Disney Genie announcement

[dmunsil]

Hmmm. This looks suspicious to me. While I can believe that Genie+ is currently functioning this way, I don't believe it was intended to be this way. If this is how Genie+ works currently, Disney should fix it as this loophole is kind of glaring.

I burned $15.98 and verified that it does in fact work this way - if you wait 2 hours without being eligible some other way, you can make another, and if you cancel or let expire any of your outstanding G+ reservations, no matter when they were made, you can immediately make another.

I think this way is actually easier to explain to guests. Two simple rules:

- If you use, cancel or let expire an existing reservation, you can make another
- If 2 hours pass of non-eligibility, you can make another

For example:
Someone who books before 9AM opening for 10:55AM and taps in at 10:55AM will then end up holding one new LL.
vs
Someone who books before 9AM opening for 11:05AM and then books a new LL at 11AM, then taps in at 11:05AM and books another LL? That's crazy different for a small shift in time.

The whole point of the rule is to make sure the maximum time you'll have to wait for another reservation is 2 hours. There's no minimum time they're trying to enforce. But yes, I agree that it feels problematic, because the implication is that you can get reservations, one at a time, but this combination of rules allows you to have 2 or even more at one time. I don't think that's really a problem Disney cares about; the original FP definitely allowed you to be holding many reservations at once.

That said, if the power users start min-maxing the heck out of the system and are grabbing most of the capacity, Disney might do something to cut back on that kind of thing. They have in the past.

Here's another situation:

1. Before opening, you book a 10:05 G+ reservation, good from 10:05 to 11:05
2. You deliberately wait until 11:00, at which point you've waited 2 hours, so you book another
3. At 11:01 you use your earlier reservation, and immediately book another

Totally works. I just verified it (well, I cancelled at 11:01, because I'm not actually in the park). Note that if you try to book at any time before 11, Genie will say that you are eligible to book at 11, even though it knows you're holding a 10:05-11:05 reservation.

So basically, if your next reservation is almost but not quite 2 hours in the future, it's very useful to wait a little longer, let the 2 hours elapse, get another reservation, then immediately use your reservation, and get another.

 

[monkeybug]

Apologies if this information has been covered already, but at 7am (if the park you have reservations for opens at 9:00) can you purchase two ILLs and schedule a Genie+ LL all at once? Or is it only the ILLs that you can schedule prior to park opening?

 

[dmunsil]

I don’t understand the point of this 120 minute rule. Why is Disney punishing you for making your first LL selection for a later time after opening? If you made your first selection at noon or later, why shouldn’t you be able to make a LL selection for another ride that may have an earlier window?

Because unless there's some kind of limit, people will walk in and make reservations for every ride immediately.

The 2 hour rule is just a failsafe to make sure you can make a reservation at least every 2 hours in the worst-case scenario. That's it. Otherwise, the idea is to just make and hold one at a time.

 

[dmunsil]

Apologies if this information has been covered already, but at 7am (if the park you have reservations for opens at 9:00) can you purchase two ILLs and schedule a Genie+ LL all at once? Or is it only the ILLs that you can schedule prior to park opening?

You can do both, if you're staying in a Disney-owned resort (or Swan, Dolphin or Shades of Green). You can only do the Genie+ if you're staying somewhere else.

 

[Spankymclovin]

This may have already been covered or mentioned. If so, I'm sorry for bringing it up. I have watched a few Youtube videos from some of our favorite Vloggers when they are testing out wait times, ease of use, how it compares to using the standby line instead of Genie+. One video in particular made me realize something. The return times of Genie+ is so far out, I don't think they are allocating enough for people who purchase it. In this one video, he's talking about one ride is a 30 minute wait, and he looks at the lightning lane return time and it's for 2 hours later with Genie+. However, not once did he see anyone come through the lightning lane while he was in the standby line. I hope Disney fixes this. If I am going to spend $60 for my family of three on this upcharge, I would think I wouldn't have to wait that long to get in that lane if no one is using it to start with. I also believe they should let you choose your return time from multiple times instead of the next one. I am a huge supporter of fast pass and I will see a time when I would purchase Genie+ to be able to skip lines, but not the way they are doing it now.

