Here Now & Just Back WDW Reopening Experiences Including Park Hopping

[Sanwich]

Just back from a May 22-28 trip. Going to try a not-too-long summary... this is from the perspective of people who have been many times to Disney, many times of year, experienced the various incarnations of Fastpass:

CROWDS: It was definitely crowded, but not the worst we've seen (for us, the highest crowds we've ever experienced were during Mardi Gras week, pre-COVID). Studios during the day felt the most crowded, most likely because there are fewer "people eater" type attractions.

WEATHER: It was very hot (for us--highs around 92). Some days there were some clouds or a breeze, but mostly it was just direct sun beating down. We were fortunate that there wasn't any rain to speak of. Between the crowd patterns and the weather, we've decided that going forward, we're going to try to do parks mostly in the evening when we visit in Summer. In almost every case, ride wait times went down significantly in the evenings.

GENIE+: Despite being theoretically well-prepared for the new system, knowing the "tricks," etc... G+ was just an enormous fail for us. If you're in a small, mobile group that is very good about sticking to a plan (and being flexible as that plan changes throughout the day), G+ may work for you. We were traveling with my elderly parents, and ran into several cases where the rigidity of the system was an issue. Example--booked a LL at 7 am for a ride window starting at 11:30. When 11 rolled around, booked a second LL. So far so good. Then... parents realized they wouldn't be able to make it to the first LL (11:30-12:30 time). Cancelled that LL, but couldn't make a replacement booking until 2 hours after the second LL had been booked (1 pm). I realize this is working as intended, but it led to us "losing" our first LL with no replacement. Another issue is that a member of our party has difficulties with walking (but stubbornly refuses to use any kind of aid), so with the old system, we could plan to be in X area at the beginning of the day and minimize the need for backtracking. With G+, you basically have to plan around the time availability windows you are assigned, so we had to backtrack/walk more than before.

ILL: We were able to get what we needed for these (even Cosmic Rewind on opening day), that said, there were still issues.

• Technical problems: More than once, the app just messed things up. Sometimes we would select a timeframe, that same timeframe would be on the confirmation screen, then we hit "purchase" and suddenly were assigned a totally different time (sometimes even an earlier time). There were also instances where the first purchase attempt would return a "payment method error," then we'd hit it a few more times and suddenly it worked. This second issue caused us to almost lose out on the Cosmic Rewind ILL (we lost our first time slot and had to grab a much later one).
• Ride-related scheduling issues: I'm not exaggerating when I say that almost every ILL we purchased (4 total) wound up being turned into an "anytime" pass because the ride was down when our ILL window occurred. This caused more scheduling/walking issues, since we had formulated something of a "plan" and then had to change everything around to accomodate the fact that we couldn't use the ILL during the originally scheduled time. I don't blame them for having technical issues with the rides; it just made the shortcomings of the G+ system even more of a pain point during the trip.

OVERALL HIGHLIGHTS:

• Almost every cast member we encountered was SO friendly and helpful. It may be due to the fact that we had so many more technical/app issues than usual (so we needed help more than before), but each time we had a problem, the staff was completely understanding and went above and beyond to make it right. We also lost an item during the trip and assumed it was gone forever... then suddenly got a call from one of the resorts, who had managed to piece together our contact info from the item, which a guest had turned in (our name/info wasn't even obvious from the item itself, so props to them for their detective work).
• Toppolino's Terrace dinner was excellent in every way.
• Cosmic Rewind was awesome and very fun (though even with dramamine I was a bit "off" afterward).
• Rise of the Resistance is still good... I think even more effects were working this time vs. our first experience.
• The new Cirque show was amazing.

OVERALL LOWLIGHTS:

• As mentioned above, the Disney app and G+/ILL system just didn't work for us.
• Worst food--Docking Bay 7. We couldn't believe how far the quality of the food had declined. It was absolutely wonderful a year ago, but the chicken has been turned into ground-up, overcooked gristle, with no sauce whatsoever, and no more mashed potatoes... just plain rice and undercooked broccoli. We are not picky eaters... we find most food at Disney at least "decent," and I almost NEVER call something "inedible"... but this chicken was darn close.
• Despite taking precautions, at least one member of our group returned with COVID. The rest of us are waiting on test results.

