Best Strategy for a trip in 2022? Lower Your Expectations

[kc51570]

As an offsite guest I got zero rides under FP+ that I could actually use.

If you paid +$$$ for onsite and booked 2+ months in advance under FP+ then yes you could get good rides. But that's a lot more than $15.

I don’t understand this either. We were always able to get things like Soarin, Space, Big Thunder, etc. day of under FP+.. Not just throw away rides Like Goofy or Magic Carpets. Up until recently Space was an additional cost on top of genie +. We stayed onsite so usually did have FOP, SDMT, reserved so were never refreshing for those which I know others were still able to grab day of. To say you got no rides on FP+ just sounds completely inaccurate or you just expected the 3-4 top tier ones which still could have been done standby or end of night for the one highest priority in each park and used FP+ for a bunch of other things. Seems like everything else beyond those handful of rides was useless to you.

 

[TinkB278]

With refreshing fast pass I was able to ride flight of passage on fast pass multiple times in one day!! With genie plus that isn’t even a possibility due to the one time on each ride per day rule. It just stinks.

 

[Westerner]

No offense, but then you didn’t even try to use FP+. We changed parks during our stay which meant we had no pre-booked FP reservations and we were able to make FP plus work for us, day of, without issue. We could still book most headliners. Disney always held back fast passes for those day-of guests. Dan

I did try and had read articles beforehand and refreshed a fair bit in the park. But let me ask you this, since you probably understand FP+ better than me. How many FP+'s do you think I could have gotten from my target ride list in this scenario:

• August 2019, decided on a Thursday to go to AK the following Monday
• Group of 8 people staying offsite
• Target rides: FoP, NRJ, KS, EE, Dino, KRR
• Hours in park: 10am-5pm
• Willing to spend up to 1 hour on PC trying to book FP's before entering park
• Willing to spend up to 30 mins on phone in park to book FP's

If you could provide a few details on how / what I should have booked or done I'd be obliged.

 

[Westerner]

I thought only on-site guests had access to genie plus at 7am?

No. Not sure why this misperception persists but onsite and offsite are identical for G+ purposes. Only for the $ILL rides (currently RotR, Remy, FoP, 7DMT) does onsite have the advantage of being able to book at 7 vs park open for offsite.

 

[TinkB278]

No. Not sure why this misperception persists but onsite and offsite are identical for G+ purposes. Only for the $ILL rides (currently RotR, Remy, FoP, 7DMT) does onsite have the advantage of being able to book at 7 vs park open for offsite.

Wow I had no idea! No wonder the slots fill up so quickly.

 

[Westerner]

Wow I had no idea! No wonder the slots fill up so quickly.

Depends on the ride. SDD is very quick but most rides are available for a few hours at least. TP had an article on average sellout times per ride.

 

[xipotec]

@BridgetBordeaux - seems Disney caught on to your thread title based on their rewording today around G+…. That guests can except to ride 2-3 attractions using G+ if they book early in the day….

If that’s not lowering expectations, I don’t know what is!

You’ve nailed it spot on!

This is literally the worst thing they can say after promising (or insinuating) so much. They really need to adjust park attendance so it works as promised. To now back track on what they sold people is really very un Disney like, and it WILL hurt the parks in a huge way......People will come back from vacations telling others they had a miserable expensive time...all the work they did to became a premier park will be undone in a year or two if they do not shape up quick.

Blaming a pandemic for the staffing issues is disingenuous and will only sway the Disney addicts whom look for excuses for any negative changes. They should be adding positive changes....not negative.

Start paying employees what they are worth, get the staffing back to what's needed, cut park attendance back to give the experience that's worth the price.

 

[xipotec]

As an offsite guest I got zero rides under FP+ that I could actually use.

If you paid +$$$ for onsite and booked 2+ months in advance under FP+ then yes you could get good rides. But that's a lot more than $15.

