Super long post - sorry! We’re doing all four parks in two days of park hopping so we can enjoy days off to relax and do other things. We are on site, group of ten. I’ve been gaming our days out using the Touring Plans app. Yes, I am a crazy planner, but it helps avert SO MANY arguments and wasted time in the parks.
That said, here’s where LL helps and where it doesn’t.
MK: Will hop into park in the PM and will also attend Xmas After Hours another night. Could LL Buzz, Pan, Haunted, Peoplemover, Jungle, Pirates, Dumbo, Speedway, Under the Sea, and Philharmagic. Do we NEED LL for all of those? No. Will it save us time during a shortened day? Yes, but my head will be in a phone, too. And what if all the really useful times are gone by the time we get to the park? We can catch things we miss during the after hours. Already planning to do Space, Splash, Mine Train, and BTMRR at the after hours to avoid waits. Will not spend $LL for the same reason. Would definitely $LL for reserved FW seating though, but it doesn’t look like an option.
HS: One morning with Early Entry. Will have 6+ people trying for ROTR BG so banking on an early one. Original plan was to EE RD Slinky, then do MFSR next, saving MMRR for right before hopping out of park. We don’t have a lot of interest in TOT/RNR. So - we could LL MFSR, MMRR, TSM and actually have the option to do TOT/RNR for the few who want to. LLs would be incredibly useful for Jedi Training, Indy, Frozen, and B&B (assuming all are back). I do not want to waste precious minutes queuing up for a seat at shows. If shows are not on LL maybe the $$ and a little extra is better spent on $LL for MFSR or MMRR.
EP: Hopping into park for the PM. We are focusing on the World Showcase and don’t care about TT. Touring Plans shows evening waits <20 min for Seas/Nemo, Spaceship Earth, and Soarin, and Frozen at 22 min. The kicker for Epcot is that the only way we could do Remy would be $LL because we would miss any chance to get in the free virtual queue (assuming it works like ROTR and have to have an EP res for the day). We’re also very food-oriented so we’re probably not going to spend $ on $LL that could be spent at F&W or Space 220. So, we just give up on Remy?
AK: One morning with early entry. Already planned to EE RD FOP, Na’Vi, and the Safari. LL only helps us get on Kali later when it’s actually hot, and Everest which not everyone is interested in. Yes, we could use it for Dinosaur and Bug but those are both low interest and low waits. Again, would definitely use LL for Lion King and Nemo. So, maybe $$ better spent on $LL FOP to avoid the chaos of RD.
Conclusion: If we pay for
Genie+ that helps us most at MK and HS. So that puts us doing HS/MK day Genie+ and AK/EP day with possible $LL FOP and Remy. It just really doesn’t seem like the $15 option would help with enough lines in AK and EP, but $LL could. UNLESS you factor in riding multiple times. But with our limited time we probably wouldn’t do that anyway - we’d take more rest breaks instead.
I think LL coupled with the Genie planner is probably a great thing for families spending multiple full days in the parks who don’t want to plan ahead and/or have certain rides they want to do over and over. But for a large group with limited hours, where it seems like at least one person really wants to do nearly every attraction at least once, I’m not sure it will help much. ESPECIALLY because I can’t set it up ahead of time, it actually makes being the planner MORE difficult. I personally can’t afford to gamble $1500 in daily park passes on a new service that won’t get us to everything we want and might possibly send us running all over the park as wait times fluctuate throughout the day. I’ve done that with the old paper FP, no thanks.
I could cry after putting together our plans. I wanted to be DONE with this by now and ready to make ADRs and park reservations!!
