Genie+

[bababear_50]

Disney Genie (G+) Plan
So Genie+ will cost me an extra $15 USD per day
One selection at a time
,,,throughout the day subject to availability
(this means bringing my phone into the Parks which is not something I usually do.
Can be purchased for 1 or more days.
Use Lightning Lane Entrance to access the Ride/Attraction.
Like old fashioned Paper Fast Passes but I am using my phone to get them and now it's costing me $15 a day more per person.



Individual Attraction Selections (IAS)
Individual attraction ride purchase (for high demand rides/attractions)
Attractions NOT included in Disney's Genie+ plan.
$$$$$ no idea what the per ride cost will be yet
Can only buy 2 rides per day
subject to limited availability
NOT included as part of Disney Genie+




Is seems the two Water Parks are going to be included.
https://insidethemagic.net/2021/08/disney-genie-app-details-kc1/
Hmmmmmm....
So basically ticket prices are going up....

 

[archdandy]

I know not everyone here goes on the main boards a lot. What are your thoughts on the new FP system?

I for one love it, especially no more 60 day advanced booking. Since I am a rope drop person when I go to the parks it works for me. For $15 it's pretty cheap compared to most other parks.

$15 is still more than free. For our trip in January its going to add another $300 on to our trip and that's not even including the "lightning lane" charges. That's a lot of money that we didn't use to have to pay. It's a hard pill to swallow. I always hated making FP selections 6 months ahead of time and I really wanted them to go back to paper fastpass (I knew it was never gonna happen). I suppose this is Disney's way of trying to make everybody happy; the people who wanted old pastpass and hated making them early and the people who loved the new FP+ system.

 

[bababear_50]

$15 is still more than free. For our trip in January its going to add another $300 on to our trip and that's not even including the "lightning lane" charges. That's a lot of money that we didn't use to have to pay. It's a hard pill to swallow. I always hated making FP selections 6 months ahead of time and I really wanted them to go back to paper fastpass (I knew it was never gonna happen). I suppose this is Disney's way of trying to make everybody happy; the people who wanted old pastpass and hated making them early and the people who loved the new FP+ system.

I think it's Disney's way of up charging for something that was part of their general admission ticket price and now is not included.
I definitely feel bad for families.



Hugs
Mel

 

[deedubb]

Or you could just rope drop FOP for free.

I think rope drop for premium attractions like this will be a nightmare now. At least with FP+, that eliminated a lot of people who might be tempted to rope drop if they already had a FP for it. Who knows how much it will cost for Lightning Lane for a ride like this, but I suspect a lot of people will be unwilling to pay. That just means there will be a lot more people trying to rope drop it.

If Genie+ was like MaxPass, and included all the premium rides, I would be all for it. MaxPass is amazing and I would never do DLR without it. However, you can only do 5 park days at DLR which kept the cost reasonable. With 10 days at WDW, Genie+ every day, + paying for the odd ride, the cost will be substantial. I guess I would be less pissed if they at least didn't nickel-and-dime us by getting rid of MagicBands and the Magical Express, but in doing all of that, they just seem greedy now. With these new changes (now I will likely rent a car), it will easily be an additional $1K USD per trip.

 

[TommyJK]

I think rope drop for premium attractions like this will be a nightmare now. At least with FP+, that eliminated a lot of people who might be tempted to rope drop if they already had a FP for it. Who knows how much it will cost for Lightning Lane for a ride like this, but I suspect a lot of people will be unwilling to pay. That just means there will be a lot more people trying to rope drop it.

If Genie+ was like MaxPass, and included all the premium rides, I would be all for it. MaxPass is amazing and I would never do DLR without it. However, you can only do 5 park days at DLR which kept the cost reasonable. With 10 days at WDW, Genie+ every day, + paying for the odd ride, the cost will be substantial. I guess I would be less pissed if they at least didn't nickel-and-dime us by getting rid of MagicBands and the Magical Express, but in doing all of that, they just seem greedy now. With these new changes (now I will likely rent a car), it will easily be an additional $1K USD per trip.

