No genie+, No early entry and No $LL… strategy talk??

[travelingmom4]

Well I know this won’t be the most discussed topic on these great boards but I’m going to make the best of it so where can I find any chatter/strategy/planning around this scenario? No early morning, no genie+ and no $LL? We’ve been to WDW enough that we have a keen awareness of how this will impact our days. Please direct me to the place on these forums or elsewhere if this is a thing being discussed? I haven’t yet found anything. Thank you!

 

[ceeceegee]

I'd consider a Touring Plans subscription. Its like $20 for a year and you can create custom touring plans with specific rides/shows/restaurants and can also put in times you plan to be in the park. You can have them "optimize" your plan or move things around as you want. Can also download app with estimated actual wait times and move things on the fly in real time. I've been using for years and love my subscription and tweaking my plans! Part of the fun for me lol.
Note that I haven't been since G+ yet, but am going week after Thanksgiving and we are going to try to avoid paying extra if we can.

 

[Miffy]

OP, I don't know where to direct you on this board except to say that you can enter some search terms and see what you can come up with.

However . . . when you say no early mornings, are you indicating that you're not going to rope-drop? Because if you're staying onsite, rope-dropping gets you in a half hour before off-site guests. It's very helpful.

But let's say you're not going to rope-drop, since that's what your post indicates. And maybe you're not going to get to any park before late morning.

The only thing I can think of is if you don't mind staying late, many top-tier rides have much lower wait times close to park closing. The standby times posted are often exaggerated. So if you want to do RotR or FoP, for two examples of attractions that can have hours-long lines, get in line for either about 1/2 hour before the park closes and you won't have to wait as long.

But . . . without rope-dropping, without early entry, without G+ or ILL$, you are going to be waiting in long lines for nearly everything. Be prepared. You can consult MDE and see what the wait times are, so that should help you pick which attraction you're going to wait for next.

There are some things that don't have huge waits ever, like Philharmagic at MK. The last couple of times I've been, Dinosaur at DAK hasn't been a long wait. Spaceship Earth at Epcot may have a gigantic-seeming line, but it moves pretty quickly. The only thing I can think of at DHS that doesn't have much of a wait is the Mickey & Minnie vacation film. Everything else has long, long lines.

Make sure you have things to entertain your family while waiting in line. You don't say when you're going, but if it's in the summer, come prepared for the heat.

One thing that could be helpful to you is rain. Because when it rains the parks often clear out and the lines get very short. So if it rains, don't leave the park!

 

[DeeBee3]

I would agree with above and just put some search words in. It is hard to pinpoint sometimes.

We have not purchased Genie + yet - one trip was right before they introduced it Aug 2021, and last spring break. This time I plan on using for MK and HS. I haven't decided on Epcot. We are going during Christmas so I know to expect insanity so I'm buying it because of that. My kids will melt down (as will I) if we are waiting all day.

I have bought ILL for Remy because it was the one thing everyone wanted to do and my rule is no lines longer than 45 mins. Even that is pushing it.

I would recommend reconsidering one of your factors. Either do early days without Genie or ILL, OR be prepared to wait and stay late at night. Of course, it does depend on when you go and what your party is (kids, adults, etc).

Let us know if you find any good info!

 

[robotsneedlove2]

Lots of people tour this way. But that doesn't make for splashy post were you can list the 15 rides you were able to get in in ONE day.

My family never rope drops. I'm not a fan of Genie+, the one time I used it to stack rides for the evening at Magic Kingdom they weren't needed, most lines were very short in the evenings. Because Genie+ pushes people up at 7AM and into the park early, the last 2 hours in a park are great.

I'm a fan of Extra Magic Hours for Deluxe guests. We're DVC so we qualify for these hours, and plan our day to take advantage of them.

My advice would be to know what rides are important to you, and come up with a plan on how to ride. During fireworks or a parade, last ride of the night, or willing to wait for it. I find the FOP queue interesting enough that I'll stand in it for an hour wait. If a ride is on your Must Do list, consider buying the ILL$ if it's available.

