What if it's not Revenge Travel, but the New Normal?

Just thought I'd follow up here if anyone is interested.

When I woke up for work I got Genie+ and Slinky Dog Dash was already at 7:05-8:05pm by 7:05am. I booked it. The park opened at 8:30, which means I was eligible for another booking at 10:30. At 10:30 I got Tower of Terror for 6:20-7:20pm. At 12:30 I got Rock N Roller Coaster for 6:10-7:10. At 2:30 I got Runaway Railway for 5:25-6:25. And at 4:30 I got Toy Story Mania for 7:45-8:45. Total cost was $17, which came to $3.40 per ride. At this park, a heck of a deal.

The good - all of it but Tower of Terror. I got to do things I haven't done at Hollywood Studios in ages because it is always comically crowded.

The bad - after I tapped into Tower of Terror and got through the preshow, it went down. Then they dumped the queue. But since I already had tapped in, it was, as I described it in a message last night, a "sucks to suck" moment. The Cast were not helpful at all and one of the Cast Members was insanely rude about it. A trip to one of the Guest Experience Team umbrellas was able to reverse it, but that should not be necessary. And after the queue dump, the line for the Guest Experience Team was a solid 30-35 people all doing the same thing. I wound up not redeeming it anyway once the ride reopened since it was posting a 2+ hour regular wait and the Lightning Lane was spilling out past the greeter and I wanted to get out of the park before the first Fantasmic show let out.

"Back in my day" any time we had to dump a queue due to an extended downtime, anyone that made it past a certain point was given paper reentry slips. Now it seems standby just loses the time they spent and paying for Genie+ means nothing either, and you lose the reservation entirely unless you go to Guest Relations. Now, had I not tapped in yet, it would have turned itself into one of the "any experience any time" reservations.

I've noticed the guest services folks are way busier than used to be, all of the time. I imagine it's because of the upsell. With FP you didn't really lose anything, but now you've paid for it.

It’s also just a more confusing product. With FP most of your stuff was resolved 60 days before park arrival and any additional in park booking was gravy (that a lot of people didn’t know about or use.) Now, from the get go, the paid product is hard to understand and hard to use and has to interact with at least two other systems (VQ and ILL).

This sounds like a great experience for families that visit the park maybe once every couple years. It should only take the better part of a decade and about $10,000 to figure out how to "stack" efficiently.

Just in time for the system to change again.

I've never even attempted to use it. I'll enjoy passholder previews and go about my business. I've been on everything many times.

I’ve gotten a ILL for Rise once, otherwise ditto.

I'm a "once every few years" visitor and I can't imagine not getting it, even without all the hacks and loopholes. I'm probably not the median visitor (on a number of axes), but if I'm going to spend a thousand dollars a day for my family to be there, ~$75 to actually ride the stuff we want is chump change.

^This. I'm also a once every few years visitor. With three kids and my wife being an educator, we're limited to what the school calendar allows for dates.

Disney isn't cheap (they do hate poor people, right?). When you add up lodging, food, airfare, park tickets during high demand dates (translation: peak pricing and peak crowds)... going for G+ and ILLs isn't that big of a leap, especially with the amount of time it saves you.

I'm in the same boat. It's way under priced for the ability to skip lines and save time. A great benefit for us was to be able to book rides while hanging out at the pool or resting up in the middle of the day.

What's sort of weird is I totally balk at ILL's (though we did spring for one because, with the impending hurricane, we didn't think we'd be able to ride Flight of Passage without it.) If I can rope drop the single ride and save $75-$100, I'll do that instead. And VQ is the best of both worlds - free and easy access without a huge line.

I don't think that's weird at all. If you are staying on property rope drop (or even earlier) is completely the way to go to save money on ILL. I mean being in the second staging area for Rise of the Resistance as the park officially opens has huge advantages.

I'm a local that spends $350 or so a year for the cheap weekday pass, and so far I've spent $45 on Genie+/ILL since the system rolled out. A Genie+ day at Magic Kingdom, a Genie+ evening at Hollywood Studios, and an ILL ride on Guardians.

Compared with the cost of a higher tier pass or a multi day resort stay for an out of towner, or heck, even the cost of single day Fastlane+ for Cedar Point, Kings Island and Carowinds trips I've taken in the last several years, I still have come out miles ahead with a $15 a day option.

Nothing really to add here except holy **** the acronyms. Reason #74 I don’t want to do Disney.

I can't follow the acronyms either. Y'all speak a different language. I go to Disney, Vater, and I don't use those, and still have an OK time.

I use the acronyms online because I’m lazy and it’s a time saver. It however is horrifying to hear some people actually use them in speech at the park. For the most part using letters is not a time saver (for instance ToT is easier to type then Tower but not say) and really marks a person as someone I wish to avoid ever speaking with.

I am normally a once every few years Disney visitor but circumstances have arisen such that next week will be my second trip since September.

Adding the pay services can definitely add up quickly, but I plan on using them again this trip and felt like I got my Money’s worth in September.

It can also be quite the time investment. I don’t know any of the hacks, but I’ve read up on how it works, followed sites that list which attractions run out first, etc. My September plan worked wonderfully but if you don’t enjoy planning and research, then I can see how using something wouldn’t be a value to you.

In the Splash Mountain discussion someone mentioned a POC ride, and the only thing I know of that abbreviates as POC is people of color.

I was confused.

Turns out they were talking about Pirates of the Caribbean.

Yeah that’s a foul Pirates acronym is POTC not POC.

It's proof of concept also. That's why acronyms suck.

ILL is individual lightning lane and VQ is virtual queue. Is it really that hard?