The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[MainMom]

A question about ILL. I’m aware the time you get may not be the initial time on the first screen, but does ILL lock down a time and tell you what that is before you actually purchase (perhaps a couple of screens into the purchase flow)? Or is there a risk you end up purchasing a time that isn’t what you need/want?

It can change all the way through the booking. It will tell you a time, but for some of these it seems like you have to go so fast you can’t really pause to look. There have even been reports of getting a confirmation after you pay for one time and then they look at the time later on in the app and it’s changed again.

 

[MainMom]

Is there any threads like this just for offsite people’s experiences using G+ for LL on arrival at the parks and rope dropping following the resort crowds or can I make one that won’t get merged with the others? I’m just looking for a space where offsite people can share their experiences without having to dig through hundreds of pages to find what they’re looking for.

Offsite can book G+ LL at 7am like onsite ILL are at park opening.

 

[jbish]

I think if you follow the G+ return window given you for a show you'll have no problem getting priority access. That was our experience at DHS for Indiana and Beauty & Beast.

A workaround to any "I can't tap in so can't book my next G+" situation is simply to cancel the blocking G+ booking.

Keep in mind, cancelling that G+ LL that you couldn't use will only free up the ability to book another one IF it was your most recently booked LL.

 

[jbish]

Very clever park opening arbitrage idea jbish! If you can pull this off not only do you get SDD but you'll be booking the rest of your LL's 30 minutes ahead of the pack all day long (930, 1130, 130 instead of 10, 12, 2). As you requested I'll poke holes:

• You're assuming you can book a DHS ride after tapping in to ITTBAB at 730 despite it being prior to DHS park open at 8. Technically, I think this should be OK, tap-in generally trumps the 120 minute rule, but I've not seen reports of anyone who's tried this specific PH scenario.
• What if Bug doesn't open right at 730 for some reason, or you're delayed in getting to it and you can't tap in? I suppose you can always cancel the Bug LL and rebook SDD worst case.
• Internet access inside the Bug theater may not be so good. I guess you can always book it right after tap-in before going inside, just be ready.
• You're risking SDD being sold out at 730. It's probably the single most sought-after G+ LL in terms of wait time saved.
  • Based on recent thrill data, SDD has been available on most Wednesdays at 730-ish. YMMV.

Thanks for the feedback @Westerner! It has been a crazy few days for me so I haven't been able to respond sufficiently. Here are my thoughts reading your notes:

• First, I feel like someone may have the same idea as I presented because, OF COURSE, these past couple of days, ITTBAB G+ LL have bumped past 7:30 pretty quickly after 7:00. So if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to be johnny-on-the-spot right at 7 am to snag that first LL.
• THANK YOU for that idea that, if I don't get to ITTBAB right at 7:30, to cancel and start looking for SDD right away - I think that will have to be my backup plan. I have been watching LL availability between 7:30-7:55 for SDD and a few do pop up, but that's a long waiting game and the risk I take to try to capitalize on this measly 30 minute advantage I may or may not obtain. But I'm willing to give it a try.
• Does anyone know if ITTBAB has two tap points or just one? I was hoping to start looking for SDD asap - before going into the show building.

 

[leiaorgana]

Offsite can book G+ LL at 7am like onsite ILL are at park opening.

I understand that but I wanted to know what offsite people’s experiences were like booking ROTR, FOP etc and whether we stand a chance or not and how bad rope drop is now following onsite people at every park without having to wade through hundreds of pages of irrelevant onsite experiences in the other threads to find the information . It was just a suggestion to make offsite people’s research easier is all

 

[Miffy]

Thanks for the feedback @Westerner! It has been a crazy few days for me so I haven't been able to respond sufficiently. Here are my thoughts reading your notes:

• First, I feel like someone may have the same idea as I presented because, OF COURSE, these past couple of days, ITTBAB G+ LL have bumped past 7:30 pretty quickly after 7:00. So if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to be johnny-on-the-spot right at 7 am to snag that first LL.
• THANK YOU for that idea that, if I don't get to ITTBAB right at 7:30, to cancel and start looking for SDD right away - I think that will have to be my backup plan. I have been watching LL availability between 7:30-7:55 for SDD and a few do pop up, but that's a long waiting game and the risk I take to try to capitalize on this measly 30 minute advantage I may or may not obtain. But I'm willing to give it a try.
• Does anyone know if ITTBAB has two tap points or just one? I was hoping to start looking for SDD asap - before going into the show building.

I haven't followed all your posts, and perhaps I'm wrong about this, but in my experience, ITtBaB is a walk-on. No G+ necessary. Has this changed recently? It's a huge theater.