Many rides that have short waits are now family favorites for us! Dinosaur in AK, People Mover and Tiki Birds at MK. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a better coaster than the Mine Train, and has a much better wait.

 

[travelingmom4]

I'd consider a Touring Plans subscription. Its like $20 for a year and you can create custom touring plans with specific rides/shows/restaurants and can also put in times you plan to be in the park. You can have them "optimize" your plan or move things around as you want. Can also download app with estimated actual wait times and move things on the fly in real time. I've been using for years and love my subscription and tweaking my plans! Part of the fun for me lol.
Note that I haven't been since G+ yet, but am going week after Thanksgiving and we are going to try to avoid paying extra if we can.

We love touring plans too!! I was curious how it has worked since Genie+. I’ve been toying with this idea too so I guess we will have to also try it out! I’m assuming since the wait times are pretty accurate and in real time it should help us strategize. We may be jumping all over the parks but we will have just got off a cruise so the extra walking will do us some good.

 

[travelingmom4]

OP, I don't know where to direct you on this board except to say that you can enter some search terms and see what you can come up with.

However . . . when you say no early mornings, are you indicating that you're not going to rope-drop? Because if you're staying onsite, rope-dropping gets you in a half hour before off-site guests. It's very helpful.

But let's say you're not going to rope-drop, since that's what your post indicates. And maybe you're not going to get to any park before late morning.

The only thing I can think of is if you don't mind staying late, many top-tier rides have much lower wait times close to park closing. The standby times posted are often exaggerated. So if you want to do RotR or FoP, for two examples of attractions that can have hours-long lines, get in line for either about 1/2 hour before the park closes and you won't have to wait as long.

But . . . without rope-dropping, without early entry, without G+ or ILL$, you are going to be waiting in long lines for nearly everything. Be prepared. You can consult MDE and see what the wait times are, so that should help you pick which attraction you're going to wait for next.

There are some things that don't have huge waits ever, like Philharmagic at MK. The last couple of times I've been, Dinosaur at DAK hasn't been a long wait. Spaceship Earth at Epcot may have a gigantic-seeming line, but it moves pretty quickly. The only thing I can think of at DHS that doesn't have much of a wait is the Mickey & Minnie vacation film. Everything else has long, long lines.

Make sure you have things to entertain your family while waiting in line. You don't say when you're going, but if it's in the summer, come prepared for the heat.

One thing that could be helpful to you is rain. Because when it rains the parks often clear out and the lines get very short. So if it rains, don't leave the park!

Hello, and thank you for the great response and tips. We are gathering some ideas while waiting in lines, I have fond memories are playing games while waiting in lines so we will make the best of it! We will only be there for two days in early December.
Your question about rope drop prompted another question….so we are not staying onsite so we will not be able to get into the parks with the early entry BUT I’m all for getting in RIGHT at the time the park opens for the off site guests. Do you know what time we should line up? So I guess, in a way, we are rope dropping, but for off site guests. Is that still considered rope dropping?

 

[travelingmom4]

I would agree with above and just put some search words in. It is hard to pinpoint sometimes.

We have not purchased Genie + yet - one trip was right before they introduced it Aug 2021, and last spring break. This time I plan on using for MK and HS. I haven't decided on Epcot. We are going during Christmas so I know to expect insanity so I'm buying it because of that. My kids will melt down (as will I) if we are waiting all day.

I have bought ILL for Remy because it was the one thing everyone wanted to do and my rule is no lines longer than 45 mins. Even that is pushing it.

I would recommend reconsidering one of your factors. Either do early days without Genie or ILL, OR be prepared to wait and stay late at night. Of course, it does depend on when you go and what your party is (kids, adults, etc).

Let us know if you find any good info!

