Ok. We have 21 in our party. Previously, the most we had was 8 and Genie+ was pretty manageable when physical tickets were given out (scanning was so fast!). Now, as the person who will be the only person booking attractions, how am I supposed to make scanning tickets in my phone work? Three of us went last month and we all struggled with the scanners and our mobile tickets.
What tips, tricks do you all have to help me manage 21 people! Yikes…stressing me out
Note: also a huge issue. We are going on two tier 1 days and one tier 3 day. So we literally bought individual 1 day tickets for everyone. So I have 63 tickets to scroll through to boot. (Prob not the smartest but saved us each at least 50 bucks each person).
12 are kids who don’t have phones, btw.
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With a group that size you’ll need to be split for Genie+ into 2 separate groups as max is 12 people for booking one set of Lightning Lanes. If you’re worried about any of the times going more quickly than you book for 2 separate groups, recruit another adult to have their device logged into the app with all the tickets linked. To save the linking step you can have them logged into your Disney account on their device, but if you’d rather not have them accessing your login, then all tickets could totally be linked to another Disney account. Then you can either use that person’s device to look for both groups at the same time, or ideally that person can know enough to help you look and book or at the very least mirror what you’re doing on your screen on theirs.
The main challenge I foresee is scanning into the parks. I have a concern about how you will be able to tell which day’s tickets match to the reservation you made. Where you go in the app to scan your ticket for entry does not include any information on reservations so each time you enter and/or hop you’ll need to know from the 63 which 21 tickets match to which day’s reservation. You’ll be able to see the name of the person assigned to the ticket, the type of ticket & a ticket-specific number under the barcode that scans. The ticket type should include the tiers so you should be able to distinguish your one Tier 3 day easily enough, but the two Tier 1’s will be distinguishable only by the number under the barcode and possibly the name assigned to it (if you assign slightly different names for each Tier 1 day).
Also something to consider: will you all be always entering (or hopping) to a park at the same time? If not, then you will need to either meet people at the park entrance when they want to get back in or hop or get other adults to have tickets linked to a device to be able to have support on that front.
However there are a few ideas I have for how to simplify the 63 tickets.
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Edit the Name Assigned to each Ticket: If possible this is the easiest one I have & it’s free. Check to see if you can still edit the name assigned to everyone’s tickets and add some sort of simple identifier to it, especially for your the two Tier 1 days. For me that would be adding a number to the end of everyone’s name that corresponds to the number day of the trip it is, so if your Tier 1 days are days 1 and 2 adding a 1 and 2 to the end of the names, and if the system doesn’t allow for numeric characters in the name field, I’d add Roman Number I and II to the end instead.
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Magic Band+: If some of the group already have any or are (or will be) repeat visitors, this makes a lot of sense. If this would be one time a Magic Band+ purchase, never to be used again for most of the group or if it’s really not in budget, then skip the rest of this paragraph. But if this is at all an option then it eliminates ALL of the scrolling for both entry & scanning into LL’s and you wouldn’t have to fuss about which tickets are today’s tickets out of all 63. But it is not cheap (and would negate the savings you’d put forward to separating out the tickets into 3 separate days) and would be time-consuming to link 21 bands to your account (but save you all the scrolling & hunting at either entry or tapping into Lightning Lanes so still worth it if you’re willing to spend that time up-front).
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Assign Smaller Groups to other Adults to manage just the scanning: Even if you’ll all stay together as one happy group of 21 for all entry and scanning into Lightning Lanes, if you have more than one technologically adequate family members (could be kids using an adult phone or adults with their own phone who could navigate the app), recruit them to use the Disneyland app either in their own account and link tickets to their account for just the group they are responsible for scanning in. With this option, you would save the money from not buying Magic Band+‘s and vastly cut down on the scrolling for just you. They could also log into your account on their phone and just know & be responsible for scrolling to their assigned groups’ correct tickets within the mass of 63.
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Just worry about Today’s Tickets: If no one else in the group is able to really navigate the app & none of the above works for sorting out how to distinguish the 63 for entry. I would seriously, take screenshots of all the tickets as they are linked right now & double check emailed receipts with whatever confirmation numbers are needed to re-link. Then, unlink the tickets that were for days 2 & 3, only keeping day 1’s tickets in the app. Then in whatever downtime I have at night after the park has closed (or the last time anyone from my group entered the park), I would re-link the next day’s tickets and the next day’s tickets only. This would be also time-consuming each evening at the end of a long park day, so in my mind, I’d use this as almost a last resort only.
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Screenshots can work (for Lightning Lanes only): As a last ditch effort, you could use screenshots of the barcodes & just text them around to whoever needs them. I wouldn’t advise using this for entry to the park as that may raise some flags at the entry turnstiles and there have been reports of people being turned away/needing a supervisor approval to enter if the CM notices it’s a screenshot & not the actual app. But for Lightning Lanes, even though it’s essentially just the ticket barcode, because they aren’t verifying your identity to enter the queue, it won’t matter if Grandma, Grandpa & Uncle Tom’s Lightning Lane barcode are being used for Aunt Linda, Uncle Paul & Cousin Timmy to enter said queue. So you could screenshot each bardcode that you would have to scroll through for the Lightning Lanes & text small groups of those screenshots to several of the adults. Having it this way would give it a feel that it’s going faster (even if it’s not all that much faster) but it would definitely not clog up the tap points with your whole group. And since they only care if the count of people entering matches the count of swipes that are good to enter (lighting up green) you won’t have to send the right screenshots to the right person, just a set number of each “group leader”.
And that’s all I got for now, but best of luck to you in managing your group!!!
The largest I’ve managed in park for Genie+ is 10 and that was a whirlwind. I’ve done a group as big as 14 together on a cruise but one other adult was taking care of her 4 fabulously so I really only had to manage 10, but again, whirlwind!
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I’ve used screenshots for entry all the time. I just make sure I’ve tapped the screen so any sign it’s a photo is removed.
Another option is creating dummy accounts for each day’s tickets and use that account that day. That could also be used to separate the 21 tickets into less than 12 each for ease of getting LL reservations. The idea of scrolling through 63 tickets, even if the names have been identified for each person each day, to book LL seems awful to me.
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