I’ve been thinking more about Genie+, etc. and I’ve come to the conclusion that once it’s rolled out and stabilized, it will be neither good nor bad - it will just be a system that people can take advantage of or not, depending on whether they feel the price is worth it. However, Genie+ is bad for people who currently have tickets or who will be buying them before the system is rolled out and don’t know exactly what they’re paying for. The transitionary period will be the most painful for customers.
For example, say that Genie+ was already in place and working the way it is designed (whatever that is). A person who bought a ticket without Genie+ would be able to look at wait times with and without Genie+ (with help from analysis from Touring Plans and other sources) and determine if it’s worth it for them - just like people who buy a ticket from a budget airline can determine if more legroom is worth it for them.
However, someone holding or buying a ticket right now has no idea if the extra $ will be worth the cost. There’s no way of knowing what the difference in wait times will be. It’s as if they have an airline ticket for a seat with typical legroom, but later some of that legroom will be taken away from them and given to those who pay more - depending on how many people pay. It’s the uncertainty that makes it so unfair.
That uncertainty is inevitable when rolling out a new system. But once it stabilizes, the market will stabilize as well. The prices charged will be adjusted until customers are satisfied that the value with and without Genie+ is fair. Disney probably won’t ever decrease prices, but they may not increase them for inflation as much if people aren’t buying enough (and to be clear, I think Disney doesn’t want too many people buying Genie+, so if too many people are buying it, they may hold regular ticket prices steady and increase the price for Genie+).
Long term, I do think Genie+ will make a Disney vacation affordable to more people. Charging for parking, DME, and FP feels insulting at first, but in the long term, it allows people to not have to pay for those services by default. And someone does have to pay! No free lunch and all that - if a charge isn’t explicit, the cost is just spread across everyone.
While Disney does operate like a monopoly to a degree (though UOR is changing that), people only have so much to spend on a vacation. So Disney isn’t necessarily getting more money by charging for formerly “free” services - they’re just reallocating that cost to the customers who want those services and are willing to pay.
One thing I was thinking about was how Genie+ is going to interfere with some types of planning using TP.
Since there is no predicting which LL access you will be able to get at any given time for any specific ride, it makes making a “perfect plan” in Touring Plans quite difficult. I mean, the only way I even use the TP software is to PRE-PLAN my park day, determining which order most effectively gets me done with the rides we want.
I can still make such a plan…but the moment some ride is now available via LL, everything has to be recalculated to decide if is makes the most logic sense to actually get the LP or not for a ride. It might technically save time for that specific ride to get it, but that might then shift the times when you hit other rides such that the time saved in the LL for that ride now causes waits for other lines to go up. And even if it does save time, it has to calculate best actions/choices based on the assumption no future LPs will be used during the day.
This means that what seems like a logical decision to NOT obtain a LP might not be taking into account, then, that by USING the LP, there will be ANOTHER line we can then get a LP that then makes it a better decision.
And this just makes matters worse, because now, rather than pretty much only going into my phone (for park purposes) to check current wait times, I now have to check to see available G+ LPs, and then plug that info into TP to determine if it is wise decision, which means spending even MORE time in the phone.
Of course, if we forego paying for G+ at all, then we can still hopefully rely on the TP data.
“However, Genie+ is bad for people who currently have tickets or who will be buying them before the system is rolled out and don’t know exactly what they’re paying for. The transitionary period will be the most painful for customers.”
Your statement is why I may have to ask a lot of questions on here if Disney doesn’t clarify some information soon. Even so, it is hard to plan for my upcoming trip when we will be there a month after the G+/LL roll-out and not a lot of time for data to be collected and recommendations made on how standby wait times will be affected
I think once we know all the rules on Genie+, the expert liners will be able to come up with advice and suggestions and that will only need minor tweaks as more data comes in. They have FP data and mucho experience to start. Problem is, right now there is no info or conflicting info on some important points. For example, is 7 am Genie+ start for on-site only or everyone? What is the ‘cooling off’ period between getting new reservations? Which rides are LL$$$?
What might be kind of scary is if the reason we don’t know the details on how it is going to work is because Disney doesn’t know those details yet, either!
If they were smart they’d have done it deliberately and that sat back and watched the speculations and consensus on what was hoped. Psst, Disney, did you hear that I think 7am start for G+ should be on-site only? But, I give that low probability. They are still doing the big company thing of having a ton of meetings.
I think it is naïve to presume the system won’t be evolving somewhat after the introduction. And frankly there is no way Disney will be able, much less willing, to tell us all the subtle nuances of the system prior to its release. It is definitely something that will need to be released and studied to be understood on how it ACTUALLY works. And of course the other variable is the adoption rate. When it first drops the average WDW customer is not going to know they have a G+ & LL$ option they can utilize. After a few months that knowledge will hit more attendees and the system may be more widely used.
But it’s going to be at least 6 months after release before it stabilizes, if that quickly. Unfortunately we’re not going to know how to game the system to our advantage for awhile as the system will be very much a moving target…
I’m pretty sure I’ll be one of those guinea pigs for the group. I’m going 11/14-11/20 with a big family group with little kids who will not tolerate long lines very well, so we plan to use all the options in the system. I’m going to try to keep notes on everything, so I can let y’all know how it works out for us, even if I don’t manage to keep up a “live” trip report.
After our March 2020 trip was canceled and then moved to October 2020, we planned a summer 2020 trip to DLR (that was also later canceled and replaced with a WDW August 2020 trip). I used the TP at DLR to plan my days there and TP suggested when to use MaxPass and for what rides, so I’m guessing the team at TP will be able to do that for Genie+ at WDW fairly quickly.
I’ll be there at the same time (multi-generational trip with small kids) and have been thinking the same thing. I’m hoping it rolls out in mid October but I’m probably dreaming.
This is true. When we would go with the kids young, we stayed off site, and brought in food and snacks because we couldn’t afford the food on site. You do what your budget allows!
I actually found it cheaper to eat on site when the kids were little because the kid’s meals were so inexpensive. While we took dry snacks with us (packed them in our suitcases…no need to stop anywhere) for on the go stuff, the CS or TS meals were so easy back then. In fact, we ended up really leveraging the dining plan (1 snack/1 CS/1 TS per day) to our advantage.
Once the kids hit 9yo is when it got far more challenging budget-wise. More $$$ for tickets and I had 9-12yos that ate like 6yos but were charged like 25yos. Those tween/pre-teen years are definitely where we found the least amount of value for both tickets and food.