Thank you for your insight! I’ll have to do some searching on here.
I’ll add our schedule here after we do it. It will be for 2 days only in early December. This is a kind of bonus trip we weren’t expecting so we’re just going to go with the flow and adjust our expectations significantly. Long lines included. .
We’ve considered making a list of every ride we want to ride and our wait limit for each one. . We’ve been enough we have a good sense of what’s worth what to us.

 

[travelingmom4]

Lots of people tour this way. But that doesn't make for splashy post were you can list the 15 rides you were able to get in in ONE day.

My family never rope drops. I'm not a fan of Genie+, the one time I used it to stack rides for the evening at Magic Kingdom they weren't needed, most lines were very short in the evenings. Because Genie+ pushes people up at 7AM and into the park early, the last 2 hours in a park are great.

I'm a fan of Extra Magic Hours for Deluxe guests. We're DVC so we qualify for these hours, and plan our day to take advantage of them.

My advice would be to know what rides are important to you, and come up with a plan on how to ride. During fireworks or a parade, last ride of the night, or willing to wait for it. I find the FOP queue interesting enough that I'll stand in it for an hour wait. If a ride is on your Must Do list, consider buying the ILL$ if it's available.

Many rides that have short waits are now family favorites for us! Dinosaur in AK, People Mover and Tiki Birds at MK. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a better coaster than the Mine Train, and has a much better wait.

Such a good point about the posts with less rides ridden in a day are not going to be as popular!! I can’t imagine why.

That’s so true about people getting into the parks earlier because of genie+, I hadn’t considered that. We’re planning on getting in right when off site guests can get in and staying until it closes, we’re only there two days so we’re going to squeeze it all in!

Thank you for sharing your advice! I think we will just make a short list of rides and a game plan like you said and the. enjoy the memories regardless of amount we ride.

 

[Miffy]

Hello, and thank you for the great response and tips. We are gathering some ideas while waiting in lines, I have fond memories are playing games while waiting in lines so we will make the best of it! We will only be there for two days in early December.
Your question about rope drop prompted another question….so we are not staying onsite so we will not be able to get into the parks with the early entry BUT I’m all for getting in RIGHT at the time the park opens for the off site guests. Do you know what time we should line up? So I guess, in a way, we are rope dropping, but for off site guests. Is that still considered rope dropping?

I'm glad I could be of some help.

Yes, it is still rope-dropping if you're there at the official park opening time. I've been staying onsite for a while, so I'm not totally sure how that works, but I'd get in line at least 1/2 hour before the official opening, maybe even 45 or 60 minutes. I'm sure someone else will respond who's actually been doing this.

A LOT of people will be there with you. Most of WDW's guests stay off-site.

You might want to start off with Haunted Mansion, since the line gets brutal as the day goes on and it doesn't open until the official park opening time, so you've got a good shot at a not-bad line. Only rides in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are open for early entry. I think the usual advice is to head to your left as you enter and do rides in Liberty Square, Frontierland, and Adventureland first, then after you exhaust yourself, head back to Fantasyland and Tomorrowland!

I admit that I've been plying the heck out of G+ and ILL$, so in some ways I'm the wrong person to be answering your questions. People do have strategies for no G+/ILL$. But you definitely will be waiting in line, which can actually be fun if it's approached the right way. Although waiting for 4 hours, for example, is not fun.

I'm not sure what parks you're going to. The 4-hour waits are at the top 2 attractions: FoP (at DAK) and RotR (at DHS). Both are amazing. Both can be conquered without gigantic waits if you get in line 1/2 hour before park closing. FoP has a pretty neat queue--well, the inside part. RotR's queue is nothing to write home about, but the attraction itself is astounding. Like nothing else WDW has ever done. So, yeah, I'm recommending it!

But mostly, have fun. It sounds like you're already having fun. Anticipation is a lot of the fun of WDW.

 

[fireflyer]

Hands-down, TouringPlans subscription is absolutely the BEST way to get the most bang for your buck for a no-Genie+ day.