You got alot more than that for the money....themed resorts, Disney bubble, early park admission, early ADR

 

[Love Tink]

I did try and had read articles beforehand and refreshed a fair bit in the park. But let me ask you this, since you probably understand FP+ better than me. How many FP+'s do you think I could have gotten from my target ride list in this scenario:

• August 2019, decided on a Thursday to go to AK the following Monday
• Group of 8 people staying offsite
• Target rides: FoP, NRJ, KS, EE, Dino, KRR
• Hours in park: 10am-5pm
• Willing to spend up to 1 hour on PC trying to book FP's before entering park
• Willing to spend up to 30 mins on phone in park to book FP's

If you could provide a few details on how / what I should have booked or done I'd be obliged.

What’s the point of discussing strategies for a defunct system? It’s a shame you didn’t use FP+ while we had it, but at least you don’t miss it like many of us will.

 

[Westerner]

How is that even remotely possible? FP+ was in constant flux and every ride was gettable with refreshing and drops.

What’s the point of discussing strategies for a defunct system? It’s a shame you didn’t use FP+ while we had it, but at least you don’t miss it like many of us will.

I asked a straight up question on how I could have used FP+ better. If you don't care to answer I assume that means your 1st statement quoted above is withdrawn.

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Duplicate post

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

I did try and had read articles beforehand and refreshed a fair bit in the park. But let me ask you this, since you probably understand FP+ better than me. How many FP+'s do you think I could have gotten from my target ride list in this scenario:

• August 2019, decided on a Thursday to go to AK the following Monday
• Group of 8 people staying offsite
• Target rides: FoP, NRJ, KS, EE, Dino, KRR
• Hours in park: 10am-5pm
• Willing to spend up to 1 hour on PC trying to book FP's before entering park
• Willing to spend up to 30 mins on phone in park to book FP's

If you could provide a few details on how / what I should have booked or done I'd be obliged.

The biggest strategy that would have worked for you was to search for 2 groups of 4 and refreshing a lot (nose in the phone, honestly). I had a large party (5) and had a lot harder time refreshing than others here (if you search my name, you’ll find me whining about it years ago) but I could have easily gotten Dino and EE. KS was doable but took more time. I’ve never tried NRJ because we always rope dropped it. I got FOP because I knew when to look. But several of those rides would have been available at 30 days.

One of the complaints about FP was that there were haves and have nots. The difference was how much time people were willing to spend researching the system. If you put a lot of time into it, you got a lot out. In that way I think it was more egalitarian than the current system (in addition to being free to everyone).

 

[Aimeedyan]

I don't understand the offsite Fastpass issues, either. We rode FoP 5x in a ROW on Thanksgiving Day 2018! We always snagged one for whatever ride we wanted, day of, often multiple times. People modified and canceled constantly, plus there were drops throughout the day, so we just snagged them one after another. I never booked Fastpass in advance - usually night before or morning of.

Since Genie+ doesn't allow for the modifying and canceling to book other things, there seems to be much less opportunity to pick up additional slots. I'd be happy to pay for something similar to the former system.

 

[kathy884]

I thought only on-site guests had access to genie plus at 7am?

All guest have the $15 option for the general LLs. It's those pay ones that offsite don't have till park opening, while onsite has those at 7 a.m.. And for example at Epcot at 8:30 a.m. when we tried for Remmy it was sold out.

 

[RamblingMad]

Same thing happened to friends of ours that visited last month. They are in their 40s. No kids. Hadn't been to the parks in 20 years. Thought it would be fun to see AK and HS since they've never been. I asked them if they had done their research and they had no idea what I was talking about. They were staying at our house, so not on Disney property. I advised them to be there before park opening, which they were> told them to go to FoP right away if they couldn't get ILL. They couldn't. I also told them not to buy Genie+. Well, they got there, saw everyone heading toward FoP and decided to go in the opposite direction thinking that the crowds would die down for Avatar. A CM talked them into purchasing Genie+. Genie recommended that the best thing to do first would be the rapids ride (it was a cold day in January). They waited until it was open and discovered that there was no wait for that ride and no need to book it through Genie. By that time, all the other things were booked in Genie except for a Bug's Life which they went on next. Everest was closed. They waited in a huge line for KS. Afterwards, they were so fed up with the long lines, crowds and the uselessness of Genie+ that they left. They didn't even want to go to HS after that experience. They've sworn that they'll never go to Disney again given the price of the tickets and how little they got to see. They felt it was too crowded to even enjoy walking around and looking at animals.

