Lightning Lanes Really Are Paid FastPass+ at Disney World
We’ve been referring to Lightning Lanes as “paid FastPass” since before they debuted at Walt Disney World, and now the company is offering a tacit confirmation of this via a new caveat aimed at lowering expectations. In this post, we’ll take a look at the language change, why it was likely added, and more.
That move mimics one made for the Christmas season last year, and was one of many problems with Lightning Lanes and the paid FastPass service. Those range from increased technical difficulties to limited ride reservation inventory with the whole system and infrastructure placed under greater usage. In any case, here’s the “expectation lowering” official verbiage from DisneyWorld.com’s Disney Lightning Lane Entrance page:
When you take your day to the next level by purchasing Disney Genie+ service, you may choose the next available arrival window for Lightning Lane entrances at select attractions and entertainment. This unique service lets you use our new Lightning Lane entrance at select attractions and experiences at the Walt Disney World theme parks. On average, guests can enter 2 to 3 attractions or experiences per day using the Lightning Lane entrance if the first selection is made early in the day.
You can enjoy a Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane entrance once per day. If you’d like to re-ride an attraction or see a certain show again within the same day, you are welcome to use our regular standby line.
The pertinent new text is this: “On average, guests can enter 2 to 3 attractions or experiences per day using the Lightning Lane entrance if the first selection is made early in the day.”
This sentence has been added in a variety of locations around DisneyWorld.com and in My Disney Experience, including on the various in-app pop-ups that appear prior to purchasing the Genie+ service. From that, it’s very clear that Walt Disney World wants guests to see this message, and is attempting to manage (read: lower) expectations about how much they can accomplish via the Lightning Lane line-skipping service.
The reason this is a tacit admission by Walt Disney World that Genie+ is really paid FastPass+ is likely obvious to longtime fans. In case not, 3 is the number of attractions that could be reserved in advance under the free FastPass+ service. This means Genie+ is essentially a $16 daily ticket price increase by a different name.
Actually, it’s not just a $16 daily ticket price increase. As Disney notes, this is the number that can be accomplished if the first selection is made earlier in the day. In other words, you’ll need to wake up at or around 7 am each day of your vacation. Oh, and you’ll also need to overcome the MDX app’s error of the day. (Will it be a deluge of email confirmation codes, random crashes, linking errors, or something else? Who knows! And isn’t that the thrill of it?!?)
In other words, Genie+ has higher costs than free FastPass+, both monetarily and in vacation time and frustrations. (Some of these same faults existed with FastPass+, but at least they were shifted a month or two ahead of your trip and thus couldn’t ruin your day while actually on vacation.)
This change also comes as the Genie+ system comes under greater stress due to elevated attendance at Walt Disney World. We’ve gone over this in a number of recent reports, but winter was (nearly) a return to pre-closure highs, and February was the busiest month in the last two years at Walt Disney World.
Spoiler alert: March 2022 is going to “dethrone” last month for that dubious distinction, with an average wait time across all Walt Disney World attractions of 47 minutes. That’s 2 minutes higher than last month, which may not seem like much, but definitely adds up in aggregate. If Disney Park Pass reservations are any indication (they very much are), April is going to be on par with–or maybe even worse than–March and February.
As a result of our experiences with in in the last couple of months, we’ve been warning that Genie+ is becoming less useful and is not the end-all, be-all of park touring strategy. To that end, we published Genie+ v. Savvy Standby Strategy at Walt Disney World, which is the result of extensive ‘testing’ to determine the best and worst ways to beat the crowds right now. (We put a lot of work into that, and it should be incredibly useful for planning, while not being too overwhelming.)
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. That’s true even with Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where we had previously strongly recommended buying the Genie+ service. For DHS, we called Genie+ the “option of last resort” because it’s headache-inducing, but not any more so than standby lines, which are just brutal at DHS.
We’ve also shared recent full day experiences with Genie+ at both Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios (see My Day Using Genie+ Lightning Lanes in Peak Crowds at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and My Day Using Genie+ for Spring Break 2022 at Magic Kingdom).
