Enthusiastic about Genie+ touring

[havoc315]

I need to know how you are 100% certain without a doubt that you will be able to get every single ride you want at the exact time you want? Do you have some crystal ball none of the rest of us have?”

I’ve used MaxPass. This is the same thing.

Exact time? 100% certainty? No. Might have to wait for Mine Train at 3pm instead of getting it precisely at 2:30 pm. And availability may be tighter around Easter and Christmas.

But yes, I’m confident in the ability to get any attraction you want, within an hour or 2 of your desired time. Because that’s how MaxPass works.

Because if the ride your kid 100% has their heart set on riding only has availability at 6 pm because you slept in, then you can't get another LL or selection until you've done that one ride, or checked in at least, because you can only get 1 at a time.

Actually… that’s not how it’s going to work. But you’ll see when the fuller details are released.


[QUOTE
You are so absolutely certain that things will be just like you've outlined when literally nothing has said that will absolutely be the case. Yet with fp+ we were guaranteed 3 fp+/day worst case scenario, and anyone who knew you could get more than that got more like 6-7
[/QUOTE]

sure, you were guaranteed Muppetvision, Beauty and the Beast, and Star Tours.

Under the new system, I can be guaranteed Rise of the Resistance, Slinky, Smuggler’s Run, Runaway Train, and Tower of Terror.

I’ll take the new.

 

[nkereina]

Because if the ride your kid 100% has their heart set on riding only has availability at 6 pm because you slept in, then you can't get another LL or selection until you've done that one ride, or checked in at least, because you can only get 1 at a time.

FWIW, MaxPass has a varying waiting period of when you can obtain your next pass. If its 11am and you select a ride with a next available return time of 6pm, you would have to wait until 1pm (for example) to pull your next one. So you can get another when either after your waiting period elapses OR after you use your current pass - whichever happens first. Disney hasn't said if this will be an option for Genie+, but since its modeled largely after MaxPass, I would expect to see something similar.

And also, at least at DL, rides that have late return times when its still early in the day are the headliners. It seems WDW has "fixed" that by instituting the Individual Attraction Selections. In other words, the headliners won't even be in the Genie+ pool, so the late return time issue might only be relevant during the most peak of times (i.e. Christmas week).

 

[Sinder]

Under the new system, I can be guaranteed Rise of the Resistance, Slinky, Smuggler’s Run, Runaway Train, and Tower of Terror.

I’ll take the new.

Well let's hope we are guaranteed the rides we want since we'll now have to pay for them.
Something tells me that Disney won't be so quick to offer refunds for those who miss the opportunity to reserve one of them, because as we know there won't be an unlimited number of passes available for them.

 

[JZCubed]

Posted wait times were often that during peak times, yes. Do we know the figures on actual wait times? You also have to take into account new attractions which naturally have a higher demand, staffing shortages, ride delays due to cleaning protocols, ride down times. All of those things drive wait times. There's always a lot of variables, but if you take a day in the future when Genie+ is live and everything is functioning as it should with no pandemic protocols and full staffing levels, theoretically the standby line should average less than it has in the past as it will be moving faster than it did in the past with FP+.

I would also argue that on-site hotel percentages are moot points. Look at the number of people here, Disney's biggest fan base, that have been choosing to stay off-site. Plus the number of people who stayed off-site in condos/AirBnBs because of pandemic precautions. Did you visit the parks this summer? They sure felt as busy as pre-pandemic times, so I think many would argue that the statement "Disney was not crowded the summer" is just false.

Disney was not crowded this summer.

One water Park was closed.

Parking lots were literally empty.

Without any Fast Pass system - standby lines were longer than we have ever witnessed (and we frequently traveled at Christmas).

Lines were long because shows and meet-n-greets were closed.

Lines were also long because Disney simply does not have enough staff to service the capacity they let in.

All who were let in paid full price for their tickets - offsetting the loss in revenue to lower volume.

Lines were long so folks left saying, "I'll pay any price to not wait on those lines ever again."

And with the magic of pixie dust, Disney has answered those prayers.

Universal was also relatively empty - the newest roller coaster had wait times less than anything at Disney. Universal had Parades. Universal had shows. With or without ExpressPass, nearly every Tier-2 ride was a walk-on. Disney offered no such advantages.

No matter how you try to skin-the-cat, hotels occupancy rates at a resort the size of Disney is likely a very good predictor of occupancy rates in Orlando. I don't require anecdotal evidence, occupancy rates in Orlando are published data.

