Ride Reservation Refill Rules at Disney World
Competition for Lightning Lanes can be fierce in higher crowds due to more guests buying Multi-Pass line-skipping. Despite surge pricing that can cause the paid FastPass service to cost around $40 on busy days, demand is highest when attendance and wait times are at their worst. (Updated February 23, 2025.)
Accordingly, you need advanced strategy to score the most ride reservations, especially during the busiest dates when Lightning Lane Multi-Pass is most expensive and lines are longest. Unfortunately for power users, most of the next-level hacks that were exploited under Genie+ are all gone under LLMP. There’s no 120 minute rule, stacking is no longer a thing, and speed strategy doesn’t matter as much.
Fortunately, there are new ways to squeeze the most out of Multi-Pass, which we explain in our Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World in 2025. That’s a crash course in turning you into a Lightning Lanes power user, and we’d highly recommend it for all the ins and outs. Of those strategies, there’s a reason why “Have a Strong Refresh Game” is far and away the #1 tip & trick for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Walt Disney World. This post is intended to do a deeper dive, explaining why that matters and how it works.
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% Lightning Lane Multi-Pass power user.
Before we dig into the details, a couple of warnings are in order. First, this is confusing or intimidating at first. While you can comprehend the contours by reading, you really need to learn this one by doing. The below explanation will make a whole lot more sense once you actually start using Lightning Lane Multi Pass.
Even if you leave this post more confused than when you started, that’ll quickly change once you start actually playing the refresh game. The learning curve is steep in the abstract, but not in practice.
Second, 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. Playing the refresh game is addictive, and you could spend hours of your day trying to trade up your Lightning Lane selections and return times.
Because of that, we highly recommend setting some ground rules. Mine is that I only play the refresh game in the Lightning Lane return line after tapping in. This means I have anywhere from 2 minutes to 10 minutes–it all depends on whether there are two tap points, where merge occurs, etc. I’ll also look for ride reservation refills any time I’m waiting–to pick up a Mobile Order, the rest of my party to get out of the restroom, etc.
While this does require more screen time, it does not have to require hours of screen time. To the contrary, I view playing the refresh game as being addictive in a bad way. Searching for 5-10 minutes per attraction is a good use of time, and will usually work out to your advantage. Anything more than that and you quickly start hitting the point of diminishing returns.
With those warnings 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+ from first-timers. Except, like all things, the predictable process was reverse-engineered and it was better exploited by the savviest planners than ill-prepared newbies.
Almost identical ride reservation refill rules were built into the Lightning Lanes for the exact same reasons. That includes the now-defunct Genie+ system. If you already played the refresh game with that, you already know how this works–the mechanics have changed slightly, but the idea is the same.
Moving forward, here’s everything else you need to know about ride reservation refill rules under Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Walt Disney World…
Refills vs. 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 Lightning Lane Multi-Pass 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 possible. It’s a pure numbers game: X number of ride reservations are released, and that number can be booked in any permutation possible.
Refilled Ride Roster
Here are the attractions that we’ve seen get reservation refills at one point or another:
- Magic Kingdom: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (far and away the most common as of 2025), Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain
- EPCOT: Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World
- 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
Note that some of those are Lightning Lane Single Pass attractions.
Do These Ride Reservation Refills Always Happen?
Nope. Some attractions have their Lightning Lane availability replenished on a regular basis, others happen on rare occasion, and most are somewhere in between the two extremes. I could share a bunch of refill times here today, and they could be wrong tomorrow, next week or month.
The most illustrative example is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. It uses ride reservation refills much more frequently than other attractions due to its unreliability. If it’s having a “bad” day, refills will be sparse or nonexistent. If it’s having a “good” day, you may regularly find same-day Lightning Lane drops that are only 10 to 30 minutes out.
Less extreme examples occur with most other attractions when attendance is not as heavy as internal forecasts projected. If Walt Disney World expected 50,000 guests, but there only 40,000 guests showed up, that’s a pretty big miss on the projection. This opens up the door for more ride reservation refills, as Disney load balances between the Lightning Lanes and standby lines.