That's probably a fair assessment on what Rope Drop might be, but on the flipside if that is true, with so few people having an FP+ for it now and if a ton of the on-site guests rope drop it too, then the Stand-by line many other times of the day will likely be relatively reasonable. You may likely not even need to buy G+ for your AK day.

Here's a quick little comparison on what FP+ did to standby.

FOP's standby wait times this past Wednesday (3rd Wed of Aug) when there is no FP+ filling it up (and even less park hours).



Here is standby the 3rd Wednesday of Aug in 2019 when FP+ was in full use

 

[Jrb1979]

That's probably a fair assessment on what Rope Drop might be, but on the flipside if that is true, with so few people having an FP+ for it now and if a ton of the on-site guests rope drop it too, then the Stand-by line many other times of the day will likely be relatively reasonable. You may likely not even need to buy G+ for your AK day.

Here's a quick little comparison on what FP+ did to standby.

FOP's standby wait times this past Wednesday (3rd Wed of Aug) when there is no FP+ filling it up (and even less park hours).

View attachment 598542

Here is standby the 3rd Wednesday of Aug in 2019 when FP+ was in full use

View attachment 598544

They pretty much made it that if you want to ride it you have to pay.

 

[TommyJK]

They pretty much made it that if you want to ride it you have to pay.

How do you figure? There will be 2 options. Pay to get on right away, or you can do stand-by which I've shown above that when 75% of the line isn't FP+, the waits for standby can actually be reasonable.

 

[Juventus]

You need charts from earlier weeks: this last week the times for most of the parks were way way down compared to the previous couple of weeks...especially at AK. Even ROTR saw standby open up for first time ever. Probably due to 4th wave.

Monetizing the ability to have a short wait with the new LL puts a quantifiable benefit on rope doping: get up early to rope drop fop or pay $100+ for your family for a LL.

Rope drop could be more crowded than ever. But maybe the standbyline moves a bit faster.

 

[mshanson3121]

I know not everyone here goes on the main boards a lot. What are your thoughts on the new FP system?

I for one love it, especially no more 60 day advanced booking. Since I am a rope drop person when I go to the parks it works for me. For $15 it's pretty cheap compared to most other parks.

Hate it. Too expensive for us, especially since Tier 1s aren't included. Would rather be able to plan in advance. I far preferred being able to book F0P+ for times that worked for our plans, now we just have to take "next available time". Well a lot of good that does us if our next available time is whole we're out of park for a necessary afternoon break. I can also see this leading to a lot more running all over the park, chasing your passes.

 

[mshanson3121]

I also don't mind it if it's just me and my wife, however we went 6 years straight with our 3 kids with 8-10 day tickets: that will be very expensive. We are also rope droppers everyday but these changes really hurt us: we always stay off site so now there is no way for us to rope drop the headliners and will have to pay for the à la carte Lightening Pass to avoid long lines; for instance we would always rope drop Flight of Passage...can't do that now since on site guests are let in 30 minutes early AND have first dibs on the à la carte Lightening Passes.

Terrible for us.

Also, with Rise of the Resistance offering paid Lighten Pass, that means there will be even less availability for the virtual queue, which currently only has 1-3 seconds of availability at 7:00AM. Not sure how that will play out.

Finally, I hate the idea of entering the parks each morning without really having a concrete plan and knowing, for the most part, what you were going to be able to ride.

For me, this system is a lot worse than fastpass+, and it costs extra.

Everything you said.

I’m gonna wait and see how it plays out before I have an opinion on it. Like can I just get it for certain days and not others? Can I buy the pass for the top tier ride if I don’t do the $15 a day? What kind of availability is there once you get later in the day etc?

If you book a package through Disney, you will have to purchase Genie+ for ALL days. If you just book tickets, you can do individual days. I do suspect we'll see Genie+ used as a package promo.

Yes to the Lightning Pass, you can book them without Genie+.

Or you could just rope drop FOP for free.

