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

[crazymomof4]

I just want a start date! I have a sneaking suspicion it’s going to start right in the middle of my mid-October trip. And I am not happy to be the guinea pig.

Same! I said to DD21, "There's only 32 days until Oct 1st, you don't think they will spring it on us, last minute, do you?" Her reply was "I don't think they care"

 

[ThistleMae]

We are all hoping to hear the announcement soon, plus more exact details so us planners can come up with a strategy and all you guinea pigs out there can try things out! Sorry, not going till December. We'll be rooting for you!

 

[OhDannyBoy]

We are all hoping to hear the announcement soon, plus more exact details so us planners can come up with a strategy and all you guinea pigs out there can try things out! Sorry, not going till December. We'll be rooting for you!

My trip will be in February.

I'm offering a free churro to anyone with a good trip report and details about the new Fast Lane Lightning Genie+ pass thing and how to use it.

(free churros are subject to availability and specific blackout dates which should be announced sometime before Fall of 2029)

 

[buzlite]

I think people are underestimating machine learning. I think Genie will ask for a your preferences first. You will likely be able to create a custom plan or follow a premade touring plan. The touring plan (custom or premade) could create an optimitized schedule, based on historical data, that updates on the go as things change throughout the day. It's not just going to look at current wait times. Instead it might see space mountain wait times are historically low at 7pm and that most people get fp at park opening. It would recommend on your itinerary to get FP around 6 o clock.
If used correctly and created with good software it would be much "smarter" then any Disney veteran. It could calculate millions and millions of data points to make your day the most efficient.

 

[Leight19]

I think people are underestimating machine learning. I think Genie will ask for a your preferences first. You will likely be able to create a custom plan or follow a premade touring plan. The touring plan (custom or premade) could create an optimitized schedule, based on historical data, that updates on the go as things change throughout the day. It's not just going to look at current wait times. Instead it might see space mountain wait times are historically low at 7pm and that most people get fp at park opening. It would recommend on your itinerary to get FP around 6 o clock.
If used correctly and created with good software it would be much "smarter" then any Disney veteran. It could calculate millions and millions of data points to make your day the most efficient.

I appreciate your sentiment as I work with applications of a machine learning at my job and know it is an extremely powerful tool. However, my experience has taught me it’s application is only as good as the team making/implementing it and I’ve seen nothing to indicate Disney IT systems will deliver it successfully. What could be done with machine learning and what disney will be able to do are two completely different discussions.

 

[buzlite]

I appreciate your sentiment as I work with applications of a machine learning at my job and know it is an extremely powerful tool. However, my experience has taught me it’s application is only as good as the team making/implementing it and I’ve seen nothing to indicate Disney IT systems will deliver it successfully. What could be done with machine learning and what disney will be able to do are two completely different discussions.

I guess I assume that a billion dollar company would get it right if it's pushing it out to prime time. Only time will tell us if they get it right or not. I'm hoping they use the tech to it's fullest potential. But big companies have whiffed on bigger things.

 

[HuskieJohn]

I haven't seen too many people mention this but was is the level of confidence that Disney IT can actually pull something like this off? I can just imagine the chaos for the first year!

That is why it is only $15ea to start. Once they work out the kinks it will go up to $25ea

 

[Liquidice]

I guess I assume that a billion dollar company would get it right if it's pushing it out to prime time. Only time will tell us if they get it right or not. I'm hoping they use the tech to it's fullest potential. But big companies have whiffed on bigger things.

Have you seen Disney's IT rollouts over time? Boo Bash for example, they couldn't get early access ticket sales for APs and Resort guests to work online, so they did it by phone and made people wait 7+ hours on hold.

When Disney Park Pass launched, the system crashed in the morning and most people could not make Park Pass reservations until the next day.

To this day, everyday at 6am when ADRs become available 60 days out - the system grinds to a halt, same thing occurred when FastPass+ was a thing.

Don't even get me started on the bugs with the Disneyvacationclub.com website.

The only rollout of a major system that has been halfway decent - and even then there were major issues in the first day was Disney+ and thats because Disney bought another company (MLBAM aka BAMTech) and used their technology and teams to launch Disney+.

Billion dollar company or not, IT is clearly not where they spend their time and money. I agree all of what you're saying about Machine learning is feasible - and perhaps Disney put the time and resources in to improve the product, but I agree with Leight19 and suspect it won't be as fancy as you're saying.

 

[New Mouse]

I guess I assume that a billion dollar company would get it right if it's pushing it out to prime time. Only time will tell us if they get it right or not. I'm hoping they use the tech to it's fullest potential. But big companies have whiffed on bigger things.

Why would you assume that? Magic Bands and My Disney Experience were for years and arguably still are a technological failure.

 

[pianomanzano]

To piggy back on the comments about machine learning, Netflix and YouTube still can’t get recommendations for suggested videos right, so I definitely don’t expect Disney to optimize things for my preferences. I would say it would be harder to capture accurate data on actual preferences since Disney didn’t collect data on preferences (e.g. whether or not someone liked a certain ride or attraction), and from the videos on genie, i don’t think selecting genres or kinds of activities is enough to provide me with an accurate optimized itinerary. I like IASW for sentimental reasons but won’t choose any categories that fit its description because I don’t care for other similar rides.
I will say though that they probably have optimized their algorithms as much as possible based on how much people have spent and where they have spent because it’s in their interest and because it’s a more accurate indicator of preference. For example, magic bands and reservations data have been collected on where people have chosen to eat, what they’ve ordered, what experiences they bought. I can see their algorithms making recommendations towards spending more.