If you read those, you’ll notice I accomplished significantly more than Walt Disney World’s caveat suggests. Keep in mind that the company’s statement is prefaced with “on average.” I’m anything but average when it comes to using Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. That might sound like a humblebrag, and I guess sort of is, but it would be a pretty lame point of pride. I doubt my parents are bragging to their friends that their son has mastered an unnecessarily complex queueing system.
More than anything, this is an acknowledgement of the complexity of Genie+ and the differential between its power users and first-timers. There’s a reason we have a ~4,500 word Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ along with another dozen-plus posts for those who want to thoroughly master the new paid FastPass system. It isn’t easy, but knowledge can help significantly in achieving better results.
With that said, I do think Walt Disney World’s stated 2-3 average is way low for Magic Kingdom. Even with only a cursory understanding of the system on high crowd days, guests should easily be able to accomplish double that number of attractions via the Lightning Lanes. That’s the benefit of a more ride-dense park. The other 3 parks are probably in the 2-3 range if you only care about headliners.
(Now this has me curious. If you’ve used Genie+ in the last two months or during the holiday season, how many Lightning Lanes were you able to book? Please share numbers–even if just ballpark estimates–in the comments.)
Even while it has worked for us, we’ve been incredibly disappointed by Genie+ and Lightning Lanes as a whole. Prior to launch, our original perspective was that paid FastPass was an inevitability, and that “it could’ve been worse.” My biggest frustration at that time was messaging; Walt Disney World failed to communicate just how the system would work and the different Lightning Lanes would work. (Something that still hasn’t been sufficiently remedied, in my view.)
I’ll admit to being more bullish back then about Genie+ than the average Walt Disney World fan. I was wrong and feel like I owe you an apology–I expected better of Walt Disney World with the Genie system. This optimism was based on our experiences with MaxPass at Disneyland, which were largely positive.
For a blog known for overthinking literally everything, I should’ve given that analysis more thought. Disneyland is a terrible comparison to 3 of the 4 parks at Walt Disney World because it actually has a healthy number of rides. (Like its predecessor, Genie+ works great at Disneyland…minus some new tech issues and rule quirks.)
I also didn’t foresee some of technical difficulties, frustrating user interface, and lack of obvious features. Call that one a “failure of imagination,” as I should absolutely know better when it comes to all things related to Disney IT. (In my defense, MaxPass was right there as a template and didn’t have this level of problems. Leave it to Disney to reinvent the wheel and make it square.) I also dramatically underestimated the number of guests who would purchase Genie+ at Walt Disney World; as more people purchase Genie+, Lightning Lane availability decreases and competition grows.
Ultimately, that’s the tough and sad thing about Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. “Success” with the system comes at the expense of tech novices or less knowledgeable guests, many of whom will drop $16 per person for next to no advantage. This isn’t just theoretical–we’ve received feedback from literally hundreds of guests at this point who have reported exactly that.
If a third party blog is receiving this type of negative reviews for Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, there’s absolutely no way the company isn’t hearing the same from guests. We’ve noticed longer lines at Guest Relations and have heard of refunds issued for Genie+ becoming commonce. They’re undoubtedly receiving negative feedback online via social media and surveying.
Speaking of which, company executives have praised Disney Genie for improving per guest spending and its high popularity during recent earnings calls and at various conferences. One rather conspicuous omission from this commentary has been guest satisfaction scores. The first few quarters after Walt Disney World reopened, the resilience of these numbers was regularly touted. They’ve been silent on that topic in the quarters since Genie debuted. Any guesses why?!
Ultimately, whenever language like this ‘2-3 attractions’ warning is added to lower expectations, there’s a reason for it. Disney has a sophisticated survey and research apparatus, and my strong suspicion is that the “results” there from guests who have bought Genie+ in the last few months are anything but positive. Of course, that’s just a guess–maybe guests lowkey love Genie+, and the backlash here and on other corners of the internet is incorrect. (That’ll likely go down as the best unintentional joke this blog has ever told.)
