The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[wdw&sonny]

Am I able to book at 7a on day of check in? Is that automatic or do I have to do something to be sure I will be active at 7a? i.e. do I have to check in to the resort remotely or something?

 

[Disturbia]

Am I able to book at 7a on day of check in? Is that automatic or do I have to do something to be sure I will be active at 7a? i.e. do I have to check in to the resort remotely or something?

Yes. You need park 1 reservations, your tickets (on site resort reservations for LLIA$ at 7 am) for booking Genie+ at 7 am (and park hoppers for everyone if hopping). I would check in online.

Make sure all your friends and family show up on MDE (you can try booking dining). Check height requirements.

 

[Disturbia]

Also, budget time for frustration if HS is the Park you‘re booking for. I had to log in and copy and paste a code from my email 4 times for MMRR. Payment screen would freeze. SDD and ROTR (LLIA$) were booked using 2 different devices. It took us 15-20 mins to get these done.

 

[mousegear]

Thank you everyone for some wonderful tips and strategies. A couple of days before our trip, I read quite a few pages of this thread trying to learn new Genie+. This trip is just DS 18 and me so two abled adults.
I bought Genie+ when I woke up around 6 am on Jan 2, Sunday. We plan to spend the morning at Epcot and the evening at MK.

1. At 7am, DS was tasked with Virtual Que for Remy and he got BG11.
I went for TT LL and got a 10:10 return time.
2. We are staying at BWV so we went for Early Entry and was held by Canada until close to 8:30. We quickly walked to Soarin and were out by 8:50. Soarin's wait was still 10 minutes after we were off. Living with the Land wasn't running yet. We rode Nemo and walked our way to ride Mission Space. However, we were called for Remy and this was 9:20 ish.
3. After Remy, we made it to Mission Space and rode Green as I have motion sickness problems lately.
4. By @ 10:00 we rode TT and after tapping, I searched for our next G+ and after a few reload, got Soarin 10:50.
5. After Soarin, we walked our way over to Italy for our ADR.

I started to stack G+ for our MK evening.
6. Right after scanning Soarin, I got Jungle Cruise for 7-8pm. On my phone, as soon as I got G+ i had 2 hour count down started so I could get next G+
7 I also bought Seven Dwarves since we haven't ridden that last couple of trips. It was available for 9:15-10:15
8. @ 1pm, it was our next availability so booked Splash Mt for 7:40-8:40.
9. @ 3pm, booked Thunter Mt for 8:10-9:10
10. @ 5pm, booked Peter Pan popped up after several reload for 6:10-7:10.

So after dinner at our villa, we arrived @ MK by 6pm and went straight to Peter Pan.
11. After tapping into Peter Pan, I got Pirates for 8:00-9:00.
12. After Pirates, I immediately got It's a Small World for 8:30-9:30

So we got 7 G+ rides and thought it was totally worth it. There were more we could have done if we choose to walk across the park but we tried to save our legs a little and stayed mostly in the Adventure/Frontier and then to Fantasy Land. So even on a crowd 10 day, it's doable. We also rested in the room from 1-5:30pm.

I will post today's results soon.

 

[leeniewdw]

Another thing I am amazed by with reading through this thread is how many people spend such little time in the parks. I get that many are there for a week. Maybe it's just me but when I go to parks for vacation I am in the parks for as long as I can.

We have always taken a break midday. When our kids were little they needed naps and then as they got older, they liked pool time or water park (and we liked to get off our feet). We had a big gap of about 15 years when they got busy with sports/activities and we returned as empty nesters in March 2018. We realized how much we loved the later winter escape and ALSO still wanted our midday break and rest/pool time. We've gone twice since March 2018 (short visits each time) and have kept this strategy. We normally rope-drop and get a lot accomplished in doing so. This last trip we had 2 park days but one was a travel day where we did afternoon DHS + MK AH and decided not to try rope dropping the next day either.

G+/ILL are expensive, but they worked perfectly for our trip in early Dec. My DH thought it was a miracle to just walk from MFSR, ROTR, ST, MMRR, ToT, TSM, RnRC and never wait even though we got to the parks around 3pm. If it hadn't been sunny, we might have skipped the midday breaks (or made them shorter), but honestly sitting in warm sunshine in December poolside while enjoying a drink was pretty wonderful too.

 

[princesslover]

Thank you everyone for some wonderful tips and strategies. A couple of days before our trip, I read quite a few pages of this thread trying to learn new Genie+. This trip is just DS 18 and me so two abled adults.
I bought Genie+ when I woke up around 6 am on Jan 2, Sunday. We plan to spend the morning at Epcot and the evening at MK.

