Ride Reservation Refill Rules at Disney World
As crowds increase, so does “competition” for Lightning Lanes with more guests purchasing the Genie+ service. Despite surge pricing that can cause the paid FastPass service to cost ~$30 on busy days, demand is highest when attendance and wait times are at their worst.
Accordingly, you need advanced-level Genie strategy to score the most ride reservations, especially during the busy holiday season. There are three other advanced strategy posts you should read first for fully leveraging the Genie+ system: How the Genie+ 120 Minute Rule Works, Tips for “Stacking” Genie+ Ride Reservations, and Speed Strategy for Genie+ Selections.
None of this is explained by Walt Disney World on its official sites, and probably for good reason–these tips can be confusing and overwhelming. However, if you take ~30 minutes to learn those ins and outs, you won’t just be above average–you’ll be a top 5% Genie+ power user.
This post puts you in the top 1%, perhaps even top .5%. Before we dig into the details, a couple of warnings are in order. First, this will absolutely increase your screen time. I know that’s a major concern with a lot of Walt Disney World vacation planners, and some of our other advice avoids being glued to your phone. This does not.
Second, this is going to be confusing or intimidating at first and it will likely require several hours of your own “hands on” research before your trip. While you can comprehend the contours by reading, you really need to learn this one by doing.
If you’re so inclined, it’s worth mastering these ‘advanced’ Genie ride reservation refill rules as they will improve your day tremendously. If it were easy, everyone would do it. But it isn’t, so the vast majority of planners–even those who read this post–won’t follow the tips & tricks. Never mind the 98% of park guests who will neither read nor accidentally implement this advice. That’s okay–different strokes for different folks.
The salient point is that this is advanced-level and beyond what 99% of guests will do or even need. In other words, these are not the basics of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World–feel free to skip this without worrying that you’re missing out on something essential about the Genie+ system. This is pretty far from that.
With that preface out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks and discuss what the heck ride reservation refill rules even are. And for that, we rewind to March 2020, in the halcyon days of FastPass+ at Walt Disney World…
There’s a reason we’re calling this “ride reservation refill rules,” and it’s not just because I’m a sucker for a good alliteration. It’s because this is nothing new, and was something Walt Disney World had been fine-tuning in the final days of FastPass+. I don’t remember precisely when they started, but it became a more pronounced practice in 2019. (Or so it seemed to me.)
Walt Disney World would add same-day FastPass+ ride reservations for headliner attractions “at random” throughout the day. Except it wasn’t really at random, it was based on a set schedule. The whole purpose of this was to throw a bone to guests who didn’t realize ride reservations were booked 30/60 days in advance, and showed up at the parks with nothing in hand. Essentially, it was an attempt to remedy guest complaints about FastPass+. Except, like all things, the predictable process was reverse-engineered and it was better exploited by the savviest planners than ill-prepared first-timers.
Almost identical ride reservation refill rules were built into the Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane systems. I’ve mentioned these in passing in a variety of posts, and even explained this in our ~4,500 word Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ.
However, I’ve never really elaborated on it. In part that’s because I don’t want to ruin a good thing, and in part because it’s complicated, not easy to follow, and subject to change. (The latter should cancel out the former, to some degree.) Here’s everything else you need to know about ride reservation refill rules…
Refills v. Cancellations – It should go without saying, but these are not the same. If one party cancels a ride reservation, that single reservation returns to the system along with its exact time slot. There are a lot of guests all using Genie+ at the same time. Let’s say that 9 different parties all see and attempt to book one reservation for Slinky Dog Dash. Obviously, only one can–and that happens in milliseconds, before Disney’s systems can reflect that it’s gone to everyone else. Making matters worse, all can initiate the booking process and it will disappear out from under 8 of you.
Cancellations can become easier to identify over time because they will be for some random time. Once that’s booked, the return time clock jumps back to wherever it was in its cycle before (or goes unavailable, as the case may be). By contrast, reservation refills restart the clock and advance incrementally over the course of a few minutes (sometimes less, sometimes more) before booking up.
Party Size Does Not Matter – This is really only a tangential point, but it’s something that comes up a lot, and relates to the first point of confusion. If you see a cancellation, but are one of the disappointed parties that were too slow to book it, there might be the assumption that it’s because your party was too large. Truthfully, I don’t know whether that’s the case with cancellations–if it shows for everyone despite not being a fit. Nothing would surprise me, but I do know that even as a party of 1, I am routinely have the cancelled reservation rug pulled out from under me.