 

[ThistleMae]

To piggy back on the comments about machine learning, Netflix and YouTube still can’t get recommendations for suggested videos right, so I definitely don’t expect Disney to optimize things for my preferences. I would say it would be harder to capture accurate data on actual preferences since Disney didn’t collect data on preferences (e.g. whether or not someone liked a certain ride or attraction), and from the videos on genie, i don’t think selecting genres or kinds of activities is enough to provide me with an accurate optimized itinerary. I like IASW for sentimental reasons but won’t choose any categories that fit its description because I don’t care for other similar rides.
I will say though that they probably have optimized their algorithms as much as possible based on how much people have spent and where they have spent because it’s in their interest and because it’s a more accurate indicator of preference. For example, magic bands and reservations data have been collected on where people have chosen to eat, what they’ve ordered, what experiences they bought. I can see their algorithms making recommendations towards spending more.

I'd say the Genie is a tool. It may be helpful at times but I feel we will still need to use our judgement. Maybe it will help newbies navigate, who knows.

 

[HuskieJohn]

I guess I assume that a billion dollar company would get it right if it's pushing it out to prime time. Only time will tell us if they get it right or not. I'm hoping they use the tech to it's fullest potential. But big companies have whiffed on bigger things.

I read this and immediately thought of the rollout of D+. Constant freezing, glitches and being outright kicked out of the app.

 

[ThistleMae]

I read this and immediately thought of the rollout of D+. Constant freezing, glitches and being outright kicked out of the app.

Perhaps we have not mastered technology padawan, perhaps not.

 

[Liquidice]

I decided to do a comparison of costs for all of the recent price hikes for APs and non-APs between the 2019 prices and 2021/22 prices. I used June 2019 and June 2022 to compare.

It doesn't include the price for food or merchandise since those can be wildly different and extremely difficult to track the price changes.

For tickets, I assumed you would buy a 7-day park hopper for a 7-day once a year trip. For 2x 7 day trips, it is assumed that it is cheaper to buy the Annual Pass instead. I used UT prices for the 2021/2022 ticket prices but had to use historical average prices for 2019 since the prices are not well documented (I took the highest and lowest price of a 7-day park hopper ticket and averaged it for 2019).

I did assume that you would pay for Genie+ every day of your park trip to emulate what was previously included in FastPass+ and I assumed you would take Mears Connect as the replacement for Magical Express.

I also assumed you'd buy 4 Magicbands, for $9.99 each (previously free) - but the $40 cost here is negligible in the larger scheme of things.

The % increase is calculated between each trip. You can see the change in price is vastly different depending on your situation.

But what it also shows is that ticket prices will likely be going up very soon, they have not seen the same large % increase that a lot of other things have seen.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ddhMbzDII1TduyEm_heCE3JXwmLkKSmjecVP-DIb4l4/edit?usp=sharing

 

[New Mouse]

Something I dont know Ive seen mentioned yet.... Space Mountain is an upcharge?!? The ride is almost 50 years old. The fact they dont have significantly newer more popular attractions to the point where Space Mountain needs an upcharge, speaks volumes about their lack of investment in the parks. over the years.

 

[ThistleMae]

Something I dont know Ive seen mentioned yet.... Space Mountain is an upcharge?!? The ride is almost 50 years old. The fact they dont have significantly newer more popular attractions to the point where Space Mountain needs an upcharge, speaks volumes about their lack of investment in the parks. over the years.

I think the speculation regarding Space Mountain being a top tier is because it is one of the more popular MK rides. It doesn't matter that it's however old, people love it!

 

[Liquidice]

Something I dont know Ive seen mentioned yet.... Space Mountain is an upcharge?!? The ride is almost 50 years old. The fact they dont have significantly newer more popular attractions to the point where Space Mountain needs an upcharge, speaks volumes about their lack of investment in the parks. over the years.

I think it is a placeholder for Tron, Space Mountain will come out and Tron will go in once Tron opens. Also maybe an experiment to see how many people are willing to pay for an old ride.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I think it is a placeholder for Tron, Space Mountain will come out and Tron will go in once Tron opens. Also maybe an experiment to see how many people are willing to pay for an old ride.

The average wait time for Space Mountain yesterday per touringplans was 7 minutes. If things keep going the way they're going for disney right now, my guess is the answer to your question will be "not many."

 

[ThistleMae]

Wait times are down right now. Normally Space Mountain has long waits unless you get to it at rope drop. So many folks are reporting walking onto rides and enjoying them multiple times. It is a rare opportunity to be there right now for sure!

 

[StarrySkye21]

The average wait time for Space Mountain yesterday per touringplans was 7 minutes. If things keep going the way they're going for disney right now, my guess is the answer to your question will be "not many."

Enjoy it while it lasts. When COVID numbers decrease, mask requirements are dropped and the 50th festivities are in full swing, numbers will rise rapidly.