Beep, beep, beep (cue annoying alarm clock sound). It's your 7am Genie+ wake-up call. I know, no one wants to set an alarm for 6:55 am while they're on vacation. I am not a morning person, I get it. But, waking up early > than waiting in line for hours. So, every day we are at Disney, the annoying alarm clock beeping happens and I wake up to book our first ride(s) of the day. So, let's talk all about Disney Genie+ at Walt Disney World (this is probably going to be a long one).
Let's kick off this post with some terminology. I know, terminology=snore but I promise it will help.
Disney Genie: This is Disney's free service that they claim "creates your best Disney day inspired by your party’s top interests. It also grants you planning features, including a personalized itinerary creator that seamlessly and smartly maps out your visit with updates that continue from morning to night. And, Disney Genie service can even remind you when you’re eligible to make dining and activity reservations in advance." It's built-in to the My Disney Experience app under "My Disney Genie Day." TBH, I don't ever use any of the Genie's tailored recommendations. I do use it to purchase the Genie+ service.
Disney Genie+: This is a paid service you can add on either when you purchase your park ticket or starting at midnight on the day you'll be at the park. It is priced per person and the price varies based on demand. I've seen anything between $15 to $29 per person per day when we've been there. Genie+ is what will get you lightning lane access to MANY (not all!) of the rides in the parks. The website states "On average, guests can enter 2 to 3 attractions or experiences per day using the Lightning Lane entrance if the first selection is made early in the day." We are typically able to book more than that using Genie+ (will provide some examples later in the post!). Fun fact: on our recent February 2023 trip, the Genie+ service actually sold out for the first time since it's been introduced. We were still able to get on more than the 2-3 attractions that day.
Lightning Lane (LL): This is the special entrance that is available at many (not all) rides/shows in the parks that gives you priority access (and significantly shorter wait times). Important: Some Lightning Lane entrances are offered through Disney Genie+ service. Other Lightning Lane entrances may be purchased individually. So we'll refer to attractions where lightning lane is available if you buy Genie+ as Genie+ LL and those that you need to purchase separately as Individual Lightning Lane or ILL throughout the rest of this post. The price of ILLs also varies based on demand and is per person.
Virtual Queue: Super popular rides, usually when they are still pretty new, use a virtual queue to access the ride. You must join the virtual queue and then come back when they are boarding your group to get in line (or purchase access using ILL). The first virtual queue will open at 7am and you have to have a reservation at that park to access the queue. Currently, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind at Epcot still uses virtual queue. This means you have to have an Epcot park reservation for the day to access the 7am virtual queue. There is currently a 1pm virtual queue as well if you weren't able to get a boarding group at 7am. Virtual queues are free to join. Certain rides may also offer individual lightning lane access for purchase (Cosmic Rewind does!). On a recent trip, it took us ~1 hour to get through the virtual queue for Cosmic Rewind (from the time we entered the line to the time we got off the ride). We did our ILL almost immediately after, and it took us less than half that time. Note that you can virtual queue and purchase the ILL for the same ride to ride it twice in one day.
Okay, so next up some ground rules:
You can only access an attraction through Genie+ once per day.
LL for popular rides will get booked up and become unavailable. This is true for both Genie+ LL access and ILL.
An attraction will either have no LL access, Genie+ LL access, or ILL access. It will not have Genie+ LL and ILL access at the same time. The type of access can change over time but is shown on the Tip Board in the My Disney Experience app.
As mentioned above, a virtual queue attraction may also have ILL purchase available.
You can purchase multiple ILL attractions (but only one ILL per attraction)
You will receive a 1 hour window to access the attraction (this is true of Genie+ LL and ILL). We've been able to scan in 5 minutes before a window and up to 15 minutes after the window. I've heard rumors they will let you on even after that 15 minute grace period, but I have not tried that myself.
ILL booking for Disney resort hotels and select other hotels begins at 7:00am (begins when the park opens for everyone else).
