplane without wifi until 8:30am (8:00am MK opening). So I was thinking of this hypothetical of stacking higher demand rides in the evening and then a more widely available one for when I arrive.

Here is my hypothetical:
Book LL#1 at 8:30am for 6:00pm
Book LL#2 at 10:30am for 7:00pm
Book LL#3 at 12:30pm for 1:00pm

Scan in at LL#3 at 1:00pm, can I make another right away at 1pm? I've stacked later in the day, but I'm not doing any of the previously closed loopholes, right? Then I can do a rolling rebooking LL#3 for immediate usage until all availability is gone.

The way I understand it is that since LL#3 was your most recently booked ride that you would be able to book another one right away. And continue rebooking as available.

 

[swummyh20]

I’ve read of this happening because people were still looking at the tip board tab with current genie times vs the my day tab. could that be it?

no, this was not our situation. We booked and were shown the confirmation page with our return times. It wasn’t until reopening the app to look at something else did we notice the changes. It seemed to me that maybe it was some sort of attempt at being intuitive to other plans we had, but it actually screwed us up multiple times. Won’t be returning to the parks for some time, and even if I do, I’ll focus on Epcot since I’m a Disneyland key holder. Not happy with genie.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Thank You! I think I'll just change my park ressie to HS. . Maybe we'll just hang by the pool until late afternoon

If it's easy for you to get into Epcot once you arrive, I'd keep Epcot, that way as you're selecting your G+/ILL$ rides, you'll definitely get an afternoon/evening time. This will be helpful in case you don't arrive until after park opening. Also if you're delayed a little bit, it won't be a big deal as the scheduled rides are all later in the day.

 

[princesslover]

I have a question, if I have a park pass for Epcot for Friday do I first have to book a Genie + for Epcot? Can I just book one for HS for the night time? We arrive in Orlando in the morning and may want to walk over to Epcot for a little but do HS at night. Maybe I should just change our pass to HS for that day.

I don’t think G+ is tied to parks.

 

[ThistleMae]

If you hop, you can't book your next Genie+ until 2 p.m. You don't have to be in that park to book it, just has to be 2 or after. One day we didn't go to the first park we had reservations for. When we went to our next park, the scanner didn't turn green. The CM fixed it for us but said it had to be reset and there might not be someone there to do the fix so best to tap into first park or change your reservation, if you can, if you decide not to go to your first park.

 

[MagicMoon]

Yes *as available.

And best of luck getting a LL 30 minutes from booking on your desired ride.

 

[brockash]

If you hop, you can't book your next Genie+ until 2 p.m. You don't have to be in that park to book it, just has to be 2 or after. One day we didn't go to the first park we had reservations for. When we went to our next park, the scanner didn't turn green. The CM fixed it for us but said it had to be reset and there might not be someone there to do the fix so best to tap into first park or change your reservation, if you can, if you decide not to go to your first park.

Sorry, can you elaborate a bit. Are you saying if you plan on hopping and book a g+ ride at your 2nd park at 7am; you can't book your next g+ pass until 2pm? I understand you won't get a return time until after 2, but I was under the impression you could book like normal.

 

[CrimsonTideFan94]

One tip for those who are rope droppers and don’t stay to close - you can book a G+ reservation with a window starting near closing (I think anytime in the last 45 minutes to an hour would work) even if you will be in your hotel and don’t intend to use it. If the attraction breaks down around the time of your reservation you could get a multi experience pass valid for most G+ rides the next day. This happened to me within an hour before close and some of the exclusions were Slinky, Peter Pan, Navi, Soarin, and Test Track. It also excluded all of the IA$ rides.

 

[CBMom01]

.

If you hop, you can't book your next Genie+ until 2 p.m. You don't have to be in that park to book it, just has to be 2 or after. One day we didn't go to the first park we had reservations for. When we went to our next park, the scanner didn't turn green. The CM fixed it for us but said it had to be reset and there might not be someone there to do the fix so best to tap into first park or change your reservation, if you can, if you decide not to go to your first park.

That's not at all related to G+. That's the park hopping rule. You have to tap in to the park at which you have reservations to be able to hop at all.

 

[Runnsally]

One tip for those who are rope droppers and don’t stay to close - you can book a G+ reservation with a window starting near closing (I think anytime in the last 45 minutes to an hour would work) even if you will be in your hotel and don’t intend to use it. If the attraction breaks down around the time of your reservation you could get a multi experience pass valid for most G+ rides the next day. This happened to me within an hour before close and some of the exclusions were Slinky, Peter Pan, Navi, Soarin, and Test Track. It also excluded all of the IA$ rides.

Kind of a jerk move though, no?

 

[CrimsonTideFan94]

Kind of a jerk move though, no?

If I knew there was a possibility of getting a bonus LL for the next day, I would do it. In this case I actually planned to use it on that ride but it broke down. But in theory this would probably work if you didn’t stay late and thus were finished using G+.

 

[Miffy]

Two days ago my sister and I were at DAK. At 7 am we booked ILL$ for FoP and G+ for NRJ.

After tapping in at the first tap point for NRJ, I tried to make a G+ for KS. By then it was well past 2 hours after park opening and even more than 2 hours past booking the G+ for NRJ. And yet . . . the system wouldn't let me book another G+ for my sister even though it would let it book one for myself.

My and my sister's G+ for NRJ were booked together. Why would the system reject one of us and accept the other?

As it turned out, after my sister tapped in at the 2nd tap point, it let me book the G+ for KS for both of us. But what the heck happened before then? A glitch? Some mystery rule I'm not familiar with?

As for G+ tips, the only tip I have is this: Be prepared to use it for only 1 or 2 attractions at times you may or may not like and call it good. Anything more than that and you have worked miracles or else been here on a slow day or maybe you don't mind paying for G+ for rides that have 5- or 10-minute standby lines.

