Genie Plus...Again!

Genie Plus Again

Dan: Welcome back to another meeting of the Gold Key Adventurers Society. My name is Dan Leonard and joining me this week in the studio is Heather straight,

Heather: Hello.

Dan: Evans and Mr.

Jeff Williams. That's the flavor and we've been missing all this time. Yeah. Let's give you the yeast in the bread of the Adventurous Society. We can just rise straight to the top of the charts.

Jeff: this show yeast infected.

Jess: That's yeah, there it is. There it is. Yep. I actually started A timer as soon as he said yeast. I'm going to give it 10 seconds and then I'm going to jump in if nobody else. 

Dan: show. And those jokes says always is brought to you by key to the road, travel Key to the World travel is a full service travel agency, specializing in theme. Cruising and destinations are around the world, had to www dot keys to the world, travel.com for more details and a no obligation quote out of the vacation of a lifetime.

We all, it seems like just yesterday, Disney launched their fancy new Jeannie plus system into the wild. And we promptly agreed that it kind of really sucks at least when you're using it at Walt Disney world, uh, just recently Disney announced that guests will no longer be able to. Genie plus ahead of time, it's going to be a day of Al a carte type sale.

Uh, we, we presume that means that, uh, they're preparing for big adjustments to how the program works. So we're going to take a dive. We're going to look at that. Uh, we're going to look at that announcement, why it's a good thing for Walt Disney world guests, and talk a little bit about how to get the most out of a day in the parks with, or without genie plus, and the lightning lane passes because, uh, I think key to navigating the genie plus is to realize that he's not really as necessary as we seem to think.

Heather: Whereas magical.

Jess: He's not looking out for your best interests on there that much. 

Heather: That is true.

Dan: yeah. That's that's for damn sure. So, um, let's see. May 18th Disney, uh, Disney announced that starting June 8th, the same day that packages become available to book. I bet you that's

Heather: There's no coincidence right there.

Dan: Uh, yeah, you will no longer be able to pre-purchase length of stay your genie. Plus it's just going to be day of, um,

Jeff: you've already made though. We'll still be just fine.

Heather: They are safe. And even if you decide, say to move your trip to different days, or you decide you want to stay a couple of days longer, you won't lose that purchase.

Jeff: or once you purchased between now and the 7th of June.

Dan: So this, this change is going to allow them obviously to kind of throttle back on availability. If they start to realize, hopefully that they've sold

Heather: painfully

Dan: too many. Well, hopefully not just painfully oversoul and hopefully just oversold at all because as we discussed. I had before I started recording it, it baffles me that nobody stopped and thought about the fact that those rides can only move a certain number of people per day.

And so maybe we should limit the number of genie passes to at the very most, the number of guests per day, that that ride can move.

Jeff: Because I certainly limited the free ones. So why did they think the other ones wouldn't be limited?

Dan: Right.

Jess: And they didn't factor in for downtimes on any rides at any time. It seems because if something goes down, it gets so backed up after that, because then they have to honor those, those 

Jeff: all of their new premium rides that are the ones on genie lightening lane plus are awesome because they're awesome. They're technologically advanced and stuff happens. And when it does is 50 different systems to reboot, it takes a while and it messes everything up.

Heather: they seem genuinely surprised by the negative feedback that this got. And I think it just had a really good point about why 

Jess: Yes. it's true. Um, yeah, it's just, I mean that when, when FastPass existed it was free and so people just considered it a value if they got anything almost, and, but you, you plunk $1 down and then that changes how people perceive The value. And so now they're paying and they're not getting those top tier that they thought they were going to get when they paid for it, because.

They're not just saying, you know, you're, you could get past this for it's a small world and the tea cups there. They're saying you can get passes for the rides. And they're kind of focusing on those big ones. And without explicitly saying it saying, you know, if you purchase this, you've got a better chance to get on these rides when you really don't at this point.

