Magic bands will wait for you at your resort.
You do not need to reserve the second park.
Yes, advanced dining reservations can be done at 60 days for the first 10 days of your trip, and then every new day, for days 11, 12 etc
Leave the most popular restaurants for later in your trip, it will be easier to get the reservations.
A few General Tips about how best to set up yourself for GP and ILLs.
As soon as you purchase Genie Plus eg at 6:45, go to My Genie Day. Find GET STARTED and click on it. Press START NOW. It will start a process in which you select your party and give other info. When on the top of the screen it says MY TOP PICKS, select up to two rides that you want to book/ purchase LL for at 7am. Finalize the process and now open your Tip Board. Choose your park. Refresh screen. Your 1 or 2 selected rides should appear on top of your tip board. If they do not, click on edit selections and select them. Reload (refresh) the page. When the selected rides appear on top, you are good to go at 7:00:00. With the top picks appearing on top of the tip board, You will not need to waste time scrolling and have better possibilities in getting the time you want. For a better view of the two rides, tap on the photo of the first ride; it will take you to a screen with details about the ride. Go back to tip board. Reload. It will now balance the page better, so you can see both rides LL availability.
Now you are all set up for 7am. Do the following to book your first LL and any ILLs you want:
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at 6:58 close app and reopen it
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close everything else on phone
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go to tip board, choose the park you want. Make sure your 2 selections are on top of tip board.
-at 7:00:00 start refreshing tip board. This is done by swiping the page downwards with a finger. You will know it is happening because a “checking availability” will appear.
As soon as, instead of seeing 7am, you see a bold black time, click on the ride you want to book a LL for. If you are good with the time you get, you can finalize confirmation.
If you are not happy with the time you get, you can go back to tip board by clicking in the “x” (or is it an arrow?) in the top left corner.
Keep refreshing, especially from 7:07 onwards. All rides get new drops, multiple times until park opens and from there on many times during the day.
If you are park hopping, you can set up Genie for your second park. Go to MY GENIE DAY, scroll all the way down, find PLAN FOR YOUR NEXT PARK, Tell Genie…
Click on that, Start Now, and go through the process.
If you try to get a LL in a park other than the one you have park reservations for, Genie recognizes that you are park hopping and automatically adjusts your time for after 2pm. So if at 7am you desperately want to book Frozen ever after for the afternoon, because you are park hopping to Epcot, even if the current LL availability is for 11:30am, click on it. You will get a time after 2pm. It will mention that it has been adjusted.
Unfortunately, even if you have told Genie that you are going to 2nd park at 5pm, this information is ignored, so please check before you confirm, what time you are getting.
Strategies for LL bookings
If you are going to the park early:
Select a LL with an early return time, ie with a return window that starts within the first 45 minutes of official park opening.
This way, you will be eligible to book your second LL as soon as you tap in to the ride. Continue doing this LL after LL. This approach is called the book-ride-book approach and is very fruitful for morning session as well as in conjunction with the stacking approach.
If you will be going to the park later in the day:
In this situation it is best to use the stacking approach.
Let’s assume you plan to go to the park at 4:30pm til 8:00. Park opens at 9am
At 7am book a ride for the end of your park day, for example 7:30pm. Rides like SlinkyDog, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan, Frozen Ever After, may offer such late LLs. If you can’t find so late, book something earlier for these rides.
Since you have booked a LL1 with a return time past 2 hours from park opening, you have to wait until the 2hour after park opening mark, eg 11am for a 9am opening, to book your next.
So at 11 you book LL2 with return time around 7:00pm.
At 1pm you book LL3 with return time 6:30
At 3pm you book LL4 with return time 4:30
Please note that we have been stacking backwards and that we left a gap between LL4 and the rest of our LLs.
We did this on purpose, because it is always the last LL booked that determines when you become eligible to book a new LL.
Arrive at the park at 4:30 and go directly to your LL4 ride. Tap in. You are now able to book a new LL. Select LL5 with a near return time, eg 4:50. Start using the book-ride-book approach for as long as you can find new LLs and have time to do them.
General info about your LLs
LLs can overlap, but always keep in mind that even with a LL you will be waiting a bit. Some rides with preshows will have you waiting up to 20 minutes from tapping in till actually riding. Others merge with the Standby line early so there is some waiting . There is also the time if the ride itself, eg Splash is 18 minutes long.
On top of this, you need to account for the time it will take to go from one ride to another. As a general rule plan to ride 2?rides every 60 minutes, maximum 3.
When you book a LL, you get a return window. Rides have 60 minutes RW (unless they are for the last hour of the day). Shows have much shorter windows.
To see your booked LL you can go to MY GENIE DAY. You might need to scroll down a bit, among the various recommendations Genie offers. There us a chronological sequence to what appears on MY GENIE DAY. So if you have a late RT, expect to scroll down a lot. If you have an early RT, you will find your LL higher up.
It will be a box, with the name of the ride and it will give you your RW: eg 9:05-10:05.
For a show it will look like this 11:00-11:15.
Rides have grace periods: you can tap in 5 minutes early and up to 15 minutes late. The light at the tap will turn green, no need to ask Cast Members.
Shows do Not have grace periods, not even 1 minute, so be on time. I have been turned away at Festival of Lion King,because we arrived 2 minutes after the RW. This is because after the LL window closes, they let standby people in.
Booking new LL
So the general rules you need to keep in mind are:
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you become eligible to book a new LL, EITHER after you tap into the ride of your LATEST booked LL OR 2 hours later, whatever comes first.
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it is always the LAST booked LL that determines your booking eligibility.
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for any LLs booked before park opens, the clock for 120 minutes starts ticking at park opening.
Example:
at 7:05:00 in the morning you confirm a LL for BTM with a return time of 9:25 am. Park opens at 9:00.
You are at BTM at 9:25 and tap in (scan in). There are two scanning ponts, so as soon as you and your party tap into both points, you will be eligible to book a new LL.
Let’s assume that at 9:27 you book LL2 for PPF with return time 3:15. Because LL2 has a return time that starts more than 2 hours later, you will be eligible to book LL3 at 11:27.