I think that by distributing the LL by time, Disney has more control over what happens with that lane. If there is significant down time on a ride, then they can significantly throttle the number of passes for later in the day. This helps the people in stand by and controls LL wait times.
Note, I am not sure they are doing this at all right now. And if they do, it will only be for the biggest rides, like with the FPP drops.
I’m honestly starting to wonder if the plan isn’t to break into morning and afternoon tickets soon. Make each 2/3 the price and call it a convenience for more options. Add 1/2 hour on mornings and evenings for deluxe resorts (this perk is generally a joke unless you are a diehard rope dropper and even then only at HS and MK.)
I think they may be leaving money on the table though by doing it this way. If I could schedule times, I’d consider using Genie Plus for more days. As it is I don’t see it being particularly useful right now And probably about 1/3 of my park days for the next trip.
I agree. Right now my plan is to probably utilize it the first 2 days of our trip. After that, we probably won’t get it, unless the crowd levels are higher than anticipated.
Yeah, I am with you on this one. It was good to have for HS and MK. Not real need for it in Epcot and AK. I always hop and if I was able to schedule for later in the evening at the next park I am going to I would probably buy it every day.
I think the best strategy for using Genie+ if you wanted to buy just a single day would be to do MK in the morning and HS in the evening. You might not be able to get SDD, but assuming you are going to each park multiple days, that is probably the way you could get the highest volume of LL reservations.
If you wanted to be a little more ambitious, you could probably clear every single LL attraction by doing one day at MK, one day at HS, and one day at AK + Epcot.
Thank you for this! In my mind, I couldn’t figure out how to stack if my “next available” time didn’t fall late enough. You just confirmed that it isn’t as easy to do if the return times are all too soon. I thought I was missing something!
I think if people could pick times, everyone would want the afternoon/evening and the G+ reservations would run out faster. You’d have the earlier times go unused.
Completely agree aside from Navi river and soaring we would have been better spending those days g+ on ILL$. Kid really like Navi though and we couldn’t have rode any other way… So it is a tough call.
We ended up with ILL for Remy, and Frozen and just RD Soarin and Fop. Didn’t need to worry about Navi
We rope dropped frozen and got BG 6 for Remy. I honestly was disappointed with Remy(Mickey and Minnie’s with glasses), Navi(Living with the Navi land) and FOP(glorified Soaring). These rides just are not as good as the older ones. Only new ones that really live up to the hype are ROTR, MMRR, and 7DMT. This was my first trip doing the little mermaid also and I honestly think that is the single most under rated ride, it’s the whole movie (mostly) and theming is really on point.
Working on a trip report but it was a bit disappointing how much really isn’t up the expectations of even just pre covid.
1000% agree!
Absolutely! A hidden gem. This ride is great, as they had planned it for a long time before they finally got the go ahead to build it. I saw a documentary about it a while back where they showed all the pre-visualisation.
Yes I agree. Remi was fun but I won’t go out of my way to do it every trip. Once in a while is good enough.
We had a boarding group as well but the line was so long we skipped it.
Best thing is Remi is great for little kids. We have 5 with us all under 6 and they loved it.
Another wrinkle that popped up today. On my nephew’s app there was no way to buy ILL. The option just wouldn’t show up. I was linked to him but not his family so I could only purchase it for him. He ended up going to guest services, they could not figure out why so they gave it to the rest of his family as an any time for free.
Have you read about the rumored original vision for that ride? It sounded awesome! The water downed budget slashed version we have now is a disappointment after I read what could have been.
That’s pretty cool. There is a neat video of the concept on yt. Aside from the transition underwater I think I actually like the current one better with less scary features.
How was CYM with a 3 year old?
It was fantastic. He’s 5 now but he was very good at directions from the photographer at 3. We did it in the morning before the afternoon kid tantrums set in. Highly recommend it. I think the photographers truly enjoy the kids too if they are the kind of kid that is flexible for a photographer.
Thank you. I have 5, 3, and 8 months. The 3 yo gets super in to photos. The 5 yo not so much. But I really want to do this, so we will see!
