How do you avoid the 2 hour rule? Going in January with my adult kids. Hopefully they will be able to navigate G+ for the days we buy it, but how does refreshing avoid the 2 hr rule? I understood that after our first G+ at 7 a.m. everyone had to wait for 2 hrs after park open and every 2 hrs after that to book another.
You can ride your first ride (booked for 9am) and immediately book the earliest next available ride. You can then modify that for a different ride without resetting the clock. I saw Molly do this but I’m not sure she was able to grab a top tier ride doing this.
They added the option to modify reservations. This lets you potentially grab a different time without first canceling your reservation. Times can change based off cancellations so keep looking and may get something beter. Its two hours or after you ride attraction. As soon as you tap in for the ride you can book your next reservation.
We went mid November and didn’t buy Genie+. It was me, hubby and 22yo son. Honestly, for the most part, it sucked. We ended up having to stand in multiple hour long lines(thankfully the weather was nice) and having a couple incidents where the ride broke down so that’s lost time. We’ve always used fast passes but seeing a lot of complaints about genie + and not getting enough rides for the cost, etc we opted to go old school and not get it. Big mistake. We were all miserable waiting in those long lines and actually ended up doing less rides and staying less time in the parks than we usually do because we were over it after several hours and just went back to the room/pool. We didn’t even shop or eat as much either this time because we spent all our time in lines. If I had it to do all over again we would have just caved and bought genie+ each day. It all depends on what you are used to and how you do the parks as to whether it’s worth it to you or not.
I would go off peak season. You can mix it up if you have multiple park days. One day stay until park close and ride rides late (lower waits). Another day rope drop (need to be 45 mins ahead of park opening or 30 mins ahead of resort early Magic morning per allears research to get in the first wave of crowds to have an advantage. Transportation takes extra long (1 hour is recommended; to us it’s just not worth it).
We are planning on going the first week of August and staying at WL, which is a splurge, and we have park hoppers. It will be our first solo trip since our honeymoon. We are celebrating our 25th- which is hard to believe! DH is an early riser and I am a night owl. I don't know how to make rope drop and extended evening hours without being exhausted, even with naps. We always go back to the room for the afternoon. DH needs a break. Right now we have 4 full park days and 1 half day in the a.m., but we may have to forfeit the half day on the last day to come home for a wedding. We don't ride everything, but do ride most things, but I know that some parks have less offerings than others.
We have 3 kids and we are in a different time zone (cst). One of us (me) gets up at 6:45 am to get Genie+ and everyone else starts slowly getting ready after that. We order groceries so some of us can have breakfast while the others are getting ready. The 2 bathrooms at AOA are essential (changed our upcoming trip for BRV deluxe studio to AOA suite - similar price). We don’t usually enter the parks until 9:45 am. We usually eat QS lunch and then head back for a break and have a couple of passes booked for the evening when we go back (5-9 pm). We usually have table service dinners booked so they take up 1.5-2 hrs out of the evening (kids allergies so even QS takes over an hour). We don’t buy park hoppers as we use the shorter AK days to rest. Kids can stay up late but we can’t do extended evening hours esp since Disney routinely adds hours 2 weeks before and changes the extended hours to 11-1 am.
We’ve been able to utilize Genie+ that way at DLR. Very easy to do 8-10 rides in a day. I absolutely love G+ at DLR so I hope it’s just as good for us at WDW. For the record, I didn’t like fast pass plus and having to book rides months out. That’s why we stopped going to WDW back in the day. Genie+ feels much more like the old school fast pass to me and we’ll worth the premium.
You can certainly get 8-10 at MK but the top rides are harder to book vs DL due to demand) should get easier now that crowds are lower vs last year. We’ve done that even with a mid day break. Allears did an analysis and Genie+ saves you around 3 hours of standing in lines.
Good point too! Last September we packed legit Columbia rain jackets and a baseball cap on a day that forecast rain, and ended up doing Food and Wine in an almost empty Epcot. The hat keeps the rain off your face, and you can even put it on top of a poncho to maximize efficiency. Also - don't wear sneakers/socks that day - stick to sandals. Wet feet = misery.
Just to gauge your expectations, G+ in our experience was far better at DL than it is at WDW. DL tends to be many local guests who choose not to purchase it but WDW is more of a destination vacation so it is purchased by more guests who budget it as part of their vacation funds. Return times at WDW are often further out than they are at DL.
