Rumored Changes to G+

[Minnie1222]

And this is my fears for the end of the month. Exactly.

Fear not! Everyone is different. You may end up having a good experience with Genie+.

I've used G+ for probably 30 days in the past. If it were such a horrible product, I would have quit a long time ago.

 

[SL6827]

There are some Disney Executives out there that need to read this post in it's entirety.

Amen!

 

[Genie+]

There are some Disney Executives out there that need to read this post in it's entirety.

I think they should be required to take turns experiencing the parks under various typical conditions.

They can hire me!

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

Fear not! Everyone is different. You may end up having a good experience with Genie+.

I've used G+ for probably 30 days in the past. If it were such a horrible product, I would have quit a long time ago.

exatly my borther and sister in law used it last year with thei twin girls and are down ther again now and probobly using it again because they found it great

 

[MJJME]

7DMT seems to never meet demand so why not charge extra if they can. But I just don’t think 7DMT is the ‘make or break’ ride it used to be, and even less so once MK has 2 newer shiner rides.

I get the feeling people won’t want to miss the new Tiana ride on a trip or rare park visit, where 7DMT seems more acceptable. A big part of ILL psychology is FOMO. Will Tiana seem more important to accomplish? And if 7DMT is in Genie+, how much can that increase G+ sales &/or maximum price tolerance?

Look at RotR. People still buy ILL because they want to ride the new attraction and don’t want to risk it being a hassle or missing out. 2.5 years later and people still pay for ILLs even though it’s relatively easy to get on around park open/close. It’s not uncommon to see wait times drop after 5pm, but even on days where TP or TD predict that to happen, people buy ILL anyway because they don’t know or don’t care. Alot of people just look at how high the waits can get and judge from there. Possible high wait and possible missing out on new ride otherwise equals ILL purchase.

View attachment 826862
View attachment 826863
Notice all the green at the end. What used to be rare green days here and there has become mostly green.

People still buy ILL for RotR. They still buy FoP too because it feels like it can ‘make or break’ their AK day.

Not everybody will visit within the first 6 months of Tiana’s opening, and some buy ILL after first time too.

We’ll see how sustainable their choice is. I can’t see Tiana opening without an ILL though, or 3 ILLs in one park & G+.

I think the main reason people still buy ILLs for rides where they can easily ride if they have a good touring plan is because they can choose their return times..........If you are not going to the park until after 1pm the lines can be long but stacking and ILL's make it a lot easier to navigate

 

[BrianL]

I think the main reason people still buy ILLs for rides where they can easily ride if they have a good touring plan is because they can choose their return times..........If you are not going to the park until after 1pm the lines can be long but stacking and ILL's make it a lot easier to navigate

I have only bought ILL for rides that you could not do Standby at all - Guardians and TRON. For those, if I wanted to ride, I had to pay. For Guardians, I did the free VQ once, but one afternoon impulse bought ILL. For TRON, I found it impossible to get the VQ, so it was buy or miss it (I have only had one day to attempt this - it may be better now).

 

[MPD]

We've used Genie+ 3 times now and found it easy and convenient. We go in less busy times - most recently January 6-13 - and that helps, I'm sure. But it's well worth it for us. I don't feel like I was on my phone all day, but perceptions certainly vary. I was also "friends" with the FastPass monster in its varying iterations.

 

[Sparrow'sLady]

Do we know when these changes will be announced?

 

[soniam]

Do we know when these changes will be announced?

Nope

 

[Lumpy1106]

I've never had trouble learning a new system, and we've been visiting about every 2 years. Before our last visit (August 2023), I spent weeks carefully researching G+ so I'd be facile with it.

Nonetheless, with G+, we hit a wall. We hated using it on the days we bought it (burying my nose in my phone all day, pounding the app, constantly jockeying for more convenient G+ times or trying to find a random reservation for an otherwise "sold out" attraction, instead of enjoying my vacation), and we hated not having it on the days we didn't buy it (and getting constantly shunted aside in lines in favor of G+/DAS guests, which is demoralizing and makes you feel like a second-class citizen by the hundredth time -- conversely, when we did have G+, we felt like entitled d*&$#-bags passing all those people in standby).

