Rumored Changes to G+

[jelona]

I think rides like Peter Pan's Flight (hot take, I know) and Winnie the Pooh shouldn't have LL. Their standby lines are atrocious now. Pooh surprised me in that aspect but I've done that ride in standby and it moves so painfully slow due to the Lightning Lane. PPF straight up isn't ride able unless you have a LL reservation or are attending an after hours event/holiday party.

we never use our LLs on Peter Pan or Jungle cruise. The only times its worth the wait to me was like you said, during extended evening hours and when we did boo bash back in 2021. That was actually my first time riding Jungle cruise. i was acutally so surprised I was able to get LLs for space mountain and BTR. i figured those would be the hot tickets. i think it was because everyone was trying to get those two first thing.

I never grew up going to WDW or DL, i didn't go until my 20s. Its not nostalgic for me like i know it is for some.

 

[New Mouse]

The more rides you remove the more broken the system would be.

 

[Smugpugmug]

we never use our LLs on Peter Pan or Jungle cruise. The only times its worth the wait to me was like you said, during extended evening hours and when we did boo bash back in 2021. That was actually my first time riding Jungle cruise. i was acutally so surprised I was able to get LLs for space mountain and BTR. i figured those would be the hot tickets. i think it was because everyone was trying to get those two first thing.

I never grew up going to WDW or DL, i didn't go until my 20s. Its not nostalgic for me like i know it is for some.

Jungle Cruise is another one that is awful in standby. It's not my favorite attraction anyway so I don't mind skipping. Space and Big Thunder aren't difficult LLs to get and they're also not too bad in standby.

 

[SL6827]

There needs to be more of an advantage for Disney resort guest.

 

[BrianL]

The more rides you remove the more broken the system would be.

And yet, many think it works better at Disneyland. When they launched the precursor to G+, MaxPass, over there it was pretty popular and worked well.

 

[eticketplease]

The playing field is lowered in that at 7 am, everyone has access to book an E ticket. All of the E tickets weren't snatched up 3 months prior. That obviously doesn't include the ILLs but regardless of what type of guest you are, you could book Peter Pan's Flight or Frozen.

The playing field is certainly lowered being day of compared to those that had 14 day stays and could book for length of stay xx days from check in.

It still doesn't lower it for everyone though unless something has changed that I missed.

I thought 7 am was only for those staying at a Disney Resort?

 

[Smugpugmug]

The playing field is certainly lowered being day of compared to those that had 14 day stays and could book for length of stay xx days from check in.

It still doesn't lower it for everyone though unless something has changed that I missed.

I thought 7 am was only for those staying at a Disney Resort?

Anyone regardless of where they are staying can book a Genie+ reservation at 7 am.

 

[eticketplease]

And yet, many think it works better at Disneyland. When they launched the precursor to G+, MaxPass, over there it was pretty popular and worked well.

Yes maxpass worked pretty well.

However rides are confined to only 2 parks compared to 4. You can also walk between the parks and don't have to wait on a bus/boat/monorail or the skyliner.

 

[genebean203.5]

The playing field is certainly lowered being day of compared to those that had 14 day stays and could book for length of stay xx days from check in.

It still doesn't lower it for everyone though unless something has changed that I missed.

I thought 7 am was only for those staying at a Disney Resort?

7am is the booking time for anyone, regardless of where they are staying, for Lightning Lanes.

For Individual Lightning Lanes (pay for individual ride)
Resort guests = 7am
Non-resort guests = park open

editing to add that Individual Lightning Lanes can be purchased without also purchasing Genie+ for the day. For example, you can purchase an ILL for Flight of Passage without also needing to purchase Genie+ for Animal Kingdom that day. Despite the conversation of the thread being about Genie+, I did want to mention the ILL booking time because the time difference can sometimes cause confusion between a regular "Lightning Lane" and an "Individual Lightning Lane".

 

[eticketplease]

7am is the booking time for anyone, regardless of where they are staying, for Lightning Lanes.

For Individual Lightning Lanes (pay for individual ride)
Resort guests = 7am
Non-resort guests = park open

Thanks @genebean203.5 & @Smugpugmug ILL must have been what I was thinking of.

Edit: Tagged wrong person. Sorry

 

[Smugpugmug]

And yet, many think it works better at Disneyland. When they launched the precursor to G+, MaxPass, over there it was pretty popular and worked well.

Yeah I remember when Molly from Mammoth Club did videos about Genie+ on both coasts she said it was 100% better in Disneyland.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

And yet, many think it works better at Disneyland. When they launched the precursor to G+, MaxPass, over there it was pretty popular and worked well.

We've experienced many different 'express' options over the years at parks in the US and abroad. There is no question that we feel MaxPass was the one that made the most sense and worked the best.

 

[genebean203.5]

Yeah I remember when Molly from Mammoth Club did videos about Genie+ on both coasts she said it was 100% better in Disneyland.