In fairness to Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, there is no perfect solution. FastPass+ likewise had a steep learning curve, and it was counterintuitive to most guests to plan out rides 30 or 60 days in advance of their vacation. Paper FastPass was physically-demanding, requiring people to criss-cross the parks (remember runners?!). Neither of those were this stressful and confusing, and at least those were not directly monetized (a lot can be forgiven when it’s free!). I certainly hope Walt Disney World is paying attention to guest satisfaction and feedback. Even though Genie+ works well for me (and can for you), it shouldn’t require being a power user who has taken a crash course in the system’s strategy to have a good day in the parks.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on my Walt Disney World’s warning that guests can only experience 2-3 attractions via Lightning Lanes on average? Thinking we’re making too much of this language tweak, or is it a fair to point to this as the paid FastPass system not being able to handle guest demand and meet expectations? If you’ve purchased Genie+ in the last ~2 months (or over the holiday season), how many Lightning Lanes were you able to reserve? Are you planning on buying Genie+ or sticking to free standby lines at WDW? 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!
I appreciate your updated commentary, and while I haven’t used the system, my frustrations/concerns mirror what you’re sharing. That also doesn’t mention the frustration it causes those who are not purchasing it. It’s bad when you launch a system that angers both those that do and don’t buy it.
I went during spring break week and was able to book 4 attractions between Hollywood studios and magic kingdom. The attractions were Mickey and Minnie’s runaway railway, star tours, pirates and splash mountain. I was able to book slinky dog dash at 7ish, but I wasn’t very interested in it. In hindsight, I probably should’ve because Mickey and Minnie seemed to refill a bit throughout the morning. It was a very fulfilling day otherwise though, I was able to ride rise of the resistance in the evening with an hour wait!
I consulted your blog extensively before our trip and really appreciate all the tips your blog offered. We visited WDW February 8-11, so moderate-level crowd days before the President’s Day onslaught. I followed your suggested order of securing Genie+ suggestions. We snagged 8 G+ at Magic Kingdom, 3 at DHS. Rope dropped 7 Dwarfs at MK and RoTR at DHS. Didn’t use at all at AK per your suggestions, just rope dropped Avatar rides.
My family went to the parks the week between Christmas and New Years this past holiday season, and we averaged 2-3 a day plus one ILL. I will say that the 2 hour rule really killed things since most of the heavy hitters even getting on right at 7am were often for later afternoon. And by the time the 2 hours had passed most of nothing was left (that we wanted I should say–we are not the get a LL to a show or Dumbo people so that impacted things too). We also are take a break midday and/or not stay too late people (mostly because of my young niece who was with us) which definitely impacted usage. Getting up before 7 every day of vacation, having the world clock pulled up, and two phones ready to book a regular LL and an ILL was also stupid ridiculous/stressful. I feel like the way to make the best use of LL is to constantly criss cross the park and that just isn’t feasible for most people/families.
Hi Tom!
We travelled to Disney March 16-22. We did Magic Kingdom March 17, hollywood Studios March 18th, Rest day on the 19th. We started at Epcot on March 20th then hopped to Hollywood Studios and on March 21st we started at Magic Kingdom and hopped to Animal Kingdom.
We had a party of 13 including 7 adults and six kids ages 3.5-9. I had been planning this trip for almost 3 years (cancelled 2020 trip included). I won’t go over our whole trip just our genie+ experience. Please note that we had 2 or 3 phones going at all times since we had such a large group. 6:50-7:10 every morning was STRESSFUL. Not to mention we woke up on our HS day to find we couldn’t book anything because we had NO PARK PASSES. which we 100% had for over 4 months prior to our trip. I had to go down to the resort check in and thankfully there was an amazing cast member who helped fixed it and booked us Rise all by 7:30. We were staying at The Wilderness Lodge Copper Creek Villas. apparently someone at magic kingdom has messed it up the day before. We had issues with genie plus and rider switch. I know kids aren’t your expertise, but man was rider switch confusing! It was different at EVERY ride!