 

[ThistleMae]

My earlier comments about ROTR and ILL$ caused this random thought to pop into my head. ROTR has gone to SB in lieu of BGs. So, if you don't purchase ILL$, you can still get in the SB line and wait to ride it (good news for those who complained about BGs and not being given the option to wait to ride).

But Remy is still a BG ride. So, if you are not successful in obtaining a BG for it, you can opt to purchase ILL$ for it instead. Since there's no SB option, one could make the argument that you are not just purchasing expedited LL access, but you are, in fact, paying to ride it. Because in that scenario (failed to get a BG), you wouldn't be able to ride it at all unless you pay.

That may strengthen the image of paying extra to "ride the rides" rather than paying extra to "skip the line." Which will, in turn, have more people questioning whether it was worth $X to ride that. There's already been a lot of speculation about families spending extra for, say, 7DMT ILL$ and then having buyer's remorse after riding it. ("That's it? I paid $X for that????")

Will you have access to Rat doing extra morning hours, or will you only have access via a BG or ILL$?

 

[monkeybug]

You can do both, if you're staying in a Disney-owned resort (or Swan, Dolphin or Shades of Green). You can only do the Genie+ if you're staying somewhere else.

Oh wow, so staying on property means you basically start your day with 3 (if you want to shell out the money for two of them) and also get the advantage of getting 30 minutes before park opening.

 

[Disturbia]

I burned $15.98 and verified that it does in fact work this way - if you wait 2 hours without being eligible some other way, you can make another, and if you cancel or let expire any of your outstanding G+ reservations, no matter when they were made, you can immediately make another.

I think this way is actually easier to explain to guests. Two simple rules:

- If you use, cancel or let expire an existing reservation, you can make another
- If 2 hours pass of non-eligibility, you can make another



The whole point of the rule is to make sure the maximum time you'll have to wait for another reservation is 2 hours. There's no minimum time they're trying to enforce. But yes, I agree that it feels problematic, because the implication is that you can get reservations, one at a time, but this combination of rules allows you to have 2 or even more at one time. I don't think that's really a problem Disney cares about; the original FP definitely allowed you to be holding many reservations at once.

That said, if the power users start min-maxing the heck out of the system and are grabbing most of the capacity, Disney might do something to cut back on that kind of thing. They have in the past.

Here's another situation:

1. Before opening, you book a 10:05 G+ reservation, good from 10:05 to 11:05
2. You deliberately wait until 11:00, at which point you've waited 2 hours, so you book another
3. At 11:01 you use your earlier reservation, and immediately book another

Totally works. I just verified it (well, I cancelled at 11:01, because I'm not actually in the park). Note that if you try to book at any time before 11, Genie will say that you are eligible to book at 11, even though it knows you're holding a 10:05-11:05 reservation.

So basically, if your next reservation is almost but not quite 2 hours in the future, it's very useful to wait a little longer, let the 2 hours elapse, get another reservation, then immediately use your reservation, and get another.

So if you booked 2 rides in the pm; do you have 2 cool down periods (2 gaps of 2 hours?)

edit: 2 hours after park opens AND again 2 hours after booking

so at 7 am I book a 2 pm Soarin then go to MK and ride standby 9-11; at 11 am book 4 pm Test track and at 1 pm I can finally book Genie+ 1-2 pm at MK; so this has limited stacking ability and would work better if park 1 opened at 8 am

not that great of a benefit if I’m waiting 60 mins for Jungle Cruise and Big Thunder

 

[Jrb1979]

This may have already been covered or mentioned. If so, I'm sorry for bringing it up. I have watched a few Youtube videos from some of our favorite Vloggers when they are testing out wait times, ease of use, how it compares to using the standby line instead of Genie+. One video in particular made me realize something. The return times of Genie+ is so far out, I don't think they are allocating enough for people who purchase it. In this one video, he's talking about one ride is a 30 minute wait, and he looks at the lightning lane return time and it's for 2 hours later with Genie+. However, not once did he see anyone come through the lightning lane while he was in the standby line. I hope Disney fixes this. If I am going to spend $60 for my family of three on this upcharge, I would think I wouldn't have to wait that long to get in that lane if no one is using it to start with. I also believe they should let you choose your return time from multiple times instead of the next one. I am a huge supporter of fast pass and I will see a time when I would purchase Genie+ to be able to skip lines, but not the way they are doing it now.

