Claudette’s single rider (Genie+) report - April /May 2022

[loves2plan]

You seem to be doing well with the stacking at HS, and if we do buy G+ for there, I think that's what we'll do too. Really hoping we won't need it in September though🤞

The zig zagging is a pain. With FP+ I'd have them all nicely planned to either be in the same area, or on a route around the park. You wouldn't get me doing BTM, then Space, and then going back to Splash! But you're at the mercy of the Genie now unfortunately

Regarding the MK day, my understanding now is that the last G+ you booked is the trigger. So as you'd booked Jungle Cruise first, and then others after, you wouldn't be able to book anything else after JC, as it wasn't the most recent booking you'd made. So, you have to look at the most recent one, and it's either after tapping in for that or in 2 hours, whichever comes first. However, throw the anytime passes in, and then it becomes even more confusing!

Lots of breakdowns too. I've been reading this a lot and it seems to be a common thing now. Not good at all.

How are the crowd levels and standby wait times at the moment? Have you found that you've actually needed G+ or are the standby lines more reasonable than they have been recently over Easter and Spring break?

[ClaireNJ]

I’m sorry the day in MK was a bit of a letdown
Hope tomorrow you feel better & get a good nights sleep 🤞😊
X

[Claudette]

Originally Posted by loves2plan

You seem to be doing well with the stacking at HS, and if we do buy G+ for there, I think that's what we'll do too. Really hoping we won't need it in September though🤞

The zig zagging is a pain. With FP+ I'd have them all nicely planned to either be in the same area, or on a route around the park. You wouldn't get me doing BTM, then Space, and then going back to Splash! But you're at the mercy of the Genie now unfortunately

Regarding the MK day, my understanding now is that the last G+ you booked is the trigger. So as you'd booked Jungle Cruise first, and then others after, you wouldn't be able to book anything else after JC, as it wasn't the most recent booking you'd made. So, you have to look at the most recent one, and it's either after tapping in for that or in 2 hours, whichever comes first. However, throw the anytime passes in, and then it becomes even more confusing!

Lots of breakdowns too. I've been reading this a lot and it seems to be a common thing now. Not good at all.

How are the crowd levels and standby wait times at the moment? Have you found that you've actually needed G+ or are the standby lines more reasonable than they have been recently over Easter and Spring break?

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You could be right about the Genie+, it was hard to keep track, especially with the replacements.

Regarding standby, I wouldn’t want to and thankfully didn’t need to, in Hollywood Studios, I think most things were over an hour, exception being Star Tours, which I think I saw at about ten minutes. At Magic Kingdom, I got onto Pirates of the Caribbean as standby in 25 minutes and Big Thunder would’ve only been 35 had it not broken down when I was halfway through the line. I noticed that most of the “big rides” did have longer queues than that and had next available lightening lane about two hours away. I thought there would have been smaller rides to fill those gaps, but might involve a fair bit of zig zagging. Yesterday I went to EPCOT but only in the evening and I didn’t really look at standby during the day. I noticed there were very long queues for Frozen, Ratatouille, Test Track though as I was looking at LL/ ILL availability.

[Claudette]

Originally Posted by ClaireNJ

I’m sorry the day in MK was a bit of a letdown
Hope tomorrow you feel better & get a good nights sleep 🤞😊
X

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Thank you, feeling better but I decided to have a full day off the parks today.

[Claudette]

Today is EPCOT extended evening hours for deluxe resort guests. So my plan for the day was to go to Disney Springs in the morning for shopping and lunch and then head to EPCOT late afternoon / early evening.

This meant some Genie+ stacking to be done. I decided to go for Frozen first, I booked on the dot of 7am and the time I got was 6:35pm! This was perfect for my plans, but not so good for somebody that was thinking of a day in EPCOT.

At 10:30am, I was targeting Test Track, I was again on the ball and in fact kept selecting it during the final 30 second run down to 10:30am. I got a time for 8:10pm, which also worked well with my plan for the day, after I got that all the Genie+ slots were gone for the day, same for Frozen. My advice would be to act quickly for these two.