 

[havoc315]

Well let's hope we are guaranteed the rides we want since we'll now have to pay for them.
Something tells me that Disney won't be so quick to offer refunds for those who miss the opportunity to reserve one of them, because as we know there won't be an unlimited number of passes available for them.

Unlimited? No, not unlimited.
Enough for almost everyone willing to pay, most of the time? Yes.
Sure, you may be a bit more limited Christmas week. There may be a couple G+ rides that book up a bit faster than others.

But for the most part, there will be plenty of availability.

 

[Sinder]

Unlimited? No, not unlimited.
Enough for almost everyone willing to pay, most of the time? Yes.
Sure, you may be a bit more limited Christmas week. There may be a couple G+ rides that book up a bit faster than others.

But for the most part, there will be plenty of availability.

We will have to wait and see, as of now nothing is guaranteed.

The truth is for me it won't be an issue because I will not pay extra on top of my park admission to ride rides. I have been feeling less and less magic on each trip, and this latest takeaway (free FP) has put me over the edge. I'll watch how this plays out in the next year and see how it effects SB lines, and whether or not boarding groups for certain attractions will be near impossible to get without paying to "guarantee" one.
I am lucky that I do tend to visit during moderate to low crowd times but I've never been without using FP in some form. I have no idea how a trip without using it at all would go, but I do know that spending time in long lines is not my idea of an enjoyable WDW vacation.

 

[JZCubed]

DisneyWorld is not DisneyLand.

Your constant comparisons are absurd.

By orders of magnitude, DisneyWorld has more hotel rooms (on-site guests) than Disney Land.

Similarly, in a typical year, DisneyWorld invites about three times as many guests than does DisneyLand through the turnstiles, while DisneyLand has less than half the number of rides (and relatively zero negative weather conditions).

And despite your continuously disagreeable remarks, weather causes far more disruptions to Florida Disney relative to CA Disney.

You keep trying to force a square peg into a circle.

Good luck with that.

 

[BradW]

There was a time.
A time in the sepia toned past when Fast Passes did not exist at all.
A time when you got to the parks and stood in a line.
A time when you could spend all day in the park and only ride 4 to 5 rides.
Then the heavens opened and delivered us Fast Pass Kiosks. One member of your party would rush to the FP stations ( cradling the entire party's Key to the Kingdom Park Pass cards) and , hopefully, secured FPs for one ride.
Ah, sweet nostalgia.

Moral of this flashback?
It's got to be better than the old ways, let's wait and see how it all shakes out before we shake our collective fists at Cinderella's Castle and curse the inevitable onward march of progress, shall we?

 

[Tyler's Dad]

Anyone who has ever used MaxPass or paper FP can answer this for you. It’s not that complicated. If Magic Kingdom opens at 9am, then at 7am, you would get a 9am return time for Haunted Mansion. Through the day, return times will stay 30-120 minutes ahead, on average. G+ is giving you the chance to stand in the line virtually.

so you want certainty, I can be 100% certain that I can get a 9am Haunted Mansion G+, by clicking it as I get ready for the park.




huh????? It’s not “gaming” the system. It’s using it as intended. Seems you don’t understand how it works.
If I request a Soarin G+ between 1-2, the return time will be in the approximate time frame of 2-4. As it launches, we can map this out with more precision.
But this is how it works by design — you request a G+, you get a return time 30-120 minutes into the future. There may be a handful of attractions where this doesn’t apply, but it’s how it works at the vast majority of attractions. If the standby line is 20 minutes, your G+ return would be 30-40 minutes away. If the standby line is an hour, then your return time will be 1-2 hours away



But MaxPass has. And it’s 95% the same as MaxPass. So I can speak with 95% certainty



Huh? Why would anyone need to “game” the system? You use the system as designed..



Are you certain you can go to the supermarket and buy milk? What if every supermarket in your neighborhood runs out of milk?

You don’t understand dynamic pricing. The LL attractions will be priced to regulate demand. So there won’t be a mad rush of 20,000 people to purchase 1,000 slots. Sure, if you wait till 2pm to purchase, the 2:15pm time slot may already be sold out. But through the day, there will be lots of availability and options

And in case you didn’t notice, FP+ “ran out” too. I’ve never ever been able to get a FOP FP+. My trips were short, I did AK on my first 1-2 days at WDW. FOP was always “sold out” before my booking window opened.

Because demand is now being regulated by price, anyone willing to pay will actually have certainty



What gave off-site guests certainty that they would be able to get Mine Train and FOP fastpasses at 30 days?