Overall, we still had a good time, but it would have been better with one of the older FP systems (for us).

 

[jwolfpack]

Here now! Time to pay it forward after months of scouring these boards for tips! (continued)

Family of 5 with kids aged 8+ | Yacht Club | 6 nights | Genie+ all days | Traveling with another family of 5, not linked on MDE | We hate lines >30 min!

Day 2 - Mon, May 30 - EE at HS hopping to EP for EEH - Memorial Day, very crowded!

6:45 - started walking from Yacht Club to DHS
7:00 - used 2 phones logged in to same MDE to book $ILL ROTR for 8:35-9:35 am (no time shift) & LL for SDD (10:35-11:35) - not successful in getting SDD to overlap with other family
7:30 - tapstiles open, speed walk to ROTR (on by 7:37, off by 8:01)
8:05 - MFSR (5 min wait)
8:30 - TSM (15 min wait) - made it JUST ahead of park opening crowds, off by 8:50 and most attractions showing 50+ min wait
9:05 - ROTR $ILL (posted wait 125 min)
9:30 - not enough time to ride anything standby before SDD LL, so we got snacks and saw Muppets
10:30 - booked TSM for 11:30-12:30 - everything else we were interested in had mid-late afternoon return times and we wanted to leave by 1:00
10:35 - SDD LL
10:45 - Woody's Lunchbox
11:25 - TSM LL, booked Soarin' for 5:55-6:55
12:30 - Droid Depot
12:50 - on boat back to Yacht Club

Break - from room, I cancelled Soarin' LL and rebooked when return time shifted to 7:45-8:45 because this worked better with evening plans (this did reset our booking eligibility. Later booked Mission Space LL for 7:35-8:35 pm, which we did not end up using.

6:00 - joined VQ for Guardians, got boarding group 175 with estimated callback time 10:10 pm
6:35 - dinner at Space 220
8:20 - Soarin' LL
8:45 - Living with Land (walk on)
9:15 - Test Track (35 min)
9:20 - Boarding group called for Guardians! 3 of our 5 wanted to ride, so they bailed on the Test Track Line
10:00 - Met at Guardians exit and swapped bands so that 2 could ride again with bands from the 2 family members who didn't want to
10:40 - Test Track
11:10 - off Test Track and headed out of the park

This was a GREAT day for us riding ROTR 2x and Guardians 2x (for part of our group anyway). It all worked because we prioritized certain goals. At HS, we focused on Galaxy's Edge and Toy Story Land. In Epcot, we prioritized Soarin, Test Track, and Guardians.

 

[lilmc]

Worst food--Docking Bay 7. We couldn't believe how far the quality of the food had declined. It was absolutely wonderful a year ago, but the chicken has been turned into ground-up, overcooked gristle, with no sauce whatsoever, and no more mashed potatoes... just plain rice and undercooked broccoli. We are not picky eaters... we find most food at Disney at least "decent," and I almost NEVER call something "inedible"... but this chicken was darn close.

So agreed! The original version with herb gravy was great. The new version is a boring abomination.

 

[daisylovesdisney]

No, it was only valid for the lower tier rides like Mission Space, Spaceship Earth, Figment, Living with Land, etc.

Test Track, Soarin', Remy, FEA were all excluded.

Oh that's a bummer, thank you.

 

[Erica Ladd]

Do you need to be in the park for the 6pm VQ drop?

 

[scrappinginontario]

Do you need to be in the park for the 6pm VQ drop?

No but you must be staying at a resort that is qualified for Extended Evening Hours as I believe those are the only people who are eligible for the 6pm drop

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

Hi All! Just back from a quick MD weekend trip (arrived Saturday, came home Tuesday) and wanted to share a bit about our experience.

We arrived at the Polynesian around 10:30 a.m. Saturday and our room was ready! This was great news since we'd been up since 1:30 a.m. and really wanted to freshen up. Drove over to Disney Springs around noon and it was surprisingly crowded! Ate lunch and shopped for a bit - there is so. much. 50th merch!

