UPDATE 07/24/2024: The Genie+ service has now been retired at Disney World in Orlando. View my Lightning Lane page to learn all about the new service. The Genie+ functionality at Disneyland California remains the same, just renamed to Lightning Lane.
The Genie/Lightning Lane services have gone live at Disney World. I’ve been hearing alot of questions and confusion, so I’ll attempt to clear things up. Things are always changing at Disney though, so I’ll update these as much as possible.
Read my other blog posts for the details.
Here are some quick bullet points if you want the short version.
- This works very similarly to the old FastPass/MaxPass system, just paid for and with different names for things. Employ some of the same strategies.
- The free standby lines or boarding groups are still available for most rides if you don’t want to buy any of this.
- The Genie+ includes all the “regular” rides at each park, whereas the individual a la carte/individual lightning lane passes are for the really super popular rides.
- You don’t have to buy Genie+ to buy the individual lightning lane/a la carte rides, or vice versa.
- They’re separate independent systems. You can hold a pass or two from each type of ride at the same time.
- You don’t have to buy these for every day of your trip or even for every person in your party.
- The Genie+ batch of rides costs a flat fee (varies by day, usually around $20-30) per person per day for access to book all those rides, even if you park hop. You can ride as many of those rides as you can fit into the day, but can pick each ride only one time per day with a Genie+ pass. Otherwise, you will need to use the Standby line for additional rides.
- For Genie+, everyone can pick their first ride at 7am the day of. Then, you can pick your next ride as soon as you scan into the currently booked ride or two hours from when you booked the current ride if it’s more than 2 hours away, whichever comes first.
- You cannot pick return times for the Genie+ rides. You just get whatever the next available time slot is as listed in the app, so make sure to pick one with a time that you can do. If you realize later that you can’t do it, make sure to modify or cancel it before your window starts.
- For individual a la carte rides, you’re limited to 2 a day, but you can buy both at 7am if you’re staying at a Disney resort or at that park’s official opening time if you’re not staying at a Disney resort.
- If you’re park hoping, you can split your two individual a la carte rides between two parks. Just make sure the return time for your second park’s ride is after 2pm. since that’s when you can start hopping. You can pick the specific return windows for the a la cart rides.
- Once you buy an individual a la carte ride time slot, the pass is NOT changeable, cancelable, or refundable, so choose carefully.
- There is usually a grace period of 5 minutes before and 15 minutes after your return window to scan into the ride. It depends on the ride and cast members though, so try not to be too early/late.
- If you miss your return window entirely, the system will consider that you have ridden it even though you didn’t, and you will not be able to pick that ride again.
Hope this helps! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Adventures By Anne 