What I also know is that party size doesn’t matter with ride reservation refills. Lightning Lanes are not like Advance Dining Reservations–Walt Disney World is not trying to match attraction vehicle seating with hourly capacity. That’s not even remotely feasible. It’s a pure numbers game: X number of ride reservations are released, and that number can be booked in any permutation possible.
No Modifying – Unlike FastPass+, there is (still) no modify button in Genie+. Making matters worse, cancelling is a tedious, time-consuming process. If you’ve already booked a Lightning Lane and are watching for something better, by the time you cancel and attempt to book that, it’ll likely be gone.
As such, it’s better if you simply don’t book anything and wait for a refill. That’s obviously higher risk and the temptation to hedge is understandable, but this is one of the big reasons why we recommend doing a trial run at home so you see for yourself how the refills work in practice, and can develop a rhythm.
Refresh Aggressively – It’s always better to force refresh Genie rather than to wait for it to do so on its own. There are several ways to do this, but I prefer the pin and pull-down method described in Speed Strategy for Genie+ at Walt Disney World.
Booking reservation refills isn’t really about speed (this is arguably an antidote to the 7 am mad rush, as explained below), but the same principle applies.
Refills Bring Stability – Another big complaint we’re seeing from those doing the aforementioned 7 am mad dash is that their confirmed Lightning Lane time is often hours later than what they saw earlier in the booking process. Like the lack of a modify button, this is yet another design oversight. This one results from a surge of people all trying to book the same ride reservation right at 7:00:00 am.
If you wait and do one of these ride reservation refills–especially the first one of the morning–the times are more stable and it’s less likely that you’ll see 9 am and get 2 pm (or whatever).
Refilled Ride Roster – Now we’re getting down to business. Here are the attractions that we’ve seen get reservation refills at one point or another:
- Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain
- Epcot: Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World, Test Track
- Hollywood Studios: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Slinky Dog Dash, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Toy Story Mania, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
- Animal Kingdom: Avatar Flight of Passage, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Na’vi River Journey
Do These Ride Reservation Refills Always Happen? – Nope. Some attractions have their Lightning Lane availability replenished like clockwork at set times every day, others happen on rare occasion, and most are somewhere in between the two extremes.
Again, this is another reason to set aside a morning before your trip (ideally as close to your travel dates as possible) and do a dry run. You don’t have to pay for Genie+ to see the refills (in my many mornings of researching for this article, I didn’t) and it’ll give you an idea of what’s happening currently. I could share a bunch of refill times here today, and they could be wrong tomorrow, next week or month.
What Are Those Potentially Wrong Genie+ Ride Reservation Refill Times? – I want to, once again, stress that there are no guarantees. (There’s a reason I’m “backloading” key details like times towards the end of the article–I want anyone who simply wants a quick and easy hack to have given up and closed the browser tab by now.) I’ve been watching these refills since last November and the one thing that has been consistent is the inconsistency. There is risk in this approach.
With that said, I’ve found that the first Genie+ Lightning Lane refill typically occurs at 7:08 am (see progression in screenshots above). This is not always on the dot, and I’d recommend starting to refresh around 7:05 am and (potentially) continuing until 7:25 am. That’s right–you could be spending the first half-hour of your morning obsessively refreshing the My Disney Experience app. I hope you’ve had your coffee.
After that, Genie+ Lightning Lane refills tend to occur throughout the day, usually shortly after the hour or half-hour (e.g. 9:02 am, 9:33 am, 12:02 pm, 1:32 pm, 2:03 pm, etc). Those are examples, not exact times. Actual ride reservation refill times vary by day, park, crowd levels, and attraction downtime.
Beyond that, all of this is subject to change. I’m just one person monitoring this (and not a very organized one, so my notes aren’t the best) without the use of data scraping or fancy technology. I could be missing some attractions, drop times, etc. With that said, I’ve never seen any refills in the 8 am hour or after the 3 pm hour. To the best of my knowledge, most occur between 9 am and 1 pm.
What About Potentially Wrong Individual Lightning Lane Ride Reservation Refill Times? – This is actually one that has happened with a greater degree of consistency, and that’s Individual Lightning Lanes starting at 7:17 am (see progression in screenshots above). At one point, this was primarily just Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, but I think that was probably because it was the only attraction selling out quickly.