Heather: The other thing is that they genuinely intended it to be like fast pass flaw, plus only about three rides a day that you would get to use these lines. And that is not the impression that people who purchased this had

Jeff: once you've paid 15 bucks, they think you're going to write everything you want all day.

Heather: Yeah, they were, it really wasn't sold. As you know, you're going to get the same number of rides as you got with FastPass, plus just now you're paying for them.

It was, you're going to get this pass into the special lane and you'll get to use it as much as you want, whether they, they didn't really say that. And if you looked in the fine print, it did in fact, say two to three rides a day, but nobody was looking

Jeff: But that's not really how anybody's was talking about

Heather: No, not at

Dan: the marketing should have highlighted the price difference between genie plus and Universal's unlimited express pass, which does give 

Jess: But the way they presented it was, was kind of sneaky because it was, to me, it felt like they were saying you can use Jeannie and Jeannie is going to plan your whole day. Jean is going to know what you love to do, and Jeannie is going to take you there. And if you have genie plus, well, your day set is going to tell you when to do it and you make those.

Yeah. You make those passes. Jeannie is going to tell you when to fill in those spaces with the restaurants you want to eat at characters, you want to meet. And it doesn't do that. It sends you to where they need you to go and you know, is fulfilling. Disney's wish they're not fulfilling yours. And if that were to work correctly, Then it might actually, you know, change the flow of the parks.

But people aren't going to listen to a suggestion. They don't want to do. It's just not going to happen.

Heather: because everything else out there still exists telling you that if you don't ride this and this and this, and if you don't do these things, your trip is just ruined and people are still buying into that. And so it doesn't matter what the genie tells them that tells them that they're going to have, uh, you know, walk right on to teacups.

That's that's not what the had

Jeff: been to Disney's so many times and could not get on rise of the resistance or seven doors, many of the.

Heather: Dan knows how that feels.

Jeff: time rides, but there's a hundred other great rides. So I, you know, I don't know, people just put so much into

Dan: I do want to say real quick though, that, um, the fact that they are already. Uh, backing off and, and making this change is actually really impressive because how soon after fast pass plus came out, was it apparent that there was a major problem with how it works and they stuck with that for years and years and years.

So the fact that after just a few months, they're listening to guests and actually changing something that guests don't like, that does not happen very

Heather: on the one hand, I love that. And I appreciate that. On the other hand, I think there were clues that this was going to happen because at the end, uh, before the pandemic and before fast, fast plus went away, the fast pass lines were getting out of control, particularly in magic kingdom. There were days that we would just say, you know what, we're not doing this because the fast pass line.

Was backed for, for example, for space, mountain would be backed up all the way back to the last floor and that's insane.

Jeff: But then they would also let 25 people in that line to one and the other. So it did always move quicker than you

Heather: It did. But it just to, you know, you ended up. They were, they were allowing too many people. They were

Jeff: And that, how easy would that have been, just to make less of those available?

Heather: and that's what needs to happen here personally. I think it should go to not even just the day that have being able to purchase it day off. I think it should go to you.

Can't purchase it until you're in the park. 

Jess: Well, Yeah. Now, because now you can purchase it at midnight and then it's 7:00 AM. So it's, if it's limited and you're going to be there at a busy time And you really want it, you gotta be up at midnight and then you gotta be up at 7:00 AM. And, 

Heather: that's not alleviating the other big complaint people 

Jess: and then you're going to take that out on guest relations later because 

Jeff: people will have stayed up too late to get it done and then gotten up too early to get that part done. And when it doesn't work, they're going to be even more mad. What they need to do is geo-fence this thing. And I think this is a stop gap to where they just do that.

Heather: I hope, I really hope

Jeff: at Disneyland.

That's how it is. Once you scan in the gate to either park, as soon as you do your, it, it and

Heather: how max pass worked and it

Jeff: Yeah. And it worked

Dan: they've been doing that for years and if they were going to, I mean, they adopted max pass largely for this genie plus thing. So they should have just gone the whole,

Heather: a hundred percent

Dan: distance

Jeff: reason the Disney execs, even like everybody goes by, you couldn't pull that off at Disney world.