1. At 7am, DS was tasked with Virtual Que for Remy and he got BG11.
I went for TT LL and got a 10:10 return time.
2. We are staying at BWV so we went for Early Entry and was held by Canada until close to 8:30. We quickly walked to Soarin and were out by 8:50. Soarin's wait was still 10 minutes after we were off. Living with the Land wasn't running yet. We rode Nemo and walked our way to ride Mission Space. However, we were called for Remy and this was 9:20 ish.
3. After Remy, we made it to Mission Space and rode Green as I have motion sickness problems lately.
4. By @ 10:00 we rode TT and after tapping, I searched for our next G+ and after a few reload, got Soarin 10:50.
5. After Soarin, we walked our way over to Italy for our ADR.

I started to stack G+ for our MK evening.
6. Right after scanning Soarin, I got Jungle Cruise for 7-8pm. On my phone, as soon as I got G+ i had 2 hour count down started so I could get next G+
7 I also bought Seven Dwarves since we haven't ridden that last couple of trips. It was available for 9:15-10:15
8. @ 1pm, it was our next availability so booked Splash Mt for 7:40-8:40.
9. @ 3pm, booked Thunter Mt for 8:10-9:10
10. @ 5pm, booked Peter Pan popped up after several reload for 6:10-7:10.

So after dinner at our villa, we arrived @ MK by 6pm and went straight to Peter Pan.
11. After tapping into Peter Pan, I got Pirates for 8:00-9:00.
12. After Pirates, I immediately got It's a Small World for 8:30-9:30

So we got 7 G+ rides and thought it was totally worth it. There were more we could have done if we choose to walk across the park but we tried to save our legs a little and stayed mostly in the Adventure/Frontier and then to Fantasy Land. So even on a crowd 10 day, it's doable. We also rested in the room from 1-5:30pm.

I will post today's results soon.

This is so helpful, thank you! Looks like you had an excellent strategy!

We are going at the end of June. We have hoppers. I was going to start by stacking in the evening but based on your experience, it seemed to work out to just let things flow in your morning park and you could still stack the evening rides by 1:00. I had thought they may be gone.

Im thinking this strategy won’t work as well if the evening park is DHS which has a lot of high demand genie+ options. In that case, it’s better to stack the evening one’s first. Would you agree?

 

[g-dad66]

This is so helpful, thank you! Looks like you had an excellent strategy!

We are going at the end of June. We have hoppers. I was going to start by stacking in the evening but based on your experience, it seemed to work out to just let things flow in your morning park and you could still stack the evening rides by 1:00. I had thought they may be gone.

Im thinking this strategy won’t work as well if the evening park is DHS which has a lot of high demand genie+ options. In that case, it’s better to stack the evening one’s first. Would you agree?

Yes, for DHS, you will want to book Slinky Dog at 7am, and then at 11am, you will want to book Millenium Falcon (if still available). If you try to start booking later than 11, those 2 will be gone.

 

[princesslover]

Yes, for DHS, you will want to book Slinky Dog at 7am, and then at 11am, you will want to book Millenium Falcon (if still available). If you try to start booking later than 11, those 2 will be gone.

How is TSM, ToT and RnRC holding up for afternoon bookings?

 

[GBRforWDW]

How is TSM, ToT and RnRC holding up for afternoon bookings?

I want to add in, you have to remember for the last 2 weeks, the hours have been longer and the extra available ride that is usually ILL$ has really helped with availability over Christmas break. Unless they make the change permanent and keep similar hours in the summer, the availability throughout the day will fluctuate causing strategy to change.

 

[g-dad66]

How is TSM, ToT and RnRC holding up for afternoon bookings?

As GBRforWDW says, check out availability starting tomorrow, when the 2-week 4-ILL$ will be over.

You can check thrill-data.com to see how long availability lasts into the afternoons.

 

[g-dad66]

After midnight, and Expedition Everest has gone into refurbishment status on the Tip Board. So far, nothing seems to have taken its place as an AK ILL$.

Unfortunately, Space Mountain, Frozen Ever After, and Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway have all now returned to ILL$ status. I was hoping the change in the last 2 weeks was so wildly successful that Disney would continue it (only 4 ILL$), but alas, twas a vain hope on my part.

 

[DisneyPanthersFan]

Anyone else having trouble buying Genie Plus for today (Tuesday, January 4)?

Okay, after about 20 minutes or so, I was able to do so. I could not buy it from the My Day tab - I had to pick the Edit My Selections option and eventually I had the option of adding on Genie Plus. (Previously, I was stuck getting the same Lightning Lane pop up over and over.) Glad to have that over with so I can hopefully get a little sleep!

 

[mrebuck]

After midnight, and Expedition Everest has gone into refurbishment status on the Tip Board. So far, nothing seems to have taken its place as an AK ILL$.