I think part of it is they are still figuring out the balance of LL available. I also think they are trying to keep LL wait times as low as possible.

As far as picking your return time, it goes against what Genie+ is meant to do. The goal is to keep people in the parks as long as possible and it allows Disney disperse the crowd to their benefit.

As I've seen it posted by someone earlier. People need to stop comparing G+ to FP+. They should be comparing G+ to standby wait times.

 

[Disturbia]

This may have already been covered or mentioned. If so, I'm sorry for bringing it up. I have watched a few Youtube videos from some of our favorite Vloggers when they are testing out wait times, ease of use, how it compares to using the standby line instead of Genie+. One video in particular made me realize something. The return times of Genie+ is so far out, I don't think they are allocating enough for people who purchase it. In this one video, he's talking about one ride is a 30 minute wait, and he looks at the lightning lane return time and it's for 2 hours later with Genie+. However, not once did he see anyone come through the lightning lane while he was in the standby line. I hope Disney fixes this. If I am going to spend $60 for my family of three on this upcharge, I would think I wouldn't have to wait that long to get in that lane if no one is using it to start with. I also believe they should let you choose your return time from multiple times instead of the next one. I am a huge supporter of fast pass and I will see a time when I would purchase Genie+ to be able to skip lines, but not the way they are doing it now.

They didn’t refresh to check for more openings. I think Genie+ tries to spread crowds

 

[Disturbia]

Will you have access to Rat doing extra morning hours, or will you only have access via a BG or ILL$?

No RAT during morning or evening extra hours

 

[dmunsil]

So if you booked 2 rides in the pm; do you have 2 cool down periods (2 gaps of 2 hours?)

No. The 2 hour rule only applies if nothing else occurs to reopen reservations. Here's the algorithm, as I currently understand it:

If Guest has Genie+:
- Guest begins the day eligible to book at 7:00
- Any time guest books a G+ LL, eligibility goes away and a timer is set to (the lesser of (the greater of 2 hours from now or 2 hours from park opening) and the end of the next reservation's window). The next reservation could be the one she just booked, or some other one that's in the timeline already
- If the guest taps into a G+ reservation, eligibility returns and the timer is reset
- If the guest cancels a G+ reservation, eligibility returns and the timer is reset
- If the timer runs down, eligibility returns and the timer is reset

All of this only applies to G+ reservations. ILL reservations are completely separate and don't interact with G+ eligibility to book.

If you're ineligible, you can always see what the timer is set to by trying to book a new LL reservation and then clicking the Edit button when it says you're not eligible. It will say when you can book next.

 

[wisblue]

I get what you are saying. My issue is why should somebody with a park hopper get an advantage over the person who made a reservation for said park. It should be the same availability for everyone. If anything the people that get an advantage are those you get up at ,7am and rope drop.

As a counterpoint, I could say allowing hoppers to have earlier access to afternoon and LL reservations mitigates what would otherwise be a big disadvantage.

The Genie+LL system is much like paper FP, and that system did not work well for people who like to take a midday break then hop to a second park.

If your plan was to leave the first park early in the afternoon and then go to a second park around 5, any FP at the first park with a return time in early afternoon was worthless, and FPs at the second park were probably gone by the time you would get there.

Making LL reservations at the second park for use after expected arrival helps the park hopper get the same value out of the G+ purchase as people who stay in one park all day.

