Disney Genie+ and ILL$ Details & FAQ - Launches 10/19 at WDW, Paid "FastPass" at WDW and Disneyland (date TBD)

[Aluminum Falcon]

Seen the same thing that FEA and Remy are IA$. From the initial announcement of this service the only park where it seemed like a worthwhile investment is MK at least for me. The rest of the parks I felt I could manage with just doing standby or maybe an IA$ purchase for something like RoTR/FoP

i think Disney is aware some parks aren't worth it, but that will also drag down standby wait times, so it's still a win for Disney in the end, and as they continue to add to their parks, then you may see people justify the cost of it

 

[BrianL]

Yeah, re-rides would have been a big perk for me. I can understand limiting the big-headliner paid attractions, but I would like to be able to get pass after pass for HM if I wanted to. I guess it's not that different than FP+, but still it's kinda lame.

 

[Liquidice]

We do the same when it comes to rides, the only time we ever rode anything multiple times in a day, was if it was a 15-20 min wait, and we could just get off, and right back on. we never used FP to try and do it multiple times though.

I just think monetizing FP+ would have caused even more of an uproar from people, so they needed to break away cleanly

What I mean with implementing this same change with FP+ is keeping it free but if the complaint was that FP+ caused too much trouble for once in a lifetime guests and too much "abuse" by regulars who knew how to game the system, they could have locked down FP+ with a limit of 1 Fastpass per ride per day for each person and other optimizations such as requiring a 2-hour cool down before receiving another Fastpass that they've seemingly introduced with Genie+ that don't necessarily require charging $15pppd.

 

[shawthorne44]

"Guests will only be able to obtain one Genie+ Lightning Lane per ride, per day, when the product launches."

Well, that is interesting and bad news.
Bad news that we can't get duplicate reservations.
Interesting that everyone else can't get it either. So, hopefully that will help G+ availability and standby lines. Because if FEA was on G+, I was planning on circling around on it. I probably wasn't one the only one that planned on circling around.

It also makes EP and AK G+ pretty worthless unless you have park hopper.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

What I mean with implementing this same change with FP+ is keeping it free but if the complaint was that FP+ caused too much trouble for once in a lifetime guests and too much "abuse" by regulars who knew how to game the system, they could have locked down FP+ with a limit of 1 Fastpass per ride per day for each person and other optimizations such as requiring a 2-hour cool down before receiving another Fastpass that they've seemingly introduced with Genie+ that don't necessarily require charging $15pppd.

I would first preface this with, Disney does everything for the money, but I would add in this case, less people purchasing frees up more space in line, and any money they make is more then what they were getting with Fp+.
Also I don’t believe there is a 2 hour cool down period with Genie, you can book a different ride as soon as you use your first LL, it only applies if you have a LL for greater than 2 hours away, so that you could “stack” LL’s if that we’re your case

 

[luv2cheer92]

I'm just surprised the day before the 50th starts and it seems like the parks are empty - wait times are short at least. Disney I assume was expecting humongous crowds for the 50th - I have no doubt tomorrow will be a sellout day at Magic Kingdom but how will the rest of October look? It might be good for squashing bugs, but I don't know if it would be good for the demand Disney is expecting (and hence the lack of discounts, perks, etc during this time period). Might just be the quiet before the storm though!

Idk what it is, but the parks are far from empty. There are a LOT of people, at least the last two days. Definitely the most crowded of my 3 trips this year, but the wait times are still really low. The standby lines are just constantly moving.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

Idk what it is, but the parks are far from empty. There are a LOT of people, at least the last two days. Definitely the most crowded of my 3 trips this year, but the wait times are still really low. The standby lines are just constantly moving.

Hmm, I wonder if people are bunching, I can’t imagine that Disney is able to keep ride times like they were if there are a lot more guests in the park

 

[Liquidice]

Hmm, I wonder if people are bunching, I can’t imagine that Disney is able to keep ride times like they were if there are a lot more guests in the park

I wonder if Disney added tons of staff and are running rides at maximum capacity because of the 50th? More than they had been in August/September because of the lower crowds.

Or the posted wait times are just accurate for once, they have been posting wait times that are usually inflated.

 

[Liquidice]

I would first preface this with, Disney does everything for the money, but I would add in this case, less people purchasing frees up more space in line, and any money they make is more then what they were getting with Fp+.
Also I don’t believe there is a 2 hour cool down period with Genie, you can book a different ride as soon as you use your first LL, it only applies if you have a LL for greater than 2 hours away, so that you could “stack” LL’s if that we’re your case

The 2-hour cool-down I was referring to was for stacking G+ rides but you're right that doesn't really make sense for what I was saying with FP+. But they could have implemented something with FP+ where they added a cool-down time after your 3rd Fast Pass or something.

I'm just saying if Genie+ isn't a money grab (which I think you sort of said above, it is for money) and they're only trying to create a better experience - there were other ways to improve the FP+ system without charging money. Sure the view Disney would like you to take is that it is just a small fee and that small fee will provide a better experience because less people are buying in.

