My Genie at Disney Parks

[shark6495]

Looks like something new at the house of mouse:

 

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2021/08/introducing-disney-genie/?CMP=SOC-DPFY21Q4wo0805210049A&fbclid=IwAR30uqtrdZH0U0e4D77AFt4IQ5qPgeKc3gVZee-jdxhoJRTi9Ix7nqEH-4M

 

 

 

“Coming this fall to Walt Disney World Resort and Disneyland Resort, Disney Genie is a complimentary and convenient new digital service designed to create your best Disney day. We’ve been listening to your feedback – you want planning to be easier, you want more flexibility and you want better tools to help you make the most of your visit – and that’s exactly what Disney Genie is here to do. We’ve made significant investments in this cool new technology, which guides you through our theme parks with tips that can help you reduce time in lines, discover magic around every corner and take the guesswork out of “what’s next.”

 

“

 

 

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[Honorarius]

A lot of people in various online places very, very unhappy with this...

I'm interested to see how it is...

[coaster sally]

I'm all for pay extra and 20bucks is nothing to thin out the lines.  We got lucky and went with a park hopper ticket to Disney world a couple weeks ago and did everything at all 4 parks in 3 days.  Each day lines were non existent in the evenings after big storms in the afternoons.  

[Winterfestguy]

For Walt Disney World, $15 per person for something that used to be free with FastPass+ is nothing more than a money grab.  The Genie+ for $15 per person only gives 40 less popular attractions across all four parks via the new lighting entrances.  For the more popular rides like Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in the Magic Kingdom, it will cost extra for the lighting lane (on top of the $15 per person already paid - example crowded spring break weeks could cost another $25 per person based on the dynamic pricing model for the mine train lighting entrance).  Across all four parks, example such as busy spring breaks weeks, to ride via the lighting lane seven dwarfs mine train, avatar, ratatouille, and slinky dog could be an extra $100 for something that used to be free.  The same 4 rides on off peak times could be just $5 per person extra again all based on dynamic pricing model).  A family of 4 traveling during peak times like school vacations therefore could expect to pay an additional $460 to ride the best attractions that all used to be free with FastPass+ (not to mention the cost of their park hopper tickets).  It all about how much will you be willing to pay now to ride certain attractions.

[purdude86]

The individual attractions are completely set parts from genie+. You don’t have to do. But Genie+ to buy access for the individual buy attractions. And you can only do 2 per day across all parks. I’ll be curious to see how this goes honestly. I love that you don’t plan them out months in advance anymore but sucks no longer free, but it’s not too bad. Plus with there likely being a lot fewer utilizing it, the standby lines will likely move much faster.

[TombRaiderFTW]

I do wish they'd priced them more steeply, if I'm being honest. FastPass was a mind trick to add perceived value to your ticket price. Speculation on the internet guesses that up to 70% of a ride's capacity would be reserved for FP... so yeah, you might get on 3 rides quickly, but anything you don't have FP for took so much longer than it otherwise would.

That pricing for a front-of-the-line option is almost identically priced to Kennywood's front-of-the-line option. For the price that even a one-park, one-day experience at a Disney park costs, is anyone going to think that much about dropping $15 several times over? That pricing works at Kennywood because Kennywood isn't trying to be some ultra-premium theme park. What is $15 a head per ride when you've already dropped multiple thousands to even be there?

[shark6495]

We’ve spoken about it on this site for years. You can control lines and crowds one of two ways. 1: limit the number or 2: increase the price.


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[Gabe]

On 8/21/2021 at 8:43 PM, purdude86 said:

The individual attractions are completely set parts from genie+. You don’t have to do. But Genie+ to buy access for the individual buy attractions. And you can only do 2 per day across all parks. I’ll be curious to see how this goes honestly. I love that you don’t plan them out months in advance anymore but sucks no longer free, but it’s not too bad. Plus with there likely being a lot fewer utilizing it, the standby lines will likely move much faster.

That's not the case. Genie+ will let you get onto all of the non e ticket rides as many times as you can throughout the course of a day (one at a time).  The extra, a la carte e-ticket upgrade only will let you prebook 2 rides per day per park (no details have been announced as to whether the rides can be at 2 parks, given the park hopping rules currently in effect).  As it stands, even though FP+ was free, raise your hand if you went to Disney and couldn't get an e-ticket FP as one of your initial 3 (unless you were extremely persistent in trying and/or got lucky the day or 2 leading up to your trip).  If they could expand the a la carte option to dining for the popular restaurants, that would be worth it as well, since, again, trying to get an ADR at the likes of 50s PT, SFDI, Ohana, Le Cellier and soon to be Space 220, B & C is hard even in 'low' season.  Instead of taking the $20 cancellation fee per person, take the $20 up front (for a party of 4 or less? per person?) and allow access to prime booking slots.  