It’s cheap and lasts a full year. It lets you rearrange your order of attractions and tells you what your wait time will be at each, for that specific time of day, and your walking distance between that ride in the next, so you can literally plan out your whole day down to the minute. They have a huge database and lots of years of calculations. I’ve used this every time I’ve gone to the parks, and it never fails to help us maximize our days worth of rides and attractions.

For folks using Genie, it messes up your Touring Plan because Genie doesn’t allow ride reservations til day-of, and can throw you way across the park at a time of day you’d wanted to be elsewhere. Genie basically just forces people to keep traversing the park all day.

I’ve had numerous 35+ rides/day during spring breaks in prior years, by using Touring Plans to reduce line waits and walking time.

Genie is such a DOWNGRADE to the park experience.

 

[Miffy]

Hands-down, TouringPlans subscription is absolutely the BEST way to get the most bang for your buck for a no-Genie+ day.

It’s cheap and lasts a full year. It lets you rearrange your order of attractions and tells you what your wait time will be at each, for that specific time of day, and your walking distance between that ride in the next, so you can literally plan out your whole day down to the minute. They have a huge database and lots of years of calculations. I’ve used this every time I’ve gone to the parks, and it never fails to help us maximize our days worth of rides and attractions.

For folks using Genie, it messes up your Touring Plan because Genie doesn’t allow ride reservations til day-of, and can throw you way across the park at a time of day you’d wanted to be elsewhere. Genie basically just forces people to keep traversing the park all day.

I’ve had numerous 35+ rides/day during spring breaks in prior years, by using Touring Plans to reduce line waits and walking time.

Genie is such a DOWNGRADE to the park experience.

This is so interesting. I understand that it worked in the past, but G+ has put a different spin on things. Have you used this in the G+ era?

 

[fireflyer]

This is so interesting. I understand that it worked in the past, but G+ has put a different spin on things. Have you used this in the G+ era?

As I mentioned, hands-down the best in a non-genie environment. And as I mentioned, Genie manipulates people into cross-crossing the park inefficiently. Touring Plans allows you to plan your schedule in advance to either minimize your walking, or minimize your line-standing. Genie is designed to MAXimize your walking.

March was the first time I used Genie. We were able to adhere to some parts of the Touring Plan we’d designed, but some parts got sabotaged by lack of choice in the $ILL times available. FYI You can adjust & improve your Touring Plan mid-day to reflect new $ILL reservations, but we didn’t want to waste time doing that.

Touring Plans was so good previously that I half-suspect Disney forced the new “same-day reservations” strategy just to sabotage the pre-planners. Disney was getting outsmarted by a 3rd party. I find it odd that Disney now disallows any type of park pre-planning EXCEPT for dining reservations. For some reason it’s okay for people to plan a restaurant in advance, but not a ride…

I’m trying to decide whether a March’23 visit is a wise use of vacay $$ or not. I DID renew my Touring Plans annual subscription because it helps me greatly in understanding what areas of the park are the best during each part of the day. And last year it was useful for the first third of each day. (I was able to guesstimate the morning reservations somewhat accurately.).

Also, Touring Plans has a “Lines” app in which users report line-entry & ride-mounting times. The app provides real-time data about the wait-times, from actual park visitors who participate. Disney’s posted wait-times are seldom accurate and are mostly intended to manipulate riders’ decisions about waiting or not. The Lines app reflects actual in-progress waiting, not lies.

My comments reflect my opinion only. I do have my old park itineraries for more than 8 years (in my Touring Plans account), and it’s fun to look back at them. I hope the company can find a way to thrive in this Genie mess that Disney has created.

 

[Miffy]

As I mentioned, hands-down the best in a non-genie environment. And as I mentioned, Genie manipulates people into cross-crossing the park inefficiently. Touring Plans allows you to plan your schedule in advance to either minimize your walking, or minimize your line-standing. Genie is designed to MAXimize your walking.