In more recent weeks, I’ve noticed all ILL attractions being refilled at 7:17 am (see recent refill availability in screenshots below). As an added bonus, the clock progresses much more slowly with this refill than the initial stock, making it easier to book the return time you actually want.
Where Does This Matter Most? – There’s a good chance this will be overwhelming or too much work if you are the type of person who goes on vacation to, ya know, vacation. If you want to spend time gazing at your family’s smiles and enjoying time with them at Walt Disney World and not glued to your phone, we would recommend only embracing this approach in one park and being more laid back with the rest.
Without question, that park is Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Distilling all of this down to its key components, you could (theoretically) sleep until 7:06 am, then book Slinky Dog Dash for an early return time during its first drop, followed by Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance during its first refill. Unlike the 7:00:00 am mad dash, this would not require two adults and would thus be easier since these times are staggered (for now, at least).
If you don’t plan on buying the ILL, you could sleep in even later, booking Slinky Dog Dash during its next refill (see half-hour progression screenshots of Slinky Dog Dash above). You could then use that when eligible, reserving your next Lightning Lanes as normal pursuant to the 120 minute rule, and then trying to score a couple ride reservation refills with your early afternoon slots.
That’s not really a ton of screen time (these reservations are literally occurring at least 2 hours apart) and has the potential to save you a tremendous amount of time waiting in line at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Although you can better leverage refills at Magic Kingdom, I just don’t think it’s necessary most days unless you’re doing this for sport or plan to Park Hop. Even then, the cost in stress and time spent refreshing is too high for my liking.
As yet another reminder, Genie+ is not the end-all, be-all of park touring strategy. Our Genie+ v. Savvy Standby Strategy at Walt Disney World covers the best and worst ways to beat the crowds right now and Genie+ and Lightning Lanes are not the best (and certainly not the easiest) way in 3 of the 4 parks.
The only park where Genie+ was the clear-cut winner was Magic Kingdom. Everywhere else, there were superior strategies for saving time waiting in line. Following these ride reservation refill rules and accompanying strategy bridges the gap, and makes Genie+ more viable for DHS, as well.
If you’re overwhelmed by all of the recent changes, crowd reports, and everything else, the aforementioned post is the most succinct resource for current strategy. (Seriously, if you only read ONE strategy post prior to your trip, make it that. The advice there is definitely more practical than this post for most.)
Ultimately, a lot of you will likely leave this post even more confused or frustrated, and perhaps further infuriated that Genie+ and Lightning Lanes are so unnecessarily complicated. In general, we agree with that sentiment. However, in this specific case, that doesn’t really apply. This isn’t really a loophole exploit, but there is a reason why Disney doesn’t publish this info itself. These ride reservation refills are not meant to be understood or common knowledge–they’re supposed to be a ‘relief valve’ of sorts for guests who don’t know all of the ins and outs, and are just randomly looking for availability. That’s true with a lot of Genie+ hacks–it’s leveraging the system in a way that wasn’t intended.
This is also why we’ve included so many caveats throughout this post about all of this being subject to change, inconsistent, and so forth. Walt Disney World will toy with these times to keep power users on their toes, meaning there are no guarantees and all of this is risky to put into practice. You really need to understand these pitfalls going in–this is not for the faint of heart, especially without the safety net of a modify button. This is a perilous approach, but to quote the great Indiana Jones (Adventure): “Real Rewards Await Those Who Choose Wisely.”
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Do these ride reservation refill rules make sense to you or is it too overwhelming? Will you use this strategy for scoring Genie+ or Individual Lightning Lane selections? Have you had success in getting Slinky Dog Dash during one of these refills? What about headliners in other parks? Thoughts on leveraging Genie+ refills versus other strategy? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We were there last week and ended up using this to our advantage without even knowing about it. I bought LL for Rise, FOP, and 7 Dwarves (will never do 7 Dwarves again but the other two were “worth it” to have). I bought none of them at 7am because they were all sold out at the time. Same thing happened with a couple of Genie+ LL attractions. I did a lot of refreshing but I didn’t mind because 1. It’s fun to find something you didn’t think you were getting and 2. I was trying to learn the system with 2 of us before 9 of us go at Thanksgiving (I know things are subject to change before them). Another BIG thing I noticed though (and maybe you’ve addressed this and I missed it) we were NEVER able to make another LL when we tapped in. Not once. I checked every single time. And I definitely checked after the second tap point. Sometimes we had to wait an hour or so from the tap in time, sometimes it was still 2 hours from the last time we made a reservation, but it was never at tap in. I’m not sure if it was a glitch or it’s something that has changed. We were there April 5-7 and bought Genie+ all three days. We park hopped all three days. It was worth it (to us) the first two days. The third day it stormed badly and we got no use whatsoever out of it. Just our experience but I figured I’d mention the tap in thing.
