Disney Genie announcement

[Grumpy by Birth]

is this because the LL bypasses ride content? I have never been on it

So saying ILL$ leaves our elements of the experience is inaccurate. ILL$ delivers whatever partial experience is available to everyone if parts of the attraction are down. Whew! Thanks for clarifying.

Paying and not getting the RotR full Monty would be worse than not paying and not getting the RotR full Monty though.

I could have been more clear in what I meant.

As Wisblue said, I didn't mean to indicate that the LL bypasses/leaves out some of the experience. But if elements are not working, you would miss out on them.

I understand that they can't control when something isn't working. But my point is that people are going to be more willing to accept missing one of those elements if they didn't pay extra for expedited access.

If people have paid extra, they are going to be extra unhappy if part of the ride is skipped because it's not working during your ILL$ window.

 

[fumanchu2488]

FWIW, we are arriving tomorrow and got G+ for our entire stay (we have a vacation package and I'm not sure we could've chosen by day even if we wanted to, either way - we're locked in already).

For tomorrow we are going to DHS. My hope is that I can purchase the two ILL$ AND a G+ likely for SDD at 7 am before our flights take off, but as others have noted - we are at the mercy of the LL availability at that time and ironically it may be too early for us if G+ hasn't been booked out late enough in the day to make sure we will be at the park in time - in which case we'll need to see what's available when we land.

The ideal would be if we could stack all three at something like SDD 4:00 PM, RotR 5:00 PM, MMRR 6:00 PM....but it's a bit of a crap shoot, so I guess we'll see!

So I just did Genie+ today at HS. You can choose the times for ROTR and MMRR at 7 am. I would book ROTR first thing at 7 and then do MMRR next. I would do those first (4 and 5) and plan on SDD last with Genie+. You will probably be trying to book SDD around 10 or 11 with Genie + to get something around 6. Just keep looking at your tip board to see times then book as it gets later.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Can you tell me more about this? What parts of RotR does ILL$ cut out?

Having experienced RotR in both DL and HS my opinion is that RotR isn’t necessarily a great ride, but what makes it a worthwhile attraction (not that I’ll ever pay ILL$ money for it, overall it’s not that good once you’ve seen it once) is the entire experience from start to finish. That is unique and cool, you live a full Star Wars story. Remove any aspects of that overall experience and the attraction would just be meh. I’d be po’d if I paid for it and didn’t get the full experience.

That’s always been a problem with some FP attractions, you bypass the best parts of the queues, things that are worth seeing. I could deal with it for a free time savings, but having to pay and miss out would be terrible.

For those wishing to discuss which parts of RotR queue are skipped by purchasing ILL$, please discuss in the SW sub-forum with a *Spoiler* notification in the thread title. There are many who have not had the opportunity to ride yet.

Thanks

 

[Monk6552]

So I just did Genie+ today at HS. You can choose the times for ROTR and MMRR at 7 am. I would book ROTR first thing at 7 and then do MMRR next. I would do those first (4 and 5) and plan on SDD last with Genie+. You will probably be trying to book SDD around 10 or 11 with Genie + to get something around 6. Just keep looking at your tip board to see times then book as it gets later.

Thank you this is helpful! Would love to know if there's a particular reason to schedule the ILL$ before SDD? More chance of delays with those rides? (I've never been on any of them.)

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I had a chat exchange with a CM today mainly to address my questions about our party with members with 2 different ticket types (annual pass and regular daily tickets). I’ll address what I was told there separately, maybe in a separate thread.

Would really like this information because this is the boat I am in. I have an AP, my wife and kids have regular tickets. I am concerned we won’t be able to make G+ selections together which will make life very difficult. I’m almost considering upgrading them to AP’s just to avoid this issue.

 

[fumanchu2488]

Thank you this is helpful! Would love to know if there's a particular reason to schedule the ILL$ before SDD? More chance of delays with those rides? (I've never been on any of them.)

With ILL you will get to pick a return time. So at 7 am you can go in and pick 4 pm. So for ROTR and MMRR, you can choose your 1 HR window. For SDD you will have to time it. The Genie+ LL is just as it goes. For example, right now I can get. Star Tours LL for 6:50 but the next Alien Saucers is 7:40 and SDD is done for the night. If you are looking for a 3 pm to 6 pm SDD you will just need to keep checking the tip board to see when that window opens.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I'm having trouble with this. I purchased something that the company was unable to provide to me. What am I missing?

