Negative Reaction to Genie+ Announcement

This was something I wrote three months ago on LinkedIn when Genie+ was announced. This was when YouTube would let you see the number of dislikes for a video:

Wow! The official The Walt Disney Company Genie app announcement on YouTube has 984 likes and over 13k dislikes since being posted about 2 months ago. Also, over 1,500 comments. Many long-time park attendees and fans who stay on property are talking about making a "last trip" or very infrequent trips instead of yearly trips.

Ironically, these fans who share their park passion, Disney announcements, and sell their family/friends on visiting the World may become vocal detractors, feeling betrayed by an organization they love. Betraying middle-class customers and Walt's dream of a family park in the name of corporate greed are popular post themes. From a strategy perspective, it would be interesting to see if Universal Orlando Resort could capitalize on this.

Disney will probably be fine and profitable despite any potential customer churn. But, in the words of Tiny the Dinosaur (Meet the Robinsons), "I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through."

Yeah I don't think Genie+ will hurt their bottom line. I mean....look at the 5 hour line for a popcorn bucket today. [emoji2356]

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Originally Posted by Cass&KenziesMom

Yeah I don't think Genie+ will hurt their bottom line. I mean....look at the 5 hour line for a popcorn bucket today. [emoji2356]

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Ah...But you didn't need Genie+ to get a popcorn bucket! LOL JUST KIDDING!

Seriously, how many people said that FastPasses should be a 'pay for' to keep the numbers down? If I remember correctly, almost as many as said that there should be different levels of FP for the different resorts, and as many as said that FP should ONLY be for resort guests.

There are going to be people complaining no matter what Disney does or how they handle things. What it comes down to is: What will the visitors pay for and what will they walk away from?

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Originally Posted by PopPhan

Ah...But you didn't need Genie+ to get a popcorn bucket! LOL JUST KIDDING!

Seriously, how many people said that FastPasses should be a 'pay for' to keep the numbers down? If I remember correctly, almost as many as said that there should be different levels of FP for the different resorts, and as many as said that FP should ONLY be for resort guests.

There are going to be people complaining no matter what Disney does or how they handle things. What it comes down to is: What will the visitors pay for and what will they walk away from?

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[emoji2958] Don't give them any ideas! LOL And I agree. We're there in 90 days and I'm flip flopping on Genie+. My TA saved me money by switching me from AoA to Pop when the room discount dropped so it technically wouldn't be an added expense since the money was going to Disney anyway but we've been enough times and with 2 days at each park I kind of don't feel we'll need it. [emoji848] We'll see. I'll probably cave and at least do some individuals.

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We tried Genie+ once in December. We were so dissatisfied that we waited in line at one of the "Customer Experience" umbrellas. My first words to the cast member were: "I want you to make Genie+ go away, and I want to pretend that it never happened." He offered to refund the fee without any hesitation but insisted on explaining to me how Genie+ is supposed to be used. From what I can tell, it is perfect for guests who:
1) Wake up early, and have 30 minutes or more to spend at 7:00 trying to get the system to work (either before heading to the park or while in route to the park),
2) stay all day in that park (since you won't get a second attraction until early to mid afternoon, to say nothing of a 3rd attraction, which we never tried)
3) don't have any lunch, dinner, or tour reservations scheduled (since the system give the guest no say as to attraction times)
4) Does not take advantage of park hopping (see #2 above).

Simple, no?

The funny thing about all of this is the solution to all these problems is about as simple as it gets. Do away with all FP, Genie+ or whatever they want to call it and convert those lines back into regular que lines. It was so much less stressful, aggravating and spontaneous when you just simply showed up at a park you choose for the day and start enjoying yourself. The FP/Genie+ is really just a way to play on people emotions and make them think they are doing attractions faster but they can only give you a few of them each day. The reason you can only do a few each day is because all it does is shift where you stand in line from one attraction to another. The attractions have a maximum throughput so they are feeding people through as fast as it can go and if you get to do one attraction faster by jumping the line, you are the one standing in the long line at the next attraction and having to wait longer than you would if people with fastpasses were not jumping ahead of you. It is about as basic math as it gets.

