We were in the parks on Thursday and Friday for the first time in five years, and it was packed! We found that it is possible to take full advantage of Genie+ (i.e., to book everything you are eligible to book), but you have to be very strategic about it.
In practice that means following two principles. First, use Genie+ throughout the day instead of saving it for the afternoon, when the return times are long. Second, prioritize rides that have the longest return times, since the return times only stretch out further as the day goes on.
Using these principles, we went on a ton of rides, but we were also on our feet from rope drop to close both days. While it is fresh in my mind, here is what we did, in case others find our approach helpful:
Disneyland (Thursday)
Rope drop: Tomorrowland
Space Mountain was closed, so we ended up doing standby for Star Tours and Buzz Light Year (both walk ons). Star Tours is a favorite and we knew we wanted to go on it at least twice, so we saved our Genie+ for a second run in the afternoon. Meanwhile, at park opening, we booked our first Genie+ for Indiana Jones. We were planning to go to Adventureland next, and we would have been fine to ride Indy then, but really we were hoping Indy would close and we could get a multi-experience pass to use later.
Early Morning/Adventureland
On our way to Adventureland, we learned that Indy did in fact close so we got our first multi-experience pass of the day. Then we got on line for Jungle Cruise standby, with probably a longer wait than usual for that time of the morning because all the Indy people went over.
Mid Morning/Lunch
Walked on Small World, used Genie+ for Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain. We also put in our mobile order for Jolly Holiday around 10:30 so we could get the noon return window we wanted. Throughout the morning I was monitoring the app for the return times we wanted for ROTR and Millennium Falcon so we could do those around the same time after lunch; we must have had those booked by about 10:40 because I did not use Genie Plus again until the two hour window expired right after lunch. For the rest of the morning we mobile ordered Dole Whips and went to the Tiki Room, then did photos in the castle area. We were done with lunch by 12:40, when I was eligible to book my next LL, so I booked Star Tours for the afternoon, then went over to Galaxy's Edge.
Afternoon: Galaxy's Edge/back to Tomorrowland
Went on Rise after lunch (ILL) and then Millennium Falcon right after that (LL). Then we took some time to explore Galaxy's Edge. In the meanwhile, we saw that Space Mountain was up and running, so at 2:40 we scheduled Space Mountain for 6:00-7:00. We went back to Tomorrowland, and while waiting for our Star Tours return window to come up, we did standby for Autopia. Then we went on Star Tours, went back to Galaxy's Edge for droid making (4:50) and light sabers (5:50). We went back again to Tomorrowland for our Genie+ reservation for Space mountain, rode Space with the droid and the lightsaber (not our original plan, but somehow it worked). Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, and on the way scheduled Genie+ for Indy for after dinner (around 9:30-10:30).
Dinner/Evening
We had an 8:00 dinner reservation at Napa Rose; by 9:30 we were back in the parks and discovered that Indy was down
again, so we unexpectedly collected our second multi-experience pass for the day. We immediately used one of our multi-experience passes for Alice, then walked on Pinocchio because the standby was short. We had an Oga's reservation at 10:15, and were done by 10:45 -- no one really cared for the drinks! Then we did standby for Millennium Falcon, which was 30 minutes, and we were done by 11:15. Then we used our second multi-experience pass (thank you Indy) to ride Big Thunder mountain for a second time. Then we went over to Indy at 11:30 expecting to end the day with it -- there were no LLs available but happily the standby line was so short that we were out by 11:55. That left just enough time to hustle to Peter Pan before closing.
Summary
You have to be strategic, and know what your priorities are, but using this plan we were able to ride the following on a very crowded Thursday:
- Star Tours (2x)
- Buzz
- Jungle Cruise
- Small World
- Haunted Mansion
- Big Thunder (2x)
- ROTR
- Millennium Falcon (2x)
- Autopia
- Space Mountain
- Alice
- Pinocchio
- Indy
- Peter Pan
Of course, it helped that we had two multi-experience passes because Indy closed twice.