 

[twodogs]

It's not that we cannot see that others may find value in G+. It's that the vast majority of what people are posting about the value of Genie+ was easily obtained under the old FP+ system (other than the ability to pay for certain rides). On the flip side however, there was a great amount of value under FP+ that is now no longer obtainable under Genie+ at all. That's the difference. Not that Genie+ has no value - it's that is has far less value to a huge group of people while offering very minimal new benefit to a smaller number of people. After today - the main argument about the stress of having to pick rides 30 days out has gone out the window as we saw that people had to do the same if not more planning today without the ability to choose their own times and the rides they couldn't get in advance then are basically the ones you have to pay for now anyway so that is out the window as well.

So in sum . . . it offers value over a standby only system. It offers far less value than FP+.

I would offer that you may be failing to recognize that Disney (the company) is not trying to offer you value. They are trying to make more money than they were making before. They are a public company and their mission is to increase shareholder value by making more money. Until people are so turned off by this that they stop spending said money at Disney, to the point that shareholder value is lost, they will keep doing it. At any point, any of us can determine that the value is not there for us, and we can vote with our wallet. Or we can determine that the value is still there, and vote with our wallet as well. That is the beauty of it. But, the old system is no longer on offer, so the value of G+ versus FP+ doesn't really matter. What matters is the value of G+ to you now; vote with your wallet on that one.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

A greedy and unreasonable policy. Even an airline ticket that is fully nonrefundable will be refunded in full if the flight is canceled, or changed by more than a couple of hours. It's fine to give an all-day return pass as an option, but if the guest is unable to use that if and when the ride reopens, because they have other plans such as a flight to catch, the refund should be automatic.

You’d probably win a credit card chargeback in this scenario. That’s what I’d do if the only alternative was 6 hours on hold trying to get through to Disney.

 

[DavidNYC]

I would offer that you may be failing to recognize that Disney (the company) is not tyring to offer you value. They are trying to make more money than they were making before. They are a public company and their mission is to increase shareholder value by making more money. Until people are so turned off by this that they stop spending said money at Disney, to the point that shareholder value is lost, they will keep doing it. At any point, any of us can determine that the value is not there for us, and we can vote with our wallet. Or we can determine that the value is still there, and vote with our wallet as well. That is the beauty of it. But, the old system is no longer on offer, so the value of G+ versus FP+ doesn't really matter. What matters is the value of G+ to you now; vote with your wallet on that one.

We don't fail to recognize that at all. What you fail to recognize is what happens when companies lose a carefully developed reputation and start being seen as someone who only cares about their bottom line and not their customers. Most companies like this try to work their asses off to get a reputation of being a company that continually innovates to offer their customers more. Disney has crossed a huge line here based on the feedback their getting from people who have been devoted to them for decades - that should be a warning shot to them.

 

[twodogs]

So I'm trying to figure out the rules around stacking. Let's suppose that sometime before 9 am I book my first G+ selection for noon. I wait my 2h from park opening, and at 11 am, I book a second for sometime in the afternoon, say 3 pm.

My understanding, from previous posts in this thread, is that when I tap in for my first selection, I can immediately book another. That is, even though I'm still holding a G+ pass, I am not required to wait 120 minutes from the last selection to book another.

Assuming this is true (I'm not sure if it's really been confirmed, or if people are just guessing), are there any limitations on it? So, continuing the above example, after my 12 pm ride, I book and use a couple more early afternoon selections, and then eventually jump over the 3 pm timeslot that I booked several hours earlier, and make a selection for 4 pm (or later). What happens when I tap into that 3 pm ride? Can I just keep leapfrogging those two stacked selections for the rest of the day? I feel like this is unlikely, but at what point does the system recognize that actually, the selection you just tapped into was the "extra" one you were allowed to carry because of the earlier 120 minute wait, but now that you've used it, you have to wait another 2h, from your last selection, to stack again?

And even assuming that the software algorithm is written correctly (it's non-trivial and likely error prone), how do they do it in a way that is not massively confusing to the average guest, who can't figure out why they were allowed to carry two selections all day, but now they are suddenly restricted back to one?