While we felt that all the previous systems (FP, FP+, or the standby-only-plus-some-VQ during COVID) were fairly egalitarian and helped to make our trip objectively better or easier to plan ahead of time, the very existence of G+ made this last trip objectively worse for my family, in the areas that matter most to them: ride access, short waits, and the ability to relax and just enjoy being in the moment. For the first time since we started taking the kids in 2012, we came back from WDW with a bad taste in our mouths, and made no plan to come back in 2 years (or ever), until Disney puts something better in place.

Wow - so refreshing to see someone else say it too. I have no problem using it from a technical aspect and can stack with the best of them, but everything else you have said here is EXACTLY the experience my family and I had. We are DVC members and I've been going DL since I was a kid (almost 50 years now). We have ZERO interest in going back right now - because of G+.

 

[MJJME]

Wow - so refreshing to see someone else say it too. I have no problem using it from a technical aspect and can stack with the best of them, but everything else you have said here is EXACTLY the experience my family and I had. We are DVC members and I've been going DL since I was a kid (almost 50 years now). We have ZERO interest in going back right now - because of G+.

I was a major FP+ supporter and was absolutely livid when they switched to Genie+.

But I have to say I think Genie+ is a superior product ***** with a few tweaks ******

(of course except for the cost but let’s be real here, that was coming and is going nowhere)

So knowing that free is always better than a cost:
,
1) If they just eliminate the 7am every day thing, Genie+ will be a home run.
2) I would also allow re rides (even if it’s restricted to a certain time of day, meaning if you ride at 10am you can only re ride after 4pm based on availability)

 

[MrBarraclough]

The lack of a pricing schedule makes it easier for them to increase amount of higher price days without much fanfare.

That has to be one of the big virtues of G+'s dynamic pricing, from Disney's perspective. They can subtly tweak the pricing without having to announce anything, raising the average daily price without drawing much attention.

 

[MrBarraclough]

But I have to say I think Genie+ is a superior product ***** with a few tweaks ******

Most certainly a superior product. Kevin Perjurer very ably demonstrated that in the Defunctland documentary on the history of FastPass. In terms of highest average wait times and lowest average number of attractions experienced, FP+ was the worst of all possible worlds. Most importantly, it was the worst in terms of benefiting the smallest minority of users at the largest expense to the experiences of others.

I am somewhat amazed at the degree to which so many people are hoping for changes to G+ to make it more like FP+, but not entirely amazed. I presume they are likely the people who were most adept at using FP+ and saw the most benefit, so they want to defend/return to the system that worked best for them. That makes me wonder if my own preference for G+ is less objective and more of simply a bias towards the system I know than I would like to think.

That being said, I think some objective points can be made in favor of G+ as it exists currently:

1. Like the original paper FastPass, G+ resets every day. First time or infrequent visitors who only learn of the system, or only realize its importance, when waiting in standby queues on the first day of their visits while getting passed by others in the lightning lane have a chance to learn and make use of it for the rest of their trip. With FP+ these people had been completely screwed 60 days before arriving at WDW and they didn't even know it until it was far too late.
2. Visitors can decide whether to buy it day by day, according to current conditions and their own (constantly changing) time and cost preferences. They aren't forced to make decisions days, weeks, or even months in advance.
3. Real time dynamic pricing is more efficient at allocating a scarce resource than static pricing, especially in the face of highly volatile demand. On super high demand days where G+ sells out, access to lightning lanes goes to those who value it most that day, not to whomever happened to be refreshing their webbrowser one morning X days prior.
4. As mentioned above, FP+ did the worst of the line skipping/virtual queuing systems tested in Kevin Perjurer's simulation. G+ ameliorates some of the worst FP+ flaws by having much more restricted stacking and the ability to sell out for the day.
5. That G+ is not an included perk with anything else (such as staying at a Disney resort) and cannot be purchased in advance, being available only day-of, is a feature, not a bug. Disney can vary not only the pricing, but also the number of subscriptions available that day. That is a huge advantage for operational management. If popular attractions go down for long periods, backing up the lightning lanes, Disney can raise the price of G+ to slow down purchases or even just stop selling G+ that day altogether. The ability of G+ to sell out for the day is a strength.