And also I'm assuming you really want to experience this and know what you're getting into.

 

[stamper]

I understand that but I wanted to know what offsite people’s experiences were like booking ROTR, FOP etc and whether we stand a chance or not and how bad rope drop is now following onsite people at every park without having to wade through hundreds of pages of irrelevant onsite experiences in the other threads to find the information . It was just a suggestion to make offsite people’s research easier is all

This is info I'd love to have too!! We couldn't get a reasonable onsite hotel so we are offsite. Now I'm trying to figure out strategies for getting the rides you mentioned.

 

[Westerner]

I understand that but I wanted to know what offsite people’s experiences were like booking ROTR, FOP etc and whether we stand a chance or not and how bad rope drop is now following onsite people at every park without having to wade through hundreds of pages of irrelevant onsite experiences in the other threads to find the information . It was just a suggestion to make offsite people’s research easier is all

Got it. Yes, an offsite $ILL specific thread would be helpful. FYI for clarity of terminology, G+ and $ILL are two different things.

 

[godfather927]

I understand that but I wanted to know what offsite people’s experiences were like booking ROTR, FOP etc and whether we stand a chance or not and how bad rope drop is now following onsite people at every park without having to wade through hundreds of pages of irrelevant onsite experiences in the other threads to find the information . It was just a suggestion to make offsite people’s research easier is all

If you haven't already, you will definitely want to head over to thrill data to get an idea of how often times are available beyond the park opening window for those rides. On crowded days, it's fairly rare, but not impossible. It's a crapshoot, of course, but data is your friend.

 

[jbish]

I haven't followed all your posts, and perhaps I'm wrong about this, but in my experience, ITtBaB is a walk-on. No G+ necessary. Has this changed recently? It's a huge theater.

And also I'm assuming you really want to experience this and know what you're getting into.

LOL - definitely not my #1 priority. Here's my original post - it's more of a science experiment. In fact, I'm not even sure we would go into the attraction itself. Just trying to get a leg up on what I think will be a really busy day at HS.

Friends - I have been working on a plan for our HS day in two weeks. I'd like to run this by you as I think I found an opportunity for stacking and being slightly ahead of the crowds while waiting out the 2 hour periods. Currently I have reservations at HS, but I'm thinking of switching to AK and hopping to HS later. Staying on site so I have access to Early Theme Park Entry. Also, very unusual, but this is the one day that HS has the Extra Evening Hours for the deluxe resorts instead of MK.

Date: Wednesday, April 13th - expected to be very busy (HS crowd level 9)
Park Hours: AK (7:30a-8:30p, 7am ETPE)
HS (8a-9p, 9p-11p EEH)
Of note: FOP and ROTR are NOT high priorities for us. We rode both several times last June so I'll save the money where I can!)

My idea is based on realizing that there is a little bit of "arbitrage" given the different times the parks open. Unfortunately, they just extended hours at all of the parks and so the difference between AK opening at 7:30 and HS at 8 isn't a huge advantage anymore. But given how difficult it is to stack at HS these days, I'll take whatever advantage I can get. Also, I know that we'll have those two extra hours at the end of the night so I anticipate we will get the most accomplished in those two hours.

Plan:

• 7:00 - book LL for It's Tough to be a Bug for 7:30 (no competition for this right at 7 am)
• 7:30 - arrive at AK for regular opening (come after the initial rush as I'm trying not to burn out the family with too early of a start with a planned late night)
  • As early as possible, tap in to ITTBAB (which is easy to get to since it's right at the front of the park. We may or may not actually go in. Haven't gone in years but the thought of the bugs crawling behind me already gives me the heebie jeebies.)
  • Book SDD for sometime around 5-7 pm (this has been available up until 8 am some days, so it's a calculated risk)
• Now my next LL booking time will be 9:30 vs. anyone that has a HS reservation who will be booking at 10 am (EP opens at 8:30 and MK opens at 9, so anyone that has a reservation there will be even further behind)

Please let me know if you think this will work. I'm hoping this could be helpful for someone else to use this same strategy on a day, ideally, when there's more time between the two parks opening. Poke holes in my strategy!!

 

[jbish]

I understand that but I wanted to know what offsite people’s experiences were like booking ROTR, FOP etc and whether we stand a chance or not and how bad rope drop is now following onsite people at every park without having to wade through hundreds of pages of irrelevant onsite experiences in the other threads to find the information . It was just a suggestion to make offsite people’s research easier is all

Got it. Yes, an offsite $ILL specific thread would be helpful. FYI for clarity of terminology, G+ and $ILL are two different things.

