Also, thinking about Genie+, the general thought is that Genie+ will be most useful at HS and MK, for obvious reasons. That leads me to think that EP and AK might have very people going for the G+ ride slots. That might skew the numbers toward making EP and AK more worthwhile. Maybe the LL line won’t have anyone in it, which would make the wait equal to whatever it is past the mixing point. This makes me a little more pleased with our park hopper tickets. Maybe something like, start out at HS (with Genie+), do a rest period, then came back to EP and do FW while everyone else is eating and drinking around the world.
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I can see HS not needing any G+ if you RD. Touring plans has always helped me get through the heavy hitters early enough that no FP was ever needed. The main concern is getting access to RotR if that is something you are after. That appears to be the one attraction with the highest demand and limited availability.
If you only have one day at MK and you have a large must-do list of attractions, this is where G+ may be an advantage. There are just too many attractions in this park to do it all in one day.
Animal Kingdom could be done without the need for G+ if you RD. The number of attractions is not that high. If you are able to RD something like FoP, you would be miles ahead of the crowds for the rest of the day.
EPCOT will become tougher when GotG, Remi, Soarin’, TT, and FEA are all in high demand. This may become a two-day park if you want to get through them all. G+ could be helpful here.
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Part of me feels like they don’t have to “allocate” anything between paid and free for RoTR. Assume they keep the number of free BG’s exactly the same as it is today, then offer LL+ throughout the day for “instant access”. All that would happen is that if enough people buy the LL+, higher boarding groups wouldn’t get called. Over time, once they have an idea of how many people on average purchase LL+ they may reduce the number of boarding groups to eliminate guest disappointment, but my guess is there are people that don’t get on every day as it is so you’ll never know if it’s just unlucky day as far as efficiency goes, etc, or due to LL+. Now, surely there will be analysis and people on boards like this will know, but the average guest won’t.
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This one phrase right here…that’s the ball game.
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This was the thought that irked me earlier.
What if those people in the higher boarding groups that don’t get called would have decided to pay if they hadn’t got a boarding group? It’s all so horridly cyclical!! Just like @ryan1 original point that Disney are creating the need to pay out of thin air.
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I wonder if they will build in an extra buffer to account for the number of BGs they distribute. That way they could manage the disappointment level better and have less people running to Guest relations for monetary compensation.
So if they have capacity for 100 BGs over a 10 hour period, only allow the distribution of 50 at the 7am drop. Then allow for maybe 30 for LL$. That then gives them a 2-hour buffer at the end of the day for delays. As the day goes on and they are approaching the end of their BGs, they could could then make a “special” announcement saying more LL$ BGs are available for purchase for the next two hours! “Hurry, they will not Last!”
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Thinking about Genie+ some more.
Assuming:
- They go with the option of on-site guests getting 7am access to Genie+, and off-site at park open. (Please, please, please)
- You can get your next genie+ pass 90 minutes after you got one or you used it, whichever is first.
- Park opens at 9 am (TP’s guesstimate for my Feb days for everything but AK)
That would mean that on-site could get an extra two hours of Genie+ reservation window. An onsite liner, could open the app at 7am and watch the ride return times on the best popular Genie+ ride at their reserved park. I assume the return times would start at 9 am and creep upward. When it reached a convenient time, say 10am, then get a ride reservation. Hopefully that would happen before 7:30am. Then at 8:30+ish, the cooling-off time period would be done and the on-site liner could get a return time to the second most popular Genie+ ride, while they were power-walking to one of the rides which was IAS or standby only. You’d want to get your first Genie+ at least a little before 1.5 hours before park open, to allow the second to be before the hordes could reserve. Although if they let everyone into the park early and held them back somewhere, I guess off-site people could get their first Genie+ before the park officially opened.
So, before park open, this person could ride the most popular ride in the park, get two ride reservations and probably be in a short-ish line for their second ride.
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That’s the way I did it with Maxpass at DL.
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Do you mean two ride reservations because you could get one at 7 and then one again at 8:30? Is that how it works?
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We don’t know how it works for sure yet but Max Pass at DL was 90 mins I believe. You could only start booking them once the park was open though, or once you were in the park maybe. So this is uncharted territory. But in theory yes you could book by 7.25 and get your second by 8.55 and the park still won’t be open for offsite guests to start booking.
Or maybe I’m wrong if @LTinNC82 was booking before park opening.
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You could book them inside the park, but before open. So 30 minutes before open was the standard. People getting paper FPs had to wait until park open.
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Yeah so it was different in that you had to be in the park to book, but they did have early entry some days for certain ticket holders and on those days I definitely had an advantage to book ahead of the normal open crowds. So while not exactly the same, I hope and would expect onsite guests to essentially be able to book up to 2 passes before park open at 9am. Obviously if the park opens at 8 you’ll only get 1, but you’ll still be ahead of most others bc of the cool down or use periods.
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Thanks both for the clarification!
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Yes, I was thinking what she explained better.
Why were you not complaining when MNSSHP took two hours away from daily paying ticket holders so that Disney could make more money using the Halloween and Christmas Party for add on.
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Shrug We were never impacted by that change, so I had no skin in the game to think about it.
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I’m wonding how long it will take before my brain stops seeing Google+ when I read G+.
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I would edit that to “most people will purchase G+ for a portion of their trip.” I think G+ will be of most value in MK and DHS so I could see many people purchasing G+ for MK and DHS and skipping it for Epcot and AK. I also think those on longer trip may only purchase it for a day or two at each of MK and DHS even if there are 3 days planned at one of those parks.
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If we can purchase G+ ahead of time for the whole trip, I’ll just buy it for the whole trip. I don’t want to wake up at midnight on my vacation to purchase the days I want it. We also have PH and, at this point, plan on hopping to a different park later in the day. So Genie+ may be beneficial in that situation.
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