If I had to give G+ a grade, I'd give it a D-. It should be happy I didn't flunk it.

 

[CrimsonTideFan94]

Two days ago my sister and I were at DAK. At 7 am we booked ILL$ for FoP and G+ for NRJ.

After tapping in at the first tap point for NRJ, I tried to make a G+ for KS. By then it was well past 2 hours after park opening and even more than 2 hours past booking the G+ for NRJ. And yet . . . the system wouldn't let me book another G+ for my sister even though it would let it book one for myself.

My and my sister's G+ for NRJ were booked together. Why would the system reject one of us and accept the other?

As it turned out, after my sister tapped in at the 2nd tap point, it let me book the G+ for KS for both of us. But what the heck happened before then? A glitch? Some mystery rule I'm not familiar with?

As for G+ tips, the only tip I have is this: Be prepared to use it for only 1 or 2 attractions at times you may or may not like and call it good. Anything more than that and you have worked miracles or else been here on a slow day or maybe you don't mind paying for G+ for rides that have 5- or 10-minute standby lines.

If I had to give G+ a grade, I'd give it a D-. It should be happy I didn't flunk it.

Epcot is probably the one where it’s needed least, especially if you’re solo and can use the single rider line at Test Track. The only other one it would be good for is Soarin.

 

[Runnsally]

If I knew there was a possibility of getting a bonus LL for the next day, I would do it. In this case I actually planned to use it on that ride but it broke down. But in theory this would probably work if you didn’t stay late and thus were finished using G+.

Yes - this was also a thing with rolling FP+

 

[Mome Rath]

Here's how I wound up using G+ and IA$; I only used G+ on my last day, and that is because it was an AK day with park hopping later on. I definitely see it as a FP+ downgrade, and it made me miss FP+ even more than when there was no FP or LL at all. I'd rather just utilize virtual queues and wait in line. Having said that, that IA$ is worth it if you can afford it.

I used IA$ for both Rat and Rise. We were getting in early enough on our first day to go to EPCOT, so I grabbed a time for Rat for the evening early in the day so we could ride that. It lets you straight into the interior area, so it is a really quick wait with IA$, a lot quicker than the virtual queue.

The next morning was DHS, so bought an 10:30 am Rise IA$ (and, yes, with IA$ you can pick your time, but it will move you later before you confirm if times are filling up). I can also confirm that it can change your time during the day, I think ours was moved maybe by 10 min or so later. We rope dropped and rode Runaway, and did anything else we wanted. Our time came for Rise, and it was down. The time for our return window passed, and the IA$ was replaced with an any time LL for Rise that day. In short, if the ride breaks and is down through your window, you can come back at any point in the day and go through the LL. I looked at the average down time for Rise, and it was listed as about an hour, so we just waited and got right in when it came back up.

The last day was AK in the morn and went ahead and got G+ for the day, and started off booking for our second park; MK. Rope dropped AK, and was in the first ride of FoP, off of that an on to Navi. Back to hotel, then toured all the monorail hotels, and booked my G+ selections at 2 hour intervals for MK, then lunch, then on to MK. Did what we wanted there (left before the fire excitement), then on to EPCOT where I had a G+ selection for Soarin, and the Land.

The lack of ability to pick a time for G+ severely hampers any type of actual "flow" for the rides you want (as does not being able to hop before 2pm). FP+ was smooth, G+ is jerky lol. To make the most of it, you have to track return times, and coordinate your picks that way. Of course the popular rides move a lot faster through booking windows, with the least popular going at a snail's pace. The only "advantage" that I really saw for G+ over FP+ was the ability to overlap ride windows.

 

[Dis Dragon]

I hate that you have to be on G+ at 7am and then if you're stacking basically have a timer running so you don't loose track of when you need to be getting the next one. With all the questions being asked by parties in the LL lines they could have put out a cleaner, simpler platform.

After using it this trip, I think I would have still disliked but liked it more if they would have kept the original fastpass system, but you have to buy into the pre-arrival fastpasses and day of would have been free for everyone.

I also found it super annoying that almost every time I opened the tip board it didn't show the park I was in and the to-do list was cluttered with a bunch of garbage instead of showing a clean itinerary.

 

[ThistleMae]

Sorry, can you elaborate a bit. Are you saying if you plan on hopping and book a g+ ride at your 2nd park at 7am; you can't book your next g+ pass until 2pm? I understand you won't get a return time until after 2, but I was under the impression you could book like normal.

You can't book a Genie + ride at your second park until your hop time which is 2 p.m.

 

[ThistleMae]

So tried to book a ll$ for FOP, but it was around 9 a.m. All sold out by that time. So even paying for a ride you must book by 7 a.m. unless you happen to get lucky.

 

[ThistleMae]

I hate that you have to be on G+ at 7am and then if you're stacking basically have a timer running so you don't loose track of when you need to be getting the next one. With all the questions being asked by parties in the LL lines they could have put out a cleaner, simpler platform.

After using it this trip, I think I would have still disliked but liked it more if they would have kept the original fastpass system, but you have to buy into the pre-arrival fastpasses and day of would have been free for everyone.

I also found it super annoying that almost every time I opened the tip board it didn't show the park I was in and the to-do list was cluttered with a bunch of garbage instead of showing a clean itinerary.

Yes, the app itself is not straight forward at all. They need to declutter it. I always have to keep changing tabs to find what I'm looking for. I also recommend if you are a typical park hopper, don't bother buying it if you want to use Genie+ or LL$. The times can be really far out on popular rides, so if you really want to ride something before you normally hop at 2 p.m. you will lose opportunities for certain rides in that first park.