Heather: you should certainly

Jeff: within any of the four parks and then go,

Heather: Is it going to. Make a lot of demand for rope drop, certainly, but that has historically been a thing, you know, and that, and that clears. And there's your, year's always going to be your percentage of people who do not want to get up and get to the park that early. And so they're not going to do it, and they're going to find another way to tour.

And there certainly are other ways to tour because one of the things right now with the park reservations, the lines just are not terrible. They really aren't. They're not like what we were seeing pre pending.

Dan: No.

Heather: I saw, um, what was it? Two weeks ago that I was there. The longest line I saw was 60 minutes. And that's, that's manageable

Jeff: I was there during spring break in March and the Pandora line was like 71, 74, somewhere in that area. And that's a long time, but that's not crazy.

Heather: Think of what that used to be. That line was three, four or five hours long.

Jeff: Yeah. And the line would go all the way back to her I'm bay.

Heather: Yeah,

Jeff: it wasn't anything like

Heather: it like that in a long, long time. Slinky dog is always a long standby line and it was under an hour. So it's, they're handling it. The parks are busy again,

Jeff: People also forget that you just have to stand in line. Sometimes it's

Dan: Well, and that's the thing, that's the thing that we had talked about a little bit beforehand too, is that there's two halves to this problem. Disney needs to figure out the right way to tune this or that they're limiting sales and, uh,

Jeff: and build a fifth gate.

Dan: Right. There's well, yeah, but that, well, 

Jess: and increased capacity on the rides. If they just increased capacity on most of the rides and start turning people, more people through it. 

Dan: but the other problem is you've got to work on the hearts and minds of the guests who think that the only way to get on these rides is M attractions is to have a fast pass and that the only attractions worth doing are the two or three per park that everybody is yelling about wanting to get their lightning lane 

Jess: And most of that is Disney's fault because when was the last time you saw any advertising that focused on.

historically popular attractions or it's all about what's 

Jeff: Swiss family Robinson. I never see ads 

Jess: here to go to Epcot, to go to guardians. Well, Yeah.

but there's a lot of other cool stuff in Epcot that you could be focusing on to at least mitigate expectations. 

Dan: That's true. And they do push those in the park a lot too. Um, 

Jess: But once you get there, here, 

Dan: Right. Yeah. Once you get there. Um, a lot of it, honestly, there's a lot of, um, now there's a lot of not great advice from blogs and from podcasters and things that you see on the internet. And

Heather: Yeah,

Dan: Ben, it's also natural that everybody wants to be on the huge thrill ride.

That's

Jeff: talked about it earlier in the week, though. Three VINs travel people are just now going. They haven't been in three or four years.

Heather: that's true.

Jeff: They want to ride these five new rights yet since that time there's Ratatouille and guardians and

Heather: We also kind of need to get back to the, to the old. Park Turing strategies. When I first started as a travel advisor and focused on Disney, that was a huge part of my job was teaching people how to plan out their day to minimize the lines, but not necessarily, you know, still realizing that you're going to have them.

But if you have a good plan as to where to go first and

Jeff: pre fast pass. Plus, when we were doing

Heather: Absolutely. And it was, it was managing. And it can be again. I really do think so.

Dan: Oh, it totally is. I mean, we, we largely did that in February. The, I mean, one great thing about. The park app is that is, is, is the wait times. I know they're not totally accurate, but if you use that tool to kind of map out what is a priority

Jeff: state that they're longer than what your wait time really is 

Jess: Oh, especially post pandemic. They inflate those wait times a lot, which is 

Dan: but you can still use it as a general guideline to figure out, you know, where the groups of people are. And Brittany made a great point. Ask, ask your, the people in your group, like, what are your one or two priorities, your things that you really want to do. And then you can build your day around that

Jeff: Yeah.