I was there last week too and had the exact same experience on only being able to book at 2-hr mark, even when redeeming a ride that was sooner than two hours. Hollywood was a bust! I was thrilled Tom’s advice on speed selections helped me get a 9:25 SDD, but when we redeemed I waited to get a better time for ToT and missed all time slots. Then it broke down for a while, and it never refilled time slots. I had made another LL for Rockn Rollercoaster, and as we got off ToT reopened. We hopped in line thinking we could quickly zoom thru…nope! They let ALL the LL go thru and maybe only 1-2 standby parties every 10-20 mins. We waited 2hrs! Never again. Tom had warned us about Genie at HS. But Magic Kingdom was fantastic! I was able to book nearly every big ride we wanted to do. One weird “magical” moment was booking Jungle Cruise at 7am I wasn’t fast enough and I got 1pm (husband saw it too). But then as we were on the bus to the park I looked at our time and it was suddenly 10:15am?! One question I could not get answered: if you cancel a LL can you rebook right away or do you loose that time and have to wait the 120mins? I wasn’t willing to try it and only paid two days of Genie. That was enough for me. Thanks Tom for all your intel! It really helps.
I feel like this happened to me too on our trip in February! As soon as I used the first LL and tried to book another, it would say I was trying to book one too soon, and to check again at XX:XX time. I would wait until I was done with the ride though- is that too late? I didn’t do it right after a tap-in. How long do you have after a tap-in? I probably need to do more research, but I thought at the time that I was doing things correctly- they just weren’t working out the way I was hoping they would. To JayC- you can cancel a currently booked LL to book a different one, but it’s a PAIN! Like Tom mentioned, there’s no “modify” option, which would make things a lot easier. You don’t have to wait 120 minutes, but if it’s a hard-to-get selection, I guarantee you will miss it if you have to cancel one first.
Just here to say I recently had first hand experience with the 7:17 a.m. reload. That’s how we got Rise of the Resistance. There was nothing at 7:00, so I waited and started refreshing at 7:16. Then BOOM all kinds of availability at 7:17.
FYI my family of four went in Feb and when we tried to book a genie + reservation it didn’t give me the time listed on the screen . Guest services said that the size of party does matter. At 1 pm it was available for less people but my slot for 4 people was only available much later in the day. I DID NOT like how the times listed were not always the times we were awarded 🙁 it was impossible to really strategize the day. I don’t know if they’ve removed that bad feature since then but families get the short end when trying to book reservations it seems.
Tom, I was playing around with the Tip Board this past weekend to familiarize myself for my June trip, and I happened to see the ILL drop for Rise of the Resistance at 7:17. I thought I was seeing things, but those early morning reservations stuck around for quite a bit. Thanks for confirming this and sharing all this detail. I’m just hoping more folks don’t catch up before June. I’d hate to bump myself to just the top .6%!
We were there 2 weeks ago and feel like we almost mastered Genie+…..except with getting frozen ever after when we chose Test Track as our 7 am one (this was our first day….we figured out strategies within a day or so). For a family that could NOT do rope drop, we got on everything using Genie + (minus frozen).
We were noticing that by refreshing constantly, times would pop up every 5-7 minutes or so. But, a lot of the time, we’d also fail out at the confirmation screen, so that was probably people cancelling. We even managed to get splash mountain (after refreshing for about 10 minutes straight) after we had ridden big thunder in the middle of the day when it was about 90 degrees outside.
My goodness what a complete gong show. Even being DVC members, one look at this and we are passing on Disneyworld for now. Universal Orlando, here we come! At least with Universal once I have given them my left leg, I know I can sit back and enjoy the vacation.
Why does every useful strategy article have to have useless vent like this? You don’t wanna go, don’t go. You wanna rant, go complain to Disney. They’re the only ones with the power to change anything.