As for the regular Genie, it doesn't provide anything that a 3rd party app like TP doesn't already.  It just serves to get those folks using Disney IP.

[PatchesC]

32 minutes ago, Gabe said:

That's not the case. Genie+ will let you get onto all of the non e ticket rides as many times as you can throughout the course of a day (one at a time).  The extra, a la carte e-ticket upgrade only will let you prebook 2 rides per day per park (no details have been announced as to whether the rides can be at 2 parks, given the park hopping rules currently in effect).  As it stands, even though FP+ was free, raise your hand if you went to Disney and couldn't get an e-ticket FP as one of your initial 3 (unless you were extremely persistent in trying and/or got lucky the day or 2 leading up to your trip).  If they could expand the a la carte option to dining for the popular restaurants, that would be worth it as well, since, again, trying to get an ADR at the likes of 50s PT, SFDI, Ohana, Le Cellier and soon to be Space 220, B & C is hard even in 'low' season.  Instead of taking the $20 cancellation fee per person, take the $20 up front (for a party of 4 or less? per person?) and allow access to prime booking slots.  

As for the regular Genie, it doesn't provide anything that a 3rd party app like TP doesn't already.  It just serves to get those folks using Disney IP.

It took planning AK visit for later in vacation to get a better chance for FOP. Same with getting a few dinners. 

I'll say there isn't much advantage to staying onsite now. Early hours are nonexistent and late hours are limited to the deluxe resorts.

[Gabe]

Yep. If you made your FP selections for later in the trip, it was a bit easier to get FOP or 7DMT.  Dining was still touch and go.  If Disney were smart, they'd incorporate an alert system in Genie (or prob Genie+) like other 3rd party aps like MouseDining so.I agree the EMH benefit is all but gone.  Much like KI-you get 30 extra mins in the AM. For the eve, the Swolphin is included as well.  you can usually find a decent rate there that is a decent amount below what you'd pay for a deluxe.   At this point, the only advantage to staying onsite is the transportation.  The Skyliner is really nice when going to HS or Epcot.  They need to build a spur to AK and one to the TTC and another MK area hotel (Poly, GF or WL). 

[Honorarius]

Is EMH gone for good, or are they likely to bring it back down the road???

[Winterfestguy]

16 hours ago, Gabe said:

That's not the case. Genie+ will let you get onto all of the non e ticket rides as many times as you can throughout the course of a day (one at a time).  The extra, a la carte e-ticket upgrade only will let you prebook 2 rides per day per park (no details have been announced as to whether the rides can be at 2 parks, given the park hopping rules currently in effect).  As it stands, even though FP+ was free, raise your hand if you went to Disney and couldn't get an e-ticket FP as one of your initial 3 (unless you were extremely persistent in trying and/or got lucky the day or 2 leading up to your trip).  If they could expand the a la carte option to dining for the popular restaurants, that would be worth it as well, since, again, trying to get an ADR at the likes of 50s PT, SFDI, Ohana, Le Cellier and soon to be Space 220, B & C is hard even in 'low' season.  Instead of taking the $20 cancellation fee per person, take the $20 up front (for a party of 4 or less? per person?) and allow access to prime booking slots.  

As for the regular Genie, it doesn't provide anything that a 3rd party app like TP doesn't already.  It just serves to get those folks using Disney IP.

That’s not true that Genie+ will get you on all the non e ticket rides as many times as you can throughout the course of the day.  “Guests will be able to make a second reservation 120 minutes after their first reservation even if they have not yet redeemed the first Genie+ selection. In practice, this means that you might make a reservation at 7:05 am for Splash Mountain that has a return time of 10:00 am. At 9:05 am–before riding Splash Mountain, you’d be able to make another ride reservation.”

So depending upon park hours, the most Genie+ reservations you could make in one day for non e ticket attractions would be 6 for example if the park hours were 9am-9pm, keeping in mind that some popular attractions that you may want may not have availability.

[Gabe]

In essence, this harkens back to the old paper ticket system, where you could grab another ticket after 2 hours even if you hadn't yet redeemed an earlier pass.  I'd venture to say even in low season, the amount of FP you could get with the now retired system going one at a time after your initial 3 would be about the same, given that you had to space your first 3 out as well.  If you were to arrive at rope drop, you could prob get through the whole park between Genie+ and/or standby, depending on the park hours.  Sooner if you splurge for a a la carte option.