we_gotta_believe Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 23 minutes ago, Gannan said: When are you planning on going? We used to go every year for a while because I had conferences there every fall, but we haven't been since 2016. Now I want to go back before my kids get too old for it. They are 8 and 11 and will be 9 and 12 this summer. We talked about going this past summer but airfare was outrageous. I wanted to drive down but my daughter was all dramatic about it so we ended up taking a road trip around New England instead (which was awesome, but not much cheaper all things considered). Not sure if @opengeo is still posting here these days, but I seem to recall he went not too long ago and was talking about the new fast pass system. When we went in 2016 you basically could pick 3 rides a day (or was it 2?) to use a fast pass on and schedule a time window for your fast pass. We used it on the popular rides at the time, Frozen was a big one back when we went. Thinking about going sometime in 2022, either spring or fall. I've been reading that the old fast pass system is gone, replaced by paid options called genie+ and lightning. We had been to Disney almost every year up until the pandemic. I was a pro at the old fast pass system and was able to book the more popular rides at opportune times to minimize our waits (it was 3 per day, with a 4th that could be added after you used up your first 3) but I'll have to relearn this new system now. Can't remember if it was toolg, or ronchalant, but they were usually informative on all things WDW. I think SDeagle too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBW Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 4 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said: Thinking about going sometime in 2022, either spring or fall. I've been reading that the old fast pass system is gone, replaced by paid options called genie+ and lightning. We had been to Disney almost every year up until the pandemic. I was a pro at the old fast pass system and was able to book the more popular rides at opportune times to minimize our waits (it was 3 per day, with a 4th that could be added after you used up your first 3) but I'll have to relearn this new system now. Can't remember if it was toolg, or ronchalant, but they were usually informative on all things WDW. I think SDeagle too. I could be wrong but I believe the new system is just a fast lane access that you pay for which is a non-reservation system. You’re just paying for the privilege of standing in a 2 hr "lightning” line versus the 4 hr standard line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 37 minutes ago, DBW said: I could be wrong but I believe the new system is just a fast lane access that you pay for which is a non-reservation system. You’re just paying for the privilege of standing in a 2 hr "lightning” line versus the 4 hr standard line. Seems like it's more complex than that from what I've been reading. Says you can book up to two attractions with the lightning add-on the morning of your visit, 7am if you're staying on property. To do so, you need the genie+ add on I guess. Only certain rides qualify. Confusing to say the least. Need to look into it more when I get the chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 https://www.disneytouristblog.com/lightning-lanes-genie-plus-disney-world-faq-guide/ Fastpass+ was confusing at first two but this one seems to have even more moving parts. Ugh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBW Posted November 9, 2021 Share Posted November 9, 2021 3 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/lightning-lanes-genie-plus-disney-world-faq-guide/ Fastpass+ was confusing at first two but this one seems to have even more moving parts. Ugh. Eek! I’ll leave all that planning up to my wife 😂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerpat Posted January 4, 2022 Share Posted January 4, 2022 Encanto was easily my favorite Disney kids movie of last 20 years, on par with Moana. Songs are amazing, and the story is well paced and enjoyable with good lessons. My kids have probably watched it 15 times and I’m not sick of it yet. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gannan Posted January 5, 2022 Share Posted January 5, 2022 17 hours ago, homerpat said: Encanto was easily my favorite Disney kids movie of last 20 years, on par with Moana. Songs are amazing, and the story is well paced and enjoyable with good lessons. My kids have probably watched it 15 times and I’m not sick of it yet. It reminded me a lot of Moana. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrsu37 Posted January 5, 2022 Share Posted January 5, 2022 19 hours ago, homerpat said: Encanto was easily my favorite Disney kids movie of last 20 years, on par with Moana. Songs are amazing, and the story is well paced and enjoyable with good lessons. My kids have probably watched it 15 times and I’m not sick of it yet. I want dat Fing house...Magic included plz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted January 5, 2022 Share Posted January 5, 2022 23 hours ago, homerpat said: Encanto was easily my favorite Disney kids movie of last 20 years, on par with Moana. Songs are amazing, and the story is well paced and enjoyable with good lessons. My kids have probably watched it 15 times and I’m not sick of it yet. I fell asleep, kids seemed to like it though. I'll probably need to give it another shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBW Posted January 6, 2022 Share Posted January 6, 2022 On 1/4/2022 at 6:03 PM, homerpat said: Encanto was easily my favorite Disney kids movie of last 20 years, on par with Moana. Songs are amazing, and the story is well paced and enjoyable with good lessons. My kids have probably watched it 15 times and I’m not sick of it yet. We thought it was OK. Not fantastic. If I was able to get a beer I would have slept through it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hputenis Posted January 6, 2022 Share Posted January 6, 2022 16 hours ago, DBW said: We thought it was OK. Not fantastic. If I was able to get a beer I would have slept through it. Umm.....why were you not able to get a beer sir? