I’ve used customized touring plans for all my Orlando park visits and they never let me down. I really hate change and this new Genie+ (that is ever changing) seems really inconvenient. To try to ease my mind, I went ahead and made 2 customized TP’s for each of the 7 days I’ll be at Disney World in early December (2nd-8th) - one with Genie+ and one without. I really wanted to compare them & budget for the days I think we’ll need to spend the extra cost for Genie+.
It turned out 5 of the 7 days we are better off NOT using Genie+, but rather do early entry & ride the major attractions on those days instead. The only time Genie+ seemed to be worth it is on one of the days we’d be at Magic Kingdom in the evening only (so we can hit Jungle Cruise, Pirates, Thunder Mtn & Haunted Mansion) & one of our full days at Hollywood Studios (to hit Mickey/Minnie, Tower of Terror & RocknCoaster). Does this seem right?
We always do early entry at the park, then take 12-4 PM off each park day to swim/rest. In the evenings we typically focus more on shows and great sit-down meals, rather than rides. We do 7 days: 3 for Magic Kingdom, 2 for Hollywood Studios, 1 for Animal Kingdom & 1 for Epcot. So maybe not using Genie+ as much is fine?
I think there’s no clear answer to your question. When are you planning to go? What are the predicted crowd levels? What is your group’s tolerance for waiting in lines? With 7 park days, you may be able to do everything you want without Genie+. Will you be bothered watching other people skip the line while you’re in standby?
Actually yes. Many of people have had sucessful days with a good TP and early entry without buying G+. MK and HS are the 2 parks I couldn’t see doing without G+.
Edit: your additional days may not warrant G+. I say save the $$
We almost always G+ and stack pretty aggressively at night. The only strategy that we have found to consistently book the harder to get stuff on G+ is to stack them up at night. We also take a 12-4 break most trips and I continue to grad LL’s every two hours during that break.
Mornings with G+ can be pretty tricky.
If you are picking a more popular ride at 7am, you run the risk of getting a later return time (after your 12pm
break). If you are picking a ride at 7 that has a return time of closer to 9 or 10 then you could probably just wait in line for that one.
Since you are doing three days at MK, you will probably be fine with skipping G+. Other than Peter Pan’s flight and Seven Dwarfs (likely to be off ILL and on G+ after Tron) there should be a time where the lines die down for just about everything else. Try during parades or fireworks for the harder stuff. Since you are there during the Holidays, Jingle Cruise and Space Mountain with it’s holiday music, are a little more crowded than usual but we still rode jingle cruise during the fireworks and it was a walk-on the week before christmas. Tron is a big unknown at this point but you should be able to get a spot in the virtual queue at least one of the days. Maybe not at the exact time you want however. Consider an ILL on that one.
Watch out for Mickey’s very merry christmas party. MK will typically close around 6 on party days.
AK doesn’t really need G+. To me Kilimanjaro Safaris is the only ride where the line can get long but it is still worth riding probably a good RD ride during EE. I don’t like Navi river journey enough to wait any length of time to ride it. FoP is probably another ILL to consider.
HS and EP are our typical nighttime parks. These are where we usually stack LL’s at night. Even on busier days we usually roll into the parks with 5-6 LL’s. We can usually pickup one or two more while we are there. We zigzag like crazy around the park but it’s a flippin’ blast of a good time. Since we haven’t been going all day, everyones got plenty of energy.
If you just have one day at each, HS is tricky. There aren’t a ton of rides so the G+ spots fill up fast. Then the lines get super long. Not ideal hence our nighttime strategy.
Epcot is a pretty easy park without genie plus. Especially during the holidays with the festival stuff. Guardians will likely be off virtual queue so an ILL might be the way to go. You could do EE to get on Remy or Frozen. You can always try to single rider TT and the easy side of Mission Space is pretty much always a walkon. Everything else pretty much always has a short line at some point during the day. Soarin is inside so not the worst to wait a few minutes for.
I can’t comment–we missed it on our last trip there in favor of something else. That is just funny, and I’ll probably think of it if/when we ride.