Back to your question at hand how many rides we got. Please note we were at every park for early entry and arrived before early entry time. Using early entry and rope drop was THE BEST. we took your recent epcot day and totally changed our plan based on how much we could do during early entry and went back to HS so people who didn’t rope drop slinky the first day could ride it via genie+
Magic Kingdom: purchased 7 dwarves ILL then got Thunder mountain, Splash mountain, Little Mermaid, pirates, Buzz. we had a midday break back at the resort and most of the group went home by 8:15. total: 5
Hollywood Studios: purchased Rise ILL. Smugglers and toy story mania. I really thought we got more, but I can’t think of anything else… Total: 2
Epcot/HS: Purchased Remy ILL (since we were arriving via bus we couldn’t rope drop it). Booked Slinky dog, meet and greet with minnie and mickey, and Runaway railway. Total 3
Magic Kingdom/AK: Purchased Flight of Passage. Booked Jungle Cruise (we knew this was a bad decision as it wasn’t until 11:45 but our boys were begging to do this ride. Waste of a genie plus in my opinion the ride is not worth giving up multiple other time slots and waiting several hours for it would be crazy). Then booked Safari, Dinosaur, Kali river rapids (all while in MK before going to AK that afternoon). We didn’t even need the genie plus for dinosaur and kali river rapids, but used them anyway.
A little caveat here about why I hate park reservations. we would have much rather done AK in the morning on our last day and ended at magic kingdom, but when planning our park passes we didn’t know if we would even do AK so we booked MK for the final day. It just stinks there is no flexibility and you are stuck with your park pass you picked a few months prior.
Overall we had an amazing trip but our family of 4 (within our big group of 13) spent $444.24 on ILL and genie+. that is a huge chunk of change. we did a lot of headliners with very little waits including rope dropping so it was worth it but ouch that was a hit to the budget.
Thank you so much for your blog posts they are my favorite!!!
Erin, that was helpful! Can you share what the differences were for child swap on the various rides?
Hi Lori,
I am not sure if this is going in the right spot. But i honestly didn’t understand the differences. I was helping my sister as she was the one doing rider swap. Basically some lines you would go through the line and right before riding you would wait and then “swap” but other ones you had to tell the cast members at the front of the line and you waited outside the physical queue for your party to come all the way back and then went in through the lightning lane. It got confusing because we started going in and tapping in for genie but then didn’t go all the way to the second tap in place. My suggestion is to just speak to the cast member at the entrance to each ride you want to rider swap and ask them how it is done for that ride.
We visited the Magic Kingdom on March 22. I had Genie plus and I also had a 30 minute early admission. To say it was crowded would be an understatement. But we understood that going into it. I consider myself a fairly technically savvy person, I’ve watched all the YouTube videos and I’ve used the max pass at Disneyland so I was familiar with what would be going on. I managed to get three rides that day. Maybe I could’ve got more if I wanted to stay on my phone and constantly scroll, but that wasn’t the point of the trip. I did get up at 7 AM and snag one ride but when I got up to the ride it wasn’t on my app so there you go.
March 20 MK: Early Entry-6 PM. LL for Jungle Cruise, Splash, and Buzz.
March 21 AK: Early Entry-Park Close. LL for Navi, Safari, Kali, Dinosaur
March 22 Epcot: 8:30 AM-6 PM. LL for Soarin, Nemo, Turtle Talk, Figment
March 23 HS: Early Entry-Park Close. LL for Mickey and Minnie, Rock N Roller, snagged a Slinky Dog after 90 minutes straight of refreshing.
March 24 Epcot 9 AM-5 PM. LL for Frozen, Mission Space. Tried refreshing for 60 minutes to get a Test Track. Failed.
March 25 MK 11 AM-close. LL for Space Mountain, Big Thunder, Splash, Rapunzel/Tiana, Buzz, Pirates, Peter Pan
Looked for you and Sarah in the parks each day but no luck! Thank you for all of your hard work and articles. I read pretty much everything you published for 3 years planning the trip <3
A very frustrating part for me is not being able to choose a time. Four of my group wanted a LL for Space Mountain. Two don’t do thrill rides, so I wanted to book Speedway for them. It took hours of looking at my phone every few minutes checking to see if Speedway had advanced to the same time as our LL Space Mountain. This also put us on a different schedule for the 120 minute rule. I stopped at a Guest Relations stand to ask if they could just put two of us into a LL for Speedway at the time we wanted (2 PM) or if there was a way to put us back on the same timeline. They said there wasn’t a way to do either of those on their end. It was frustrating.
