Genie poll (use it or not)

[Boopuff]

I'm curious about how people feel about Genie. I've read that some folks feel like they're on the phone 24/7 others who love it. So I thought I'd set up a poll to see how people feel:

 

[loves to dive]

I've been twice since it started and haven't used it either time and no plans to use it my upcoming April trip. Go often sometimes once a year but have been up to 4 times a year in some years, don't mind standing in lines and since I do go often, if I don't ride something its not the end of the world. To be fair, I rarely used FP or FP+ either, not a planner.

 

[meremac]

Love it, and most of my clients do too! It was definitely a learning curve in the beginning, but I've settled in to it now. The biggest positive feedback I get from my clients is that they like the flexibility Genie+ provides. For some people, being locked into FP+ 60 days out was frustrating.

 

[igrsod]

I've been a few times since the pandemic shut down and I have never bought it, and never will. I had it gifted to us once because we got locked out on our balcony for a few hours... lol. We used it and didn't like it for many reasons. It didn't save us time, we didn't do more with it, we found ourselves catering our day to avoid criss crossing the park, so we sat and waited for our times, we found it glitchy and hard to fit in to our dining reservations and other plans. I long for the days when I could plan out our day before we arrived and have a route that makes sense.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I haven't been to WDW since Genie+ was instituted, but I'm hoping to go early next year, so I'm curious to hear others' opinions.

 

[DeeBee3]

I will say if it's a crowded holiday time like Christmas (when we last went) I found it helpful to get more rides. However, if we go over late summer, I would not use. We also went over Easter last year and used it 1 time. I think it depends on your goals for the trip.

Next time I go I hope not to buy it. I think the cost is much too high.

 

[Smugpugmug]

I've used it a few times (except for AK since I think it's useless there). I don't feel like I'm on my phone all day but I really dislike having to crisscross across the park depending on which LLs you get. It's hard to grab close times for rides that are near each other location wise. Having to compete with others at 7 am for the E-ticket rides and the uncertainty of what you'll get is pretty frustrating and stressful though. Especially since you also have to deal with the ILLs and virtual queues. On the flip side I've used Express at Universal multiple times and love that. It's so nice to go on any ride you want whenever you want (minus Hagrid's) without having to plan for it in advance.

 

[sheilafri]

When I travel solo I find I use it. I have a like/hate relationship with it. I do save time standing in line but find I’m on my phone a lot trying to get the ride I want at the time I want. I like the modify option for when my plans change. I really dislike that I only have the next available time as an option. I don’t want to cross cross the parks chasing rides/times.

 

[igrsod]

I think we all dislike the same things. Too bad Disney wasn't listening and made some changes. I actually don't have a problem paying for something, but only if it adds to my experience. In it's current form, Genie+ doesn't do that. I would pay more if we had more flexibility, could book a few months out to pre plan, could book an initial 3 and then add on after that... lots of ways to improve this system.
The price isn't that expensive, but the value isn't there.

 

[CapeCodTenor]

I'm glad I found this thread because I've been looking into this. I should start by saying I didn't vote as I've not gone down since they instituted Genie+, but I'm very curious about this as I'm planning a trip for June.

I've been a few times since the pandemic shut down and I have never bought it, and never will. I had it gifted to us once because we got locked out on our balcony for a few hours... lol. We used it and didn't like it for many reasons. It didn't save us time, we didn't do more with it, we found ourselves catering our day to avoid criss crossing the park, so we sat and waited for our times, we found it glitchy and hard to fit in to our dining reservations and other plans. I long for the days when I could plan out our day before we arrived and have a route that makes sense.

I recently watched a video of Ear Scouts where he does a day in the Magic Kingdom without Genie+, and he was able to get most, if not all of what he wanted to ride, in without using Genie+, so I guess it's possible. He did it by starting at rope drop and hitting the most popular rides first, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and then over to Peter Pan's Flight and so forth. He does use the My Disney Experience app to track wait times and mentions to not crisscross the park to hit a ride with a low wait time. I guess it's possible to do the parks without it. I know I won't be using it as I'm already spending a ton on this trip and trying to cut where I can.

 

[Trap]

we go to relax so having to ran from here to their just is no fun to us so we never use it

 

[CapeCodTenor]

we go to relax so having to ran from here to their just is no fun to us so we never use it

That's kind of what we're going to do, just go and relax. Sure, I'll keep an eye on the wait times on the app, but for the most part we're going to go and have fun.

