I’m not planning to go to WDW any time soon (probably years), but I still say 
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Maybe you’re reading this differently than I am. You can still book something in the park you plan to hop to…but only if the current LL return window is already after 2:00 pm. So, you can still stack times into the next park…but you just can’t jump ahead of the other G+ users!
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I read it as you can’t book for the new park until you enter it aka 2pm.
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That’s how I read the post at first, but on second reading I think it’s clear @darkmite2 meant it the way I responded to. Of course, we haven’t seen anything official yet.
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I can see it read that way. Not sure if that’s the correct way or not.
In either case, I don’t see it affecting the value of PH, since PH is not limited beyond what it has been since before G+, but only the value of G+. (Or at least, the perceived value.)
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To me it severely limits the value of G+ for park hoppers. Now it’s do I get hoppers or G+, but no longer both.
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Hopefully you’re right as that change wouldn’t be that bad. Frankly on our recent trip we were doing that anyway often as we would park hop more in the 5-7 range so a 2PM LL didn’t help anyway. It’s annoying for those hopping precisely at 2 of course, but…
I was reading it as you couldn’t book for a 2nd park until 2PM (although I wasn’t presuming one needed to enter to book). That would be terrible and greatly reduce the chances we would buy Genie+ many days…
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The only thing that could mitigate this (somewhat) is to drop the 2:00 park-hopping restriction.
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Exactly. I would lean toward dropping Park Hopper.
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I literally just about threw up.
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Any chance this is a foreshadowing of dropping the 2pm barrier to park hopping?
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I do have to wonder, though…if you eliminated those stacking right now to the second park, wouldn’t it make it more likely there is availability at 2:00 now? It seems like it would naturally drive more people to use G+ time slots that are closer, and so later (meaning at/after 2:00) there would now more likely be availability…even to those who park hop. It mostly just shifts things around.
It probably also forces people (which, I know…people won’t necessarily like) to do something that was the case with FP+…that is, much like the tiered system resulted in people filling up the FP line for things like shows and meet and greets. So, excess capacity in the LLs will now be filled up more throughout the day, further allowing those who pay for G+ to have more opportunity later in the day.
Come to think of it…I think the real losers here will be those who are in Standby lines, because I fear it will drive up standby waits even more.
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This started today with no announcement I can find
BlogMickey has a good article explaining it better.
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Ding, Ding, Ding.
Cheapek has no sympathy for those who feel they pay enough just for entry.
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I found the article you mean. My reading of it takes me back to my interpretation…that you CAN book something in the next park before 2:00…but only if the next return window for that ride is already after 2:00.
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For one thing, I think that they were well aware that if they allowed people with hoppers to book later LL at parks where they don’t have reservations then they were intending them to do just that. If the idea occurred to all of us then it definitely occurred to them, so I don’t think there’s a case that people who don’t do it are the “legitimate” users.
For another thing, the people who stack all the big rides in the evenings without hopping are still going to do it. If anything it will cause people to just not hop… if I’m locked into a 5:30pm LL for Remy at 7:07am (just because that’s what I got) then I’m sticking with Epcot all day. The availability for those high demand LLs to people who hop after 2:00pm probably isn’t going to change because of this.
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It seems like they’d have had to add in a bit of code to put in the restriction, so I don’t see why they’d add code if they planned on removing it right away.
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Yes…but if you take the Epcot example, people continually say how getting G+ for EP and AK aren’t really worth it. Park hopping actually MADE it worth it, because you could do both…and so it was more likely people at EP could stack using a PH into MK or HS later, etc. Now, with this change, there is no inherent advantage one way or the other. It just all plays out more naturally.
And by “legitimate”, I really mean how Disney had planned for the system to be working. As people start to use G+ in ways they didn’t anticipate, they keep changing the rules to stop the behavior. Hence, I don’t think it is was the way Disney MEANT it to be used. But changes also have to come on the timetable that they adjust the technology infrastructure to support it. Which means they probably have to allow the “misbehavior” for longer than they would prefer to.
Discounts. When we first started going with the kids, there was a deal pay for 4 days, stay for 7. Hotel & tickets. The economy was crap at that time.
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BlogMickey points out a curious twist:
This new feature no longer presents guests with a viable return time based on park hopping rules, but instead presents a wall, telling us to “select a new time that is included in your Park Hopper option”… What makes this frustrating is that there is currently no way to “select a new time” within the Disney Genie+ service because guests are simply given the next available time and not given the ability to choose a return window of their liking.
… which feeds my suspicion that this isn’t the end of the story, change-wise.
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