Heather: of feeling like you have to hit every single big thing.

Dan: Yeah. What is, what do you actually need to be happy and satisfied with your day? Because it's not every ride. If I tried to do every single ride in the day I've, I've tried to do every single ride and attraction in a day, and I'm just exhausted, miserable by the

Jeff: I like them all, so I'm just happy to be there and do whatever. But. Luckily, I get to go many, many times a year and most people don't. So I get the disappointment. If you can't ride the one ride, like there's probably still people who haven't even written rise of the resistance. I don't know who these suckers are, but

Jess: I think it was a Crosby stills and Nash that said, if you can't ride the ride, you love ride the one you're with 

Jeff: that's right. Chip to paraphrase 

Jess: brother. 

Dan: Yeah.

Heather: that you're still gonna have a lot of fun and just really, if you can relax and let that fun happen, you may be, you're not going to be so sad that you didn't hit every single ride in the magic kingdom, more, you know, ride road, guardians of the galaxy five times.

Dan: Or take a little bit of time to stand in that line and maybe you'll have an actual conversation with your, with your family.

Jeff: I want to talk to my family, I'll stay home. Dan.

Dan: do you talk to your family at home? Jeff?

Jess: And why do you think I go to the park so much without my family? 

Heather: Well, and now, you know, the one great thing about the app is they do have a bunch of fun stuff that you can, they've added in a lot of games and things that you can do while you're standing in line. We used to do, uh, the heads heads up. Yes. That was always a lot of fun

Jeff: We waited for about two and a half hours in Disneyland Paris with both of our families to ride the turtle. What is the crush crushes, coaster, great ride. And it was a long, long way. And we had been like writing everything else on fast pass and or the max pass, whatever they have there. And, uh, that was the one we couldn't do, but we had a great time until the kid in front of us pooped his

Heather: Yeah, that part wasn't so fun. He

Jeff: We smelled him for two hours. We played heads up and we had an

Heather: Yeah. Do you know other people around you get involved in helping you. Shout out clues and, and now they have stuff built into the play Disney parks app that you can play while you're in line

Dan: The huge majority of attractions have games specifically tailored

Jeff: never looked at any of

Heather: I noticed that when we were, we were getting to preview guardians of the galaxy. They had a QR code on the wall that you could scan for games specific to that attraction, which was kind of cool.

Dan: Soren has a trivia game, a

Heather: No. Yeah, I've played that one 

Jess: Sort and used to have a, they used to do like a video game up on those screens in the queue where the crowd would like fly a glider or something. If I 

Dan: Oh, 

Jess: think they do that. 

Dan: Now

Jeff: you know, we were talking about expanding.

Dan: game.

Jeff: Talking about expanding the capacity since Soren added that third theater. That, I mean, not that that's possible everywhere, but that really though, that that line used to be ridiculous.

Heather: really helped with toy story mania when they put the second track in that one is not as bad anymore.

Dan: no.

Jeff: all they need to do. Spend a billion dollars putting in a second or third version of 

Jess: if they had been an increasing capacity over the years, knowing that they should have, which they do know that then they wouldn't have painted themselves in this corner, but 

Jeff: Yes, but those profits share were lovely.

Jess: Yeah. They've only increased them on a couple of rides. So. 

Dan: Right. Well, even, I mean, it's, it's always just baffled my brain. Like they build toy story, land USA in this corner of the park. So that's not going to take away from the rest of the park. That's striking a larger crowd that is still going to have the regular crowds for the rest of the park.

So they need to have like, Another slightly less exciting was still exciting. New option in the opposite corner of the park going at the same

Jeff: Star

Dan: to split some of those well kind of, but you know, it's like adding a ride doesn't increase capacity overall. 

Jess: they had put star wars land over next to tower of terror, that would have spread things out a little bit more. 

Dan: Well, yeah, but they didn't open them at the same 

Jess: no, but I mean like now that they're both open that end of the park draws more than the rest. 

