The Genie Usage, Tips and Strategy ONLY Thread

[letsgobirds]

This (bolded) could well be the flaw in your plan. If you arrive at 8:00 a.m. for an 8:30 a.m. EE, you are at the back of the pack. We arrived at 7:40 a.m. and the crowd for ROTR had already been moved to the holding area backstage. We weren't even close to the front. That said, we were on and off in about 50 minutes (this was pre-ILL$/LL and was strictly stand-by). Those ILL$ must play a role in boarding times.

On another day, we arrived at DHS at 7:20 a.m. and we were at the front of the pack for SDD--front row of the crowd. We walked quickly when we were led to the ride at exactly 8:30 a.m. and I would estimate despite our speed, about 50-60 people managed to roll through the crowd from the back to jump the queue. That waiting game for EE paid off because we rode SDD in less than 10 minutes, moved on to TSMM and then over to ToT and RnRC and finishing with ST (the only rides we planned for that day). We were done before 11:00 a.m. and had to hang around for our lunch ADR.

This is the EE pitfall for my group. I totally understand how pre opening waiting saves time when the park is open, but for my group w kids ranging from 4-8 , waiting around the entry an hour prior to doing anything in the parks will be nearly unmanageable ,so the value of EE rope drop is greatly diminished for us.

Even though the nickle and dining sucks , this is a situation where the cost of both ILLs and G+ may be very useful since fully utilizing RD to its fullest isn't possible

 

[Pookie9922]

For those of you utilizing the stacking LL, do you feel like you're criss-crossing the parks all day? That's my fear, coming from DLR which are so much smaller. I'm fine criss-crossing either of our parks - I literally can jog across DCA in 5 minutes! On our first trip to WDW, I had each day planned out so well that we really only looped each park once a day with very little backtracking (while doing EVERYTHING on our list), except our 2nd day at MK when we'd done everything we wanted to and started repeating.

I'm trying to develop a strategy in my head of how this next trip will go and I hate that there are so many unknowns. At least we've done everything now and there isn't a huge amount of pressure to see it ALL this time. We know which rides we can live without. But I also dont want to waste time and money missing things. We're also adding the fun of my brother-in-laws family coming with us - who will not plan and will not rope drop. I'm trying to find a nice way to say that they're on their own, because I cannot figure out how our plan and their lack of plan will line up at all anytime of the day!

 

[ckelly14]

This is the EE pitfall for my group. I totally understand how pre opening waiting saves time when the park is open, but for my group w kids ranging from 4-8 , waiting around the entry an hour prior to doing anything in the parks will be nearly unmanageable ,so the value of EE rope drop is greatly diminished for us.

Even though the nickle and dining sucks , this is a situation where the cost of both ILLs and G+ may be very useful since fully utilizing RD to its fullest isn't possible

Can't you just arrive at 8:15-8:30? You will be in the back of the line for the EE people but you have a head start on the rest of the crowd.

 

[RoseGold]

For those of you utilizing the stacking LL, do you feel like you're criss-crossing the parks all day? That's my fear, coming from DLR which are so much smaller. I'm fine criss-crossing either of our parks - I literally can jog across DCA in 5 minutes! On our first trip to WDW, I had each day planned out so well that we really only looped each park once a day with very little backtracking (while doing EVERYTHING on our list), except our 2nd day at MK when we'd done everything we wanted to and started repeating.

I mean, yea, that's kind of the point, you crisscross to get the good rides. It's not like you're going to Barnstormer to avoid walking across the park when you paid for G+ today. You're going to the good rides: HM to JC to Buzz and so on. To minimize walking, the FP system was better because you had a lot of filler time and maybe did ride Barnstormer killing some time before 7D in a couple hours.

G+ makes walking and backtracking hard to plan because it's all on the fly. So maybe Buzz is now, but JC is in two hours, even though you're at HM. So, you pick Buzz, even though the walk is significant.

 

[Lsyves]

Were you there on 10/29? Just curious bc I heard some people waited 40+min LL for HM that day in the early afternoon, and I believe that was due to the ride going offline right before 12pm. We were tapped in at 11:45am for LL and the ride shut down entirely, they shoved us all in there and made us wait like 15-20 min before ushering everyone out. It was chaotic. We went back at like 6:45pm and waited in LL just 10 min maybe. Although the ride stopped for ~5 min while we were on it, I suspect that it was having troubles that entire day.