Sure, there are probably some tweaks that could be made that might make G+ more enjoyable to use, but any major changes to make it resemble FP+ would be a significant step backwards. Maybe allow subscriptions to be purchased the night before after park close or 9:00pm or some other time earlier than midnight, or conversely, allow purchases only in the morning like an hour or so before lightning lanes can be booked. I see a lot of complaints about needing to book your first LL at 7:00am, as though that is some ungodly hour. That seems silly to me. But if they pushed it back to 30 to 60 minutes before early entry begins, it wouldn't bother me. Though I suspect we'd then see a lot of whining about trying to book LLs while in transit to the parks for early entry. The only tweak that I might suggest is having the 2 hour stacking window start whenever you book your first LL regardless of park opening time, though I presume there's a good reason why that is not the policy already.

 

[vinotinto]

I don’t know what I hated more, having to get up at 7am on vacation (G+) or having an inflexible schedule set ahead of time with no possibility to change due to weather, whim or spontaneity because if you made changes close to the date, the good ones were gone or were super late in the day.

Honestly, the only change I would make is to be able to buy G+ and LL+ the afternoon before (say 5pm) and make your first selection then too (say 5pm).

 

[MJJME]

I don’t know what I hated more, having to get up at 7am on vacation (G+) or having an inflexible schedule set ahead of time with no possibility to change due to weather, whim or spontaneity because if you made changes close to the date, the good ones were gone or were super late in the day.

Honestly, the only change I would make is to be able to buy G+ and LL+ the afternoon before (say 5pm) and make your first selection then too (say 5pm).

For day guests. For resort guests, 1 week before for length of stay.

 

[irlandaise]

Honestly, the only change I would make is to be able to buy G+ and LL+ the afternoon before (say 5pm) and make your first selection then too (say 5pm).

They probably want confirmation that visitors are in the area the day they plan to use the passes so they don't have a bunch of "Well, we thought we'd be at DL/WDW that day" unused passes. But they could allow pre-selections and then require some sort of confirmation by, say, late morning the chosen day to verify that you still plan to use them, or they're released for other guests.

 

[mamaofsix]

They probably want confirmation that visitors are in the area the day they plan to use the passes so they don't have a bunch of "Well, we thought we'd be at DL/WDW that day" unused passes. But they could allow pre-selections and then require some sort of confirmation by, say, late morning the chosen day to verify that you still plan to use them, or they're released for other guests.

This could be easily solved by only allowing pre-selections for onsite guests with a valid hotel reservation.

 

[ChipnDale79]

I was a major FP+ supporter and was absolutely livid when they switched to Genie+.

But I have to say I think Genie+ is a superior product ***** with a few tweaks ******

(of course except for the cost but let’s be real here, that was coming and is going nowhere)

So knowing that free is always better than a cost:
,
1) If they just eliminate the 7am every day thing, Genie+ will be a home run.
2) I would also allow re rides (even if it’s restricted to a certain time of day, meaning if you ride at 10am you can only re ride after 4pm based on availability)

if you make those 2 changes, isnt it just fast pass plus but with a charge and without the prescheduling?

to me those 2 things are the most restrictive things (minus the price) of genie +

 

[ChipnDale79]

This could be easily solved by only allowing pre-selections for onsite guests with a valid hotel reservation.

THIS. thats a nice perk to pay for staying at disney hotels, and i would support a method that only includes disney resorts, not the "good neighbor" ones, or whatever they call them.

 

[ChipnDale79]

Honestly, the only change I would make is to be able to buy G+ and LL+ the afternoon before (say 5pm) and make your first selection then too (say 5pm).

i could get behind that. Even for someone to lives on the east coast and is used to EST, 7 am on vacation can be brutal. I really feel bad for those that are used to different time zones.