Unfortunately, Space Mountain, Frozen Ever After, and Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway have all now returned to ILL$ status. I was hoping the change in the last 2 weeks was so wildly successful that Disney would continue it (only 4 ILL$), but alas, twas a vain hope on my part.

Does that mean that we are back to being able to purchase 2 ILL$ per day?

 

[Tom_E_D]

How is TSM, ToT and RnRC holding up for afternoon bookings?

This TP blogpost, written about a month ago, discusses G+ return time availability at different crowd levels.

 

[GBRforWDW]

Does that mean that we are back to being able to purchase 2 ILL$ per day?

You were always able if you were park hopping. But yes, you can buy up to 2 ILL$ per day.

I agree with @g-dad66. Was really hoping theyd do away with ILL in favor of a higher cost for Genie+. Oh well, I was definitely thankful for the changes, not having to pay for Frozen and MMRR and getting on both with the Genie.

 

[mousegear]

Im thinking this strategy won’t work as well if the evening park is DHS which has a lot of high demand genie+ options. In that case, it’s better to stack the evening one’s first. Would you agree?

I agree that this strategy won't work if the evening park is DHS since all the selections are gone by early morning. I'm about to share my DHS morning and Epcot evening G+ experience.

 

[mousegear]

On January 3, Monday, I bought G+ before 7 and counted down the seconds. Again this was Crowd Level 10 day.
Our agenda @ 7am was to buy Rise of Resistance ILL$ and book Millenium Falcon. Both of us are not interested SDD which is very helpful to spend the Early Entry better.

1. @ 7am I bought Rise of Resistance for 9:20~10:20 and DS booked G+ for Millenium Falcon for 9:40~10:40.

We went to DHS for Early Entry and we lined up at TOT first. At the opening of 7:30, we walked to TOT and rose and went to RnRC and walked to the ride. At the end of the ride, right before being released, we wore stuck there for about 10 minutes. The RnRC broke down for the rest of the day. We were the last ones to ride for that day.
After wasting precious Early Entry time, we went to MMRT and had posted a wait time of 25 minutes and it was pretty accurate. Then rode Star Tours afterward. Right after we were finished with Star Tours, it hit 8:30 and we saw mob of people running to Rise of Resistance. We went to Muffet show and looked around merchandizes in Star Wars section.

2. Tapped for Rise of Resistance @ 9:15 and right afterwards tapped at Millenium Falcon @ 9:40.
3. As soon as we tapped, I searched for Toy Story Mania and after several trying of reloading, got Toy Story Mania for 11:30~12:30.

After Millenium Falcon, we decided to watch Beauty and the Beast to spend the time until our Toy Story Mania.

4. At 11:35, we tapped Toy Story Mania and booked TT for 5:15~6:15. I had 2-hour countdown alarm started on my phone to remind me of the next G+ opening.

After Toy Story Mania, we existed DHS and went back to the room to relax and enjoy our resort time.

5. @ 1:35, while trying to book another G+, I saw Remy ILL$ popped up @ 7:20~8:20 pm for $9 so grabbed that. And after several reload, Frozen popped for 8:20~9 PM so booked. I set up another 2-hour countdown alarm on my phone for the next opening.
6. @ 3:37, I booked Soarin for 7:00~8:00pm so grabbed it.
7. @ 5:38, I booked Mission for 6:55~7:55 pm.

So all in all, I booked 6 rides and all of the headliners in each park. I think if you plan it right, it could be pretty amazing that you could walk on several rides within a 2~3 hour time frame.

 

[cheshiregoofy22]

If I'm planning on using a park hopper ticket with Genie+ at HS on my arrival day (so probably after 5 PM) on a Thursday at the end of January (already checked into resort online) - should I pick a different park for my reservation (like EPCOT) so when I look at 7:00 AM for afternoon or evening availability it'll automatically look for HS availability after 2:00 PM? Just a little confused and many, many thanks! EDIT - JUST DAWNED ON ME THAT I'D STILL HAVE TO TAP INTO EPCOT BEFORE HS IF I DID THAT...oops...not really a problem, but i spaced on that detail for a minute!

 

[elgerber]

If I'm planning on using a park hopper ticket with Genie+ at HS on my arrival day (so probably after 5 PM) on a Thursday at the end of January (already checked into resort online) - should I pick a different park for my reservation (like EPCOT) so when I look at 7:00 AM for afternoon or evening availability it'll automatically look for HS availability after 2:00 PM? Just a little confused and many, many thanks!

no, if you do that you will have to scan in to Epcot first, before you go to HS.

 

[cheshiregoofy22]

Thanks! brain cramp.