Also, apologies if this was made clear in earlier posts... but if you tap into a ride on LL and it goes offline/they usher you out, we were told you have to talk to the CM outside the ride entrance to get it fixed on MDE. Don't do what we did which was go to Guest Services, they basically lectured us on what we did wrong and they "don't do this sort of thing here, but they'd make a one time exception for us" in the most disaproving voice they could muster. Very different experience earlier in the week at AK when we paid for ILL FoP but DD panicked when put in the ride vehicle, and we talked to Guest Services there and they just gave him a refund. A little confusing for us.

It was on the 24th if I remember right...

 

[StarrySkye21]

Good point - so I'd modify my advice to arrive at HS at 7:30 to ride ROTR. Then I think the rest of the plan would work.

What time do busses from on-site resorts start taking people to HS in the morning?

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

DisneyTouristBlog is speculating / half confirming that this is indeed another strategy. You don't have to wait for the 120 min to pass to create a double stack, you just have to let your window expire, then book during the grace period, then tap during the grace period.

This makes the stacking extremely powerful as you can theoretically create a new stack every hour. It also means you no longer have to strategically pick a window at least 60 min past park opening, you should instead pick one immediately at park open, ideally for your favorite ride.

Holy moly, that would be an amazing strategy. Are there any confirmed reports that this works?

 

[Lsyves]

Ouch. How long was the posted standby line? If LL returns aren’t consistently short it really does dilute the value of G+….

I think it was 55 mins

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I hesitate to comment because I accidentally posted the wrong thing about 3 days after I was certain I understood things However, If the park opens at 9am, you can't book another LL until 11am as far as I understood. You make your first LL reservation at 7am and the next one becomes available 2 hours after park opening. If MK opens at 9am, that slot is 11am.

No, in his scenario, he can book a LL attraction at 10:01 Am because his previous LL “expired.”

 

[Pookie9922]

I mean, yea, that's kind of the point, you crisscross to get the good rides. It's not like you're going to Barnstormer to avoid walking across the park when you paid for G+ today. You're going to the good rides: HM to JC to Buzz and so on. To minimize walking, the FP system was better because you had a lot of filler time and maybe did ride Barnstormer killing some time before 7D in a couple hours.

G+ makes walking and backtracking hard to plan because it's all on the fly. So maybe Buzz is now, but JC is in two hours, even though you're at HM. So, you pick Buzz, even though the walk is significant.

For someone who isn't super familiar with the distances at WDW, it'll be hard to judge what would be considered a good enough G+ return time to make criss crossing worth it. Like if it saves 20 minutes of waiting time, but it takes 15 minutes to walk to it, it might not be worth taking. The nerd in me really wants to (and probably will) map out all possible routes on TP so I'll be able to judge walking time!

But generally I guess I'll just have to try to have a bit of a plan but ultimately put my DL mindset on and go by what's available. And I better start walking/exercising now to get ready!

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Another thing to keep in mind is if you miss your 15 minute leeway window you can not rebook G+ for the ride. Not sure the stress would be worth it. It's a good strategy on paper (or screen) but in the park there are so many variables. I think it would be good to keep in the back of your mind if it works out but not something I would plan my day around...

People are underestimating how powerful this “hack” is, if it works. It means you can effectively pull 2 LL’s every time you ride a ride, so long as you tap into that ride during the grace period. It would enable you to very quickly set up triple and even quadruple stacks by the afternoon. On a day that’s not too crowded it probably creates the equivalent of a once per ride universal style express pass where you can hit every ride in the park.

 

[letsgobirds]

Can't you just arrive at 8:15-8:30? You will be in the back of the line for the EE people but you have a head start on the rest of the crowd.

Yeah, that's our plan, but it looks like doing that still makes RoTR impossible given the crowds that build there, hence the need for the ILL

 

[Tess]

What time do busses from on-site resorts start taking people to HS in the morning?

We were at BCV, so I have no clue what time the buses left for DHS, I can tell you though that the MK bus for an 8:30 EE (1st) arrived around 6:30 a.m. The AK bus (1st) for a 7:30 a.m. early entry was there around 6:00 a.m.

The boat to DHS, however, hadn't yet arrived at YC/BC, BW and S/D as we were walking over at 7:00 a.m. The Skyliner from the resorts was running when we arrived and buses were entering and leaving the lot. (I don't believe it was running from Epcot that early.)

As with all things Disney--bus timing varies.