Jeff: And the dead end down there, it doesn't help anything 

Jess: Yeah. You, you kinda pass through one to get to the other. Yeah. Oh 

Dan: they put in lightning McQueen's racing academy over there.

Heather: that.

Dan: real people eater.

Jess: watch that overeating. It flows. So I'm good with it. 

Heather: I mean, I don't fault them at all for deciding that they wanted to monetize the fast pass system. They're a business. not a not-for-profit.

Jeff: Well, it would be rolling in his grave. He hated prophet.

Heather: But what they did not do was make sure that when they came out with this, this system that we now pay for, that it was going to work in a manner that would seem worth the investment.

And that's where it completely missed the mark and fell

Jeff: Yeah, would they have been adjusting it, micro adjusting it since day one, the price has moved up and down and left and right. They've added and taken away different attractions from it. They're trying to figure it out.

Heather: And I even understand the, pulling out the bigger attractions and making them an individual purchase. That also makes a lot of sense. 

Jess: And that's the only one I've used. I've not paid for genie plus yet, but I have done the individual lightening lanes at Disneyland and Disney world. And those have worked pretty well. As long as by the time you purchase it, they don't change your boarding group too. Like I was buying for Ratatouille and it was like 9:00 AM and I was purchasing purchasing it.

And by the time my card cleared, it was 6:00 PM. 

Jeff: Five 15. Yeah. 

Jess: Yeah. Oh yeah. They bumped me up the entire 

Heather: Wow.

Jeff: across the country, got to Disneyland, went in there and that 1:00 PM

Heather: Yeah, sometime in

Jeff: a individual lightening lane for rise of the resistance and wrote it an hour later.

Heather: It's definitely working there.

Jeff: never do that at Disney world.

Heather: No.

Jess: Yeah, we, we bought it for web slingers, like right when we walked in and road 

Jeff: We did 

Jess: half an hour. Yeah.

that was great. If they were to just say like, you know, we're going to do fast passes now are all going to be individual purchase and they could change the price according to the demand for the ride.

As long as they're not priced gas. And they, and then people know like, okay, I didn't buy that seven doors. I didn't get that seven doors fast pass. And then they move on with their day. They're not then expecting to get something later on that they're not going to get. And 

Jeff: Maybe that's the way I don't pay for a package. Just pay for each 

Jess: yeah, 

Dan: Okay, but then, but then they need to remove a huge chunk of the attractions that they have the fast, the 

Jess: No, they just charged a couple dollars. Like you want to ride small world. You want to get a fast pass and not wait in line to $3. It's a slow day, two, $3, $5 on a, on a 

Jeff: right. As the resistance 30.

Jess: yeah.

Dan: So.

Jess: if they're going to charge for it, which at this point they're going to, so, you know, at least make it So. that people know what they're going to get for what they're paying for.

And if they don't get it, they know they didn't get. 

Dan: I guess what I mean is they should just clear out the ones that don't really require

Heather: Don't need it because they're Omni movers or, you know, people just con continuously 

Jess: shows FastPasses for theater shows are the

stupidest things 

Heather: That's

Dan: ridiculous or, or for parade spots. 

Jess: People love those though. Those 

Jeff: Those were fillers though, so that paper would choose them and

Heather: Not choose something else. Yeah.

Dan: miss ridiculous. Uh, they,

Jeff: would choose it as one of their three and move on.

Heather: think of how quickly the line could move. If you, for example, on haunted mansion, if there was no lightning lane and it's just everybody in line and moving on to that Omni mover system, and you're not having to have a S yeah. And that then some of the, you know, you're going to stand in line. It's a theme park.

You can't go anywhere without having to stand in line. It's going to

Dan: Even when you pay for it, you stand in line. So like get used to it.

Jess: And they're doing, they, they're making really great cues now, like the guardians, I guess you guys are, you know, but the guardians cues is getting a lot more attention than sometimes the ride from people that, that go on it. 