Hello! We visited during the dreaded Presidents Day week (teachers schedule leaves not many options) when all the park reservations were sold out. We only got Genie+ for MK and DHS. We got everything done (minus Navi river journey due to the 70+ minute wait the entire day, not worth it) at Epcot and AK without Genie+, along with rope dropping. At MK we got 7 LL (Peter Pan, Big Thunder, Pirates, Splash, Buzz, and both princess meet and greets) and at DHS we got 5 (Slinky, Toy Astoria Mania, Smugglers Run, Indiana Jones, and Frozen). In terms of just rides 3 would be an average guess but because there’s other options I think 2-3 is lowballing the actual number you can get. Granted I did a lot of research before, and even when everything was “gone” I would keep refreshing over and over which led me to booking smugglers at 5, and splash and pirates booked both after 5 as well. The main takeaway I had was to not give up hope and search for new times while in line/waiting for food/waiting for a show/etc
The good thing about the paper FastPasses was that you had to physically commit to reserving a time at an attraction. You couldn’t idly get FastPasses for Expedition Everest from your booth at the Rainforest Cafe, and as a result you didn’t have this issue where a ride was fully booked for the day before the park even opened. I would suggest that Disney require guests to reserve ride times by tapping in at the ride’s entrance. This system would be physically demanding for small children, the elderly, and the disabled, but the current system of getting up at 6:50 in the morning to book Rise of the Resistance is unreasonable for everybody, and as Tom Bricker mentioned a family could dispatch a physically capable member to go and get everyone’s FastPasses. If the current system were to stay in place, I would at least suggest staggering the release of reservations much more than is done now. In extreme cases like Rise of the Resistance, ride times should be released every hour on the hour, to be redeemed immediately. This would eliminate the early morning bottleneck and give everyone a chance at getting a ride time, because the whole guest population won’t be trying to get a ride time every single hour, since they will be busy doing other things. And this system of staggering the release of reservations should be more clearly communicated. When I was at Epcot and saw Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure was fully booked in the early afternoon, I thought “Oh, well, I guess there won’t be any more ride times today.” I didn’t realize that there was going to be more reservations released later on. The rides that are fully booked should have copy to that says “Check back at X:00.”
As one of those tech novices I debated accepting your apology or sending a Will Smith-gram. It’s like a candy-gram but more striking.
So apology accepted.
I really would have preferred Disney to let us bubble people pay $16 and make our three fast pass picks.
Non bubble folks could buy it with their tickets and use it the way it works now.
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again, we bubble people need more amenities.
Excellent suggestion! At least you would know what you are getting for your money with a little more certainty and could even plan dining reservations with some schedule knowledge and sanity.
This is more for historical data at this point, but on November 1, 2021 my partner and I utilized Genie+ for MMRR (individual purchase then), RotR (individual purchase), Muppet*Vision, Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster, Skinny Dog Dash, and Tower of Terror. We also took a midday break (yay Skyliner resort), stopped several times for food/drinks, and ended the day at Oga’s. DHS was the only park that trip that we felt we needed Genie+.
We were at WDW 3/20 – 3/27; APs from Minnesota. We ended up doing a hybrid approach for Hollywood Studios that worked very well. On Monday a.m. we walked from Boardwalk to HS and took advantage of Early Entry – did Tower of Terror 2x and Rock n’ Roller Coaster 2x per your suggestion. No wait more than 10 minutes. Grabbed some caffeine and snacks, watched first show of Indiana Jones. Left park around 11:30 to hang by the pool before park hopping to Epcot. Next day, I woke up and purchased Genie+ while family slept in. Return times were actually too early for us (pool day) so refreshed and booked LL for MMRR 2:15 – 3:15. Set new ride preferences and an alarm for 10:30 am and booked Millennium Falcon for 7:30 – 8:30. I could have gotten earlier times but we wanted to be in Galaxy’s Edge at park close for Rise. Went to pool, set alarm for 12:30. Nothing good was available, so refreshed every minute or so until ~12:40 and snagged Slinky for 3:05 – 4:05. While walking to park ~2:40, got LL for Toy Story Mania. After riding MMRR, kept refreshing and got Rock n Roller, then ToT for immediate return times. Really came down to setting alarms and refreshing the app. Wasn’t so bad – we would have three of us refreshing the app while someone was in the restroom, grabbing a snack, waiting in line, etc. It allowed us to have a nice relaxing pool day while setting us up nicely for the evening. Jumped into line at Rise of Resistance at 8:59 pm and waited all of 20 minutes. The Genie+ LL definitely surpassed our expectations that day – I consider ToT and Rock n Roller bonuses for us since we had already ridden them the day before.