The only people that truly benefit from these FP/Genie+ systems are the ones that show up, do their scheduled attractions and then go shop or head out. The ones that want to stay all day and do all the attractions or most, pay the price by standing in the artificially longer lines for their non-Genie+ rides. If they did away with those and just had two regular lines for each attraction, on a regular busy day you would probably average 30 minute waits across all attractions. On a really busy day it would probably be around 45 minutes. That is in contrast to 10 or 15 minutes for your 3 Genie+ rides and then 60 to 90 minutes for all the others.

As for the 5 hour wait for a bucket of popcorn the other day, when I read that I was just shocked. It is unbelievable that people would wait that long for a bucket of popcorn. I thought to myself that there must be a lot of people with obsessive compulsive disorder that just cannot let something go if they are willing to stand in line more than 15 minutes for a bucket of popcorn. lol

We look our first trip to WDW since 2004 during the week leading up to the 50th. There were no Fastpass nor Genie+ during that time. Never did we experience a ride wait greater than 40 minutes. Most were 10 minutes or less. I agree with 1DisneyNut that the placeholder "solutions" artificially extend the standby wait times. It galls me to think that I am expected to pay the price of admission and then pay extra to experience the attractions.

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Originally Posted by 1DisneyNut

The funny thing about all of this is the solution to all these problems is about as simple as it gets. Do away with all FP, Genie+ or whatever they want to call it and convert those lines back into regular que lines. It was so much less stressful, aggravating and spontaneous when you just simply showed up at a park you choose for the day and start enjoying yourself. The FP/Genie+ is really just a way to play on people emotions and make them think they are doing attractions faster but they can only give you a few of them each day. The reason you can only do a few each day is because all it does is shift where you stand in line from one attraction to another. The attractions have a maximum throughput so they are feeding people through as fast as it can go and if you get to do one attraction faster by jumping the line, you are the one standing in the long line at the next attraction and having to wait longer than you would if people with fastpasses were not jumping ahead of you. It is about as basic math as it gets.

The only people that truly benefit from these FP/Genie+ systems are the ones that show up, do their scheduled attractions and then go shop or head out. The ones that want to stay all day and do all the attractions or most, pay the price by standing in the artificially longer lines for their non-Genie+ rides. If they did away with those and just had two regular lines for each attraction, on a regular busy day you would probably average 30 minute waits across all attractions. On a really busy day it would probably be around 45 minutes. That is in contrast to 10 or 15 minutes for your 3 Genie+ rides and then 60 to 90 minutes for all the others.

As for the 5 hour wait for a bucket of popcorn the other day, when I read that I was just shocked. It is unbelievable that people would wait that long for a bucket of popcorn. I thought to myself that there must be a lot of people with obsessive compulsive disorder that just cannot let something go if they are willing to stand in line more than 15 minutes for a bucket of popcorn. lol

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I remember when I was a kid going to Disneyland, we would wait for Pirates of the Caribbean for 1-2 hours (depending on which trip it was). Now that was waaaaayyy back when we had to walk to school uphill in the snow both ways, but I'm not sure the lines would be that short.

A lot of those people waiting in line for the popcorn buckets were going to resale them on ebay, etc. I saw them going for as much as $350. That's a pretty good hourly wage just for standing in a line if they get that much. Not something I would do, but I know people who would.

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Originally Posted by Cinderelley

I remember when I was a kid going to Disneyland, we would wait for Pirates of the Caribbean for 1-2 hours (depending on which trip it was). Now that was waaaaayyy back when we had to walk to school uphill in the snow both ways, but I'm not sure the lines would be that short.

A lot of those people waiting in line for the popcorn buckets were going to resale them on ebay, etc. I saw them going for as much as $350. That's a pretty good hourly wage just for standing in a line if they get that much. Not something I would do, but I know people who would.