Rope drop is pretty much over for off site guests.

$15 is still more than free. For our trip in January its going to add another $300 on to our trip and that's not even including the "lightning lane" charges.

This... The lightning passes will easily add up.

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

@wdwmom3 You can purchase Genie+ at 12 midnight the day you plan on attending a park, but can only book your Lightening Lane ride at 7am if staying onsite. If staying offsite, you have to wait to book it in the park.

You don't need to purchase it everyday of your trip.

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

To ride FoP, you don't NEED Genie+. You can just buy that Lightening Lane a $X.

Same as RotR. You can try for the boarding groups and if that doesn't work, buy a Lightening Lane for $X. I am sure this ride will be like $20 per person (maybe more with flex pricing).

You can purchase up to two Lightening Lane rides per day.

 

[Sue M]

That's probably a fair assessment on what Rope Drop might be, but on the flipside if that is true, with so few people having an FP+ for it now and if a ton of the on-site guests rope drop it too, then the Stand-by line many other times of the day will likely be relatively reasonable. You may likely not even need to buy G+ for your AK day.

Here's a quick little comparison on what FP+ did to standby.

FOP's standby wait times this past Wednesday (3rd Wed of Aug) when there is no FP+ filling it up (and even less park hours).

View attachment 598542

Here is standby the 3rd Wednesday of Aug in 2019 when FP+ was in full use

View attachment 598544

i don’t know about those wait times for FOP. We just came back and some mornings at rope drop FOP queue was easily 2 hrs. Really you had to get to AK an hour before park opening to get a 30 min wait for FOP.

I'm going to wait for some reports to start coming in once it starts. The biggest thing I want to watch is the booking of one Genie+ attraction at a time aspect. How fast will the more popular rides have no times left? Let's say you first ride is Thunder mountain. When you tap in and go to book your next ride at Splash Mountain and it offers you a time of 1:00pm what do you do? Book the 1:00pm and do some standby or hit some of the less popular rides using Genie+. Apparently they are closing the "Refresh" option so once you book your next ride you are locked in.

Will also be interesting to see what the uptake will be? I think the Genie+ will be very popular but I'm not sure how many people will ante up the individual Lightning Lane cost for the two most popular rides at each park.

Good point. I had no idea they closed Refresh. That was a sucky thing to do on top of everything else. Hopefully if you get there for rope drop you won’t have to wait till 1:00 to get second FP. I won’t be paying for individual attractions!

I'm of two minds about this.

On one hand, we are used to paying for Maxpass at DL and if this were just a reskinning of that system, we would not hesitate to buy it even with the price increase.

On the other hand, I HATE the idea of paying for G+ and then ALSO paying more for the top tier rides. To me, that just stinks of cheap funfair pricing. The one thing we loved about Disneyland was that once you were in the gate, you never had to worry about paying for rides.

The big difference is DL still had the free FPs option and MaxPass. Now there’s only the G+ I don’t know how that will change things but it will
I also hate that new system excludes the top attractions. It does stink. Not happy about this at all. Disney now is continually cutting things that were included, but raising prices. Get less and pay more is the new motto. Ugh

 

[mshanson3121]

@wdwmom3

You don't need to purchase it everyday of your trip.

If purchased as a package, you have to book it for every day. It's in the FAQ.


19. Do I have to purchase Genie+ for the entire length of my trip?
If purchased as part of a vacation package ahead of your visit, Genie+ is purchased for the entire length of the stay at $15 per ticket per day.
If not purchased ahead of time, Genie+ can be added on a day-by-day basis.

Since they're saying the $15 is the introductory price, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually see incentivizing in the form of getting a cheaper price (obviously not less than $15) when you book it as part of a package and then you pay a higher price if you just purchase it last minute.

