We took multiple trips to WDW when our children were younger and absolutely loved them. I enjoyed the planning at least as much as the trips. It provided hours and hours of fun for me for many months in advance of each trip. I loved the old FPP and ADR systems. I have lurked as you all learned and mastered each new thing Disney added in the last 5 years. We have taken amazing non WDW trips as a family those years but my DH and DSs all said this summer they want to go back to WDW and do Universal for the first time. I made resort reservations months ago. But I just cannot get into the planning at all. There is no part of me that wants to learn genie, lightning lanes, individual lightning lanes, boarding group, etc. I have read the BG1 explanation thread, which is clearly so thoughtfully written to be helpful, probably 10 times and I might as well be reading a completely foreign language. None of it feels like the fun planning I enjoyed.
Every Saturday morning (used to be treasured trip planning time) I sit at my computer and ultimately decide to try again another week. Help! Not sure I know what to even ask.
Can you do a WDW trip ignoring all the new systems but using TPs and rope dropping? I feel like if I try that we will get there and I’ll regret not knowing how to work them all, but truly cannot seem to keep any of it straight and get angry at the thought of spending money on them. At the very least I have to learn how to get BGs, right? Just to even have the option of riding some of the new to us rides.
If you have any pixy dust encouragement or wisdom to sprinkle my way to help me even want to do planning let alone enjoy it, please send ASAP.
I agree that it feels like a lot of work. I did go in 2022 and got totally educated for it and had a great time.
But as I am contemplating a fall trip this year I can NOT get enthusiastic about all the work.
I am glad you’ve been able to enjoy other trips, and I hope you LOVE Universal.
I can only imagine how overwhelming it must be to try to tackle all this new information all at once. Way back when, you were a pro at the old systems and now everything is new and strange!
I’m not going to say there’s not a lot to learn, but I bet you already know most of what you need to know, just from what you’ve studied so far.
Ninety percent of the information and strategies on this forum are “extra”—you can get by quite easily without knowing about such things as rapid stacking and golden tickets.
And you’re in the right place to ask for help. We can steer you to the must-know stuff.
I’ve been to WDW several times in the past couple of years, but before that my last trip was in 2006, so I missed the entire Fast Pass Plus years of months-in-advance ride reservations. But I gather from what I’ve heard from others here on the forum that one of the biggest differences between then and now is that Genie+ allows/forces you to be somewhat more flexible in your day planning, because you can’t know exactly what reservations you’ll get till day-of. Some people mourn the ability to make firm plans well ahead of their arrival in Orlando, while others enjoy the added spontaneity.
It really depends on the crowd levels and your tolerance for waiting in lines. Personally, I like Genie+ (although I liked it a lot better when it was a flat $15).
Of course, more changes are coming down the pike, ready or not!
I’m stressing about this too @MrsWeb! I’m contemplating a quick trip in June with DD20 when she gets jome from college. We don’t care about the new rides, just stuff like HM, Soain, Safari etc. but worried I won’t be able to figure it all out, stand-by lines will be no fun in tbe June heat. And yes I’ve studied all of the helpful threads, just not getting it!
I would definitely second the idea that you don’t need all the bells and whistles as long as you understand the basic concepts of the lightning lanes, ILLs and boarding groups.
The two things that I found most useful beyond that are 1) that you can make a reservation and then much more easily modify it than the early days of Genie+ and 2) that you can check in up to 119 minutes past your lightning lane window for regular lightning lanes. On the modifying front, it was relatively easy, especially in the morning hours to grab a reservation, even if it was later than you necessarily wanted and then just refresh over the course of five or 10 minutes to see if you could move the time closer to what you were looking for. That was lovely and very fastpass-like. And with the 119 minute rule it was helpful to realize you had more time than might otherwise seem apparent with the one hour windows. That let me stress less about having the perfect window of time booked and also let us take our time and walk in logical order around the parks rather than dashing back-and-forth. It just made it all feel more sane.
I also found that watching some of the Earscouts videos made it seem a lot less daunting and a lot more fun. The extra cost is not my favorite but the system itself does feel like it works fairly well these days. Hang in there and hope you find the excitement again!
Thank you! Yes, part of what keeps leading to me putting it off is the tiny hope that it will change before we go this summer. But I really do need to dig in and try to make sense of all of the new. It is so much more expensive than when we last went I cannot fathom adding Genie+ costs to our days, but I also don’t want to spend all this money and not have an enjoyable trip because I didn’t learn and pay.
I think this is key. All the genie threads here are a wonderful source of information and I’m very grateful, but they make my head hurt!
You definitely don’t need to be proficient in all the hard core genie tricks from the get go.
Use BG1 (learning to install might be the hardest part) and you will fine!
I don’t even get what BG1 is let alone how it interfaces with everything else. The technical language is just not a language I speak at all so as soon as it starts, its like my mind just will not compute. I’ll go read the thread AGAIN and try to understand. Say a prayer for me…
@MrsWeb I hesitated to mention this because it’s not essential, but once you have the basics down, BG1 (the lovely bookmarklet created by @joelbruick) is the next thing I’d recommend looking into, if you have time. If you’re at all comfortable with tech it’s not hard to install (just takes a few minutes) and it’s SO much easier to use for booking BGs and LLs than the official Disney app.
Thank you. I have read that thread many times. I can tell it is written with such care and helpfulness. Still have no idea what it means. But all your pep talks have me geared up to try again. I think I might just have to install it while it makes no sense to me in order to see it and start to make sense of it.
I agree with that 100%. Everything about BG1 is worth doing. Once you download it, it’s really pretty intuitive and makes everything easier. You don’t really need to know tricks to use it. It’s just a more efficient, effective version of the Disney ride booking system.
let alone how it interfaces with everything else. The technical language is just not a language I speak at all so as soon as it starts, its like my mind just will not compute. I’ll go read the thread AGAIN and try to understand. Say a prayer for me…