The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[Turksmom]

Can you help me out with this? I have a 2 day hopper coming up and while I think I understand, I don't want to mess it up. Day 1 I plan AK to HS. I am staying at the DS Hilton so I get EE but can't book LL till 9. So at 9 do I want to try for late SDD 1st since it will likely sell out? Then I can't book anything else till 11, but I can prob keep busy at AK until then I think. Or maybe I'm missing something.

Day 2 is MK to Epcot. Theres only 2 rides at epcot I care about. Mostly going there for world showcase and food lol.

G+ users can book first ride at 7- just not the extra individually paid rides, so book SDD then!

 

[dez1978]

G+ users can book first ride at 7- just not the extra individually paid rides, so book SDD then!

Oh thank you. I thought I couldn't book any thing until park open. But I can, just not paid rides.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

So if it’s 9:00 am and you book a 10:15-11:15 am reservation, the eligibility time is set to 11:00 am. If you wait until 11:00, the eligibility time hits and you can book, but that new booking sets a new eligibility time. Say you booked a 11:30-12:30 at that point. Now your eligibility time is 12:30. If you wait until 11:15, nothing happens. You can still tap in and regain eligibility, but the expiration of your 10:15-11:15 reservation does nothing, because that was never set as an eligibility time in the first place.

What you’re describing isn’t the exploit, at least as I understand it. The exploit is achieved by adding a LL+ reservation after a ride window expires (as you said, that “resets” the eligibility timer.” And then immediately tapping in during the 15 minute grace period after making that addition (again as you said, that once again resets the “eligibility timer.”). Now you are double stacked. Rinse and repeat and you can easily triple and quadruple stack throughout the day.

 

[BrotherCraig]

Oh thank you. I thought I couldn't book any thing until park open. But I can, just not paid rides.

FOR INDIVIDUAL Lightening Lane (purchase) rides:

• Guests of a Disney Resort Hotel and Other Select Hotels: These Guests can make their first purchase starting at 7:00 AM on the day of their visit. Available to Disney Resort hotel Guests and Guests of Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotels and Shades of Green.
• All Other Guests: These Guests can make their first purchase when the park opens.

For Genie+ Lightening Lanes:
When to Select Attractions
Once you have Disney Genie+ service, you can select the next available arrival window for your first experience via the My Disney Experience mobile app beginning at 7:00 AM on the day of your visit.
Once you’ve redeemed your initial selection (or the arrival window has passed), you can use the app to check your My Day itinerary or Tip Board to see when you’re eligible to make another selection. You can make selections all day up to regular park closing.

 

[britt54311]

Ok

I think it's up to 12. Might need to split into two groups with two head coordinators and try to get close/overlapping times.

Ok thk you!!

 

[jimmymc]

I’m really struggling to see how this system is better. SDD still sells out quickly, it costs money, it requires more thinking about in the parks, 7am each day.

The only upside I see is that is should make standby lines more faster. Clearly the upside for Disney is the money. As an AP/DVC guest who comes about twice a year, I much prefer FP+ & doing a half day in the park with 3-5 rides and calling it a day.

Oh well, I hope someone thinks this system is better overall for their touring. We can’t always win when things change and this G+system doesn’t fit our touring style after reviewing the tip board each day. Edited to add...thanks for this thread though as it's still very educational in case we do want to use G+.

I think it's better than FP+ if you want to do as many attractions as possible in a day. Getting 4+ reservations with Genie+ is much easier than FP+. The standby lines have also been better on the top tier attractions. I don't think it's perfect, but I actually prefer it to FP+ (though I think the paper tickets or just no fastpasses are the best systems).

 

[Mango7100]

Does anyone have specific experience booking a LL for Slinky at exactly 7 AM ET?

When I test this at home by refreshing the Tip Board at exactly 7 AM, the LL return time shows as 9 AM. If I keep refreshing the Tip Board I usually get 9 AM twice before it quickly goes to later in the morning and then into the afternoon and evening within a minute or so.

I’m wondering if anyone who has had a DHS reservation and bought Genie+ has tried to book Slinky, and whether the return time you were actually able to confirm was the same as the time that showed when you selected the LL. For example, if you click on a time of 9 AM are you able to confirm 9AM or something later?

I didn’t actually book it, but today at 7 am exactly a 900 Slinky popped up. I refreshed about 6-7 times and at 701 the return time was 5 pm. For comparison at 701 the ROTR ILL return time was 210.

 

[Einstein509]

Reading through all of this makes my head hurt. The amount of strategery, questions, planning, scheming, figuring out how to maximize the use of this system is stressful. This is not a vacation anymore. It's more like a military operation. I think the invasion of Normandy had a one page order........we're on page 44 of this thread. Wow.