 

[shawthorne44]

Any thoughts on what happens when one of the ILL$ rides is taken out of service for maintenance? Thinking of Everest in AK in early 2022. Will the add a different ride, or just go on with just FoP?

I think the many months of downtime is WHY it is an ILL$$$. They didn't want people complaining and wanting a G+ refund on their tickets because they love EE and that was the only reason that they added G+ to their tickets.
I predict in the spring it will be G+.
They said 7-8 ILL$$$ rides in the first announcements.

 

[dmunsil]

Another interesting thing from today's experiments: I've seen multiple people say you can't cancel a reservation once the arrival time comes up, but I just checked with two different reservations, and was able to cancel both times. On one, I canceled a few minutes after the arrival time came up, and on the other, I waited until 5 minutes before it would have expired. In both cases, I was able to cancel and immediately book another reservation.

I suppose it's possible they set it so you couldn't cancel once the reservation window opens, but so many people complained about it that they changed it.

 

[Jrb1979]

As a counterpoint, I could say allowing hoppers to have earlier access to afternoon and LL reservations mitigates what would otherwise be a big disadvantage.

The Genie+LL system is much like paper FP, and that system did not work well for people who like to take a midday break then hop to a second park.

If your plan was to leave the first park early in the afternoon and then go to a second park around 5, any FP at the first park with a return time in early afternoon was worthless, and FPs at the second park were probably gone by the time you would get there.

Making LL reservations at the second park for use after expected arrival helps the park hopper get the same value out of the G+ purchase as people who stay in one park all day.

I'm not saying that hoppers can't book early. All I'm saying is they shouldn't have different availability then people who are already in the park. What I am saying is there shouldn't be 2 buckets of availability. It all should be 1. Hoppers should only be allowed to start booking their 2nd park once return times past 2pm become available.

 

[Spankymclovin]

I think part of it is they are still figuring out the balance of LL available. I also think they are trying to keep LL wait times as low as possible.

As far as picking your return time, it goes against what Genie+ is meant to do. The goal is to keep people in the parks as long as possible and it allows Disney disperse the crowd to their benefit.

As I've seen it posted by someone earlier. People need to stop comparing G+ to FP+. They should be comparing G+ to standby wait times.

I understand, but if I am paying for a feature that allows me to bypass the standby line on a ride I want to ride and there is no times available and I go ahead and use that standby line to ride the ride .It's very frustrating to see NO ONE using the lightning lane during the entire time I am in it because Genie+ says there isn't an availability until 2 hours later. This is what should be fixed. I know this is still new and I hope they plan on making adjustments. With that being said, the individual paid lines are completely full. Seems like Disney is prioritizing those rides over the regular genie+ experience. I will be in the park in 35 days and I will be spending 10 days in the parks of my 11 day trip with 12 other folks. Genie is meant for people who do not go to Disney World very often and he do not enjoy planning. However, Genie+ should be the bridge to those of us who know what we want to ride and do not need our hands held to do it. Paying a extra $15 per person per day should allow you to a bit more control over your trip in my opinion.

 

[gharter]

Having tried to use Genie + the last several days, I just don't understand.
They had FP+, which was not perfect, but worked well. This could have easily been converted to Genie +.
I really dislike not being able to select a time for the LL, modify a LL, only use it once per ride.
The 2 hour rule makes sense.
From what I've read, you can cancel a LL, but if you do it twice, you can't get another on for that attraction. If that is incorrect please correct.

 

[Sjm9911]

Would love that link as need to order one today for a trip in a couple of weeks!

https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Power-...d_rd_i=B07FDXDB3W&psc=1&ref_=pd_bap_m_rp_1_sc


this is what i got. Most i think are made in the same place and they stamp a diffrent name on it.

 

[LSUfan4444]

I don’t understand the point of this 120 minute rule. Why is Disney punishing you for making your first LL selection for a later time after opening? If you made your first selection at noon or later, why shouldn’t you be able to make a LL selection for another ride that may have an earlier window?

Thats pretty much what the 120 minute rule is