Initially we planned on getting Genie+ for one full day at MK, but ended up doing extended evening hours and two more nights at MK and ended up riding everything with no more than a 20 minute wait. Jungle Cruise was a walk on during fireworks, as were several other rides.
Hi Tom!!! We were at Disney World March 8-19th with park hopper and 7 days of park tickets. I’ll be the first to say I have an A type/anxious personality and Genie + was a love/hate relationship. I’m putting a lot of my experience on me. Genie +made me so stressed/anxious in the morning, falling back asleep (stacking strategy after later nights) was impossible. We did plan a rest day, but it was so cold we decided to go to Epcot and eat around the world. We were so tired and stressed by the end of the trip it was really a sad thing. Yes, I did expect to be tired and stressed but Genie + really put it over the top. Crowds were nuts. Rope dropping I actually witness physical and verbal altercations. Staying late was basically impossible because of the early mornings. We couldn’t even use our extended evening hours due to fatigue (I will plan for that to be the day we fly in from now on). On average I would say we had 5 genie + LL a day BUT that was with park hopping most days. We also bought the ILLs. MK was ceratinly the easiest. HS was always tough. Epcot and AK there just aren’t enough attractions without park hopping (so like 2-3 LL there). Rope drop was pretty much got us on 4 rides with minimal waits at MK and 2 at HS. So In conjunction with Genie +, ILLs and park hopping you can do very well. But you will be stressed and tired. Also, my genie + alarms going off during dark quiet rides, needing to book during inside no service rides, overlapping dining plans and running across the park to make a LL , park hopping LL return times being pushed (for 3:00 but pushed us to 6:00???) are other ♀️♀️♀️♀️ moments…This all being said everyone had a great time and want to go back!!!! (except the hubs who thinks this is all rediculous) I feel like I earned a badge of honor for surviving the week! Haha!!!!! can survive Disney during anything and still have fun! ❤️♀️
I hope Disney works the kinks out!!! I did submit a friendly, polite and candid review to Disney when I got home. Appreciate you Tom!!!!
Thx Tom. Who thinks Disney’s next move is to raise the price of Genie+ at least during the holiday season. Thinking about adding it to my tix now for December to lock in the price. Thoughts?
Some years ago I read an article about Frog Design and Imagineering coming up with the Magic Band and FastPass+ (Forbes? Fast Company?). If I remember correctly, Disney dismissed Frog after the creation of the Magic Band and before the true rollout of FastPass+, partially because Frog was critical of Disney lack of technological infrastructure. I thought at the time that if Disney was dismissing Frog (a truly stellar design firm), they are in trouble. Disney internally managed to get FP+ rolled out, though it was always something of a bumpy road; therefore, it’s not entirely surprising that FP+2.0 is mired by the same problems Frog identified a decade ago. Can Disney create an outstanding guest experience? Sure, but they would have to partner with Frog, IDEO, or countless other design firms to solve this “wicked problem.” But as far as can be identified, Disney hasn’t yet identified a problem. Profits are up. Shareholders are making money. Guests are throwing money at a solution that doesn’t solve the problem. No wonder the guests are upset. And no wonder the Bobs are happy.
One thing I’ve been doing to prep for our upcoming trip is to log onto the app at different times to see what’s available and what the return times are. This (plus reading Toms experiences and recommendations) has, I think, helped me get good practice and also create some realistic expectations. Fingers crossed!
Spent 6 park days the week of Jan 23-Jan 28. We bought G+ for a group of 11 on our two MK and DHS days. We did not do G+ in Epcot or AK. Our first days at both MK and DHS were the most successful. I would say that we got to ride everything we wanted without too much challenge, probably 7-8 G+ selections available to us for full park days (open-close). Thanks to your Slinky Dog Dash G+ strategy post, I scored a 9:40 am ride time which really set up us for a successful day. Unfortunately, on DHS Day 2, the app crashed and I didn’t get SDD until late afternoon. For each of our second days at the parks, we didn’t have as much luck with G+, perhaps only 5-6 reservations (still better than average).