Jeff: Even before you get to the interactive parts, it's really like nice looking in there and it's very comfortable kind of like the front end of it is kind of like the, uh, test track where it spirals through nice air conditioning and cool

Heather: cold. It's so

Jeff: and stuff to look at. It's freezing in there.

So good.

Jess: And they, they did the same thing with flight of passage. I finally actually walked through the standby queue for the first time earlier this year for that. And I was like, well, actually don't mind that I had to do it because now I get to see all this stuff that I hadn't gotten to see yet.

Heather: the lab is cool. 

Jess: it was awesome.

So if they can just make sure that they add a good focus onto the cues, then it doesn't matter if they take fast pass away from it, people will find things to like about it. I don't necessarily love the cues that are just interactive touch with your dirty little hands kid play areas like seven dwarfs.

But you know, like the Peter pan, one's kind of cool with the shadows. It's, it's something, it's something. 

Dan: I mean, even lots of attractions in between there, they were doing that with there's a ton of stuff to see and look at and big thunder even, or, uh, I mean, I mean, star tours.

Jeff: thunder though. It's just such a sweet. Gross mess in that queue though. It's honestly better when you're outside in the shade and then you get in that barn cattle thing, and it's just like, Aw, it's so humid. And then as soon as you start to go down that hill, you're just really hot and it is cool and there's stuff to do.

And I love all the signs and puns and stuff, but man, is it hot?

Dan: look at pirates. Pirates has a ton of little tableaus and things. I mean, kids like to look in a window and see just a Canon sitting there. They're not, you know, it's fine. Yeah. But you're a jaded old man.

Jeff: This is true,

Dan: Who has seen

Jeff: have no idea it has to pay for these kids to look at a damn cannon. 

Jess: I was going to say those are, those are definitely more subtle than some of the newer ones. No, this is eye 

Jeff: agree. I was not a fan when they put in. Drums and bunk any bunk, little loud hand stuff like in seven doors and Winnie the Pooh

Dan: the Pooh socks.

Jeff: they had and the haunted mansion and like stop.

Dan: I've got two admitted, Winnie the Pooh. I can't help, but grab one of the bees and the be roller

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: and, and do that part.

Heather: And let's be honest, little kids standing in line are going to be touching everything anyway. You can't stop them from

Jeff: cause they're all bigger Eaton morons. No offense tan.

Dan: no, my, my, my youngest this past

Heather: oh, ma'am

Dan: had Heather's son's open house. After we pulled the table costs off the table. It was like a big round wooden banquet table with the metal rim. Right. I should've used the word rim because of what you're going to say next, but she, she,

Heather: She liked all the way around.

Dan: two thirds of the length of that thing.

And then she found the part that had a little bit of extra grime left, stuck on there and went back and gave it a couple actual leaks. Just for good measure.

Heather: And she was also licking them, the wood poles. I was afraid she was going to get either led orbs,

uh, splinters. Tongue, but I will use you and I have seen little kids licking the handrails at right? Yes.

Jeff: just licked the whole hand rail.

Heather: they're

Jeff: this was during like, when they had just reopened for COVID there's plexiglass everywhere. Then this kid's just

Heather: Yes.

Jeff: glass, licking the hand rail.

Heather: So they're gonna, they're gonna do it anyway. It might as well be something entertaining that they're touching.

Jeff: They might as well flavor them. All right.

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: there's your

Heather: you know, make sure that they wash their hands, but licking stuff at Eaton dirt is how kids develop their immune systems.

Jeff: And also speaking of that, why is there no Willy Wonka ride somewhere?

Dan: Who owns Willy water?

Heather: I don't know. I have no idea, but we need a chocolate

Jeff: universal doesn't own 

Jess: I think Warner 

Jeff: Harry Potter, but they're there. 

Jess: Warner brothers owns the movie. Right. Some pretty sure. 

Jeff: Yeah. Universal needs a Willy Wonka, something.