Tom I need to thank you 🙂 Last week we decided to plan a trip and we’re out of the loop since our last visit was before all the big changes. As I’m studying for WDW ’22 exam, a question pops up: Can I modify a stacked reservation somehow? Google tells me a potential answer was posted 3 hours ago. Right here! I haven’t finished this post yet but already cracking up at “Today’s post puts you in the top 1%, perhaps even top .5%.” Thanks Tom. Really appreciate your Disney perspectives. Hope you and Sarah are having a lovely Spring.
Tom, thanks so much for your tips! I crammed all of your genie + articles a few weeks ago as I planned for a 3 day trip with a first timer who wanted to hit the headliners. Was able to ride every ride at HS, Epcot, and AK with your suggestions April 3-6 (very busy spring break crowds!). Being able to ride so much with minimal wait definitely minimized the feeling of heavy crowds. I plan to buy Genie+ for all future trips. Thanks again!
Thanks! I’d noticed availability pop up throughout the day but didn’t realize it was quite so organized. I don’t want to be stuck on my phone all day to really stalk these refills, but it’s still useful to know that if I don’t get slinky dog (or whatever) right at 7, I shouldn’t panic and book something else just to fill the slot – I can give it 5 minutes and try again.
I’m curious, has anyone ever just went to the parks leisurely went on rides without paying for all these lightning lanes and Genie plus apps. What is it like just waiting in standby lines? And are there people out there that aren’t buying these apps and just waiting in line?
Yup, and enjoying the reduced stress…
We’re here now and followed Tom’s recommendations and did savvy early entry for AK and Epcot and Rose many things twice with no need for Genie plus. We got genie plus for MK on our second day and had a very frustrating morning, couldn’t get anything early but ended up stacking loads for the afternoon and managed 5 lightning lane bookings in total and left at 7pm with tired kids. If you are staying later then you could get more. HS we also did genie plus and were pleased we selected Slinky dog first as suggested by Tom as the lightning lanes were basically all gone by the next booking slot! We only got 3 LL bookings that day as everything was gone by early afternoon, so had to stand in some queues. The longest line we had at HS was 60 mins Smugglers run, longest at epcot was frozen 75 mins as pouring with rain, longest at MK 50 mins jungle cruise and AK we mucked up and hit the safari at the wrong time and ended up doing 110mins, but otherwise I’d say we averaged 35 minute waits. We’re not meandering round though, I’m in the phone checking waiting times and then we walk swiftly between each location. We managed 13 rides on our day in MK with genie plus (early entry-7pm), 10 in epcot with no genie plus (early entry-6pm), everything in AK with no genie plus (early entry-5pm), 7 rides and 2 shows in HS with genie plus (early entry-7pm). Hope that helps!
Hi, Patricia. We did Epcot and DHS in February with family members who did not buy Genie+ so we were all winging it together. At Epcot we were able to do early entry for Ratatouille and then knock out Soarin’ before the big crowds came in. After that, Test Track and Frozen were about hour-long waits (not unreasonable in my book). So the lack of Genie+ was not a problem for us in Epcot. DHS was a much different story. It seemed like every big ride was posting more than 1 hour waits (with the exception of, strangely, Smugglers’ Run) and Tower of Terror went down to one operational tower so the line was unbelievable. It was just a lot of hours to stack one on top of another — especially in a park that feels like there’s little to no shade. We wound up buying ILLs to get everyone on Ride of the Resistance. For the cost of the ROTR ILL, I think Genie+ at DHS would’ve made that day more enjoyable.
Thank you!! As an AP who usually takes day trips, I have yet to actually purchase Genie +, but I get lots of questions from family and friends about how it works. And I have seen previously booked LL open up later, and I didn’t understand it until now. I loved loved loved fast pass and used it religiously, but I have not been able to justify buying genie plus as all. We now just choose to wait in line or skip it altogether. But, other than Rise of the Resistance (which I had the chance to ride at least 10 times back in the era of 7am queues), we have been able to ride all headliners recently. But I still miss FP for sure!