 

[BrotherCraig]

Reading through all of this makes my head hurt. The amount of strategery, questions, planning, scheming, figuring out how to maximize the use of this system is stressful. This is not a vacation anymore. It's more like a military operation. I think the invasion of Normandy had a one page order........we're on page 44 of this thread. Wow.

I hear ya. My wife doesn't even want to go anymore and now wishes she went with my advice and go to Roatan or Hawaii. Would have been cheaper and easier. lol It's a lot of crazy stuff that is for sure. I feel bad for the ones that arrive at WDW and don't know what to do to get on rides. Cast Members need a raise with all of this.

 

[kniquy]

We were at WDW for a short 4 day trip with only one day in each park. As avid WDW visitors for AK, EP and HS we didn't feel the needed to get Genie +. We did what we could do and just prioritized our wants list. We hopped over to Epcot and ended up buying the ILL for Remy, we felt how could we visit and not ride the newest ride. It is a cute but certainly not worth paying to ride. The virtual queue i don't think is as demanding as ROTR was. Just for fun I attempted the 1:00 time slot at 1:30pm and i was given a boarding pass, but it wasn't called until we were sitting in the airport at 8pm.

MK - with only having one day there we felt it a huge help to use Genie + there. I stumbled upon the "stacking" process. At 7am I booked a jungle cruise which was at 10:30am. We waited to ride it until 11:10. At 11:00 (2 hours/120 min post opening) I was able to book another ride. Once we scanned in to JC I booked a 2nd G+ ride. We were able to do this all day long until i hit a snag with Splash - it was down during our return window, so it appears the system will allow you to book another G+, but because we were already holding 2 G+ it wouldn't allow me to book a replacement (3rd ride) in place of splash.

Having gone 2 times during Covid -non-FP times I actually disliked having to plan out and figure out where we were going and what we were doing. This is coming from a previous over planner.

Would i use it again? On a limited time trip with only 1 MK day I would consider it. But if you have 2 full days planned at MK it likely isn't needed. Rope drop or end of night would help accomplish any headliners with limited waits.

 

[leeniewdw]

I really have to think about G+ for our 1 hopper day. Originally it was going to be a HS/MK day which would make sense, but we're probably getting the Merriest AH tickets so it'll be a HS/EP day. We'll be buying Remi but I don't think it's worth it at EP to have a stack of LLs when we hop for the afternoon evening. Which leaves G+ for HS. If it's a day like today (as reported), by the time I'd be able to grab another LL at 11am, the times will likely be later than we want to stay. So I might need to adapt an earn/burn LL strategy (as opposed to stacking) there or just not bother at all.

I literally had an xls of how to stack for a HS/MK day, but when I tried to adapt it for a HS/EP day, it just seemed dumb. If we're going to EP to just eat/drink and ride a few rides, it almost seems like LL would dictate the where/when too much.

This would be my fear of a G+ morning at HS:

Ok today, at hs was not good. In line at 815 for the micky and minnie ride, waited until 930 until they said to not wait for it anymore because it broke. Did , aliens, then went to tower of terror. Got there that was broke. Lol. All standby lines at this point were a hour. Now 2nd LL almost ready to book , nothing good until later.

 

[g-dad66]

Tapped into Soarin today and expected to be eligible for another LL, but no, not eligible.
Tried again after the second touch point and yes, eligible.
I was thinking that with FP+ you only had to tap in at the entrance to clear that one out. If so, Genie+ seems to be different.

 

[dmunsil]

What you’re describing isn’t the exploit, at least as I understand it. The exploit is achieved by adding a LL+ reservation after a ride window expires (as you said, that “resets” the eligibility timer.” And then immediately tapping in during the 15 minute grace period after making that addition (again as you said, that once again resets the “eligibility timer.”). Now you are double stacked. Rinse and repeat and you can easily triple and quadruple stack throughout the day.

I am aware of how it works. The post I replied to would not work, because they hoped to both reset their eligibility to book at 120 minutes after booking and also reset eligibility when that same reservation‘s window ended. That second one won’t happen. You get one or the other, and only for your most recent booking.

If you book reservation A less than an hour away, the eligibility timeout is set to coincide with the end time of reservation A. If you wait until that eligibility time without booking, using or cancelling any other reservations, you can make a new reservation B, then tap in and make another reservation C. But if you book, cancel or use another reservation in the intervening time, the eligibility time is reset, and now nothing happens to your eligibility when reservation A expires.