I might add that my friends are smart people. They were aware that they needed reservations, as it said that on the website when they bought the tickets. However, nowhere on Disney's website does it indicate that if you want to eat at a sit down restaurant, you need to make a reservation 60 days in advance. Nor does it tell you that if you want to ride all of the rides in the park, there's little chance of that happening between the breakdowns and the crowds. Nor does it indicate that you should have a touring plan before coming in and understand the ThrillData data of which rides are going fastest on Genie+ and how to maximize your usage of Genie+. Why should it have occurred to them that they had to do more research on this? It wasn't like that the last time they visited 20 years ago.

Similarly, I haven't been to Six Flags in 20+ years. If I decided to go this summer, it wouldn't occur to me that I had to do anything more than purchase tickets (maybe express passes), check the crowd calendar and find out the opening and closing times. I assume you show up, get in line for the rides that you want and eat when you want. That's how most theme parks operate, even Universal Studios. People saying that people should do more research is odd when you think about how much research people do to go to Knott's Berry Farm or Cedar Point.

I get it. When I returned and stayed off property, I was so disappointed by my FP+ choices. I had a bad experience. The same year I visited DL, and my experience was much better. I can see why your friends are frustrated. You shouldn't have to do crazy planning and stare at your phone your entire vacation especially for what it costs to go.

 

[RamblingMad]

As an offsite guest I got zero rides under FP+ that I could actually use.

If you paid +$$$ for onsite and booked 2+ months in advance under FP+ then yes you could get good rides. But that's a lot more than $15.

Same. FP+ at WDW was a complete waste if you stayed off property. I gave up on WDW completely and went to DL and Universal instead. I didn't want to pay the ridiculous cost of WDW resorts, where I know I'm not getting a good value.

 

[DCLMP]

I've informed my family that this may be the demise of the Disney vacation trip so let's celebrate it for it's all it's worth. I took my younger son a few times during covid and it was awesome. My husband and older son{college kid} have decided to come on this trip and "Oh boy" are they in for a disappointment. We rented points at SSR so regardless we will have a good time. My husband plans on playing golf The kids and I will enjoy Disney Springs and a few movies...Top Gun 2 anyone?

 

[Love Tink]

Same. FP+ at WDW was a complete waste if you stayed off property. I gave up on WDW completely and went to DL and Universal instead. I didn't want to pay the ridiculous cost of WDW resorts, where I know I'm not getting a good value.

Geez, I’m starting to understand why FP+ was so great. People obviously gave up on it when they couldn’t get what they wanted 30 days out…completely failing to realize how easy it was to get what you wanted day-of. If only we could have benefited from this ignorance forever. Sigh.

 

[Jrb1979]

This is literally the worst thing they can say after promising (or insinuating) so much. They really need to adjust park attendance so it works as promised. To now back track on what they sold people is really very un Disney like, and it WILL hurt the parks in a huge way......People will come back from vacations telling others they had a miserable expensive time...all the work they did to became a premier park will be undone in a year or two if they do not shape up quick.

Blaming a pandemic for the staffing issues is disingenuous and will only sway the Disney addicts whom look for excuses for any negative changes. They should be adding positive changes....not negative.

Start paying employees what they are worth, get the staffing back to what's needed, cut park attendance back to give the experience that's worth the price.

Adjusting park attendance isn't the answer. What they need to do is up the LL guest to standby guest ratio. If that means standby crawls so be it. By doing that you they offer more availability for Genie+

 

[Jrb1979]

Geez, I’m starting to understand why FP+ was so great. People obviously gave up on it when they couldn’t get what they wanted 30 days out…completely failing to realize how easy it was to get what you wanted day-of. If only we could have benefited from this ignorance forever. Sigh.

As someone who travels to multiple amusement parks each year and using different skip the line systems, FP+ and Genie+ are the bottom of the barrel.