Last trip to WDW was October 2020. Planning trip in May and don’t know what to do about Genie +. I don’t want to be on my phone all day but it seems like you have to be in order to select LL and then add them into Touring Plans. I’m used to having an idea of what I will be doing for the day, but with Genie it seems like it will be constantly changing during the day. Is it as bad as it seems?
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It seems to really depend on when you’re going and what the crowd levels look like. I used it in January and did not find it to be overly intrusive. In fact, it gave me a sense of peace because I knew I had some rides lined up. On a previous day that trip we pretty much wandered around and didn’t do anything. Have you read the two Genie threads?
Daily drops https://forum.touringplans.com/t/genie-ll-daily-drops/82151/105
Genie thread The Genie Thread! All WDW Info Here - #2017 by Dreamer
They have a lot of information in them and can be overwhelming. I recommend reading the first post (it gets updated) and then scroll down to the last couple weeks worth of posts at the bottom to get a feel for what is happening currently.
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If you’re trying to max out your LLs to the fullest, plan on being on your phone a lot and doing a lot of studying up on drops and times. If you want to use it to get 3 and are flexible you can just grab one at you LL booking window (#1 @ 7am, #2 after first LL use or 2 hrs after park open, whichever is sooner, #3 and above are after you tap into the last LL you booked or 2 hours has passed, whichever is sooner. Once you get one, add to TP and optimize, letting the Lines app guide your adventure.
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I’m at the airport on the way home. We used Genie+ for five of our eight park days. I was kind of dreading it - it seemed so complicated and such a hassle - and ended up hating it less than I expected, although it’s no FPP. The annoying bits - 7am, the “live system” nonsense - are incredibly annoying. I had one experience where I had a 7pm LL for something, I checked and there was a 4pm one, I cancelled my 7pm, went to book the 4pm, by the time I clicked through it was gone, I got the exact same 7pm time back, but it reset my 2 hour clock. Stuff like that made me insane. On the other hand we were able to pretty consistently get 5+ LLs in a day. Taking midday breaks and stacking them really helped, I just set an alert for every two hours, as did the list in the Genie+ thread referenced above about what order to book them in. On Friday at HS everything of any value was gone by 5pm (even Aliens) and we were reduced to booking LLs for Muppets and Star Tours, though. And I would say if you’re going to rope drop you don’t need it for Epcot or AK - we rope dropped Epcot from the International Gateway and we’re able to do Remy, Frozen, and Soarin’ in an hour.
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I keep reading this thread as ‘Genie planning Overlord’.
Where can I get one of those?? 
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Same.
And I wouldn’t have noticed it didn’t say that if you hadn’t typed this.
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This is encouraging! What were the crowd levels like on these days?
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7s and 8s mostly.
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I found if I had a plan laid out for the day, and I put it on my Samsung notes and the notes on my touring plan, it made it much less stressful. So know what you want to pick up at each slot and know if it is typically available at that slot or if you will need to use a drop to get that one. Then account for that on your schedule. Having a schedule to look at in the parks freed up my brain space.
This way I only had to look at my phone at the scheduled time. My daughter said I was not overly on my phone - CLs 7-10.
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Thanks for all of the info. I did find the Genie 101,201 and 301 videos. I’ve started watching those as well! Change is always hard!
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