And the most important rule! Genie+ LL booking for the day starts at 7:00 am. You can book your first Genie+ LL for the day at that time. Once you book your first Genie+ LL for the day, you have to wait until either you've scanned into your previous Genie+ LL reservation or 2 hours has passed (whichever is first) in order to make your next Genie+ LL reservation. BUT, the 2 hours start from the park open hours. So let's say you made your first reservation for an Epcot ride when you woke up at 7am, but the park doesn't open until 9am that day. You can't make your second reservation until either you've scanned into your first ride or 11am (2 hours from park open).
STRATEGY: Let's talk strategy. I assume that, if you're spending the gazillion dollars on Genie+, you want to use it for as many attractions as possible. Kind of a difficult thing to do if everyone else that purchased Genie+ is trying to do the same thing and there are a limited number of reservations for each Genie+ LL attraction. And it gets even more confusing because at 7am sharp you have to do virtual queue, Genie+ LL and ILL (if staying at a Disney hotel or select hotel). If you are buying Genie+, purchase it before 7am so you are ready to go when the clock strikes 7. My strategy is always to do virtual queue first, then Genie+ LL, then ILL. I would also usually book any rides over shows so I won't talk much about shows below. We've not had to use Genie+ LL on many of the shows.
Virtual Queue strategy - You can pre-select your party in the Genie service. Just go on the Tip Board, find the ride and you'll see the option to pre-select the party. When you're on the Virtual Queue screen, you'll see a button on the screen that says "Join Virtual Queue". Leave your app on this screen. Get off the hotel wifi (your phone's data plan is usually faster but you can do a speed test to check), open up the world clock on another screen and watch that countdown. Right before the clock hits 7am, switch back to the Disney app screen and hit the "Join Virtual Queue" button. You should see a boarding group and an estimated return time (in number of minutes). Note the return time estimate will continue to change so keep an eye on this one throughout the day.
Genie+ LL strategy - have a plan for what rides you absolutely want to go on before 7am and go for the most popular ones first because they will sell out faster. More later on popular rides. My favorite strategy here is stacking rides, which I'll also talk about later in the post.
ILL strategy - If you don't want long waits and the ILL rides are on your list, buy these if they are in your budget. You can buy more than one attraction (but each attraction only one time). If you do the purchase at 7am, there is generally availability for these as guests not staying at a Disney resort (or select hotel) can't book until the park opens. You have to pick the return window though when you buy. If you are park hopping, you can also buy ILLs for your next park but have to choose a return window after the 2pm park hopping time.
THE RIDES: As promised, here's the section on what's usually the most popular/sells out the fastest at each park. This can change and is solely based on the availability I've been able to find with Genie+ in our recent trips. My arbitrary tiering system for Genie+ LL rides is as follows:
1= will probably sell out if you don't book it early, book these first
2= you might be able to find times for later in the day but book after the 1s
3=will probably be able to find times for these but may have to wait 2-3 hours
Not listed means you probably won't have issues finding them on Genie+ so just slot them in when you can
As mentioned above, I'm not focusing much on shows here since we are generally able to use standby without a problem. I also haven't done most of the character greets (we prefer to just do character dining instead) so are leaving those off my lists as well.
ANIMAL KINGDOM
ILL (requires separate purchase at time of this post): Flight of Passage
Tier 1 Genie+ LL: Na'vi River Journey
Tier 2 Genie+ LL: Kilimanjaro Safaris, Expedition Everest
Tier 3 Genie+ LL: Dinosaur, Festival of the Lion King (technically a show but we do use LL because this one can get pretty crowded)
I've actually never done Kali River Rapids but the popularity will be entirely dependent on how hot it is, so I'm not slotting this one into a tier.
HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
ILL (requires separate purchase at time of this post): Rise of the Resistance
Tier 1 Genie+ LL: Slinky Dog Dash (if you want to go on this, this should absolutely be your number one Genie+ LL booking)
Tier 2 Genie+ LL: Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, Tower of Terror
Tier 3 Genie+ LL: Smuggler's Run, Rock 'n' Rollercoaster, Toy Story Mania
EPCOT
ILL (requires separate purchase at time of this post): Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (also uses Virtual Queue)
Tier 1 Genie+ LL: Ratatouille, Test Track
Tier 2 Genie+ LL: Frozen Ever After
Tier 3 Genie+ LL: Soarin'
MAGIC KINGDOM
This is the hardest one for me to rank because, if you've read some of my other posts, you know I don't really like Magic Kingdom. But, I'll try.
