Since the introduction of Disney’s Genie+ and Lightning Lane services in 2021, guests have been trying to navigate the My Disney Experience App to understand how to use this upgrade service. We’ve used it on two separate trips to help you understand the ‘New FastPass‘.
MASTERING GENIE+ at Walt Disney world
Orlando, Florida
HEY STRANGERS!
Whilst visiting Walt Disney World, you certainly want to enjoy as many of the 4 park’s attractions and shows as possible. With the old FastPass system out the window, we’re here to help you out when it comes to tackling Disney’s Genie+ and Lightning Lane.
At the Walt Disney World Resort, Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom all have Lightning Lane attractions.
We will discuss:
- What to know before you start
- What is Genie+ and what’s included
- Pricing for Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes
- How to get Genie+
- How to book a Lightning Lane
- What to do when your Lightning Lane is ready
- Our Genie+ TOP TIPS
- Is Genie+ worth it?
Before You Start
Tickets – In order to use the Disney Genie+ services, you will need valid theme park admission to one or more of the 4 theme parks, as well as a valid park pass reservation.
The service will be available for whichever park you’re visiting and if you have a park-hopper ticket, you can make use of Genie+ in all of the theme parks on the same day for the same price as Genie+ in one park per day.
App – Genie+ operates through Walt Disney World’s My Disney Experience App, available on both iOS and Android. Everyone in your group will need a Disney account/profile to attach your tickets to. You will then all need add one another as friends in the App.
Note: Disney Park’s app are temperamental and combined with Disney’s free Wifi, tends to log you out regularly, crash or not display your information. Be sure to open the app well before the ride Lightning Lane entry tap points to get your valid Lightning Lane ready to be scanned.
What is Genie+ & What’s Included?
Introduced in late 2021 at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, Disney’s Genie+ service is an upgrade to your visit to the Walt Disney World parks. For an additional fee, guests can select rides to use the ‘Lightning Lane’ on, meaning you will skip the standby queue and avoids most of the physical standing queue line.
What’s included with the Genie+ fee?
- Lightning Lane – FastPass style service, helping you spend less time in physical queue lines.
- Attraction PhotoPass – Genie+ gives you a full day of Disney’s PhotoPass digital downloads of your vacation pictures.
- PhotoPass Lenses – Using a similar system to Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, enhance your Disney World selfies with fun and exciting AR filters featuring some of your favourite Disney characters!
- Audio Tales – Located around the parks and found through the My Disney Experience App’s map feature, enjoy audio experiences, including behind-the-scenes information, not available to general day guests.
What rides are included with Genie+?
Each guest may enjoy a Lightning Lane on each available ride once per day. Eg. once you use your Lightning Lane on Space Mountain you will not be able to book it again on the same day, on the Genie+ service.
Pricing for Genie+ & Individual Lightning Lane
Genie+ and individual Lightning Lane use dynamic pricing each day based on expected crowd levels. Busier days will cost more and quieter days will be less. Walt Disney World’s price range for the Genie+ service ranges from $15 – $30 per person, per day.
The Individual Lightning Lanes change regularly depending on which rides are classed as ‘add-ons’ and crowd levels. When writing this during March Spring Break 2023, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is $25 per person, Avatar Flight Of Passage is $16 per person, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is $12 per person and Guardian’s of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is $17 per person. NOTE – You can only use Individual Lightning Lanes once per ride.
How To Get Genie+
Buying Genie+ with your tickets has been discontinued in most locations. The only way to add Genie+ to your tickets is to purchase on the day, each day you wish to use it.
Buying On The Day – Purchasing on the day gives you the opportunity to gauge the crowd levels and decide for yourself whether you’re willing to wait in the displayed wait times or if you would like to upgrade. Genie+ sales begin at 7am each day. You can be anywhere to purchase the service but must have valid theme park admission and a Park Pass reservation for one of the Walt Disney World theme parks that day:
- Open the My Disney Experience App
- On the home page, scroll to Disney Genie+ Service and select purchase (it will show you today’s price here)
- You’ll be shown what’s included, at the bottom select ‘Get Disney Genie+ Service’
- Select which ticket/members of your party you want to add Genie+ to (You must add them as a friend on the app ahead of time)
- Proceed with payment options
How To Book A Lightning Lane
- Open the My Disney Experience App
- Press the three lines in the bottom right corner of the screen
- Select Tip Board – Here you will see all of the attraction’s queue times, show times, and when the next Lightning Lane is available.
- Select which park you’re visiting at the top by clicking ‘Change Park’
- Scroll up and down to look through your options.
- When you find a ride you wish to Lightning Lane, click the button showing ‘LL Disney Genie+ [Arrival Time] Book Experience’
- Confirm your selection & which guests you would like to add to this Lightning Lane reservation
- DONE! To check your current Lightning Lanes, click the Home icon on the bottom left corner of the My Disney Experience App
When can I book my next Lightning Lane?