 

[petrola]

We buy Genie + when we go. I don’t love it - but if it’s going to save us time on a ride or two then ok I guess. Next month will be our first visit where we are not able to purchase Genie+ in advance so I’m not looking forward to that. Overall I still miss fastpass

 

[petrola]

I think we all dislike the same things. Too bad Disney wasn't listening and made some changes. I actually don't have a problem paying for something, but only if it adds to my experience. In it's current form, Genie+ doesn't do that. I would pay more if we had more flexibility, could book a few months out to pre plan, could book an initial 3 and then add on after that... lots of ways to improve this system.
The price isn't that expensive, but the value isn't there.

This. Exactly this.

 

[bluezy]

We had a great experience with Genie+ when we were there last June. We usually do a 6 or 7 night stay at Disney every other year. Since we hadn't been there since 2018, we booked 8 nights on this trip. We knew we had a lot of catching up to do...so we knew we would need more time than usual. We had such great success with Genie+ that we managed to do all of the new stuff and everything on our "must do" list by day 5. The last 3 days were spent going back and repeating some favorites and doing things we didn't think we'd get done on this trip. We might have been able to do all of the same things without Genie+, but we definitely wouldn't have been able to take 4 or 5 hour breaks in the afternoon; or have several days where we slept in and didn't get to the parks until late morning. Genie+ saved us a lot of time and allowed us to be more efficient with our time in the parks. I did not find myself using my phone constantly -- we'd book something and I'd set an alarm for 2 hours (or whatever the "cooling off" time was) and my phone would stay in my pocket until that alarm went off. I will note that we were there before you could modify Genie+ reservations, so maybe I would be on my phone more now. We also didn't find ourselves constantly crisscrossing the parks while using it. I won't say that we never crisscrossed, but it wasn't like we were running back and forth from one end of the park to the other all day. It would be more like while we were in line for POTC at MK, I scheduled a Genie+ LL for Space Mtn. for 2 hours later (just a random example, not necessarily exactly what we did). So over those 2 hours we worked our way over to Tomorrowland, doing standby rides and/or eating lunch along the way. Even when we did the book-ride-book-ride method of scheduling, we still weren't crisscrossing very much and when we did, it was because we *chose* to -- usually because we really wanted to ride something specific at the earliest return time.

We also bought ILLs every day. That saved us a lot of time as well. For instance, at MK, we bought a 7DMT ILL. I know a lot of people say that 7DMT isn't worth the $10 (or whatever ILL is that day), but we didn't look at it like that. I don't think 7DMT is worth $10 either, but I do think it was worth $10 to not have to run with the bulls at rope drop to get on 7DMT with a fairly short wait. Instead, we did 3 other rides during that EE time and got to the 2nd rope drop in time to ride Splash with only about a 10 minute wait. We then rode 7DMT a few hours later with no wait. If we had done 7DMT at rope drop, we most like would have spent at least 10-15 minutes there (because there's no way we would have been at the front of the line) and we would have wasted all that precious EE time on one or two rides instead of getting in 3 rides and positioning ourselves well for a 4th ride shortly after. *That* was worth $10 to us. It also helped to get us out of the park right after lunch and back to the resort for some swimming and relaxation. And then back to the park at dinner time.

We were very happy with Genie+ and will probably buy it every day for our next trip as well. We were FP+ power users so after reading messages on this site and others before our trip, I was sure we were going to be extremely disappointed with Genie+, but that was not the case. We felt our trip last June was our most relaxing trip ever and we accomplished more in a day with more down time than we ever did with FP+.

 

[sponica]

I do find it useful if you're starting a park late. My husband plays golf, and he played golf on our AK day. Now that you can modify, I basically booked safari, kept modifying until it got late enough that I knew he would be there (and despite what people say about going early, we went on the safari around 2 and I saw MORE animals than I've ever seen). Once I could book a second, I booked Navi and modified it. And I had Expedition Everest booked (although that was basically a walk on all day long).

 

[tom1944]

I was planning to buy it but I do not want to keep running back and forth in MK.

Is there a way to minimize that?

I am also looking into Standby Skipper.

 

[sponica]

Is there a way to minimize that?

In MK it's probably the easiest one to tackle. For example, I might have my first be space mountain, then depending on that time, I'd either tap into it and book a new one, or wait standby at space ranger spin. Then move onto fantasyland, mixing and matching between standby and LLs.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Sorry, chose not to vote as it's not the same each visit. Sometimes we use it at some parks, other times not.

when we do chose to purchase it's mid-crowd size and use it for MK and DHS.