The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[scrappinginontario]

Fixed ROTR via chat; TOT did the same thing; will try to fix in park or just forget it

View attachment 659206
View attachment 659207

Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse

View attachment 659216

Got passes changed with a big ‘we will not accommodate any others. This is a one time thing!’

View attachment 659288

Curious, are the times changing after you hit your final acceptance?

When I was there in Feb the times changed up until I hit my final confirmation page but then when I confirmed they were the same as the screen where I chose to accept.

Has that changed recently?

 

[Westerner]

That’s one thing I forgot to mention about my thoughts on genie+. Not only do I think it’s better for park hoppers, but it’s also better if you don’t have any dining planned either. The days we used it we either did qs or had our ts earlier in the day.

I think that's an accurate observation. G+ tends to reward flexibility with more and better LL's.

 

[SLThomas318]

Fixed ROTR via chat; TOT did the same thing; will try to fix in park or just forget it

View attachment 659206
View attachment 659207

Curious about when these are changing on you? Are you just confirming the conflicting time and then asking them to adjust? In Nov 10am would show and when I selected it and entered my party it would show me a later time… I just backed out and tried again or went for something else if it didn’t work for our plans.

Wouldn’t want to count on them always fixing it, but it’s an interesting strategy. How much time do you think you’ve spent getting them to fix things? I feel like guest services needs a ILL!

 

[ScarletFire]

That's a great idea. Book G+ and $ILL's from home for family that's in the park. I might do it for BIL, if he asks nicely. And if he doesn't I'll still do it but I might pick different LL's.

It worked well! It's fun for me too!!

 

[Disturbia]

Curious, are the times changing after you hit your final acceptance?

When I was there in Feb the times changed up until I hit my final confirmation page but then when I confirmed they were the same as the screen where I chose to accept.

Has that changed recently

The time I selected my party was 6 pm and the next screen didn’t show any details on time and I only knew about the shift after payment. Maybe I was going too fast, but if you wait even a second everything is gone.

 

[Disturbia]

So today I tried to pay real close attention and my Remy pass (selected 8:30 am) was 9-10 am (I did not wait because we have a short day, I just saw it in the background when payment was going through and the screen grayed out) on the payment screen but when I clicked pay the final confirmation said 9:30-10:30 am, so the time changes from the payment screen to final confirmation.

So the time displayed on the payment screen wont necessarily match what you get.

 

[Figmentv]

At 7:58, ALL the ILLs for every park were available. That’s good news.

 

[jlovesdisney15]

Apologies if this has already been asked, but if your reservation switches to multiple experiences, is there any limits to what it can be used on?

 

[GBRforWDW]

Apologies if this has already been asked, but if your reservation switches to multiple experiences, is there any limits to what it can be used on?

Yes, generally speaking, you can't use it for the most popular rides unless the pass was for one of those rides. For example, if you book toy story mania and it goes down, the multi experience pass may say something like, good to use on any ride except Slinky Dog Dash or Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway.

 

[jlovesdisney15]

Yes, generally speaking, you can't use it for the most popular rides unless the pass was for one of those rides. For example, if you book toy story mania and it goes down, the multi experience pass may say something like, good to use on any ride except Slinky Dog Dash or Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway.

Thank you! I was thinking it would be similar to the old system.

 

[isabellea]

Reading this thread made me change my plan for our July trip. I’ll try to plan TS meal for lunch instead of dinner and just eat QS for dinner (in the past we mostly did the opposite). We cannot upgrade our tickets to PH so thinking that doing this change will increase our flexibility and increase our chances for G+ success.

 

[godfather927]

Got passes changed with a big ‘we will not accommodate any others. This is a one time thing!’

View attachment 659288

Just to confirm, you managed to get them to convert these via chat instead of going to the guest services team?

 

[Disturbia]

Just to confirm, you managed to get them to convert these via chat instead of going to the guest services team?

Nope. Had to go and wait 15+ mins (line got real long fast). Chat doesn’t get results until a few hours later. Front desk also takes 30-40 mins depending on how many people are in line.

Frozen went down the two times we tried to ride it (morning and around noon). Had given up Soarin to walk all the way to Frozen. Heavy rains forecasted so left park at 12:50 pm to catch the Skyliner (there should be some announcement in park or a place in the app where you can see if it’s still running.)

Mears was scheduled to pickup at 1:55 pm, but picked us at 2:40 pm (almost an hour past!). We were the last stop so we got to the airport at 3:15 pm. All flights cancelled so we have to drive 17 hours. Even car rentals were backed up (they don’t have cars so we are snugly fitting into a HR-V (keep luggage to a minimum) and no car seats or booster available (had to go buy them).

 

[godfather927]

Nope. Had to go and wait 15+ mins (line got real long fast). Chat doesn’t get results until a few hours later. Front desk also takes 30-40 mins depending on how many people are in line.

Frozen went down the two times we tried to ride it (morning and around noon). Had given up Soarin to walk all the way to Frozen. Heavy rains forecasted so left park at 12:50 pm to catch the Skyliner (there should be some announcement in park or a place in the app where you can see if it’s still running.)

Mears was scheduled to pickup at 1:55 pm, but picked us at 2:40 pm (almost an hour past!). We were the last stop so we got to the airport at 3:15 pm. All flights cancelled so we have to drive 17 hours. Even car rentals were backed up (they don’t have cars so we are snugly fitting into a HR-V (keep luggage to a minimum) and no car seats or booster available (had to go buy them).

