Let me start by saying, I have been a liner since 2011, and just am more of a lurker usually. I live in PA and try to go to the World every other year. Normally I am a crazy planner and have everything in a spreadsheet and figured out months ahead of time. Well, an opportunity presented itself and my mom and I got to do a spur of the moment 4 day trip from 3/21-3/24.
My last trip was Dec '22 and that was my first time using genie + and LL. I was really annoyed with the system and frustrated. This trip I felt much more comfortable using both. I still think the userface is unnecessarily complicated and confusing, especially if you aren’t seasoned in disney. I did find the Disney App buggy, for example: you click a return time and magically its a different time or suddenly its not available. So for drops and ones you really want I would suggest BG1. I didn’t have it set up before the trip, but did it line and it worked perfectly.
I know there is a lot of discussion on if genie/LL is worth the money. During our 4 days which was the start of spring break crowds, we went to all 4 parks and did every single ride we wanted and some multiple times. For example our first day we arrived at MK at 245pm, the parked closed at 10pm and we stayed till closing. During that time we did 13 rides, sat and watched Happily ever after, ate dinner, got ice cream, and shopped. So it was totally worth it for us.
I will also note that we usually Crystal Palace for breakfast because Piglet is my favorite and I love me some breakfast lasagna and pooh french toast, but we were able to get 7pm reservation like 90 minutes before the reservation time. It wasn’t really crowded, the characters spent way more time interacting with us bc it wasn’t as hectic and the food was decent - they had a prime rib cutting station and the mac n cheese was good . Our waiter said that dinner is the time to come bc characters are able to spend more time with people.
The other tip of this story is if you are looking for a table service meal while in the park, go into the app and search, bc you don’t know whats available. They had the option for a few restaurants for walk up waitlist, you just needed to be close to be added and it gave you and estimated wait time like 50 min until your table is ready. They had some amazing walk up options for dinner- including be our guest - which I always thought of as a 180 day reservation.
I also want to thank everyone who helped me during my last minute trip. I asked a bunch of questions in chat and everyone was so helpful. I felt so unprepared but we had a blast…
If I think of anything else, I will add it!
If I think of anything else I will be sure to add it!
so you don’t have to be sad you missed it. Sounds like you had a great trip!