On Sunday we were up bright and early for early entry at Magic Kingdom. We did purchase Genie+ and got a LL for Jungle Cruise at 7 a.m. - our return window started at 10:10 (time changed from 9 a.m. by the time I confirmed). We loved being able to clear security right at the Polynesian so we could go directly to the entrance once we got off the Monorail. We were let into MK before 8 a.m. and held around where Cheshire Cafe is. Our priorities were Peter Pan and Small World, and we accomplished both in that half hour. Once we tapped in for Jungle Cruise we booked a LL for Pirates, I think our time was around noon. In between we rode Little Mermaid standby. We went back to the hotel for lunch and an afternoon break so we ended up using the 120 minute rule to book three evening LLs - we were able to get Peter Pan, Space Mountain and Small World. We could've gotten more LLs for later in the night but my fam wasn't interested in what was left. I should note that Space, Thunder and Splash were all intermittently down during this day so I think that affected the times on the other rides. All in all though, even being a holiday weekend I thought the crowds were less than when we were there last July. One fun thing we did was to ride the Peoplemover during the fireworks - cool views.

On Monday we went to EPCOT and it was pretty busy, which we expected due to the holiday. At 7 a.m. DH tried for the Guardians virtual queue but was unsuccessful, at the same time I went for an ILL for Remy and was able to book 10 a.m. (could've gotten earlier but we weren't getting to the park until 9ish). We had two more chances at the virtual queue (1 p.m. and 6 p.m. due to extended evening hours) but we thought we might as well buy the ILL so we could have a set time and not worry about it. I was on the fence about riding so we just bought it for DH and DD - at around 7:15 a.m. we were able to get a 10:30 return time. Loved Remy and my fam was wowed by Guardians (but said it was a good call that I didn't ride!) Our priority for the day was exploring F&GF and eating at the food booths so besides Guardians and Remy, we decided to use the extended evening hours to do a any other rides. We had a mid-afternoon ADR at Space 220 lounge - that was a lot of fun and a perfect break in the day. We went back to our hotel in the late afternoon and drove back to EPCOT around 7 p.m. We did a few more food booths and planned to use the extended hours to ride Soarin', Spaceship Earth and possibly Remy if the line went down enough. I have to say, that ended up being a bust for us. Wait time for Remy was still posted around 50 minutes after 9 so we decided try later in the night hoping for a shorter wait. Posted wait for Soarin' was 20 minutes around 9:45 and we actually waited a bit longer than that. By the time we got off we lost steam to walk back to Remy. SE was a complete walk on but DD was too tired for it, so not getting on those two were on us.

All in all it was a great trip! Genie+ worked well for us at MK. Even though it was an extra expense to buy the ILLs for our EPCOT day, I liked being able to pick a specific time and be done with checking for the day. This was the first time in all our trips that we've had a rental car and we loved it! Was so nice at the end of our EPCOT day to hop in the car vs. the line for the Monorail.

 

[jwolfpack]

Here now! Time to pay it forward after months of scouring these boards for tips! (continued)

Family of 5 with kids aged 8+ | Yacht Club | 6 nights | Genie+ all days | Traveling with another family of 5, not linked on MDE | We hate lines >30 min!

Day 3 - Tues, May 31 - sleep in morning, lunch at EP, hopping to AK

• 7:00 bought $ILL FOP for 4:10-5:10, booked EE LL for 2:00-3:00
• 9:30 booked Navi LL 2:45-3:45 (planned to get Kali here, but return time was still 2:00-3:00)
• 11:30 booked Kali LL 3:20-4:20
• 12:00 lunch in Epcot
• 1:00 joined Guardians VQ with 4 hr estimated return time
• 1:30 booked Safari LL for 4:20-5:20
• 2:00 arrived at AK, used LLs back to back, left park by 5:00 - I'm not a huge AK fan, so this was a great way to manage this park for us
• 6:15 boarding group called for Guardians, wait time was 1 hour once we entered the queue and even longer when we exited

 

[Corinne]

Headed down on Saturday…is it still recommended to turn WiFi off to join virtual queue?

 

[Wood Nymph]

Headed down on Saturday…is it still recommended to turn WiFi off to join virtual queue?