 

[persnickity]

People are underestimating how powerful this “hack” is, if it works. It means you can effectively pull 2 LL’s every time you ride a ride, so long as you tap into that ride during the grace period. It would enable you to very quickly set up triple and even quadruple stacks by the afternoon. On a day that’s not too crowded it probably creates the equivalent of a once per ride universal style express pass where you can hit every ride in the park.

Exactly why I figure this might be a loophole they actually put some real effort into closing. (ie, trying not to get too excited about it before our Thanksgiving week trip)

 

[Blondie58]

Would not work at all on DH iPhone 6. Worked sporadically on my iPhone 7. You must live through connectivity (goodbye relaxation) to order food and/or use this service. There are cast member tech gurus scattered about the parks to help. (Look for blue umbrellas.) Plan on waits to get your questions answered and tech issues addressed. Plan on your park days being extended to do the same amount of things you did in the past.

 

[sandrews0608]

This is going to be really hard when not rope dropping. I know my 18 year old will not want to RD every day. I might get 1 or 2 days. We will be able do the late nights at MK and Epcot though, so hopefully those will be helpful. We don't have to do every ride though as we have our favorites of course. It was easier when she was young as she didn't mind RD every day and we would be done by lunch!

 

[Tiggr88]

This is going to be really hard when not rope dropping. I know my 18 year old will not want to RD every day. I might get 1 or 2 days. We will be able do the late nights at MK and Epcot though, so hopefully those will be helpful. We don't have to do every ride though as we have our favorites of course. It was easier when she was young as she didn't mind RD every day and we would be done by lunch!

Not rope dropping is what the stacking is good for. That way you should be able to have 2 or 3 G+ to manage and the ILL$s have timeslots, so it is definitely doable. My daughter did a late arrival HS and no issues. Again, crowds were not too bad so things may be different, but you should still be good if you plan.

 

[dmunsil]

Exactly why I figure this might be a loophole they actually put some real effort into closing. (ie, trying not to get too excited about it before our Thanksgiving week trip)

I think you could be right, but as I think it through, it's not as clear cut.

The key resource that Disney is trying to conserve is Lightning Lane reservations on top-tier rides, and to some extent mid-tier rides. They don't want a subset of "power users" to use up a significant fraction of the headliner rides' capacity.

But the fact that you can't get more than one LL reservation per ride acts as a strong limiting factor on the ability to use any of these loopholes to get more Lightning Lane capacity on the headliners. You don't need these hacks to get on all the "big" rides. Basically anyone who wants to stay all day can get a Lightning Lane reservation on all of the Genie+ headliners without needing to use any hacks at all. Just show up, reserve the first one, ride it, reserve the second one, ride, it, etc. through the day.

DHS is the toughest park, because you need to get your Slinky Dog reservation done before it sells out. Even if you have to book it for late in the day, by 2 hours later you're unblocked and can now methodically work through all or most of the other top rides in the park. I think it would have to be a super busy day where you couldn't get a Lightning Lane res for SDD, Rock n Rollercoaster, Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror and Millennium Falcon, which would leave you plenty of time to use the standby lane for everything else. If you're willing to pay for ILL, that's even more time available.

So bottom line, all these strategies like double-stacking do is allow a power user to get through the headliners faster. They're getting the same amount of capacity of the headliners' Lightning Lanes that anyone else could get, just earlier in the day.

On a very busy day, a knowledgeable guest could get on more headliners than a naive guest, but not by a massive number. There just aren't that many headliners in each park that are part of Genie+.

 

[RoseGold]

On a very busy day, a knowledgeable guest could get on more headliners than a naive guest, but not by a massive number. There just aren't that many headliners in each park that are part of Genie+.

The place a power user can shine is with the hopper.

We were able to use G+ to get all of our Tier 2s in all the parks in two days, stacking the late close and moving parks. Incredible. This was impossible with FP. I was thrilled. There are rides I had never ridden in multiple trips, like Tower of Terror, because I could never get a FP. Someone willing to fork out for the hopper and G+ can cover the Tier 2 fast.

 

[soniam]

Agreed. Hold on while I go finish my Computer Science degree... If A1 then A2... Really need to brush up on my Boolean expressions.

I need a flow or logic chart to fully understand the decision tree here.

Yes, you are right on that - I forgot about that one. Our HM LL was a longer one... they merge everyone before you go in and it seemed like they'd take 10 standby for every 5 LL people.

This was always an issue with FP+. Sounds like anywhere the merge point is far back could be an issue. I can't remember where else there was an early merge point, maybe Rock n Roller Coaster and TOT.