Hello Melissa!
If you are a planner, then you have come to the right place! Here at planDisney, we are Guests just like you, who are experts at planning trips to
Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and with
Disney Vacation Club! I am an absolute planner myself, and not knowing what the plan of the day is, definitely makes me twitchy! You are correct, that unlike FastPass+ where you scheduled your attractions in advance, with
Genie+ you will schedule them day-of, and one at a time.
Melissa, I am planning on keeping an open mind when it comes to Genie+. We have been vacationing at the Walt Disney World Resort as a family since my youngest was in Kindergarten, and now he is a big college kid. (Cue the tears, we are taking our first trip without him soon!) I had also taken many trips with my own family when I was growing up. So, I’ve visited Disney before FastPass was a thing, then brought my kids when you had to run back and forth across the park gathering paper FastPasses. When things transitioned from paper FastPasses to FastPass+, I know my family was skeptical. We liked the idea of choosing some in advance but were also concerned about getting fewer FastPasses overall. But you know what? We found we liked FastPass+ better! While I missed spreading the magic by passing out our extra FastPass tickets as we left the park, we enjoyed not having to run all over and knowing for sure that we had at least a few favorites when we arrived.
While Genie+ is only a few days old at this point, and I have yet to experience it personally, I am hopeful we will love it just as much as FastPass+. I actually helped a coworker plan a trip for this weekend, and I got the text yesterday that, “Genie+ is a must for all your people asking questions!” It sounds like they are enjoying it! I am a firm believer that in some things, we make them a stressfest or not, depending on how we approach the situation. Knowing myself, I can guarantee that I will be slightly stressed the first day we use Genie+, as it will be a new thing to learn and get accustomed to. But just like I’ve adjusted to going from a physical spreadsheet to the
My Disney Experience Mobile App, paper FastPass to FastPass+, and now virtual queues (Okay, I don’t think those will ever not make me stressed!), I have every confidence I’ll be a Genie+ expert by Day 2 of our trip. And Melissa, if you are a planner, I bet you will be too!
And don’t forget, Genie+ is totally optional. If dealing with your mobile device all day isn’t your idea of a vacation, there are still standby queues for all attractions except for those with virtual queues. You can throw caution to the wind, skip the plan, and just go with the flow if you prefer.
Whatever you decide, Melissa, I wish you a magical visit to the Walt Disney World Resort!
- Kate