WDW March 2022

Vater said:

the priority continues to drop each year for two reasons: my kids get a year older and a Disney visit seemingly gets more complex and less vacactiony.

Yup. Even us, who love to do it vacation style and spend a lot of time at the resorts - are finally throwing in the towel and choosing other things for a few years.

We loved the carefree nature of coming and going as we pleased, but even for this upcoming marching band trip, we had to move plans, reservations, tickets, etc.. around way more than I'd ever like to, and we got frustrated by the whole thing and said it's time for a change of pace.

Brian Noble said:

No matter what they do with virtual queuing or how they do it, some people are going to be disappointed. And, for everyone who does get on it, they are going to have to either spend time or spend money to do so---again, no matter what---unless Disney suddenly decides they shouldn't monetize the crown jewels of their parks. And I don't think most CBuzzers think that's either likely or even smart. I suspect most of us wonder what took them so long. I know I do.

Agree with this 100% and haven't tried G+, but I suspect I'll be able to get as much mileage out of it as FP+. I think the biggest issue I'm hearing is that the tech/interface isn't good enough to run "the way it's supposed to." It's a real problem when you're paying $15/person to ride at 2:00pm and you click confirm and suddenly you have a reservation for 6:00pm. Not to mention how you can't modify an existing G+ reservation to a different time, and Genie (the recommendation service) is actually negative value (bad recommendations). I genuinely wonder how much pushback there would be if the system actually worked correctly with exactly the same pricing.

The Boarding Groups system, while not problem free, took 30 seconds, was mostly reliable and you knew what you were getting by 7:00:30. Even if they tacked a charge onto that system, I think people would be okay with it.

Genie (the recommendation service) is actually negative value (bad recommendations).

I didn't pay too close attention to it, but the things it suggested to me last week seemed at least semi-sensible. Maybe that's gotten better? It certainly can evolve over time...

The Boarding Groups system, while not problem free, took 30 seconds, was mostly reliable and you knew what you were getting by 7:00:30.

I'm not sure about that. You never really knew when it would come up, though you probably had a good idea. You certainly couldn't plan it the way you are supposed to be able to with ILL. And, if you had a higher number, you may or may not get on.

If ILL worked even sort of the way it seems to have been intended, it is an improvement IMO.

Doing a simple #genieplus search shows some of the usual internet theatrics. But also shows a surprising number of legitimate complaints.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23genieplus&f=live

Yeah, that system isn't great either. It was a long time before I was able to ride Rise, in part because I hated having to get to the park before sunrise. I eventually caved and did it in January 2020.

Let me rephrase that:

The Boarding Group system was reasonably fair (about as fair as anything could be other than "Who's willing to arrive earliest or wait longest?") and generally performed as advertised. When you didn't get a BG, you knew it right away and could plan on it. When you got a backup BG, you knew you weren't guaranteed a ride but had an okay chance of getting one later in the day. When you had a BG you knew you would ride "at some point," could track the estimate for that point, and were guaranteed a ride barring a catastrophic breakdown, which would roll you over to the next day. There wasn't a huge amount of promising one thing and delivering a different thing, which seems to be at least one of the problems with G+ and ILL's. Then again, it was free so maybe the expectations were just lower in general.

I should first experience Genie+ this november when I go to Orlando for IAAPA. I want to go to Epcot and ride Guardians and I am willing to pay for a LL+ for that to avoid the boarding groups. Before that, I am heading to Disneyland Paris in June.

Disneyland Paris used to be very expensive ticket and hotel wise, but ever since the Walt Disney Company takeover of EuroDisney SCA, things are looking up and they are doing more right than WDW currently. EuroDisney SCA, per the original agreement with France that demanded local ownership and non direct Disney control, used to be owned by Disney, Kingdom Holdings and a lot of minority shareholders. Now, Disney bought out everyone else and Kingdom Holdings remain the only non Disney shareholder.

One big difference with WDW: when you book a Park+Hotel package with DLP, you don't need to do separate park reservations. It automatically include access to both parks, which is one less headache and thing to stress over. They had tried over the last years an hybrid paper fast pass/paid skip the lines scheme that worked out great for them. Turns out europeans enjoy paying their way to skip the lines, something I was offered as a cast member there 20 years when some guests would walk up to the fast pass return entrance and offer me money to just walk right in. WDW management was amazed at the large adoption rate by guests and revenues and this along with Shanghai Disneyland were the basis for Genie+/Lightning Lane +.

In Shanghai, regular paper fast pass quickly turned to an online only thing linked to tickets since guests put in a secondary fast pass resell system in the park. The local operator then went to an hybrid free fast pass/paid magical access system that worked out really good: can't get a free Soaring Above the Horizon fast pass 5 minutes after park opening? For 70$ US per person, you will get a set of 8 fast passes for one time access to each popular attraction! We won't even force to pick times: just scan and enter. Of course, its linked to your photo too, that is discreetly taken when you enter the park to avoid resell...