When Are Lightning Lane Ride Reservation Refill Times?
I want to stress that there are no guarantees.
Moreover, I don’t have the level of firsthand testing experience necessary to spot patterns. There was a time when I was buying and using Lightning Lanes at least once per week at Walt Disney World, as we worked to put together our resources. However, as the paid FastPass service has become more stable, the need for further testing has decreased. And we’d rather not waste money, so we’ve slowed that down to about once per month, or whenever things change. (For example, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind switching to standby–that doesn’t pertain directly to LLMP, but it has second-order effects.)
The good news is that the folks over at Thrill-Data track what they call Lightning Lane “popup releases” (same kinda thing, different name). The list of attractions appears incomplete to me, but it should give you an idea of when to expect ride reservation refills or popup releases.
It’s worth pointing out that their data is automated–meaning an actual human isn’t reviewing the app and making notes of what’s being refilled. That means they can–and do–miss refills that appear and vanish quickly. It’s also worth pointing out that refills are mostly same-day under Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, but I’ve also seen them during the initial pre-arrival selection process. So if you don’t more screen time before leaving home, you can give this a try then, too.
What’s the Best Approach to Snagging Refills?
You should immediately choose the best available option after you’ve tapped into Lightning Lane to unlock your next selection (taking advantage of the “rolling 3 rule,” a related concept, is key to getting the most mileage out of LLMP). Always book something–do not refresh and wait for the “perfect” Lightning Lane. Booking another ride reservation is essentially a hedge.
From there, play the refresh game by searching for something better. My tried and true Lightning Lane refresh strategy is tapping in, booking the best available option, and then modifying. Although the above list of ride reservation refill attractions can be helpful, I guess, I’ve found the actual list of attractions to be longer–and drop times more scattershot–in my testing of LLMP. Basically, I’m spamming the modify button.
There are a few approaches for refreshing from here, but I favor toggling the “close” dropdown on the modify screen to refresh times. I do this repeatedly every few seconds for the duration of that 5 minute clock (see the top of the screenshots). About 75% of the time, I’ll find something better within that span of time.
Compare the left and right, the latter of which shows pop-up availability for 4:25 pm that wasn’t there 2 minutes earlier. In my experience, toggling this “close” dropdown is the most efficient way to play the refresh game.
Finally, we want to underscore yet again that Lightning Lanes are not the end-all, be-all of park touring strategy. Our Best Time-Saving Strategy at Walt Disney World covers the best and worst ways to beat the crowds right now and Lightning Lanes are not the best (and certainly not the easiest) way in 2 of the 4 parks.
The only parks where Lightning Lane Multi-Pass works better than all other strategies are Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. Everywhere else, there are superior strategies for saving time waiting in line. At all 4 parks, there are alternative approaches that work well enough, don’t cost money, require as much backtracking, and do not involve screen time.
The bottom line is that you could ignore Lightning Lanes entirely–pretend they don’t even exist–and still have a fantastic trip. Don’t let FOMO get the best of you–buying Lightning Lanes is not a “need” and there are plenty of other ways to beat the crowds. If you’re overwhelmed by Lightning Lane Multi Pass, the aforementioned post is the most succinct resource for current strategy.
Ultimately, this might be confusing or frustrating, but it’s important to remember that this is essentially a “loophole” and Disney itself doesn’t publish anything about ride reservation refills for a reason. This is not meant to be 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.
While the ground covered here is good information to have, at the end of the day all you really need to know is that spamming the modify button can help you trade up attractions and return times thanks to ride reservation refills. (There’s a reason why our Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World in 2025 is much more succinct!)
The bottom line is that much knowledge will help you make better choices and get more mileage from Multi-Pass. To quote the great Indiana Jones (Adventure): “Real Rewards Await Those Who Choose Wisely.” For everything else you need to know about LLMP, see our Guide to Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World.
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 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 ride reservation 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.