Never seen Disney like this

[kaytronika]

Barely queued at park entrance for any of our visits in the last fortnight. A few early park hours, a few a little later in the day.

Crowds seemed lighter than November 2019

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by kaytronika

Barely queued at park entrance for any of our visits in the last fortnight. A few early park hours, a few a little later in the day.

Crowds seemed lighter than November 2019

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Y'see. This is what gets me.

On the one hand, you have people moaning about Genie+ changing the way people attack the parks and making rope drop crazy busy. On the other hand you have people saying there's no problem and everything is fine. Similarly there are some people that say the parks are crazy busy and others saying it's not too bad. Some people don't get on with Genie+ and hate it whereas others found it worked well and they didn't have an issue with it.

People seem to take their own personal experience and then apply it to everything and everyone assuming their experience is fact.

[cartoonp]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

It's not like the rope drop crowds that gathered before park opening were ever really controlled in the past. People just gathered at the entrance and got themselves into rough queues. I don't remember any CMs actually controlling anything.

I think the problem recently is that there are more people getting there before rope drop. That'll make it busier and seem less controlled.

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Nimbus I remember one time a cast member was telling people to go to certain lines know that maybe because they had ADRS

[Keegan]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

Y'see. This is what gets me.

On the one hand, you have people moaning about Genie+ changing the way people attack the parks and making rope drop crazy busy. On the other hand you have people saying there's no problem and everything is fine. Similarly there are some people that say the parks are crazy busy and others saying it's not too bad. Some people don't get on with Genie+ and hate it whereas others found it worked well and they didn't have an issue with it.

People seem to take their own personal experience and then apply it to everything and everyone assuming their experience is fact.

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We went in January and it was extremely busy, especially compared to a “normal” January. However it didn’t spoil any of the fun, we found the queues moved much quicker without free fastpass so waiting in line wasn’t as mind numbing as previously.

We weren’t huge fans of Genie+, mainly because I personally didn’t find it value for money and you do need to be very flexible to maximise its benefit. It’s not much different to Fastpass+, you can do the same if not more attractions in a day than previously however I probably wouldn’t have paid $15 for the old system either as I don’t mind standing in a line and I’m not much of a planner.

I agree with a lot of people in regards to getting less for your money in terms of on-site benefits. However, there’s plenty of offsite options for a reasonable amount. I just find at the moment once you’ve added extras to an offsite stay such as car hire (which is ridiculous at the moment), petrol, parking and the time spent driving to/from Disney to your offsite hotel. The savings don’t necessarily make much difference.

[kaytronika]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

Y'see. This is what gets me.

On the one hand, you have people moaning about Genie+ changing the way people attack the parks and making rope drop crazy busy. On the other hand you have people saying there's no problem and everything is fine. Similarly there are some people that say the parks are crazy busy and others saying it's not too bad. Some people don't get on with Genie+ and hate it whereas others found it worked well and they didn't have an issue with it.

People seem to take their own personal experience and then apply it to everything and everyone assuming their experience is fact.

See more...

I can only really add my own anecdotal experiences though really. I just remember November 2019 being hugely busy on all but perhaps one day in Magic Kingdom.

I will say that once we were in the parks we didn't use Genie+ and didn't ride as much as we normally would have. But a good part of that was us choosing to have a slower paced trip.

[neatfrk]

Genie was an outright disaster if you ask me for guest experience, unless you stack the rides, but even then you are now having to put up with an artificially busy park with all the people milling about.

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This was not at all my experience just two weeks ago. I was expecting to hate Genie+; instead I rather enjoyed it once I figured out all the in and outs (took about 2 days). I found it to be a useful tool and coupled it with early entry rope drop, high capacity theater attractions midday at the height of the crowds, and park hopping/stacking LL... and had no problem with the crowds at all.

I think that ropedrop video is a little deceiving. Huge lines - but full bright sunlight...those are the rope droppers that slept in a bit, got a late start or didn't have good luck catching buses to the park.

If you are willing to get up and moving early you can easily avoid those lines and crowds. Not everyone wants to get up early and actually plan for how they will navigate the parks and counter the crowds... but for those folks maybe a Disney "vacation" isn't the best way to go?

[123]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

Genie+ has badly damaged rope drop, particularly in MK. It used to be great, because those onsite and many offsite had their FP booked which included nearly every major ride.
Now everyone is rushing to RD to ride things like Mine Train you have to pay for.
Then if they have Genie, they are having to hang around all day to get their rides, making the park much busier.
Genie was an outright disaster if you ask me for guest experience, unless you stack the rides, but even then you are now having to put up with an artificially busy park with all the people milling about.

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I disagree, but then we all have our different views of what is good and bad.

As someone who doesn't tend to book in advance, more just finds out 10 days in advance that there is an opportunity to head out to Orlando I've always hated the fact that means you could never get on a decent ride as everyone had filled the capacity with pre-booked slots over a month ago.

In my mind the new system very much plays to Disney's core audience, the US resident that decides on Tuesday that it would be good to go to the park at the weekend.

So whilst for those on "trip of a lifetime" it's probably a backwards step for the majority of Disney guests it's a good thing to limit the availability of pre-booking to only a select few that are happy to pay heavily for it.

[Essex Benjy's!]

Been many times and it’s always busy. Some busier than others.
Everyone ‘ cottons on ‘ to others suggestions and rope drop will be as busy as any other busy times.
I’d still always get there fro rope drop though. The early bird catches the worm.
We have been in June when the foreign school tours are there and it’s unbelievable! High humidity too..