My confidence is based on actually understanding MaxPass and what Disney is offering.
Now, maybe Disney is lying. Maybe they say it will be $15 and it will actually be $5,000 per day. Maybe G+ will only be available for Small World and nothing else. Maybe they will sell only 1 LL slot per day and price it at $1 million.

But assuming Disney is basically telling the truth, then my confidence is well founded. Your criticisms betray a lack of understanding as to how old FP and MaxPass work.

Simply stated, MaxPass is far superior to FP+. Most people who have used both systems will agree. WDW is simply implementing MaxPass.

DisneyWorld is not DisneyLand.

Your constant comparisons are absurd.

By orders of magnitude, DisneyWorld has more hotel rooms (on-site guests) than Disney Land.

Similarly, in a typical year, DisneyWorld invites about three times as many guests than does DisneyLand through the turnstiles, while DisneyLand has less than half the number of rides (and relatively zero negative weather conditions).

You keep trying to force a square peg into a circle.

Good luck with that.
[/QUOTE]

You are right in that WDW is not DL, but it’s DL that is actually more busy. While WDW serves more guests per year, they are dispersed over a much more spread out area. Almost every person going to DL each day is hitting the same group of rides. Not so at DW. With that said, wait times at DL are almost always much more manageable than DW. This is because of MaxPass.

FP+ loading 70-80% of all riders each hour made standby lines not move. Forcing tiers of FP+ rides created lines for rides that had no business having waits as long as they were.That system made absolutely no sense for the enjoyment for a majority of park goers.

Sure, people who made plans at 60 days out and didn’t alter them were happy, but most people hate that way of vacationing. We sleep in and often change parks based on how we are feeling each day. This system fits us perfectly. I know we will get more out of our days now, since we have done this at DL for years and it has worked for us every time. With DW being more spread out and having more rides, it should only work better.

 

[havoc315]

DisneyWorld is not DisneyLand.

Your constant comparisons are absurd.

By orders of magnitude, DisneyWorld has more hotel rooms (on-site guests) than Disney Land.

Similarly, in a typical year, DisneyWorld invites about three times as many guests than does DisneyLand through the turnstiles, while DisneyLand has less than half the number of rides (and relatively zero negative weather conditions).

You keep trying to force a square peg into a circle.

Good luck with that.

We aren't exactly comparing a neighborhood playground to a theme park.
2019 attendance numbers:

Disneyland attendance: 18.6 million.
Magic Kingdom attendance: 20.9 million

Hmmm... pretty darn close!

DCA: 9.9 million
DHS: 11.48 million

Again, pretty close.

Yes, Disney World gets more guests -- But Disney World has twice as many theme parks. Compared theme park to theme park... it's really very similar.

and from history -- FP used to work the same way in both parks. Then WDW went to FP+. The plan was to expand it to all parks, but it was an utter failure, so Disneyland never made the switch. Now, once again, they will basically operate under the same system.

 

[havoc315]

There was a time.
A time in the sepia toned past when Fast Passes did not exist at all.
A time when you got to the parks and stood in a line.
A time when you could spend all day in the park and only ride 4 to 5 rides.
Then the heavens opened and delivered us Fast Pass Kiosks. One member of your party would rush to the FP stations ( cradling the entire party's Key to the Kingdom Park Pass cards) and , hopefully, secured FPs for one ride.
Ah, sweet nostalgia.

Moral of this flashback?
It's got to be better than the old ways, let's wait and see how it all shakes out before we shake our collective fists at Cinderella's Castle and curse the inevitable onward march of progress, shall we?

"There's a great big beautiful tomorrow..."

 

[luv2cheer92]

So, under FP+… if I decide to do Animal Kingdom instead of Epcot when I wake up, I could grab a same day pass to FOP?

Yep, did that multiple times

 

[havoc315]

FWIW, MaxPass has a varying waiting period of when you can obtain your next pass. If its 11am and you select a ride with a next available return time of 6pm, you would have to wait until 1pm (for example) to pull your next one. So you can get another when either after your waiting period elapses OR after you use your current pass - whichever happens first. Disney hasn't said if this will be an option for Genie+, but since its modeled largely after MaxPass, I would expect to see something similar.

And also, at least at DL, rides that have late return times when its still early in the day are the headliners. It seems WDW has "fixed" that by instituting the Individual Attraction Selections. In other words, the headliners won't even be in the Genie+ pool, so the late return time issue might only be relevant during the most peak of times (i.e. Christmas week).