Geez, sorry to hear that. We know of another family in the same situation that had their flight cancelled today, the next available flight for them was Tuesday so they are renting a car tomorrow and driving back instead. What a headache.

 

[Westerner]

At 7:58, ALL the ILLs for every park were available. That’s good news.

Yes - and good news for offsite in particular b/c with the 730AK park open, you can get FoP.

 

[Disturbia]

Geez, sorry to hear that. We know of another family in the same situation that had their flight cancelled today, the next available flight for them was Tuesday so they are renting a car tomorrow and driving back instead. What a headache.

Yes. At 12 am we were hunting down hotels in Georgia. All Hilton, Howard, Holiday Inn hotels we called were booked but we got a room through Hilton honors. It’s one king bed for $350 for a night (Hilton Garden Inn), but it was $306 with honors discount (people were calling for that room when we checked in around 1:30 am) and half the family had to sleep on the floor. We are a family of 5 - 2 adults, 3 children (2, 5 & 13). They had no rollaway beds which we were told we could add. It was like take it or leave it people are calling for it. Front desk gave 30% off

We got in the airport at 3:15 pm and left in 3-4 hours. There were people who had arrived at 8:30 am and had deposited their bags and were still trying to locate them 10 hours later.

 

[Doingitagain]

Just to confirm, you managed to get them to convert these via chat instead of going to the guest services team?

We got our Remy ILL changed via chat because the time changed on us and conflicted with ADR. We booked right at 7.

 

[xipotec]

Nope. Had to go and wait 15+ mins (line got real long fast). Chat doesn’t get results until a few hours later. Front desk also takes 30-40 mins depending on how many people are in line.

Frozen went down the two times we tried to ride it (morning and around noon). Had given up Soarin to walk all the way to Frozen. Heavy rains forecasted so left park at 12:50 pm to catch the Skyliner (there should be some announcement in park or a place in the app where you can see if it’s still running.)

Mears was scheduled to pickup at 1:55 pm, but picked us at 2:40 pm (almost an hour past!). We were the last stop so we got to the airport at 3:15 pm. All flights cancelled so we have to drive 17 hours. Even car rentals were backed up (they don’t have cars so we are snugly fitting into a HR-V (keep luggage to a minimum) and no car seats or booster available (had to go buy them).

So in addition to long lines to ride standby on G+ , sold out ILL at 5 minutes after opening AND only being able to use LL 2-3 times a day…..

You also get to wait on a customer service line to fix app issues….

sounds magical.

 

[jbish]

Friends - I have been working on a plan for our HS day in two weeks. I'd like to run this by you as I think I found an opportunity for stacking and being slightly ahead of the crowds while waiting out the 2 hour periods. Currently I have reservations at HS, but I'm thinking of switching to AK and hopping to HS later. Staying on site so I have access to Early Theme Park Entry. Also, very unusual, but this is the one day that HS has the Extra Evening Hours for the deluxe resorts instead of MK.

Date: Wednesday, April 13th - expected to be very busy (HS crowd level 9)
Park Hours: AK (7:30a-8:30p, 7am ETPE)
HS (8a-9p, 9p-11p EEH)
Of note: FOP and ROTR are NOT high priorities for us. We rode both several times last June so I'll save the money where I can!)

My idea is based on realizing that there is a little bit of "arbitrage" given the different times the parks open. Unfortunately, they just extended hours at all of the parks and so the difference between AK opening at 7:30 and HS at 8 isn't a huge advantage anymore. But given how difficult it is to stack at HS these days, I'll take whatever advantage I can get. Also, I know that we'll have those two extra hours at the end of the night so I anticipate we will get the most accomplished in those two hours.

Plan:

• 7:00 - book LL for It's Tough to be a Bug for 7:30 (no competition for this right at 7 am)
• 7:30 - arrive at AK for regular opening (come after the initial rush as I'm trying not to burn out the family with too early of a start with a planned late night)
  • As early as possible, tap in to ITTBAB (which is easy to get to since it's right at the front of the park. We may or may not actually go in. Haven't gone in years but the thought of the bugs crawling behind me already gives me the heebie jeebies.)
  • Book SDD for sometime around 5-7 pm (this has been available up until 8 am some days, so it's a calculated risk)
• Now my next LL booking time will be 9:30 vs. anyone that has a HS reservation who will be booking at 10 am (EP opens at 8:30 and MK opens at 9, so anyone that has a reservation there will be even further behind)

Please let me know if you think this will work. I'm hoping this could be helpful for someone else to use this same strategy on a day, ideally, when there's more time between the two parks opening. Poke holes in my strategy!!

Well, I was just too wrapped up in various things this past week so I never got around to changing my park reservations for my experiment day to AK. And all parks are booked. Sadly, I will not be able to try this strategy out. But if anyone else wants to - especially when you can do this for two parks with a larger difference in opening times - please let me know how it goes!!

 

[wonderchica]

Any thoughts on using Genie+ around the weather? Will be at MK on Thursday and expecting some storms, maybe in the morning. I’m wondering what would be wisest- try to avoid booking rides that will go down in the weather? Or continue to book those and it’ll convert to anytime as needed? We are planning to RD.