March was the first time I used Genie. We were able to adhere to some parts of the Touring Plan we’d designed, but some parts got sabotaged by lack of choice in the $ILL times available. FYI You can adjust & improve your Touring Plan mid-day to reflect new $ILL reservations, but we didn’t want to waste time doing that.

Touring Plans was so good previously that I half-suspect Disney forced the new “same-day reservations” strategy just to sabotage the pre-planners. Disney was getting outsmarted by a 3rd party. I find it odd that Disney now disallows any type of park pre-planning EXCEPT for dining reservations. For some reason it’s okay for people to plan a restaurant in advance, but not a ride…

I’m trying to decide whether a March’23 visit is a wise use of vacay $$ or not. I DID renew my Touring Plans annual subscription because it helps me greatly in understanding what areas of the park are the best during each part of the day. And last year it was useful for the first third of each day. (I was able to guesstimate the morning reservations somewhat accurately.).

Also, Touring Plans has a “Lines” app in which users report line-entry & ride-mounting times. The app provides real-time data about the wait-times, from actual park visitors who participate. Disney’s posted wait-times are seldom accurate and are mostly intended to manipulate riders’ decisions about waiting or not. The Lines app reflects actual in-progress waiting, not lies.

My comments reflect my opinion only. I do have my old park itineraries for more than 8 years (in my Touring Plans account), and it’s fun to look back at them. I hope the company can find a way to thrive in this Genie mess that Disney has created.

Thank you so much, @fireflyer, for taking the time to write this very helpful reply.

 

[ceeceegee]

Just back and used touring plans and their Lines app almost exclusively and still works as good as ever to avoid long lines! I felt like we were always a step or two ahead of the crowds as lines would get long shortly AFTER we entered (we saw as we exited the rides). We did have early entry and used for SDMT, FOP and Slinky but if you plan to stay late you could do those at end of night instead of first thing.

 

[hsmamato2]

Just back and used touring plans and their Lines app almost exclusively and still works as good as ever to avoid long lines! I felt like we were always a step or two ahead of the crowds as lines would get long shortly AFTER we entered (we saw as we exited the rides). We did have early entry and used for SDMT, FOP and Slinky but if you plan to stay late you could do those at end of night instead of first thing.

good info!

 

[DisneyMama811]

Just back and used touring plans and their Lines app almost exclusively and still works as good as ever to avoid long lines! I felt like we were always a step or two ahead of the crowds as lines would get long shortly AFTER we entered (we saw as we exited the rides). We did have early entry and used for SDMT, FOP and Slinky but if you plan to stay late you could do those at end of night instead of first thing.

using early entry what was your wait time like for SDMT? this is a high priority ride for us to try out and I'm trying to prepare my kids for what wait times will be like

 

[CapeCodTenor]

So glad I found this thread, thanks for all the great advice. I find it interesting that to create an itinerary using Touring Plans I have to know when I’m going to take breaks and have my meal. Lunch for us will depend on when we get hungry, at least for the day we go to the Magic Kingdom. So with that said, did you stick to your break and meal time that you put down for the itinerary, or did you break from that? Make sense?

Thanks

 

[Jack Kerouac]

So glad I found this thread, thanks for all the great advice. I find it interesting that to create an itinerary using Touring Plans I have to know when I’m going to take breaks and have my meal. Lunch for us will depend on when we get hungry, at least for the day we go to the Magic Kingdom. So with that said, did you stick to your break and meal time that you put down for the itinerary, or did you break from that? Make sense?

Thanks

We have Touring Plans and while I've messed around on it to create itineraries, I will likely get to work on them closer to the one month mark since we still don't have ADRs since we are outside 60 days and we have to do the DAS interview for our oldest son at the 30 day mark. Once we are in the parks, I'm going to use the created itineraries as guidelines, not strict Danny Tanner schedules that everyone throws away.