You need to do a speed test to see which one is faster. There can be a significant difference and I've found that most of the times the wifi at the resort is much faster.

 

[Corinne]

Thanks Sue, in the past I never was able to score from the room/WiFi, but was able to in the park with LTE. How exactly would one test the speed?

 

[lovethattink]

Headed down on Saturday…is it still recommended to turn WiFi off to join virtual queue?

We had reservations for Epcot on Memorial Day. I was staying offsite for a convention. Close to 7am I got all ready to get a VQ. Went through the steps like I always did for Rise. And an error message popped up about not having valid tickets. There was an edit button. But til I pressed it, it was too late. We have APs and our tickets were valid. Went to GS, the cm looked everything over, went to back room for help, came back out and called IT. She told us everything looked fine, to try again at 1. And to do it this way only:

-Click the 3 lines on MDE an hour before.
-Choose your party
-A refresh button will show up. Use that instead of pulling down.
-At 12:58, hit that refresh button over and over again. It will change to join at 1pm
-click join

It worked for us! The BG said for 300 minutes, but it took 4 hours. So an hour less than originally thought.

I wore Sea Bands for motion sickness, and my stomach didn’t feel queasy at all. I promised @scrappinginontario I wouldn’t post any spoilers. But I’m happy to answer any questions about the ride if I’m sent a message.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Thanks Sue, in the past I never was able to score from the room/WiFi, but was able to in the park with LTE. How exactly would one test the speed?

Just a note of caution that a speed test does not take into account the number of guests that hop onto the Disney wifi all at the same time to try to get a BG. You would want to try your speed test very close to 7AM to truly determine Disney WiFi when their network is slammed.

Sorry, I don't have any suggestions re: an app to use but I'm sure others will respond or, you can do a search on the boards as others have discussed it in the past. I was finally able to use my own data last trip (previously not an option due to being an International guest) and my data worked great and we got everything we wanted.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Thanks Sue, in the past I never was able to score from the room/WiFi, but was able to in the park with LTE. How exactly would one test the speed?

Open the browser and type "speed test" or "download speed" into the search.

We had a room in the Yacht Club that was located right next to one of their cell towers, so the wifi from there was a lot faster than LTE. But location is everything when finding which is fastest.

 

[cjlong88]

We had reservations for Epcot on Memorial Day. I was staying offsite for a convention. Close to 7am I got all ready to get a VQ. Went through the steps like I always did for Rise. And an error message popped up about not having valid tickets. There was an edit button. But til I pressed it, it was too late. We have APs and our tickets were valid. Went to GS, the cm looked everything over, went to back room for help, came back out and called IT. She told us everything looked fine, to try again at 1. And to do it this way only:

-Click the 3 lines on MDE an hour before.
-Choose your party
-A refresh button will show up. Use that instead of pulling down.
-At 12:58, hit that refresh button over and over again. It will change to join at 1pm
-click join

It worked for us! The BG said for 300 minutes, but it took 4 hours. So an hour less than originally thought.

I wore Sea Bands for motion sickness, and my stomach didn’t feel queasy at all. I promised @scrappinginontario I wouldn’t post any spoilers. But I’m happy to answer any questions about the ride if I’m sent a message.

I just ordered sea bands today! Hoping they work for us.

 

[EPCOT-O.G.]

So I am doing the WDW Half in November, which includes after party park admission to EPCOT. Staying on site. Can I buy a ILL for Guardians if I don’t have a “reservation” for EPCOT (I have no idea if that race after party will be added to MDE)

Put another way, can you buy a ILL for a park you don’t have a current reservation for?

 

[MainMom]

You need to do a speed test to see which one is faster. There can be a significant difference and I've found that most of the times the wifi at the resort is much faster.

DD & I have been using WDW Wi-Fi (hotel and parks) and have had no problems booking G+ or ILL so far. I managed a Guardians VQ this morning on hotel Wi-Fi.

 

[serenitynow]

May 20-26 2022 Beach Club Villas stay. Great trip, fine weather and with the help of these boards, Genie + worked well for us.

At 7 am each morning, hubby and son worked their phones, one with ILL and the other with Genie +. They took the first ILL time offered but sometimes refreshed the Genie phone to get a better time.