Jess: Warner 

Heather: to build us a chocolate river ride 

Jess: Warner brothers works with six flags. So what are they going to do? Just open the port-a-potties up and put a boat in it. Cause it's six lengths. I mean, come on.

Jeff: at Warners Warners also owns Harry Potter, but

Dan: Yeah, well, they've been saying that they're opening their own park in England for years and years and years now. Haven't they they're supposed to be doing a European park. I believe

Heather: Uh, Willy Wonka or will there be oompaloompas

Dan: waters.

Jeff: Warner.

Heather: oh, '

Jess: cause, everybody's dying for that bugs bunny, Tasmanian devil park, everybody from the 

nineties. 

Dan: No, no, but, but yeah, I, if they made it immersive, like I can make a case for that would be awesome.

Heather: Sure.

Jeff: Hang on DC, who wouldn't want to see the justice league town USA.

Dan: It would be so dark that the paint budget would be so cheap. All those muted, all those muted, grays and tans. It'd be great. 

Jess: Warner brothers can not be trusted with DT properties. Let's just

Dan: Let's save a fortune on lighting bills.

Heather: But what they do their line system better? I don't know. I just. I have so much

Jeff: call was for Disney, but I feel like this wasn't quite it, but maybe they'll get it right.

Heather: I have so much faith that this can be a good thing. The bones are there. It can work 

Jess: I feel like it was 

Heather: that just, yeah, a little bit. And I think, I think one of the things that they underestimated was how many people would be willing to pay the money.

They

Dan: Which is ridiculous.

Heather: moan, but, and, you know, be all over social media, talking about how much it added to their ticket, but everyone was buying it. 

Jess: And that was the, yeah, that was like, that was the thought was that, that, you know, people were assuming that they thought that this would slow down the amount of people that would even get it, because it is being, you, you buy it now and now everybody's like, no, but revenge travel let's spend. 

Jeff: although. Yeah, universal express passes are like one 50 plus, and

Heather: are so expensive,

Jeff: and they sell out every time.

Heather: even with their dynamic pricing me. I mean, there are times when you could pay $300

Jeff: one 50 on the worst day possible.

Heather: and they, they sell out and it works. who have paid the money to do that are used to just walking onto any ride. And that's not what this was intended to be, but I think people kind of thought that it was, they expected, they weren't going to have to stand in many long lines and they were

Jeff: these ride 20 rides a day.

Heather: And it's 

Jess: can't just slightly change the name, but still imply fast. Like you're still implying that this is supposed to be faster. So people are going to then figure that in their head, whatever they want it to be. That's that means front of the line. Well, nobody said that, but you know, 

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: Hey, I always see, I have clients constantly. Well I did, but uh, would call it front of the line. Pass for fast pass. Like, no, there's

Heather: not what it is. And you need to, we, they need to

Jeff: even VIP tours. Aren't front of the line pass. You still have to stand in the, in the past past line. 

Jess: I guess that's why they didn't go with their original title, which was the cutscenes pass. 

Jeff: You know, what is front of the line pass or access is if he ever do a VIP tour at SeaWorld, they walk you in the back thing and puts you on, not just ahead of everyone, but on the front seat of every rollercoaster. Like that is awesome. 

Jess: But I like the back because it's faster in the back. 

Jeff: you could do that

Heather: Yeah. If that, if you prefer the back, they'll let you do that.

Jeff: Yeah. He loves it in the back.

Heather: They're very accommodating at SeaWorld.

Jess: Oh, we'll see. 

Jeff: Did you say seaward? 

Jess: Let's just say I got, I gotta think for penguins. We'll see what they can do.

Jeff: I think this, this is step one for Disney trying to do it. I think next step we'll see throttling where they can realize that they just stopped selling them. If you have to be in the park or whatever, I think next step would be geo-fencing. And after that would be through.

Heather: Yeah.

Jess: we're going to definitely like see this summer. The cutoff go into effect. Cause I mean, it starts June 8th, so I guarantee you it's going to be like immediate because you've already got everybody that bought their, their pre-stay and then the people that heard it was going to be cut off and I bought it for that.