I think there are two different questions being asked. First is what @Westerner addressed, which are the specific rides being asked about: ROTR and FOP which are $ILL where offsite guests truly are at a disadvantage. I think your challenges will also be dependent on the actual park hours. For example, right now, during Spring Break, AK is opening at 7:30 am, which is when offsite guests will be able to book FOP. I think you'd have a decent shot at getting a $ILL. HS is opening at 8:00 this week, so only one hour after onsite guests can start booking ROTR. Here is thrill-data for ROTR $ILL:

The yellow line is 9 am - so you can see there's sporadic availability up until 9:00 (which, for some of these dates) was the opening time. Thrill-data is a little tricky to understand when you first start going to the site, but once you figure out how to read the charts, it is a really helpful tool as you get closer to your travel dates.

I think the other part of @leiaorgana 's question is about what is it like to be 30 minutes behind the Early Theme Park Entry guests and how that affects the rope drop experience for those that can't get into the ride queues at the same time. There is a sticky thread on the Early entry, but it is more about the onsite experience. But I think if you ask that specific question in a separate thread, you may get more relevant feedback.

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

Seeing how hard it is to already manage a family of 4 riders (plus one infant), I would seriously delegate and let other people take on some of the work. Plus the more people you have in your party, the less options Genie+ gives (LL for party of 1 has more availability vs 4).

This is why I was thinking of letting my sister's family control their own LLs.

 

[Miffy]

LOL - definitely not my #1 priority. Here's my original post - it's more of a science experiment. In fact, I'm not even sure we would go into the attraction itself. Just trying to get a leg up on what I think will be a really busy day at HS.

Thanks for reposting this--I hadn't seen it.

I'm still kinda lost though. You could book your hop-to park G+ at 7. It wouldn't be for a time before 2 pm, but you could do it, so you could get your late-afternoon SDD first thing, without having to do this buggy (haha) experiment.

For the record, you couldn't pay me to do ITtBaB ever again!

 

[xipotec]

These post are just outright depressing. So it pretty safe to say, this summer G+ is going to be an absolute nightmare for guests.....but at the same time, it may be the only way to ride many attractiosn with less than a 2 hour wait.

Disney need new management.

 

[umichigan10]

It seems like the gist from this thread is that it’s useful to get the paid service for MK but not Epcot or AK because of lack of attractions, and studios because they go too quick. Anyone who would disagree with that assessment?

 

[roctavia]

It seems like the gist from this thread is that it’s useful to get the paid service for MK but not Epcot or AK because of lack of attractions, and studios because they go too quick. Anyone who would disagree with that assessment?

I think HS it can be more useful, even to just skip 1-2 lines. The options do go fast, so it's not going to get you on a lot of rides, but the lines can be quite long, so even skipping the line on 2 things can be worth it.

I would agree that it's debatable on how useful it is at Epcot and AK. Though I'm more tempted to get G+ at those parks just for the time saving aspect of a few rides. We plan to RD FOP/Navi and also pay for FOP (it's a family favorite so riding twice is a plus) but we also want to do the safari and that line can get very long, so now I'm rethinking if paying for G+ would be worth it for that ride... I don't really want to pay the extra, but also like to ride rides... It will also depend on how bad the crowds are when we go, so I plan to watch things closer when we aren't as far out from our trip.

 

[MainMom]

It seems like the gist from this thread is that it’s useful to get the paid service for MK but not Epcot or AK because of lack of attractions, and studios because they go too quick. Anyone who would disagree with that assessment?

Studios I’m not looking at it as quantity more can I skip 1-2 60-120 minute waits because those lines all get long quickly. We did buy Genie+ for the whole trip though and plan on buying ILL.

 

[umichigan10]

Studios I’m not looking at it as quantity more can I skip 1-2 60-120 minute waits because those lines all get long quickly. We did buy Genie+ for the whole trip though and plan on buying ILL.

That’s a good point. I’ll generally hop my second half of the day, so I could also use for whatever park I go to next

 

[Scooley01]

In terms of terminology, why does everyone seem to call it "ILL" or Individual Lightning Lane? Disney's terminology everywhere seems to refer to that as "Individual Attraction Selection" right?

 

[CarolynFH]

In terms of terminology, why does everyone seem to call it "ILL" or Individual Lightning Lane? Disney's terminology everywhere seems to refer to that as "Individual Attraction Selection" right?

When Disney first announced details of the Genie program, they called them Individual Attraction Selections. When Genie actually was implemented in October, Disney called them Individual Lightning Lanes, and that's what they're called in the MDE app. No explanation given by Disney, and it definitely leads to confusion!