California Adventure (Friday)
For California Adventure we discovered that we could not book our Genie+ reservations too closely together because the LL queues would get really backed up. We waited a good 30 minutes to get on Goofy's Sky School with Genie+. We also had a lot more down time between rides because it was so crowded and standby was not really an option.
Rope drop: Soarin' Over California/Pixar Pier
We rope dropped Soarin' Over California because it is a favorite and we wanted to ride it twice, especially since it was the original version that we love so much. We also figured (correctly) that most people would be going to Radiator Springs Racers, and our general strategy was to go in the opposite direction from the crowds. After Soarin', we went to Pixar Pier, where Toy Story, Incredicoaster, and Mickey's Fun Wheel (stationary) were all walk ons, so we could save our LLs. Meanwhile, at the start of the day, we booked our first LL for Guardians and bought an ILL for Web Slingers for around the same time.
Mid Morning: Avenger's Campus/Cars Single Rider
Right as we were getting off Incredicoaster, we discovered that Radiator Springs Racers was down, and all of those crowds shifted over to Pixar Pier. So we left Pixar Pier and went to Avenger's campus to use our first LL for Guardians, then immediately booked Toy Story to ride a second time, since the standby line had picked up by then. We rode Web Slingers with ILL, then went back to Pixar Pier for our Toy Story Genie+ reservation, and immediately booked Soarin' for a return time after lunch. By that point, Radiator Springs Racers was open, so we rode that using single rider. We did plan to buy an ILL for RSR so we could ride it as a group, but we wanted to save that for after dark. Single rider seemed to be the only viable way to ride RSR twice because the standby lines were so terrible.
Mid Day
By mid day things got tricky because the return windows were getting very long. After riding Soarin' again we got LLs for Grizzly River Run for a 5:00 return time, Incredicoaster for 6:00 (for a second run, after walking on it in the morning), Goofy's Sky School for 7:00, and Monster's Inc. for 9:00. In between these reservations, there was a lot of waiting, so we ended up taking advantage of food and wine, doing standby for Little Mermaid twice, going to Mickey's PhilharMagic, and then doing standby for Guardians to ride it a second time. It turned out to be only about 40 minutes for the Guardian standby in the late afternoon (despite a 60 minute posted return time), and since we were doing a lot of waiting anyway, we thought we might as well wait in line.
Evening
We had dinner at Lamplight Lounge at 8:00. Then we had two more LLs booked: Cars for 9:00 (ILL) and Monster's Inc. for 9:30. The problem was that Cars went down after we got on line, and it was not until 9:30 that it was up and running again, and 9:45 before we were off it. So we spent a lot of time on the LL queue for Cars and almost did not make it to Monsters' Inc. before closing. We had hoped to end the night with a standby for Incredicoaster, but all the waiting in the LL queues prevented that. Earlier in the day, we also encountered long waits in the LL queues for Grizzly River Run and Goofy's Sky School, so I can only imagine what the regular waits must have been like.
Conclusion
It was another crowded day on Friday, and we were in the parks from rope drop to close, with a lot of time waiting around managing the crowds, but we were still able to do:
- Soarin' Over California (2x)
- Toy Story (2x)
- Incredicoaster (2x)
- Mickey's Fun Wheel
- Guardians (2X)
- Web Slingers
- Radiator Springs Racers (2x)
- Little Mermaid (2x)
- Grizzly River Run
- Goofy's Sky School
- Monster's Inc.
Concluding Thoughts
You can get a lot done on a crowded day with Genie+. That said, I spent the last two months doing research, was almost constantly strategizing during the day, and slept for about 5 hours over a 48 hour period on Thursday and Friday (on Saturday we slept and hung out at the pool!). For people who do not want to plan the day down to the minute, or pay for upcharges like ILL (to say nothing of Genie+ itself), it is much harder.