My trip is coming up 9/11-9/17, and the crowd calendar is showing 1s and 2s all week.
We have 7 people total, 5 adults, 1 toddler and an infant, and I was thinking about only using TPs and the occasional ILL. We’ll also be staying on site and will take advantage of EE.
Am I crazy for thinking we’ll do alright without G+? I’m looking to try and make this as easy and fun as I can for my niece since it’s for her 4th birthday, and first trip to WDW, and don’t want to be heads down in my phone all day.
Any info is great and if you want to call me insane, that’s cool too, I have thick skin
I think the one advantage of G+ is if you do the first day and decide at 10pm that you think you should of had genie+ then you can buy it next morning and be on a level playing field with everyone else.
I have been here for 2 weeks, and there is no way I would try this without Genie Plus. The lines are just so long. Of course maybe we just aren’t patient people?
Anyway, I think it would be very stressful to not have it. And you won’t have your head in your phone all day, it takes 30 seconds every 2 hours. Easy peasy!
I agree with @stustaff, try going without Genie+ the first few days and see how it is going. If it is bad, buy Genie+ the next day and see how much better it is and if it makes sense for your family given the cost. You can adjust day by day.
Honestly the only downside to that plan is you likely need to “study” a little on Genie+ so you’re ready if you do get frustrated and decide to try it you’re not completely in the dark on what parks it is best for and what rides to target.
We varied on using it depending on the day and what our goals were that day. It helped a lot if we wanted to ride a bunch of things, but we had a pleasant time on the slow days doing an ADR, catching a few less crowded rides, but we were there in mid-July when it was fairly crowded and Genie+ was likely more a must than the crowds you’re looking at…
How many days at each park do you have? We are currently here now trying it without Genie+, so I can give you a better answer after our trip for sure! I will say that you absolutely can NOT count on a TP. Ours went out the window after one ride yesterday. I will link my trip report so you can check that out!
I think this is the case for a lot of people on these boards. I’m frankly shocked, when I look at wait times, that people think they need to pay for skipping lines. I guess people don’t go to other amusement parks where waits are much longer regularly.
I have no plan to support Disney by giving them money for G+. I’d rather wait. The only money I’m willing to give is to ensure a ride on something we couldn’t otherwise guarantee…that is, GotG.
Waits will be longer. This has ALWAYS been the case with line-skipping systems. They charge money to “steal” time away from those who aren’t paying for it. I find the whole thing a racket.
We do go, but we always buy whatever we need to skip the lines. I just cannot see waiting 90 minutes to ride a 4 minute ride, in that case we would rather just not go. But I realize not everyone thinks that way.
This is pretty much spot on with my thinking as well. I go to places like Kings Island and Cedar Point, never get their Express Pass, and still have a great time. Yes, I still wait in lines but that just comes with the territory.
With only 4 park days, and not going back for a second day at a certain park I would get G+ for MK and HS. If used effectively, you will get so much more done and not feel like you wish you had more time there.
EP and AK is not necessary with the lower crowds.
Adding some data. This info is from TouringPlans from early July. It’s average minutes saved with G+ on low, medium, and high crowds.
We have a Cedar Parks affiliate here, and the fast lane for a day costs almost as much as our season pass. We don’t do it. Granted it’s unlimited, but if lines are too long for our taste we just hit the waterpark instead.
For a Disney trip that happens so infrequently, I’m willing to get G+ for the 2 parks I know my kids will want to repeat rides. That way we can split the difference with one shorter wait and then however many possibly longer standby waits they’re willing to do for the same ride. (Last trip 3 years ago, my older kids rode TOT 6 times in 2 visits to HS and it was about half and half SB vs FPP). Everyone is different, but for us I see more value in paying for several rides for about the same cost as one ILL. But officially I dislike all the extra paid stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate having to pay for Genie Plus and ILLs as well. But not paying for it only punishes my family and means we won’t ride. It doesn’t punish Disney not to buy it, they will get your money another way. I did NOT buy park hoppers for my kids, despite the fact that I have an AP so can hop. I decided Disney could have money for hoppers, or genie plus. Since we sleep in and go to the parks late, genie plus is needed while hoppers are not since we can barely make it to 1 park each day.
Yes this! I am fully aware that my youngest is a complainer, and she is very “If I’m unhappy, you’re all gonna be unhappy.” It’s more about the heat than the lines. She can wait in a line but if she’s hot, the wait gets much longer for the rest of us. I’ve done my cost vs benefit analysis on that one.
I think you’ll be okay. We only used G+ 3 of our 10 days last trip. Maybe consider getting it on an MK or HS day but otherwise I think you’ll do just fine without it.
I agree with others about getting it for at least HS and MK. Consider the % that Genie+ would cost vs the cost of your entire trip. Then consider the time Genie+ saves you. We are going in late August for 10 days. I bought Genie+ for every day. It is hot. I don’t want to wait outside longer than I have to in lines.
If it’s not in your budget, you can survive without Genie+.
If you could afford it for a few days, definitely get it for at least one of your HS and MK days. HS has a lot of headliners that can be 2-3 hours (!) so it helps to have a leg up. MK’s lines are more manageable on average, but Genie+ can go along way there since there are so many eligible attractions and (usually) plenty of availability.
Epcot and AK have few enough attractions that you can get through them all waiting standby, and you can be strategic about rope drop and late evening to minimize your wait times. Another alternative would be to buy Genie+ on a day when you are hopping between these parks and MK/HS so you can use it at both.
In that case, I can already agree with others that you might want to get it for MK and HS. The only reason I didn’t feel too bad about our first two days (HS and MK) is because I knew we had another day (and another two days in the case of MK) to catch the things we didn’t do.
No I don’t think you are crazy. We used it one day during our 6 day trip and didn’t feel the need to use it again. I agree with others. Try a day or so without it and buy it the days you really feel like you might need it or if you can’t seem to get the attractions you want to enjoy.
We waited in some lines, up to 45 minutes. It really isn’t a big deal and we got to spend some time together as a family, as well as see some queues that we hadn’t seen yet or that I haven’t seen since I came with my family in the 90s. We saw everything we wanted to see and did everything we wanted to do.
Disney did not get my money from the days I didn’t purchased G+. In fact, we saved even more money. We went during the holiday season and we’re going to do the Christmas party. Since they didn’t have that last year, we saved ourselves about $500. We only bought G+ one day to try it and would have bought more if we felt like we needed it since we weren’t doing the Christmas party. We ended up not needing any more days of G+.