I added notes to the post I originally replied to:

Assuming 9am park open
7am grab first LL for 10:15am
11am grab second LL (after 120 min cool off) <- This is where the eligibility resets
11:15am grab third LL (after expiration window) <- Expiration does nothing, because eligibility already reset
11:20am tap into first LL (within grace period) and grab fourth LL <- This works

 

[Sjm9911]

Nope both tap ins. And they added some that i don't remember them having before. This leads to people on the rides scrambling for LL. So, on like huntef manson, or the little mermaid, people on the phones looking for new LL. This will be my last disney trip for a bit. Some may like it but so far with G+ im 0 for 2. Tomorrow is epcott, i will see how that plays out as well. Addtionally, it jeeps saying I need to update the ap, I follow the link and its just remove or open it. I dont want to remove it mid trip.

 

[Grasshopper2016]

The exploit is achieved by adding a LL+ reservation after a ride window expires (as you said, that “resets” the eligibility timer.” And then immediately tapping in during the 15 minute grace period after making that addition (again as you said, that once again resets the “eligibility timer.”). Now you are double stacked. Rinse and repeat and you can easily triple and quadruple stack throughout the day.

Wow! Has anyone actually confirmed that this works?

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I am aware of how it works. The post I replied to would not work, because they hoped to both reset their eligibility to book at 120 minutes after booking and also reset eligibility when that same reservation‘s window ended. That second one won’t happen. You get one or the other, and only for your most recent booking.

If you book reservation A less than an hour away, the eligibility timeout is set to coincide with the end time of reservation A. If you wait until that eligibility time without booking, using or cancelling any other reservations, you can make a new reservation B, then tap in and make another reservation C. But if you book, cancel or use another reservation in the intervening time, the eligibility time is reset, and now nothing happens to your eligibility when reservation A expires.

I added notes to the post I originally replied to:

So you’re saying the exploit works, but the way it works is that you can get a FP when the ride window closes, then tap in during the 15 minute grace period, and then immediately pull a second fp, correct?

 

[dmunsil]

So you’re saying the exploit works, but the way it works is that you can get a FP when the ride window closes, then tap in during the 15 minute grace period, and then immediately pull a second fp, correct?

You can pull another G+ LL when the eligibility time comes, which sometimes will coincide with the end of the arrival window of the most recent G+ LL you booked. You can also pull another when you tap into any G+ LL reservation.

In the specific case where your only reservation is within an hour of opening, your eligibility time will coincide with the end of that reservation’s arrival window. When that time comes, you can book again. If you then tap into that reservation during the grace period, you can book again.

When you have several reservations later in the day, expiration times are less likely to be relevant, because your eligibility time is fixed by the last reservation you made. Any previous reservations, even ones that are still outstanding, are no longer a factor for your eligibility time. Also. reservations are likely to overlap in ways that make it hard or impossible to always wait for the end of your eligibility time without having to abandon an intervening reservation.

If you regained the ability to book every time a reservation hit its end time, you could book two reservations every time you used one, by waiting until the end time, booking, then tapping in, then booking. That does not work across the board. If you’re careful, you can get one extra reservation roughly every hour if the times line up right and you book in the right order, but you can’t double your reservations every hour.

And actually, I question the value of this strategy except at the beginning of the day to get a double stack started, or if you’re planning to arrive late and are trying to get as many reservations stacked up before you arrive. Even then, the reservations you want are often not going to have the earliest times, so you may end up needing to use the 120-minute stacking strategy anyway.

 

[moorish]

Oh wow, is it more crowded this week that SDD G+ slots are gone by 7:03 am? That wasn't the case when I was checking on times even last week.

ETA: I went and looked at the thrill data and every day up until today has had availability for SDD until 9ish (maybe on and off a bit). I wonder if they changed the allotment or if there was just that much more demand today.

 

[Sjm9911]

It was packed today at HS. And from what I was told is that its busier earlier. I'm guessing this is because everyone gets up at 7 am to make a reservation, if there up they might as well gontonthe park at opening time. MK was the same way. I got there about 45 minutes ( might have been closer to an hour, but the kids in front of us couldnt scan there fingers, it was atually funny. But took up some time) before the 830 early opening. We were ushered in spots just for the resort guests. I was still way behind. And 7DMT was were everyone went. Spent the money there, rope drop the whole rest of the park while there in line. Lol.

 

[Tiggr88]

Oh wow, is it more crowded this week that SDD G+ slots are gone by 7:03 am? That wasn't the case when I was checking on times even last week.

ETA: I went and looked at the thrill data and every day up until today has had availability for SDD until 9ish (maybe on and off a bit). I wonder if they changed the allotment or if there was just that much more demand today.

Its interesting. Looks like thrill data has slots available until about 7:20, then none for a while and then availability back from 7:35 - 8:05 and then mostly unavailable the rest of the day with some short windows of availability, probably cancellations that briefly showed up.

You can see the LL availability map a little ways down on this page.

https://www.thrill-data.com/waits/park/wdw/hollywood-studios/