So summer's going to be kind of a mess for it and then hopefully it'll calm down after that. 

Heather: But we also have to figure, they've got to figure out a better way to do it than making people stay up to midnight to buy it because that's, that's just not

Jeff: And then once you buy it, you can't do anything with it until in the morning.

Dan: I really, really think that the max pass system you've got to be inside, so, okay. So even if you don't make them wait to be inside the park to buy the, the system, you gotta be inside the gates of the park

Jeff: to reserve

Dan: making gin genie plus reservations. I think that's a great solution that works. It worked for max pass

Heather: And honestly, there's opportunity to make. This a benefit for on-site guests 

Jess: Yeah,

Jeff: them an hour earlier or something.

Jess: I'm surprised they 

Heather: way to make the on-site guests get to purchase it a little bit earlier or something

Jeff: Yeah, they

Dan: or, or, or you let the on-site guests inside the park and hour early, so they can start

Jeff: Wait or 30 minutes,

Dan: their reservations 

Jess: No, it takes you 30 minutes to get to the other side of the park. They wouldn't do 

Heather: But, something like that, you know, it keeps kid, there's an op there's opportunity there, and that helps sell

Jeff: that would be magical if they did, they could call it like extra magic hour or

Heather: Oh, that's a great idea.

Dan: Carla Bob,

Jeff: Yeah. Not on my watch.

Dan: Carla Bob, we got a million

Heather: this is, it is a good step, but just, I mean, I think the four of us could engineer it better than they do, honestly.

Dan: back.

Jeff: any of these ideas. I have the good ideas, but.

Jess: There's a great, um, episode of defunct land, the YouTube channel, and it's, it's an hour and a half long, but it is a breakdown of the history of FastPass and how lightening and what they were trying to do with lightning lane and how it's never going to work. Yeah. 

Heather: son keeps trying to get me to the watch that, and every couple of days he says, mom, did you watch that yet? But you know what,

Jeff: I want to watch

Jess: It takes a while. Yeah, break it up in if you need to in chunks, but it is 

Heather: about an hour and a half long, 

Jess: It's like a full movie length. Yeah. But it's, it's really, if you're into park stuff, it? is very riveting and it's, it's interesting info and it makes you feel, it makes you feel pretty sad afterwards.

Cause you're like, oh wow. So now I completely understand the problem here and now I don't have any hope that they're going to tackle this in the right way. 

Jeff: need to have the people at Disney. Watch that

Dan: Yeah, but 

Jess: I'll put a call in. 

Heather: Yeah.

Jeff: call Bob. What happened then?

Dan: Oh, there it is. I was missing the, uh, I was missing the keyboard for my second monitor computer and all of a sudden it started going crazy. Cause I accidentally set something down on top of the 

Jess: Oh, too many keyboards and embarrassment of riches. We have too many keyboards. Oh, what would I do with all these keyboards? 

Dan: a whole thing. Cause I don't have to use a both now because the news version of iOS, you can use one keyboard for both computers, even though there's nerd alert. Anyway, it's time for me to say, thanks for 

Jess: I'm 

Dan: out with us again. This. If you're excited to try out genie plus 2.0 or explore anywhere else around the world, Key to the world. Travel has a lightning lane full of expert travel planners ready to make your vacation dreams a reality. Head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com to get started with a no obligation quote.

Don't forget to catch up with our friend, the theme park professor for all the latest theme park news and tips at www.themeparkprofessor.com.

Word of mouth is the best way to help us grow our show. If you have a friend or two who you think would appreciate our special brand of globetrotting jackassery, tell them what makes our show so great and send them our way. You can find Lisa subscribe to the show on your favorite apps and all the latest updates at www.goldkeyadventurers.com.

We can't wait to hang out with you again next week. We'll see you real soon.

Jeff:Hasta La squeegee.