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted February 10, 2022 Share Posted February 10, 2022 Anybody figure out this new genie+ system yet at Disney world? Looking to book a trip for April and not sure if there's anything I need to reserve 60 days out like you had to do with the old fast pass system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mat Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 On 11/9/2021 at 12:44 PM, we_gotta_believe said: Is this the thread where we talked about Disney World planning? I'm gonna need someone to explain the new fast pass system to me. On 2/11/2022 at 8:07 AM, we_gotta_believe said: Anybody figure out this new genie+ system yet at Disney world? Looking to book a trip for April and not sure if there's anything I need to reserve 60 days out like you had to do with the old fast pass system. I'm going the first week of November and if anyone can explain to me anything to do with Disney World (I've only been to Disneyland in Cali before) that would be appreciated. Like is there a fast pass system and how does it work? Are there lines or do you have to join virtual queues? Quickest way to get through all the parks/attractions. I'll be staying at the Swan so it is pretty much outside Epcot from what I can gather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 28 minutes ago, Mat said: I'm going the first week of November and if anyone can explain to me anything to do with Disney World (I've only been to Disneyland in Cali before) that would be appreciated. Like is there a fast pass system and how does it work? Yeah I got you. Went back in April and planning to go again in a couple months. There's a lot to sort through now, the new system (called Genie +) is overly complicated and far less predictable than the old fast pass + system was. If you're brand new to it, I'm not really sure where to start but I'll summarize it at a high level, and then you can let me know where you need me to fill in the lower level details. Basically, you pay a surcharge fee ($15-$22) per ticket, per day, to enable the Genie + ride reservation system. You can then start booking reservations for rides at 7am on the morning of the day, for the park you're visiting that day. Once you've booked your first ride, you can book your second ride two hours after the park officially opens (or after you've swiped into the ride you already booked, whichever comes first.) The really popular rides "sell out" of reservations early in the day, so you might not get to do all the rides you wanted even with paying extra for Genie +. In addition to Genie +, you can also pay for one individual, high-demand ride reservation at each park. They are Flight of Passage, Guardians, 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, and Rise of the Resistance. The cost for these rides is separate in addition to Genie + (and you don't need Genie + for these, you can choose to just pay for these a la carte) and the cost varies from about $7-$15 per person. You can only pay to ride these once per day. There's a lot more strategy to all of this, but the above should give you a rough idea of how it works. Quote Are there lines or do you have to join virtual queues? All rides with the exception of Guardians have standby lines. Guardians still has virtual queues with assigned boarding groups. There's a strategy to booking these, but I haven't done it yet so am not as familiar with it. But I believe there are booking windows that open at 7am, 1pm, and at 6pm I think. Quote Quickest way to get through all the parks/attractions. I'll be staying at the Swan so it is pretty much outside Epcot from what I can gather. That's the $1M question. All depends on what you want to do and how you want to go about doing it. Disney was never a one-size-fits all experience, but it's even less so now. You probably want to start with looking at all the rides at all the parks you plan on visiting and then coming up with a priority list of the ones you must ride, would be nice to ride, and would only ride to kill time. Then from there you can start to come up with a more detailed plan for each day. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 Good resources to start reading up on things are Touringplans.com and Thrilldata.com. The content there is probably going to be overwhelming at first but I can help with simplifying things. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 This site is has a fairly detailed breakdown of all the ins and outs of genie+: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/lightning-lanes-genie-plus-disney-world-faq-guide/ Note: Because there have been tweaks to the system since it launched, some of the info may be a bit out of date. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mat Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 So when I went to Disneyland I completely butchered the fast pass system but I found the best way to avoid the queues was following the app, single rider lines and hit the really busy rides late in the day or during events like the fireworks. I've downloaded the app and have taken some screenshots of the intro. I saw them mention Genie + Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mat Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 6 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said: This site is has a fairly detailed breakdown of all the ins and outs of genie+: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/lightning-lanes-genie-plus-disney-world-faq-guide/ Note: Because there have been tweaks to the system since it launched, some of the info may be a bit out of date. I should have a lot of downtime at work tomorrow so I'll go through the resources you've supplied. Thank you! @Agent23 see what you think and maybe between the two of us we can work out what the F we're doing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 5 minutes ago, Mat said: So when I went to Disneyland I completely butchered the fast pass system but I found the best way to avoid the queues was following the app, single rider lines and hit the really busy rides late in the day