Don’t want to like what was once free.

We were just there the week before Christmas. Opted to not even think about Genie+ or LL -- just too much complication and added thinking. I wanted a vacation, not a bunch of new headaches trying to figure out technology before I have had my coffee. (Save that for IRL!)

So we just rope dropped and did stand-by's as opportunities presented themselves. Worked like a charm. Haven't had so much fun at WDW since I was a kid. No regrets.

We fly in from the West Coast (so rope dropping just isn't going to happen with the time difference) and go Christmas week. So when we went in 2021, I knew Genie+ and ILL would be the way to be able to go on the attractions we wanted without ridiculous wait times. And it was the first time we were bringing my DD's (then) fiance, so I wanted him to have a good time and a positive experience. 

I made it work, but the cost was lots of research before the trip and then several days of waking up at the equivalent of 4 am to my body to make the first Genie+ selection, and then trying to go back to sleep for 2 hours until I could make the next one. Rinse and repeat. I was pretty stressed out and tired by day 4 or 5. We also did ILL for Rise, but I think we were successful with the Virtual Queue for Remy. 

That experience had me wanting to not go back. I'm not thrilled with the additional cost, however, that said, I would really, REALLY like it if we could book Genie+ selections and ILL selections in advance. It doesn't need to be 60 days or whatever it used to be. I would even settle for booking our selections the day before (not ideal, but better than the 4 am wake up every day). 

I wouldn't mind 7 am so much if my body was on East Coast time. It's the fact that to my body it's 4 am being on West Coast time. 

We had it in Sep and it was awesome - crowds were lighter. We just got back Saturday from 10 days in parks and had it all 10 days (purchased when they let us add for entire trip at $15 / day). This trip was not as good during peak time but got better as we got past the first week of January. We don’t rope drop typically, so I would grab the hardest to get first. Then, next slot next hardest. And so on. We were able to do almost everything we wanted. But I liked the old 60-day plan better and would have rather paid extra for that system.

I also learned to walk my times forward or back after I snagged the time. However, many of the most popular require siting for 10-15 minutes to get. So we spent more time drinking and going to shows. In fact, we went to some we had not been to in years and really enjoyed them.

We will likely only buy Genie+ occasionally now that we know more. These last two trips we had pre purchased. But LL FoP will likely be every time. I love that ride and would buy it twice in a day if I could. LOL

I do like the LL concept for FoP and RotR. I’ll gladly pay for those two and we did pay three times for each over the 10 days. Guess the mouse has us pegged. However, Dwarfs is not worth it and so I may never ride that again. I paid this time, so maybe I am trying to convince myself. Ha ha ha. This trip was our most expensive trip ever. But it was a great deal of fun too. 

Same thing happened to us. After paying almost $50 for the three of us for ILL's when it was finally back up the wait was almost an hour for the ILL line. There's no way I was paying for ILL with that long of a wait. I hiked it over to Guest Services for a refund. It was a rainy day and the CM said RotR always has trouble on rainy days. 

That's what I call marketing genius! We all complained when they kept raising ticket prices...but really they were just making G+ and LL a better deal so we would buy it.