The next lightening lane I wanted to stack was Soarin’. I looked at 12.30pm but the slots for Soarin were still too early and it was about 2pm before the timing I wanted came up.

So Genie+ worked for me today and I was pleased to have got Soarin, Frozen and Test Track lightening lanes stacked up in line with my plan. However, I ended up going in later than I had wanted to as it was an absolutely scorching hot day, so I missed Soarin, tapped into Frozen at the end of the window and then did Test Track immediately afterwards.

But my goodness EPCOT was busy! The photo below was taken at 7:30pm when I was fighting my way through crowds to get to Frozen for 7:35pm. I literally tapped in at 7:35pm and was quite concerned when I got to the second tap in spot as I was now outside my window, but it was fine. After I had done Test Track it was about 8:30pm and still very crowded.

At just after 9pm the park was absolutely mobbed, obviously a lot of people waiting for fireworks but the queues for the popular rides were still well over an hour. I had wanted to repeat Test Track and Frozen as well as get onto Ratatouille, but I did not want to spend half of my extended hours in a queue and surely nobody goes to extended hours to get onto Living with the Land and Figment! So extended evening hours were a bust and I didn’t stay long.

[ClaireNJ]

Oh no looks so busy Claudette 😬😩😢

[loves2plan]

Well, your Epcot day answered my question about crowds at the moment! Still looks really busy. I guess the problem with the extra evening hours is that they'll still have whatever the queue was at a ride when the park officially closes. So, if there was a 1 hour+ wait for something at park close, it probably won't really reduce much until the end of the extra hours. How long do you get?
I'm pleased you're making good used of your G+ purchase though. Having used it, would you say you prefer the old FP+ system or G+?

[Rocking Ewok]

Does look busy but found it surprisingly busy over the last two weeks, one of the days was filled with some very obnoxious drunk groups, but thankfully only the one day.

How have you found using Genie+? We didn’t use it as decided to just do queues and it was fine for the most part. Though had considered it to save some time a few times.

We were Resort hoping yesterday and by the time we got to MK around 17.00 it seemed fairly quiet, though still busy.

[Claudette]

Originally Posted by loves2plan

Well, your Epcot day answered my question about crowds at the moment! Still looks really busy. I guess the problem with the extra evening hours is that they'll still have whatever the queue was at a ride when the park officially closes. So, if there was a 1 hour+ wait for something at park close, it probably won't really reduce much until the end of the extra hours. How long do you get?
I'm pleased you're making good used of your G+ purchase though. Having used it, would you say you prefer the old FP+ system or G+?

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Yes that exactly, the extended hours is only two hours, so for the first half the regular guests are still in queues. Although I would say, that EPCOT was much busier than Hollywood Studios was the evening I went there, I was thinking maybe EPCOT is a park a lot of people hop to later in the day.

Anyway I decided to leave and get to Boardwalk Bakery before it closes at 10pm. Actually, I first tried the pizza window and they told the person in front of me that it was a 45 minute wait for a slice of pizza.

I think I have made good use of Genie+ and I have made it work for me. But if I had a choice, I would definitely prefer the old FP+ system. I think the only thing I like better with Genie+ is that it allows you to overlap slots.

Originally Posted by Rocking Ewok

Does look busy but found it surprisingly busy over the last two weeks, one of the days was filled with some very obnoxious drunk groups, but thankfully only the one day.

How have you found using Genie+? We didn’t use it as decided to just do queues and it was fine for the most part. Though had considered it to save some time a few times.

We were Resort hoping yesterday and by the time we got to MK around 17.00 it seemed fairly quiet, though still busy.

See more...

I have mostly got along with Genie+ and I feel I have made it work for me. As I mentioned above, I wouldn’t say that I like it more than FP+ or even that I like it at all, but I have got everything I wanted to get.

[Tinkerbell]

Great report Claudette.