This is a great article — thanks for doing the research! Our kid noticed ride refills (we mistakenly thought they were all cancellations) and we’ve benefitted from them at both Disneyworld (in February) and Disneyland (in March). Instead of being irritating, it actually became a game to play while we were waiting in line anyway. (You can only play so many games of Psych! before your arm gets tired holding your phone to your forehead.) Our best “scores” were Avatar Flight of Passage, Ride of the Resistance, and an end-of evening Spider-Man slot. Kids look at their phones a lot anyway, and this is way more productive for the family than whatever else they’re wanting to look at. And I think it’s good of Disney to protect the “casual” visitor. I cringe every time I see a family with their kids lined up in Star Wars costumes waiting under that blue umbrella to talk with Guest Services. A relief valve is an apt description and I think a necessary one for overall guest satisfaction.
Well, I guess that answers the earlier question about refills at Disneyland–thanks!
I doubt that there are many “power users” since most people who go often (APs/locals) aren’t going to pay for Genie+ every time they go to the park. It was much easier to have a leisurely trip to “practice” for family trips with fast pass because it was free and didn’t require a 7am wake-up. That part still kills me. We used Genie+ on a single day in February as a “practice” for an upcoming trip with family and I’m still on the fence about using it (we’ve done two other trips since and skipped it completely.). The thing I liked the most was the AR filters (especially the villains!). Even with reading all your articles, it’s difficult to apply all that knowledge the first time you use it and I still struggled but stacked a decent afternoon lineup for our day at Magic Kingdom.
That’s a good point. Power users in the era of FastPass+ were more of a pronounced problem when it came to this type of thing as there was no cost. Now, not many APs/locals are going to pay for Genie+ more than a few days per year.
If anything, that bodes well for strategy like this–it gives Disney less of an incentive to tinker with things to throw off those power users.
Thats one of the good things about G+, level playing field and fewer people gaming the system.
Well written. We have definitely noticed the refills during the days. It’s too bad you have to be glued to your phone. It does pay off though. We’ve seen refills on headliners for sure during the day. Last day night we saw ToT and MMRR get some around 5 ish.
Thank You, Tom for your efforts in providing this blog. I mostly enjoy the food reviews and have tried many restaurants and food items that I did not even know about. Boma (breadfast & dinner) is my absolute favorite; and, and, and…
Makes me glad that I have an I-Phone 6 as it takes an I-Phone 11 or newer to even download or upgrade to a usable ‘mydisneyexperience’ app. I have not seen this piece of information anywhere and hopefully it helps those that get there with an older I-Phone and cannot use their old version of the app.
I will do the standby line once for each of the high demand rides in which I am interested.
I will bypass most of the stress, enjoy myself and my family and go to WDW & DL less often and therefore spend less money at Disney.
I was familiar with the “drops” but it just seems like way too much screen time/aggravation
I’d estimate that for 98% or more of guests, anything after the first drops during the 7 am hour will be exactly that–too much screen time, effort, and frustration. Also, too high risk.
From what I can tell they have been doing this for a while, based off some numbers that were crunched by Touringplans back in October/November last year. I’ve used this strategy before myself but there’s definitely a risk! It does take out some of the stress, though. If you miss the first drop, there’s a good chance you won’t be screwed for the entire day.
Genie+ vs Fastpass booking sometimes feels like the different college assessment tests. In addition to requiring years of schooling to get them right–one of them rewards you for making a ‘guess’ as to the right answer (IE booking an unfavorable time and watching out for a better one), and the other one punishes you (IE Genie +).
Oh yeah, this is nothing new–I just didn’t write about it right away because I was still tracking it and things were changing so much at the time (see hacking the 120 minute rule, which was gutted around Thanksgiving).
Good analogy with the college assessment tests. I still cannot believe there’s no modify button. I cannot imagine that that was on purpose, and it’s such a conspicuous omission. It’s like the total dev budget for Genie+ was exhausted in early October when the features were 75% done…and they haven’t spent anything more to fix its many faults.
Given how inconsistent the drops are, I don’t blame you for the delay! It’s well-researched writing like this that makes you so reliable as an information source anyway.
As a software engineer myself, I’m utterly boggled about the lack of a modify button. It really does make it feel like this was thrown together very quickly, as these sorts of issues usually come when there’s a narrow budget or timeframe. It’s faster and cheaper to include less functionality and not worry about future adaptations, but it also makes it twice as expensive later to go back in and fix the issue instead of just paying a little bit more at the onset to write a more dynamic and well-structured program. That, and it’s also costing Disney in terms of customer satisfaction. It…really was a poor decision all around.
With your help I feel I’ve got this down. Had a great experience when I was recently at magic kingdom and Hollywood studios. Second Magic kingdom day was busier and although it went well, I learned from a few mistakes. Can’t wait to try magic kingdom for a third time, as I’ve been doing more practicing and reading your tips, I think I can master it.