But, I will say the more and more I hear about Genie+ the more encouraged I am about it being good for the way my family would use it. I think I'd be even more supportive of it if it included all of the rides and they didn't exclude some rides (IA$) - but from a planning perspective, I guess those are the ones to rope drop or ride during the Extended Park Hours for onsite guests.

 

[mom2rtk]

Yeah, re-rides would have been a big perk for me. I can understand limiting the big-headliner paid attractions, but I would like to be able to get pass after pass for HM if I wanted to. I guess it's not that different than FP+, but still it's kinda lame.

No it isn't. FP+ would allow you to at least pick up re-rides after your first 3.

 

[persnickity2020]

I guess they might have just sold me on park hoppers. Are they geniuses after all?

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

I wonder if Disney added tons of staff and are running rides at maximum capacity because of the 50th? More than they had been in August/September because of the lower crowds.

Or the posted wait times are just accurate for once, they have been posting wait times that are usually inflated.

Possibly, I had a buddy at work just come back, and he said wait times last week were long, and they were posted to match what this week has shown thus far. Could they have punched up workers at the rides, I don’t doubt it, but from the hotel availability to Disney delaying opening all star sports, to way lower than anticipated crowds this week, I don’t think they are anticipating large crowds coming back this year.

 

[amdphenom]

No it isn't. FP+ would allow you to at least pick up re-rides after your first 3.

They also had explicit exclusions on this. I remember this as SDD was one of them you could only do once.

At least I recall an error popping up when trying to grab an additional pass. Let me make sure I'm correct on this though. If anyone can confirm or refute this I'd appreciate it. Thanks

 

[Mousey0324]

Possibly, I had a buddy at work just come back, and he said wait times last week were long, and they were posted to match what this week has shown thus far. Could they have punched up workers at the rides, I don’t doubt it, but from the hotel availability to Disney delaying opening all star sports, to way lower than anticipated crowds this week, I don’t think they are anticipating large crowds coming back this year.

I just got back…posted wait times are still exaggerated. splash showed 30, it was 8 mins tops. Space mountain showed 25, it was 10. Safari was way off…showed 40 we were on in 8 mins.

the only ride that was fairly accurate was FOP at 40 mins.

I think it’s a combination of staffing and running rides at max capacity. They were cramming people onto Navi river ride. 4 per row is a joke. Maybe if everyone is 5 years old.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

I just got back…posted wait times are still exaggerated. splash showed 30, it was 8 mins tops. Space mountain showed 25, it was 10. Safari was way off…showed 40 we were on in 8 mins.

the only ride that was fairly accurate was FOP at 40 mins.

I think it’s a combination of staffing and running rides at max capacity. They were cramming people onto Navi river ride. 4 per row is a joke. Maybe if everyone is 5 years old.

I definitely wrote that wrong , what I meant was that Disney’s wait times were long compared to what he actually waited. He said there was a lot of 20min waits that were essentially walk one

 

[Dis Dragon]

They also had explicit exclusions on this. I remember this as SDD was one of them you could only do once.

At least I recall an error popping up when trying to grab an additional pass. Let me make sure I'm correct on this though. If anyone can confirm or refute this I'd appreciate it. Thanks

You had to ride 2 tier 2 FP rides to pickup another tier 1, you're thinking of the ride tiering system they had in place in HS and Epcot. After you did those 2 tier 2 you were free to grab whatever you could.

 

[amdphenom]

You had to ride 2 tier 2 FP rides to pickup another tier 1, you're thinking of the ride tiering system they had in place in HS and Epcot. After you did those 2 tier 2 you were free to grab whatever you could.

Most likely scenario. Might've been I only was doing SDD and didn't do any other major rides. Thanks

 

[luv2cheer92]

I wonder if Disney added tons of staff and are running rides at maximum capacity because of the 50th? More than they had been in August/September because of the lower crowds.

Or the posted wait times are just accurate for once, they have been posting wait times that are usually inflated.

Still mostly inflated in my experience so far. I've only been to MK and AK so far though.

 

[luv2cheer92]

I just got back…posted wait times are still exaggerated. splash showed 30, it was 8 mins tops. Space mountain showed 25, it was 10. Safari was way off…showed 40 we were on in 8 mins.

the only ride that was fairly accurate was FOP at 40 mins.

I think it’s a combination of staffing and running rides at max capacity. They were cramming people onto Navi river ride. 4 per row is a joke. Maybe if everyone is 5 years old.

I really haven't seen much cramming. I went on Navi solo and was the only one in my row, and didn't see more than two per row, from what I could see at least. Me and my mom were the only ones in our row on KS. They were only running one side of BTMR at one point on Wed evening, etc.

 

[Mrs~Incredible]

They also had explicit exclusions on this. I remember this as SDD was one of them you could only do once.

At least I recall an error popping up when trying to grab an additional pass. Let me make sure I'm correct on this though. If anyone can confirm or refute this I'd appreciate it. Thanks

Yup. Could only get one FP for SDD, even after first 3 and appropriate tiers were fulfilled. At least for one trip it was like that- I remember a CM explicitly explaining that to me since I had an error message when trying to grab it later in the day.