ILL (requires separate purchase at time of this post): Seven Dwarves Mine Train
Tier 1 Genie+ LL: Peter Pan's Flight, Jungle Cruise
Tier 2 Genie+ LL: Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder
Tier 3 Genie+ LL: Pirates, Small World, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh
As a reminder, if a ride is not listed, it means that I generally haven't seen it be an issue to book if you want to book it so just slot it in somewhere when you have time.
STACKING: I am not a morning person so the thought of waking up early to rope drop and then staying at the park all day sounds miserable to me. So my favorite thing is to just stack a bunch of rides using the 2-hour booking rule.
An example from Epcot for our recent trip is below. This is also a day that the Genie+ service sold out. I set my alarm for 6:58am, signed up for the Cosmic Rewind virtual queue at 7am, then booked our first Genie+ LL for 11:50am at Test Track. I also purchased the ILL for Cosmic Rewind (because it's the best ride at Disney!). Then I went back to sleep. Because Epcot didn't open until 9am, I wasn't able to book our second ride until 11am. At that time, I booked Soarin' without a problem. I wasn't able to book our next ride until 1pm (2 hours after the 11am booking). By this time, Frozen was sold out (shows as unavailable on the Tip Board). Well the next big secret is that people are canceling and changing their plans all the time. So I literally just refresh obsessively while I'm standing in line and can usually find availability pop up for even the most popular tier 1 rides. Sure enough, Frozen popped back up, and I grabbed that reservation.
So, we didn't need to head to the parks until 11:30am and were able to ride 5 of the most popular rides, all before 3:30pm. I actually did find Ratatouille pop back up this day as well, but didn't book it because I wanted to check out the Festival of the Arts food stands and do the Figment scavenger hunt before dinner.
MODIFYING: Disney did just launch a favorite function of mine in Genie+ that you should absolutely take advantage of: modifying a reservation! It sounds simple but is a game changer for me. You used to not be able to modify a Genie+ LL reservation. This meant if you wanted to change something, you would have to cancel and rebook a different reservation. This also reset your 2-hour booking window and meant you had to wait 2 hours to book another ride (or scan into your first ride). When you modify, you can replace your reservation but the 2-hour booking window does not restart. To do this, you find your reservation and click on Modify Plan.
It'll open a window where you can either modify the time for your current booked attraction or change to a new experience.
Sometimes, I'll just book a random attraction at the beginning of my 2-hour booking window to reset the 2-hour window and then refresh on the modify reservation screen until the attraction I actually want comes up. Game changer.
SETTING TOP SELECTIONS: One final favorite feature is setting top selections. You can do this when you first purchase Genie+ for the day or by going to Edit My Selections in the Genie window.
From here, you can select your top attractions and these will appear first on your Tip Board. It makes refreshing way easier because you don't have to scroll through a laundry list of attractions to find the one you want.
You can keep resetting your top picks throughout the day.
SUMMARY: That brings me to the end of my very long Genie+ post. Does the Genie grant wishes? If your wish is shorter wait times, then absolutely. Some examples (including ILL and virtual queue) of what we've done on our most recent trip when Genie+ actually sold out are below. Keep in mind that we go to Disney a lot so we skip a lot of the rides that we don't like as much and do sit-down restaurants, which take time. We also usually only stay at the parks for 5-6 hours maximum. Otherwise, we could have gone on a lot more each day.
Day 1 (6 Genie+ LL attractions)
Arrive at Animal Kingdom around 11:00am: Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest, Finding Nemo show
Bus over to Hollywood Studios: Slinky Dog, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Alien Swirling Saucers
Day 2 (5 Genie+ LL attractions)
Arrive at Magic Kingdom at around 12pm: Big Thunder, Seven Dwarves Mine Train
Monorail over to Epcot: Cosmic Rewind, Test Track, Soarin, Living with the Land, Frozen Ever After
If we went to the park all day and went on more available rides, I think we'd be able to do 8-10 attractions a day with Genie+. For my planner self, one of the most beautiful sights at Disney is seeing a list of LL rides stacked perfectly in my MDE app. I should probably get some new hobbies.
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