Seems sensible and well thought out.
Clearly out of the question
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Your plan is excellent, but 
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If finally caught up in this thread. People need to stop posting so much! (Except for me. I’m allowed. Of course.)
Okay. I still have some fundamental issues with this new system…and again, I won’t get into that.
But, my wife and I kind of plotted how how we would likely use this system for our trip next year, assuming it still looks, by then, the same as people are saying it should look starting this fall.
We figure we only need to buy a total of 4 LL+ for our trip: Rat, GotG, Tron, and SDD (assuming those will all be LL+ only).
We figure figured that we’ll only need to pay for Genie+ for maybe 3 or 4 of our days, max. (This would be for a 7 park days total.)
If the LL+ are $20 each (just a guess), that’s $160 total for the two of us for 4 rides. Then, at $15/day/pp for Genie+, that’s about $120 more. This means the changes adds $280 to our trip.
Does this mean Disney is getting an extra $280 from us?
Nope. Because as a result, we decided that we’ll drop a few Table Service restaurants, plus a few other adjustments to our budget, to make up for it.
What really bugs me is that despite really hating this change, just like I hated FPP, you kind of have to use it (in some cases) because otherwise you are now putting yourself behind everyone else who is using it. (Which is one of the reasons I hate this…the change is artificially driving up the NEED for it, where Disney is creating demand for something.)
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Well yes.
Or how they sound. Lightning Lanes sounds me exactly like a low budget laser bowling center.
Especially after DL’s MaxPass which is short and catchy.
In about 2 seconds the teen that lives with us came up with VSPs.
Very Speedy Passes
Are the LLs being offered first in case they flop miserably in which case the 2 headliners can then be added to Genie+?
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Personally I’m still holding out for:
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I don’t think perception came into it. The more I read and hear opinions on it the more it becomes “we can charge $15 for fastpasses, plus we can charge extra for the most popular rides and that means X millions extra each week!!”
Im really thinking the thought of benefit to the customer or property guest never entered the conversation
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Yes, totally agree.
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What they are not realising is that the impact of these up-charges will not be what they expected. There will be some that have the extra income to throw at it, but I bet there will be a large group of people that will just take money way from some other activity they were going to use it for in Disney. The rob Peter to pay Paul scenario.
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There’s also going to be a large number of people who just have no clue it exists and never figure it out. There were a lot of people that never took the time to figure out paper fast passes or FP+.
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I was just playing around with ideas for my next trip in May 2022 which is 8 days and I only came up with 2 days that I think we need genie+. My thought process is stay at a deluxe resort (Boardwalk) maybe using David’s so it does not cost a fortune and take advantage of the 30 minutes early entry a couple of times and the Epcot and Mk late nights for deluxe. Also planning on taking some breaks mid day to avoid the long lines and really focus on never having an early morning after a late night.
I really don’t see the need for genie+ at AK if u RD with the 30 minute early entry.
I also don’t see needing genie+ at Epcot if u are able to get a BG for Rat and use RD with 30 minute early entry.
Now on the other hand with the amount of rides at HS and MK it is almost a must there. I only plan on 1 of the 2 HS days needing it though because one of the days we will concentrate on the shows and other stuff.
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That’s my thought as well.
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I’m in the minority, but I’m super excited for this change. I hated the digital FP system. I fondly remember my last trip with paper FPs where we were able to spontaneously go from ride to ride enjoying the park.
By contrast, I struggled to get digital FPs that I wanted in advance, even though we were staying on site, because our trip was only 4 days. Those that I did get were at stupid times so we were constantly stressed running across the park to make time windows with little kids. It felt like we were always late and rushed. Then we had tons of ride outages that destroyed the FP system. We had to abandon my hard won 6 PM FP to 7DMT because most of MK’s rides had been down for hours because of a thunderstorm and all of those FPs had converted to anytime passes. The FP line for 7DMT exceeded 2 hours. We then paid for EMM the next morning to ride 7DMT, but the ride was down the whole time. We tried again at MK a third time to rope drop 7DMT and Space, only to be hit with magic band IT issues and more ride closures. I could go on and on, but it wasn’t fun.
My hate for the FP system is significant. It didn’t work for us with a short trip and little kids. I didn’t know in advance what my kids would like to ride. I didn’t know how much stamina they’d have or when they’d want to nap. I didn’t know how quickly we could move through the park. I didn’t know one kid would be terrified of non-face characters and animatronics. I didn’t know the other would love roller coasters. I didn’t know that MK would have a lightning strike and most rides would have issues that whole week. I didn’t know how much time rider swap would take.
In short, the old FP system gave me zero flexibility to adjust on the fly as all of the best FP were booked up and because the IT wasn’t working so I couldn’t use or book FP reliably. It didn’t work for us, and I’d go so far to say that it ruined our trip to a large extent. Disney customer service was terrible. (Cast member: “Shrug. Some guests are having itinerary issues. It looks like that’s what’s happening to you. We can get you new MDE accounts, but you’ll lose all your FP for your whole trip and we can’t replace them so you’ll just have to see what is still available in the system.”)
I love the idea of day of booking. I love the idea of picking up FP throughout the day depending on what my kids like. I love that this will cut down on “casual” visitors in the FP lines who are using the free FP to re-ride something they’ve been on millions of times just because they got a free FP. I actually like that it doesn’t roll in headliners for a higher price (e.g., $80/day for all LL) because my kids are too little for many headliners, but will love the Genie+ options at MK. I really hope Disney will make it so rides won’t keep giving out zillions of FP when a ride is down so all the other FP lines in the park become clogged with anytime FP. I hope that it’s well implemented and there are still FP available after noon so later-in-the-day visitors also have options.
It’s possible Genie+ will be poorly implemented and I’ll hate Disney IT and be unhappy with the availability of LL passes. But it’s equally possible that this will “fix” WDW for me, bringing back flexibility and spontaneity. Paying $60/day for a 3-4 day trip for shorter lines is okay for me as long as there are enough LL passes available to keep us busy.
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So most of the things you viewed as problems with FP+ and the negative experiences you had before could all still happen with genie+. I am sorry that you had such a negative experience before and hope genie+ works out for u.
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Also same. Never a trouble booking FPP>
I was pleased that my wife and I had finished having children after having rode 7DMT.
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I’m sorry you had such a negative experience. That just sounds like a lot of bad luck. After our initial 3, we were able to book on the FPs on our trip. We even got PPF, which can be a little tricky. So it was possible with FP to do what you wanted to do, but it certainly wasn’t fool proof.
7dmt and possibly SDD are 2 of the headliners that will not be a part of G+. Both are smaller kid friendly.
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I’m confused. At first everyone was saying you’d have to be up at 7 am every morning and now it’s midnight or possibly both times. Did something change? I haven’t been able to read all the posts. To me, if I could get things set by midnight that’s much preferable to 7 am.
You can purchase genie+ any time after midnight day of (assuming you didn’t purchase for the duration of your ticket in advance). You can make LL selections starting at 7am. So you could wake up at 6:30am, purchase Genie+, then at 7am start booking LL. Or buy at midnight, go to sleep, then wake up at 7am to book.
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Good analysis.