The current Disneyland Paris situation at Disneyland Paris is this: no more free fast pass and all distribution machines were removed. Guests can use the app to purchase one time Disney Premier Access for eligible attractions on the app, Prices vary, with 13 euros (over 15$ US) per person for the more popular attractions, including Crush Coaster. Crush Coaster is basically Hersheypark Laff Track coaster with a small dark ride section before and miserable 600-700 pph capacity. At the Walt Disney Studios park, which itself is the smallest Disney park in the world, it can still get a 90-120 minutes wait on the slowest days. They now offer Disney Premier Access for it and it sells out very quickly. No sets or package price is available there.

In Shanghai, its all paid Premier Access now, mostly through sets that give you staggered times to redeem at each attraction. The line to get into the park is really long, so they also sell an early access ticket to skip that line!

Is it even possible to go to Disney anymore without any of this new tech and still ride everything you want? Just walk around and ride everything standby like the old days?

It's certainly possible and better than FP+ (where everyone was using some VQ system). In fact, I think they said something like 50% of people use G+ which means 50% of people are not using any of this. But I would guess on busy weeks if you're not rope dropping and you're not paying your way to the front you're going to be seeing pretty long standby waits for everything. In AK and Epcot you could probably still get all the rides done but you'd be spending a large portion of your day waiting.

Possible: Yes.

Enjoyable and practical?: Ehh, it depends. The biggest thing (and this dates back to the free Fastpass+ era as well) is that the standby lines move at such a glacial pace, you are always guaranteed to wait a substantial amount of time for pretty much everything.

This will never happen. But Makes me wonder if everything would be better off if they got rid of the tech and fast passes and everything just went back to standby again?

That's how it was after they reopened from the COVID shutdown until Genie/LL debuted. It was nice on our trip last May. Our 2 longest line were Slinky at just under an hour and Tower of Terror at just over an hour (with a technical issue). Most of the rest were 30 minutes or less and definitely shorted than reported in the app. Of course, the parks were at limited capacity so that certainly contributed to the shorter lines, even if the parks still felt pretty busy.

Everything standby meant waits for stuff, but standby lines were considerably lower. We did Flight of Passage and waited an hour. DHS was rough because of the closed shows though. Things like Indiana Jones, Frozen Sing-Along and Fantasmic take a lot of people out of queues.

Maybe it's just because I tend to optimize the pants off of the VQ systems, but I didn't like the standby only trip to Disneyland we took in July. We ended up waiting 20-30 minutes at least 3 or 4 times each day and 45 minutes at least once a day. I know that's in eyeroll territory, but on the VQ systems I can usually manage to do everything in a park with nothing over 20 minutes. Of course, I am very, very far for the general audience.

But that's my point... for a moderate, non-hour-plus wait, you can do everything when there is no system to prioritize riders.

I also am all about utilizing skip the line access whenever I go anywhere. The issue I have with the current Genie+ setup is the lack of control I have to know I am going to get value from it. At any other park I know I will be able to have access to everything. At Disney now, by the time my next booking window rolls around I may be out of luck.

To be honest, the amount of planning that appears necessary to enjoy a Disney day at this point makes it more trouble than it's worth for me.

BrettV said:

I also am all about utilizing skip the line access whenever I go anywhere. The issue I have with the current Genie+ setup is the lack of control I have to know I am going to get value from it. At any other park I know I will be able to have access to everything. At Disney now, by the time my next booking window rolls around I may be out of luck.

But which of those other parks prices their product at $15/day? Given the price point, and compared to the competition, I think it's a pretty decent value.

And that's part of the problem. For all the gnashing of teeth at this, part of the problem is that it is too popular (which means it's too cheap). If fewer people bought it the value to those people would go up and the disruption to the guests who do not buy it goes down.

Richard Bannister said:

To be honest, the amount of planning that appears necessary to enjoy a Disney day at this point makes it more trouble than it's worth for me.

Funny how many of us are saying that.

But here's the rub. I think for a certain segement of the diehard crowd, the whole "game" is maybe, kind of the point...or at least a part of the experience. People that don't know how to play the game are happy because they don't even know the extent of it all. People that *do* play the game find great joy in winning it and go to (what seems to me, at least) great lengths to do so.

The only ones not happy are those of us that know the game exists, but have no desire to play it.

With that said, reading Andy & Brian's insight in general (coupled with a general lack of interest) makes me realize I will likely never set foot in WDW again.

Haven't been to a Disney park in 15 years, but during the pandemic I've been watching a LOT of Disney YouTube content. One fascinating thing about the whole Genie+ experience is one of the channels I enjoy did Genie+ days at each FL park. Their overall opinion was that it's good for Studios and Magic Kingdom, unnecessary for Epcot and Animal Kingdom most of the time. They like that it's not a 2, 3 month out planning process like it was with FP+ and it seems easier for large groups than before. They point out all the issues with it that have been mentioned everywhere and how there are decent ideas but overall execution is lacking.

THEN they went to DisneyLand, and it was completely different. ILLs are available almost all day, the G+ reservations could be had on every big ride with a return time of an hour or less. It seems like it works the way it's supposed to at DL - pay extra to be able to ride with minimal waits, opening up time to do shows, eat, and shop. At DL Genie+ made for a nice day with no stress over getting it all done.

Did the developers of the system base it on DL trends? Surely not, but it feels like they underestimated the "WIN WDW AT ALL COSTS" mindset of a lot of people like Gonch mentioned above.

Anyway, it's all been very entertaining from the perspective of a casual viewer. :)