Another fun video comparison is watching videos of how to maximize Genie+ in WDW and then going and watching old videos of how to maximize FP+ in WDW. An old video of FP+ maximizing, don't even remember which one, from like 2018 or something came up recently as recommended on my YouTube and so I watched it just for fun. Goodness! I never got a chance to use FP+ but that system certainly seems more complicated than Genie+.

 

[Dulcee]

i honestly don't know what i prefer. I know i didn't like the year we went where everyone stood in the stand by queue. This was Oct. 2021 before Genie plus rolled out. I figured things would move quickly since everyone for the most part was in the same boat, but that was probably the most miserable trip we had. we had extreme wait times and the park wasn't even the busiest I've seen it. I think we stood in line almost 3hrs for FOP.

We went right after the parks reopened in 2020, August.

(Barring all the world chaos) That trip was awesome. It was like flashing back to how I did the park as a little kid with my parents. Aside from the park reservation we just rolled out of bed, walked into the park, and said "Where do you want to go?" and off we went to (well-spaced out) but quick-moving standby lines for everything. We had no dining reservations, just stopped by the front desk to see who was open and operating the day of.

Guess that leads me to the optimal answer wouldn't be any fix to any skip-the-line service but to decrease the total number of people in the parks.... which, I know, I know, will never really happen.

 

[eticketplease]

we went to (well-spaced out) but quick-moving standby lines for everything.

Ahh Space that is what I miss the most.
Now we are back to elbow to elbow and if the person in front of you moves an inch forward the person behind you is nagging you to move up that inch as well.

 

[Smugpugmug]

Another fun video comparison is watching videos of how to maximize Genie+ in WDW and then going and watching old videos of how to maximize FP+ in WDW. An old video of FP+ maximizing, don't even remember which one, from like 2018 or something came up recently as recommended on my YouTube and so I watched it just for fun. Goodness! I never got a chance to use FP+ but that system certainly seems more complicated than Genie+.

The best version of them all was Maxpass. My last visit to Disneyland was May 2019 and Maxpass was super easy and efficient. Rode everything I wanted to and never waited more than 30 minutes for anything.

 

[jelona]

We went right after the parks reopened in 2020, August.

(Barring all the world chaos) That trip was awesome. It was like flashing back to how I did the park as a little kid with my parents. Aside from the park reservation we just rolled out of bed, walked into the park, and said "Where do you want to go?" and off we went to (well-spaced out) but quick-moving standby lines for everything. We had no dining reservations, just stopped by the front desk to see who was open and operating the day of.

Guess that leads me to the optimal answer wouldn't be any fix to any skip-the-line service but to decrease the total number of people in the parks.... which, I know, I know, will never really happen.

My best friend went Sept 2020 and had the best time!!
I think Oct. 2021 i hit the influx of the post covid travel boom. lol. Park still wasn't super crowded, but was back at probably average disney crowds.

 

[Leigh L]

My best friend went Sept 2020 and had the best time!!
I think Oct. 2021 i hit the influx of the post covid travel boom. lol. Park still wasn't super crowded, but was back at probably average disney crowds.

I was down there 3x between August 2020 and February 2021. We had the best time also with standby lines. The lines looked crazy long but they kept moving and we did tons.

On one of the trips I took my 12-year-old nieces who were at WDW for the first time, so they missed out on a lot of park atmosphere, fireworks, etc. That was one of the downsides to the pandemic way of WDW. But for rides, it was great!

 

[rmclain73]

What this feels like to me, based on everything I've read:

A team was put together to address (some) complaints about G+ and developed a scheme that allowed for some advance selection--probably even with a working prototype of the system. That team got far enough along that they were willing to both blurb it on the Parks Blog and talk to well-placed insiders such as the Len Testas of the world.

However, senior leadership in Park Operations got cold feet about changing it at the 11th hour. That's not hard to believe given the rumored scheme was starting to look a little FP+ish, which had its own problems, and G+ was supposed to address some of those problems. Plus, while G+ isn't perfect, plenty of people are buying it at a 10-20% increase in their per-capita admission (at least; a higher %age for APs), and presumably the overall satisfaction rate of park visitors is "good enough."

So, the project is, for the moment, shelved.

I have heard similar for sources in the know.

 

[ChipnDale79]

I think rides like Peter Pan's Flight (hot take, I know) and Winnie the Pooh shouldn't have LL. Their standby lines are atrocious now. Pooh surprised me in that aspect but I've done that ride in standby and it moves so painfully slow due to the Lightning Lane. PPF straight up isn't ride able unless you have a LL reservation or are attending an after hours event/holiday party.

honestly, why havent they done something to expand capacity on these 2 rides? they almost always have long lines.

Why not a "second track", like TSMM, or Soarin, or when they doubled the capacity of dumbo?