Arrived at each park about 90 minutes before rope drop for resort guests. Rode early entry rides first, then usually had the first Genie+ ride scheduled in the 9 am time frame. After scanning our Magic bands at the Genie+ ride, immediately scheduled the next Genie+ ride. Left the original park around noon.

Returned to room for nap, swim and/or rest until 2pm and park hopped to next park, where Genie+ rides were already stacked.

Returned to first park during last 2 hours or evening entry period for deluxe guests when available to basically walk on to most rides. Rode favorite rides again till park closed.

Only stood in standby line once. That was for 25 minutes at Ratatouille ride at the end of the evening because the ride kept breaking down. Gave up after 25 minutes to go ride Frozen again. Rode Ratatouille next morning during early entry for park guests.

We had great weather which also helped with ride availability. So only stood in one line for 25 minutes the entire trip and rode everything at least once using ILL and Genie+. Always made sure we had the next Genie+ scheduled after each Genie+ ride was entered.
Zipped through the lightening lanes at each ride. No complaints.

Parks were crowded but still navigable, even using an ECV. Didn’t do any dessert or fireworks parties. Cast members were friendly and personable. Parks and bathrooms seemed clean.

Even had luck with good luck with bus and boat transportation. Never waited more than 15 minutes for a ride. Now that was totally just luck.

All in all, one of our best trips ever using ILL, Genie+ and the tips picked up here. Thanks to everyone for their advice.

 

[jwolfpack]

Just back! Time to pay it forward after months of scouring these boards for tips! (last post)

Family of 5 with kids aged 8+ | Yacht Club | 6 nights | Genie+ all days | Traveling with another family of 5, not linked on MDE | We hate lines >30 min!

Day 4 - Wed, June 1 - EE at DHS, break, EEH at MK

• 6:45 - walked to DHS
• 7:00 - tried for SDD, but return time shifted past lunch (first time this happened for us all week), settled for TSM because earliest return
• 7:30 - tapstiles open, reached ROTR entrance by 7:35, entered queue but ride did not start running until 7:55 (this was different than 2 days prior when we were allowed to ride immediately)
• 8:20 - off ROTR, intended to ride TOT but wait was already 65 min (still during EE!) so rode RNR instead (15 min). Part of my family rode MRSR (walk on) and Alien Saucers (30+ min) during this time instead.
• 9:30 - TSM LL - after we tapped in there was nothing in DHS with a return time before lunch, so I booked Jungle Cruise for evening
• Standby lines were all 65+ min, so we shopped, traded pins, and bought snacks then headed to Indiana Jones by 10:10 (30+ minutes early) - the auditorium was already 3/4 full
• 10:45 - Indiana Jones - mobile ordered Backlot Express for 11:00-11:30 pickup during show
• 11:15 - lunch at Backlot Express
• 12:00 - boat back to Yacht Club
• During resort break, I continued to check LL availability in MK for the evening. Splash was our priority since it is not open during EEH. We planned to watch fireworks, so I had to wait for return times to shift to after that. I ended up with Splash 8:50-9:50 pm and Big Thunder 9:20-10:20 pm.
• 6:35 dinner at Beaches & Cream
• 8:00 bus to MK
• 8:30 claimed area on Main Street for fireworks
• 9:20 fireworks
• 9:55 Splash LL
• 10:15 Big Thunder LL
• 10:40 SDMT $ILL (from prior day when we purchased and ride went down)
• 11:00 - EEH started - walked on Little Mermaid, Dumbo, Barnstormer, Tea Cups, and Small World while crowds died down. Peter Pan, SDMT, and Space stayed at 50+ minute posted wait. Rode speedway ~12:15 and considered leaving until someone told us Space was actually walk-on and NOT the posted 50 min wait. We rode it 5x completely walk-on starting around 12:30