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I remember back before fastpasses and standing in 90 minute waits for Space Mountain but.....that was when it was only Magic Kingdom and Epcot first year or two and there weren't really much as far as attractions open at Epcot. Now we have a lot of attractions across multiple parks to spread crowds out.

Even still though, it is pretty much simple math. The attractions have a maximum throughput when they are running them at full speed and loading as fast as possible. It doesn't matter whether you have two standby que lines or a single standby line and a fastpass que line, the attraction still runs the same amount of guests through per hour. So if you let some go through this attraction in less time than other guests, they then have to be the ones to stand in another line longer OR they leave the park and choose not to ride anymore which does happen. So there is an average in those statistics that will give you an approximate wait time across attractions if there was no fastpass type lines available. We went to Disneyland back in the summer when they were not doing fastpasses or genie+ and it was busy and it was all standby and it was by far the best experience I have had in a long time. My daughter also went WDW back in the summer when they weren't doing them and she said it was the best time she had had there in a long time as well.

The idea behind FP was to let the computer hold your place in line while you did other things, including (Disney hoped) spending money in the shops or on food.
From my perspective, the original FP was valuable for people who arrived at park opening. Later arrivals missed out on the really popular attractions, since return times were based on when you arrived at an attraction to get a return time, and all FPs might be gone by the time you arrived. FP+ was an improvement, since ride times were available before the trip even started, and your planned park arrival time was a non-factor. Genie is worse for several reasons. Among other things: it costs money, is less flexible, can only be used at the last minute, and runs on an online platform that is not up to the task. I don't want the entire concept to be scrapped - I just want a system that works.

I was there in July-August with no Genie+ and the lines were shorter than they were last week with Genie+. If only we could get EVERYONE to refuse to purchase Genie+ and individual LL. (My mom used to call that "Dreaming in color.") I don't miss having to send someone to the FastPass machines with all of our tickets, but I do miss the simpler systems after that in both Disneyland and at Disney World. Genie+ is WORK and I'm not there to work, I'm there to escape. Most of the Disney Experience teams had pretty long lines and I'm guessing most people were there to complain.

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Originally Posted by 1DisneyNut

I remember back before fastpasses and standing in 90 minute waits for Space Mountain but.....that was when it was only Magic Kingdom and Epcot first year or two and there weren't really much as far as attractions open at Epcot. Now we have a lot of attractions across multiple parks to spread crowds out.

Even still though, it is pretty much simple math. The attractions have a maximum throughput when they are running them at full speed and loading as fast as possible. It doesn't matter whether you have two standby que lines or a single standby line and a fastpass que line, the attraction still runs the same amount of guests through per hour. So if you let some go through this attraction in less time than other guests, they then have to be the ones to stand in another line longer OR they leave the park and choose not to ride anymore which does happen. So there is an average in those statistics that will give you an approximate wait time across attractions if there was no fastpass type lines available. We went to Disneyland back in the summer when they were not doing fastpasses or genie+ and it was busy and it was all standby and it was by far the best experience I have had in a long time. My daughter also went WDW back in the summer when they weren't doing them and she said it was the best time she had had there in a long time as well.

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While I agree with your basic concept, there are more than two options. Due to physical problems, I am unable to stand in line for more than 15 minutes. More specifically, I have to change positions every 15 mins - standing to sitting, sitting to walking, etc. Without a fastpass or DAS return time, I will alternate shopping, stopping for a bite to eat, sitting down to relax, wandering through the parks sightseeing (I love doing this at AK), watching the people I travel ride on a ride (such as EE), etc. There's so much more to the parks than just riding a ride.

Two thought:

1) The billion or so dollars spent on FP+/Genie+ could have gone a long way to LEGITMATELY improving the park experience
2) Remember, when FP first came out, it was only for a few headliner rides. If it was still like this, the assertion that it makes all lines longer would be a moot point.

Added bonus: My Pal Mickey ushered in all this rfid, crowd monitoring/managing, magic band tracking. And the "coolest" thing about it is Disney paid for it by selling MPM.