For Epcot, we followed your 1-day strategy and were able to score Frozen and Remy stand-by with minimal waits (under 60 min each) in the morning. In AK, we bought ILL for FoP and had minimal waits for the other attractions, including Kilimanjaro (it was also a very rainy day).
We were staying offsite and never even had the opportunity to purchase ILL for Rise of the Resistance. We rope dropped on morning 2 and did stand-by (about a 35 min wait) which was a better/cheaper outcome for our larger group. We purchased a late day ILL for 7DMT on day 1 but not on day 2. Those that wanted to ride 7DMT again did so during the MK fireworks (2x riding in less than 30 min).
G+ with a larger group is definitely a challenge. The ability to keep refreshing and finding better availability for 10+ people never seemed doable. The times would just keep getting later and later; no new availability ever seemed to open up. I would encourage people with big groups to manage to do as much research as possible and keep all your recommended tricks in mind, Tom.
For what it’s worth, I much preferred waking up early once (6:00 am CT/7:00 am ET) for FP+ drop 60/30 days prior to my vacation than to wake up every day of my vacation before 7:00 am. *sigh* Although I love it, it’s hard to qualify WDW as a true “vacation” anymore given all the work that goes into it!
Hi Tom, I have been following you for several years. Truly appreciate all the great information you provide. I went with my two grown children March 4-12 this year. On your recommendation, only used Genie Plus at Hollywood Studios, not placing any blame….I am a skimmer reader. I thought I would have my choice of rides to pick from since I purchased Genie Plus. We did get MMRR at 7am. Totally misunderstood and was trying to get our next ride at 9am until someone next to me in line for Slinky Dog informed me that it was 2 hours from official park opening…oohhhh. So at I think it was 10:30am, pulled up my next selection….the options were pathetic! No Tower of Terror no Millennium Falcon…nothing good….best we could get was Star Tours. Plus I should add our favorite thing is to park hop every evening to EPCOT for whatever festival is going on so don’t want to hang around for the evening times. So I purchased Genie Plus and got Mickey and Minnie which was nice to be able to walk right on and Star Tours. So I do feel I purchased Genie Plus for $15 and got truly one ride out of it. Since our focus is never spending the day at one park, I probably will not purchase again. Can’t say enough about your web site. Thanks for everything! I used Disney Vacation Rental and rented for this vacation and stayed at Animal Kingdom and Boardwalk on your recommendation. You are the best!
We had the exact same experience! The park (DHS) didn’t open until 9:00 the day we were there, so we couldn’t book our second LL until 11:00, at which point all the options were for late evening. We always do the morning in one park, take a mid-day break, and do a second park in the evening, so this was largely useless for us. We were able to book a couple of LL’s for Epcot that evening, but only because the park wasn’t super crowded. Most rides had very short waits so it didn’t really save us much.
Hello Tom. We used it yesterday starting at Hollywood Studios then hopping to Magic Kingdom around 5pm. We got Toy Story Mania, Indiana Jones, Rock n RollerCoaster. My wife is really the expert at Genie + so she was then selecting ones at Magic Kingdom while still at Hollywood. She was able to get Haunted Mansion, Pirates of Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear, Under the Sea (which we skipped in order to leave before fireworks). So a total of seven, no real headliners. I find it very frustrating to use – I always think I am choosing bad times. I miss FastPass+.
We visited the week of March 21 (spring break). Family of 4, used G+ 3x at a cost of roughly $64/day.
MK: rode 7 rides with G+, beginning ~ 5pm (4 of which I had stacked during the day). By the time they ran out, wait times were low and I didn’t need to book any more. Money well spent (but better when it was free!)
HS: Purchased solely for Slinky Dog Dash, but never secured it. Used only for MMRR and Alien Saucers, both of which I could have waited for. Money wasted!
AK: used for Navi River Journey, Safari, and to secure a spot in animation class. It was arguably expensive for what we did, but it was an educated decision.
EPCOT: Did not purchase, utilized early morning entry to knock off Ratatouille, Frozen and Test Track in quick succession. Waited in line for the rest, none of which had excessive waits.