 

[igrsod]

I don’t like that some of the big rides are not included in the $15 fee and have to be purchased separately or use the stand by line. I also don’t mind $15 so much if just my wife and I go but if we take the kids for two weeks and hit the parks 10 times it adds up. Not that we wouldn’t pay it but I just think the extra fee sucks. I would prefer to have the cost buried somewhere else. Maybe it will be good though, or maybe the stand by lines will be fine even with it. I still love Disney even if I don‘t love every decision they make. I like the idea of going for Rope drop to and trying to hit some big rides before it gets busy. Then maybe we don’t need Genie+

And it used to be free... they are trying to force feed us an add on fee, telling us we are going to love paying extra for what was once included for everyone. I'm not a fan overall. I have the money to spend on it, I just don't like being fleeced.

 

[igrsod]

Yep not happy . With the costs going up and up to simply get in , then paying for what was free then paying ontop for premium rides..
As a single Mom who busted her butt to get DVC to make trips special and affordable , I’m almost done and we haven’t traveled yet with DVC .
I think we will rent a lot of the time do universal stay in a premium room there get their express pass for free and or hit after hour events at Disney for a few years and see how this plays out .

Honestly, we have loved our DVC stays. We have said many times... pre covid and all these changes, that we could see ourselves just coming down and just enjoying the resort and amenities in the future.. no parks.
We now are even adding in.. hey lets go to Aulani or HH or Vero beach with our points instead.
I still think there is value in the DVC stays... just might lessen the focus on the PARKS.

 

[igrsod]

I'm going to wait for some reports to start coming in once it starts. The biggest thing I want to watch is the booking of one Genie+ attraction at a time aspect. How fast will the more popular rides have no times left? Let's say you first ride is Thunder mountain. When you tap in and go to book your next ride at Splash Mountain and it offers you a time of 1:00pm what do you do? Book the 1:00pm and do some standby or hit some of the less popular rides using Genie+. Apparently they are closing the "Refresh" option so once you book your next ride you are locked in.

Will also be interesting to see what the uptake will be? I think the Genie+ will be very popular but I'm not sure how many people will ante up the individual Lightning Lane cost for the two most popular rides at each park.

There are so many factors that we can only speculate on until it's in use. I agree... it could work out and be a great tool, or a giant disaster. Only time will tell. I will be anxiously watching the people with fall trips to hear the reviews.
On first sight, I don't love this system for many reasons that others have stated, but I'm always open minded to be proven wrong. I am one of those people who enjoys the planning leading up to the trip. I love knowing what we are going to do each day, and feeling good that we will all get to do the things we enjoy. With this new system, it means we have to make decisions each day to buy or not, to wake up early and go full throttle in the parks. It also means, most likely, disappointment.

 

[igrsod]

No. Not if I'm off site. That's my point; onsite guests get 30 minute head start...by then it will be over an hour.

And that is pretty much the only perk onsite guests get for paying a pretty penny to stay at a Disney themed Motel 6.

 

[igrsod]

No. Not if I'm off site. That's my point; onsite guests get 30 minute head start...by then it will be over an hour.

And that is pretty much the only perk onsite guests get for paying a pretty penny to stay at a Disney themed Motel 6.

Then I suppose the free option will be regular stand-by, that should be significnatly shorter than it was during the FP+ era because 75-80% of the line will not be taken up by FP+ reservations anymore that were all scopped up 2 months prior.

We don't know this yet. It depends on how many people use Genie+. We will only know when this is in action and get the reviews. I hope that is the case.

 

[igrsod]

$15 is still more than free. For our trip in January its going to add another $300 on to our trip and that's not even including the "lightning lane" charges. That's a lot of money that we didn't use to have to pay. It's a hard pill to swallow. I always hated making FP selections 6 months ahead of time and I really wanted them to go back to paper fastpass (I knew it was never gonna happen). I suppose this is Disney's way of trying to make everybody happy; the people who wanted old pastpass and hated making them early and the people who loved the new FP+ system.

They could have used new technology to get one FP at a time using your phone.... like the paper FP system BUT for free and include the headliners. They didn't for one reason $$$$$$$$.

Provide a superior product and the $ will follow, nickel and dime your customers and diminish the product and you are looking at disaster. I hope things change soon.