How about Disneyland? Are you finding that Disneyland does refills in a similar fashion as well?
Disneyland is so much easier overall that advanced level tips are almost totally unnecessary. I have not noticed refills there, but I’ve also been barely paying attention because the system is so much easier to use. I have a few intermediate-level tips for DLR, but feel like writing about those would actually be counterproductive, because it would unnecessarily stress people out about a system that is simple.
Can Tom outline why Disneyland is easier? Main differences? Am I right in assuming at wdw you get up at 7am and at DL you can’t book genie+ until you get inside?
@colin To put it briefly, Disneyland is easier because both parks there have many many more rides on the G+ system, so availability is much less of an issue (similar to how G+ has been working at WDW’s MK).
On the other hand, Epcot/HS/AK have so few (worthwhile) G+ rides that inventory can be exhausted by lunchtime.
Scrap the entire thing. Its terrible after just getting back. They cannot expect us to pay more for something that does not really work well and at the same time makes all the other lines longer.
Bingo- same boat over here. We just got back from a week of having to be up before 7 to get ready to be at a park because the lines were so long for everything that you had to be there early in case you didn’t get you lightning lane/ genie + ride. It was a mess- I was stopped once in a park because a guy saw us dealing with the app and he asked us if we had as many problems as we did. Yep. The best quote I heard all week was one morning at 7:02 at breakfast and the guy at the next table said, “I’ll tell Disney what they can do with their Genie”. I heard it being discussed negatively all week. It’s not just that we need to adjust to the change, it has made the experience of going to a park more stressful, more tedious, you have to stand in longer lines, and go early- oh and do it on less sleep and pay for it. It is not a good strategy going forward. It negatively impacts a “vacation” if they keep it the way it is.
So which is it – does G+ work or not? If it makes standby longer according to you it must be working?
People complaining about getting up at 7am to book make no sense, you snooze you lose, getting up for early entry or rope drop has been standard wdw strategy for decades.
I guess its just easier to complain!
The change is not that suddenly I have to get up early. The change is that suddenly, you have to hope that you get a Genie + for anything, and you have no real say so on the time. The chances that you are going to get one for a popular ride is so small that you have to be at the park before rope drop to even have a chance to ride stuff without standing in line for an hour. Problem is, every ride is now an hour or more. Buses are absolutely packed at 7:00 am, mostly because everyone was up to do their genie + stuff- or to try. None of this is a guarantee. So, It has made the people getting to the park early much worse, made the chance you get a genie+ diminished, and they are now making you pay for this. It’s created a problem where there wasn’t one. That is the problem.
Anyone who says they can’t get any G+ for any popular ride doesn’t understand the system and hasn’t read Tom’s articles carefully.
There was a problem before, power FP+ users were abusing the system to ride the best rides over and over paying $0 while everyone else had to wait in long lines. Now that loophole is closed so of course people whine and complain.
I had noticed and used these refill dumps before but didn’t realize it was a regular thing. I was assuming some kind of algorithm was shuffling the numbers based on capacity and quantity already booked and revising the available reservations. This is great info for future trips, thanks! I love understanding the minutiae of systems like this to work then more efficiently.
“I was assuming some kind of algorithm was shuffling the numbers based on capacity and quantity already booked and revising the available reservations.”
In an era of big data and algorithms, I think people would be surprised if they learned just how little of this Disney was successfully doing. Even the systems capable of all this and that do it to some extent don’t really do anything with the info. It just isn’t Disney’s strong suit.
Physical tracking, on the other hand, is another story entirely.
I am fairly certain that they’re trying to use the old billion dollar MyMagic backend which just doesn’t seem to have the capability for complicated “instant” decisions built into it. Adding algorithims on top of the data collection system are why the MDE app (and before it, the website) seem to move at a crawl when it’s asked to do anything in real time.
I do buy that thse dumps are just after the quarter hour to mess with the data scraping websites. I’ve tried looking through Thrill Data to see if I could discover these but it’s a lot harder to see than if they were just before the quarter hour.
If Tom or others can mark where these are, even if they change in the future, this is a much easier hack to *use* than to find; like looking for a fourth FastPass+, either it’s there or it isn’t. Collecting the inputs to maintain this guide is much, much harder.