You nailed it. As to your first point -- Not announced yet, but there will likely be a similar window for Genie+. But since I don't want to speculate, I'll wait on that.

As to your second point -- Exactly. The rides that would fill up under Genie+ are moving to LL individual payment. The G+ rides are generally those that should have balanced availability. Not the type where "everyone" is trying to go at the same time.
It was not uncommon to get a FP/Maxpass just 40-60 minutes ahead with mid-level attractions.

 

[havoc315]

Yep, did that multiple times

Congrats to you. For my party of 7, I never was able to get FOP without booking 64+ days in advance. But since you claim you could get any FP any time of day, any time you wanted, without the need to book weeks in advance... then your only objection to Genie+ should be the $15.

 

[luv2cheer92]

Congrats to you. For my party of 7, I never was able to get FOP without booking 64+ days in advance. But since you claim you could get any FP any time of day, any time you wanted, without the need to book weeks in advance... then your only objection to Genie+ should be the $15.

If you've read any of my posts over the last week, you would know my stance pretty well lol

 

[nkereina]

Disney was not crowded this summer.

One water Park was closed.

Parking lots were literally empty.

Without any Fast Pass system - standby lines were longer than we have ever witnessed (and we frequently traveled at Christmas).

Lines were long because shows and meet-n-greets were closed.

Lines were also long because Disney simply does not have enough staff to service the capacity they let in.

All who were let in paid full price for their tickets - offsetting the loss in revenue to lower volume.

Lines were long so folks left saying, "I'll pay any price to not wait on those lines ever again."

And with the magic of pixie dust, Disney has answered those prayers.

Universal was also relatively empty - the newest roller coaster had wait times less than anything at Disney. Universal had Parades. Universal had shows. With or without ExpressPass, nearly every Tier-2 ride was a walk-on. Disney offered no such advantages.

No matter how you try to skin-the-cat, hotels occupancy rates at a resort the size of Disney is likely a very good predictor of occupancy rates in Orlando. I don't require anecdotal evidence, occupancy rates in Orlando are published data.

I'm not sure I'm following your point. You were arguing that standby lines were longer than ever with no FP+ in place. Yet everything else you listed explains exactly why that is - no shows/meets, no staff, one water park closed, etc. Once the pandemic protocols are lifted and things go to a new "normal", standby lines will go back down. Attendance may have been lower than average this time of year because of what you described, but it wasn't significantly so. These residual closures/shortages surely impacted the standby lines. Comparing that to how things will be with Genie+ is comparing apples to oranges. A better comparison would be in pre-pandemic times when FP+ was in place.

 

[FCDub]

I love that people are SO dug in on Genie+ being terrible and the worst thing that's ever existed that any sliver of positivity gets met with YOU CAN'T BE SO SURE. HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?

 

[havoc315]

I love that people are SO dug in on Genie+ being terrible and the worst thing that's ever existed that any sliver of positivity gets met with YOU CAN'T BE SO SURE. HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT?

Yes, they demonstrate near certainty that it will be horrible. Without considering the very real possibility that it will be better than FP+.

It’s like they are so sour on Disney, they are convinced that Disney decided to introduce a worse system AND charge for it.
Without considering the likelihood that Disney insignificantly IMPROVED the system they are now charging for.

 

[nkereina]

Well let's hope we are guaranteed the rides we want since we'll now have to pay for them.
Something tells me that Disney won't be so quick to offer refunds for those who miss the opportunity to reserve one of them, because as we know there won't be an unlimited number of passes available for them.

Some of the rides listed in the post you quoted will be Individual Attraction Selections. Presumably if there are no return times left for the day for an IAS, you wouldn't even be able to physically purchase it. If its a Genie+ ride, return times will likely run out in some cases. But if its anything like DL, you'd have until 12ish or so before that starts to happen. If you're starting your day after that time and still choose to purchase Genie+, you'd be doing so while running that risk. I don't think Disney would owe anything in that case.

 

[FCDub]

Yes, they demonstrate near certainty that it will be horrible. Without considering the very real possibility that it will be better than FP+.

It’s like they are so sour on Disney, they are convinced that Disney decided to introduce a worse system AND charge for it.
Without considering the likelihood that Disney insignificantly IMPROVED the system they are now charging for.

People just need to wait and see how it shakes out. People absolutely recoiled at the idea of FP+ at first but then realized it had some real tangible benefits.