or during events like the fireworks. I've downloaded the app and have taken some screenshots of the intro. I saw them mention Genie + Yeah that's the main MyDisneyExperience (MDE) app. You can't do genie+ at all without it. It's how you book all your ride reservations just like you had to do back when it was fastpass+. If you're new to using the app itself, you might want to start with some youtube videos that walk you through the process of booking a ride, and other features like seeing wait times, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 10 minutes ago, Mat said: I should have a lot of downtime at work tomorrow so I'll go through the resources you've supplied. Thank you! @Agent23 see what you think and maybe between the two of us we can work out what the F we're doing Wait, have you actually bought tickets and booked your dates yet? There's a new wrinkle where you have to make reservations for the park itself on the day you plan to go. So if you haven't done that yet, you need to do so ASAP as there are some days where the parks are already at capacity. So I guess to back things up a bit, this is what I would suggest you do in order... 1) Figure out how many days you plan on going to the parks (if not already done so). For the sake of simplicity, let's set park hopping aside for now and just focus on 1-park-per-day. 2) Figure out what parks you want to visit for the days you plan on being there. E.g. If exactly 4 park days, then each park once? if less than 4 days, which park(s) will you be missing out on. If more than 4 days, 1 for each park, and then which ones to double up on? 3) Figure out the days you want to go to each park and reserve those park days now. You can always try to change it after the fact if your plans change assuming there's still capacity. (Note: Dining reservations also are a factor here, but it sounds like you don't have any yet, seeing as how you missed the 60-day window on this, so for simplicity, let's just assume all food will be counter service or walk-up waitlists.) 4) Now that you've figured out which parks you'll be visiting, go through the attractions list for each park and prioritize which ones you want to do. https://touringplans.com/magic-kingdom/attractions https://touringplans.com/hollywood-studios/attractions https://touringplans.com/epcot/attractions https://touringplans.com/animal-kingdom/attractions Sounds like you are going without family and have no kids, so obviously take that into account when looking at the ride ratings and sort the list accordingly (e.g. don't do the stupid slow-moving dark ride exhibits like peter pan, winnie the pooh, etc.) Disney has tons of rides that are super duper popular with surprisingly long lines, but only because of nostalgia factor or because they are geared towards younger kids. In other words, I'm not sure a dude in his thirties will find it worthwhile to wait 90 min to ride the Slinky Dog Coaster at Hollywood Studios, but that 20 min wait for Expedition Everest or Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom might be more worth it. 5) Once you've got a list together from steps 3 and 4, I can help plan out things in a bit more detail. Just take note that because genie+ reservations are unpredictable, you will have to be able to improvise on the fly once you're in the parks. But coming up with a general framework for each park is still worth doing as you'll be able to save a ton of time and hit more of the rides you're wanting to get done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
we_gotta_believe Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 Good video on genie+ if you need more depth than the above: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent23 Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 7 hours ago, Mat said: I should have a lot of downtime at work tomorrow so I'll go through the resources you've supplied. Thank you! @Agent23 see what you think and maybe between the two of us we can work out what the F we're doing I read through the Genie+ post on here and I understand why he killed himself (too soon?) This pains me without me likely even going, but I hope it all works out well for you and goes smoothly! I know for US/IoA I have the season pass and they've been running promotions for a buy 2 days get 2 days free (aka, probably saves $70ish dollars off what they normally sell a 4-day pass for). I don't think my friend has bought her pass yet but that's probably what she's planning on. Sounds like our Monday arrival will just be relaxing and dinner, so Tue-Wed-Thur are planned as entire days that we'll plan to spend between both parks (obviously Thur will be a shortened day because of Magic-Warriors that night), and Friday morning we'll use our early entry benefits to hit the big ticket items a few more times first thing and then checkout somewhere in the 11a-noon range where we may just grab lunch before making our way back to the airport (I think 330ish flights). So I figured whichever day works for you if you still wanted to work in a US/IoA day and if that park visit and the basketball game wind up being 2 separate days, I don't see any issues or inconveniences with that. Between having 3 full days there starting 7-8am Tuesday morning and that first week of Nov hopefully being a bit quiet/slow time of year, I don't expect that we'll ever feel like our time is being cut short and by that 3rd day, I wouldn't be surprised if we're glad to have the game a nice excuse to mix up the day-to-day routine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wholesale_Melvin Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 The Owl House final season starts on Saturday. Losing my mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerpat Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 Thanks all for convincing me Disney is just not worth it. I’ll take the kids to an island instead. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent23 Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 This just pop up in my YouTube suggestions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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