Day 5 - Thurs, June 2 - sleep in, EP lunch, DHS evening

• 7 am: tried and failed for Guardians VQ, $ILL ROTR 4:00-5:00 pm, SDD LL 5:00-6:00 (3 people), TOT 2:00-3:00 (2 people)
• 10:30 am - booked MFSR LL 4:20-5:20 pm
• 12:00 - 2 of us walked to Epcot, other 3 stayed in room
• 12:30 pm - booked MMRR 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
• 1:00 pm - joined Guardians VQ (could only book for the 2 of us that had entered Epcot)
• 1:45 pm - the rest of our group met us at Epcot IG to tap in, then we all exited park and caught skyliner to DHS
• 2:05 pm - entered DHS, used TOT LL
• 2:30 pm- booked TSM 7:15-8:15 pm
• 3:00 Oga's - started using LL stack after this! ROTR, MFSR, SDD, etc..
• 4:30 pm - booked Star Tours 4:45-5:45 pm
• 6:00 pm - Sci Fi, took forever to get seated per usual

Key Takeaway:
With Genie+, it is hard to have productive mornings (with short lines) AND leave the parks for a mid-day break. You can essentially get 1 LL selection, 1 EE ride, and 1 standby ride in before most standby lines are 60+ minute waits and LL return times shift to afternoon. Magic Kingdom is really the only park where this is not the case.

We used to have magical (productive!) mornings by combining a good rope drop plan with 3 fast passes booked beginning around 10:30 am, but on this trip, we found that building a stack for the afternoons actually made much more sense.

 

[jlstwinmommy]

Just back from our trip May 30 - June 4. My extended family includes my parents, my sister and her family, my family of 5 (which this trip included me, my DS who is 24, my twins who are 18 and a friend of my DD who is 17). We were there twice during COVID (Jan 2021 and June 2021). While we still had a GREAT time, I do NOT like Genie+ at all. Some notes from our trip:

My mother uses disability access as does my sister's daughter. With Genie+ (and changes to DAS), it is now impossible to ride anything together as a family. We ended up only spending time with our family at dinner which was disappointing as we all do like to ride some things together. There was one day where my mother toured with us and she was able to get DAS passes that matched up with our Genie+. This was in MK. The other parks - forget it.

We had the issue reported here with not being able to purchase Genie+ before 7am on the day we wanted it. We were staying at SSR, so I was not in the mood to walk to the Carriage House every morning to get it resolved, so we sucked it up and dealt with it. It did put us at a huge disadvantage when trying to get good times for the rides we wanted. I was never able to get Remy at all. We did ride Remy once at the end of the night with a 45 min wait or so. The last day (6/4) it finally worked correctly.

We had good luck getting several Genie+ rides at MK, but the other parks were not great. I was only able to get 2 rides at HS and EP (didn't try to use it at AK). After 1pm, the only rides available at HS are Muppets and Star Tours (which don't need Genie+) or sometimes very late rides, but we don't typically stay all day in 1 park and like to hop in the afternoons/evenings. Even going from HS to EP with Genie+, we had a hard time finding anything at EP except Imagination and the Living Seas. It was disappointing for sure.

We were able to ride Guardians (amazing ride!! family favorite for sure). We paid for ILL one day (so we would be sure to get it). Couldn't get the extended hours VQ (that went FAST), but we did get the VQ on our EP day. My sister changed her last day reservation to EP to try to ride it again and was successful in getting the VQ that day as well. She was always the one who got us Rise when it was VQ. Not sure how she is so quick.

We rope dropped AK and HS one morning to get FoP and RotR. FoP we waiting maybe 25 min. RotR was probably 30 min. We were not crazy early getting to either park (certainly not in front of the massive crowds), but we were still successful. By the time we got off FoP, the wait for Navi was 50 min so we went to the Safari. We ended up waiting for over an hour for that. In hindsight, I maybe should have sucked it up and gotten Genie+ that day just for the Safari. That was the longest wait of the trip. We also rope dropped HS another day to ride ToT. We didn't get there until a few minutes after 8am, but still only waited about 20min so not terrible.

We utilized single rider for Everest, Smugglers, and Test Track. Best thing ever. Love single rider. One day even walked straight on Test Track with no wait at all. Never waited more than 5 min using single rider.

Overall, it was a great trip. My DD friend first trip ever. She had a great time. Genie+ definitely changed our touring style a bit, but we still rode most everything we wanted to ride. I do miss the old FP system (shoot - either FP system - both were better than this disaster).