Does anyone know how this worked with MaxPass?

With MaxPass, the rebooking time limit was from the time of the most recently booked FP that you made (not the FP return time, but the clock time that you actually booked the FP at), not from the one you were currently using. So if you booked one way out (say 6pm return time) at 10am (your booking time), your next one was able to be booked 90 minutes after 10 am (your booking time). You kept booking from there (90 minutes from booking time or after you used the FP). That 6pm FP was just hanging out there. The only way the 6pm FP impacted things, as I recall *and it is somewhat faint memory here* was that you could not book another FP for that same ride while holding the FP for it at 6pm. But the time block until the next booking was keyed off of the time your most recently booked FP was booked, not the return time. I hope I am remembering that correctly!

 

[wp4lf189]

My apologies if this the wrong forum for this question…but when playing with the Genie it is only recognizing 1 day out of 4 as having a park reservation when I am trying set up my trip. My park reservation is on the day/date, my dining too and says good to go but I can’t edit or make any selections. Anyone else experienced this?

 

[wideboty2000]

How is rider swap being handled????

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

How is rider swap being handled????

As a follow-up to this, how are 2 year olds and under being handled? I’m assuming they ride free with adults since they don’t have tickets just like they did with fastpass?

 

[fumanchu2488]

We don't fail to recognize that at all. What you fail to recognize is what happens when companies lose a carefully developed reputation and start being seen as someone who only cares about their bottom line and not their customers. Most companies like this try to work their asses off to get a reputation of being a company that continually innovates to offer their customers more. Disney has crossed a huge line here based on the feedback their getting from people who have been devoted to them for decades - that should be a warning shot to them.

Personally, I think both of you are wrong. As someone here right now using it, I do find value in it. I do not come here multiple times a year so spending an extra $75/ day for my family to enjoy almost all the rides we want while removing stress is a value to me and something I am more than happy to pay for. While the FP+ system was good, I took issue with the fact that it required me to plan entire days months in advance. I have found this system to be much more flexible. I could have went to any park today and had the same opportunity as anyone else willing to pay the money the day of.

 

[wisblue]

Would really like this information because this is the boat I am in. I have an AP, my wife and kids have regular tickets. I am concerned we won’t be able to make G+ selections together which will make life very difficult. I’m almost considering upgrading them to AP’s just to avoid this issue.

See my post #5202 on p.261 of this thread that discusses it in more detail.

 

[fumanchu2488]

How is rider swap being handled????

To answer both, rider swap is just like it always was and 2 YO and under are included. We did SDD with our group (3 YO and 16 months) and my wife and son went first using LL then me and my son went after using LL.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

But, I was told by a CM in a chat today that, if all 4 of us purchase G+, we will then be treated as one group as we make G+LL attractions. I hope she was right.

I’d sure love someone who’s actually in this situation to post here and confirm that they’ve actually experienced this. This is a huge deal.

 

[leeniewdw]

2 questions:

1) I understand the park hopper 2pm+ LL selections for G+, but am I correct that you don't have to preselect the park to which you are going to hop like another park reservation? Meaning if I do a ILL$ selection for my park reservation in the morning, there is no other hoop to jump thru if I pick a G+/LL for a different park for post 2pm?

2) For our arrival day, we have a park hopper pass, but won't arrive before 2pm. In order to be able to select afternoon G+LL slots, I will need to select a different park than we plan to visit for that day. I presume if we don't actually tap into the "park reservation" park, there will be no issues? That's the only way I can think to reserve some LLs before we get on our flight. IOW, if I want to select DHS LL for our arrival day after 2pm before we board our flight, I need to select one of the other 3 parks as our "reservation" for that day?

 

[fla4fun]

Genie+ should be first pass at park open like maxpass. I don’t want my app to crash and I can’t even see waits; have you tried wifi in the buses? Has anything improved since June?

I was at MK on Oct 1, when the wifi in park had a big meltdown. The only place I could get a reliable signal that day, other than at my resort, was on the buses. I don’t know if every bus is good, but the ones I was on over that four day period, were good.

Have there been any wifi issues reported since Genie started yesterday?