Lightning Lane’s can be made either 2 hours after making your reservation OR once you scan into the reservation at the ride’s Lightning Lane entrance, whichever comes first.
Example 1: At 9am you reserve Slinky Dog Dash for 2pm. You can make your next Lightning Lane reservation at 11am.
Example 2: At 9am you reserve Haunted Mansion for 9:30am. You can make your next Lightning Lane as soon as you scan into your Haunted Mansion reservation during the Lightning Lane 1 hour window of 9:30am – 10:30am.
How to book an Individual Lightning Lane?
For those rides, so special and popular that Disney has placed them behind their own pay gate, here’s how to make an Individual Lightning Lane:
- Open the My Disney Experience App
- Press the three lines in the bottom right corner of the screen
- Select Tip Board
- Select which park you’re visiting at the top by clicking ‘Change Park’
- Scroll up and down to look through your options.
- When you find an Individual Lightning Lane ride you wish to pay for, click the button showing ‘LL Individual Lightning Lane [Arrival Time] Purchase for $XX’
- Confirm your selection & which guests you would like to add to this Lightning Lane reservation
- Select your preferred payment menthod, you will see your total charge in USD and the purchase tax
- DONE! To check your current Lightning Lanes, click the Home icon on the bottom left corner of the My Disney Experience App
What to do when your Lightning Lane is ready?
The wait is over, it’s time to head to the attraction’s Lightning Lane entrance.
- Go to the attraction’s Lightning Lane entrance, usually located directly next to the ride’s standby line and identified with a large Lightning Lane sign and a clock.
- Open the My Disney Experience App
- On the App’s homepage, your Lightning Lane reservation will show a button – ‘Redeem’
- Select redeem and your Lightning Lane passes will appear. Swipe across to see your party’s passes.
- At the Lightning Lane entrance and scan your passes on your phone by inserting the phone into the scanner slot. Alternatively you can scan your theme park tickets, use the Disney MagicMobile or a MagicBand.
You will now bypass most of the standby line before merging ahead of the ride’s pre-show or load station. Some rides appear to skip more of the standby than others.
NOTE – You may arrive at the ride to find a large Lightning Lane queue. Don’t worry, Disney prioritises the Lightning Lanes when this happens, so what appears to be a huge line may only take a few minutes.
Our Genie+ TOP TIPS
From our times using Genie+ we’ve got some useful tips to hopefully help you get on all of the rides you want!
- PURCHASE EARLY – It’s a Disney trip, of course you don’t mind waking up early! Head to the My Disney Experience App at 7am and begin the purchase process. If you want to book any Individual Lightning Lanes, we suggest you do this also at 7am to avoid them selling out (because they do!).
- BOOK & QUEUE – To maximise your ride count, early mornings normally mean low queue times. Book your first Lightning Lane and queue for a ride with a smaller queue time.
- BOOK IN ADVANCE – Rides like Slinky Dog Dash sell out faster than others. One of your first reservations should be one of these rides. It’s 9am and you book Slinky for 6pm. Wait 2 hours, line up for some of the other rides with the early morning smaller lines and after 2 hours you can book your next ride!
- STACK ‘EM UP – Once you’ve waiting the 2 hours, book a LL that starts soon! As soon as you use this new reservation you can quickly book your next one.
- SCAN AND BOOK – As soon as you enter the Lightning Lane queue, scan your pass and immediately hop on the My Disney Experience App to book your next reservation.
- NON-LIGHTNING LANE RIDES – Not all of Walt Disney World’s rides have Lightning Lane. Make the most of your time waiting for your next reservation and queue up for some of the non-LL rides, like Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros in EPCOT.
- TIME MOVE – Running late for a Lightning Lane reservation? Don’t worry, you secretly get about 15 minutes of grace period after your redemption window ends. Alternatively, you can now change your LL redemption time by going to your LL reservation on the home page of the App, select modify and it will offer you the next available time to move your reservation to!
Is Genie+ Worth It?
The Disney Genie+ and Lightning Lane service can be complicated, difficult, restricting and expensive. However, if you’re only visiting the Walt Disney World for a couple of days, it makes it tough to turn down when the attraction wait times exceed 60+ minutes.
We haven’t found a need to use individual Lightning Lanes yet as we had already ridden all of the ‘additional fee’ attractions like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and when one ride on these attractions alone costs the same as the entire Genie+ service, it’s difficult to justify the fee.
Now it’s your turn. We’ve told you everything we know about Disney’s new FastPass service, our top tips, best practices and as much information as we feel you’ll need to successfully pull off the military operation that it visiting a Disney theme park in the post-pandemic world!
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Here’s a recap, from Disney…
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