This fall Disney World rolled out two brand new ways to skip the lines at popular attractions throughout all four parks — Disney Genie+ and Individual Attraction Selections.
These two services replaced FastPass+ and, instead of being free, now guests must pay to utilize them throughout the day. We’ve been in the parks testing them both out over the past three months to help you decide whether it’s worth paying for and now we’re bringing you along as we use Genie+ during the busiest time of year — Christmas week!
As a quick reminder, Disney Genie+ currently costs $15 per person, per day at Disney World and includes access to new Lightning Lanes (aka the old FastPass+ lanes) at over 40 different attractions across all four parks. Unlike FastPass+, guests can only book on Lightning Lane 1-hour return window at a time, so once you’ve redeemed your reservation, you can book your next.
There’s quite a bit to learn about the new system before you visit Disney World, so be sure to check out some of our posts below if you’re just getting started:
- Disney Genie and Genie Plus: The Ultimate Guide!
- The Confusing 120 Minute Disney Genie+ Rule You NEED to Know
- VIDEOS: What We’ve Learned Using Genie+ in Disney World This Past Month
- What is Park Hopping Like Now With Disney Genie?
- How Does Disney Genie+ Work With Multiple Guests in One Party?
- Get Answers to Your BIGGEST Disney Genie Questions HERE!
And, now for the big question — is Genie+ really helpful during the holidays? Let’s find out together by taking a look at some of our holiday experiences with Genie+!
Magic Kingdom
We decided to test out Genie+ in Magic Kingdom the day after Christmas on December 26th, 2021. Crowds were still pretty heavy from the holiday week, so we were curious to see which attractions were the most popular (or hard to get) through Genie+, and two certainly stuck out — Peter Pan’s Flight and Jungle Cruise (which has its holiday overlay, Jingle Cruise).
We got to the park around 9:30AM and were able to book our first Lightning Lane for Jungle Cruise with a return time of 10:45AM to 11:45PM. Not too bad for the morning in Magic Kingdom!
But, as we started searching the My Disney Experience app for what we would book next around 10:30AM, the next available return window for Jungle Cruise wasn’t until 7:10PM (!!). The only other attraction with a return window that wasn’t within the next two hours was Peter Pan’s Flight, which had 2:45 to 3:45PM as the next available.
By 11AM, things were getting busier in the park, and return windows for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Haunted Mansion, and Splash Mountain were a few hours out. Plus, Jungle Cruise availability had backed up all the way to 8:20PM and eventually started showing as unavailable for the rest of the day around 1PM.
When it comes to whether Genie+ will save you time actually waiting in line though, we found that there was certainly a benefit. When we hopped in the Lightning Lane for Jungle Cruise, our wait time was 12 minutes, whereas the standby line had climbed all the way up to 75 minutes!
So, using Genie+ in Magic Kingdom over the holidays can be beneficial if you don’t want to wait in long lines, but you’ll want to prioritize reservations for Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan’s Flight.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Disney Genie+ park hops with guests, so we decided to head on over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the rest of the day! And, things were looking a bit more limited when it comes to Genie+ return times.
At 1PM, Slinky Dog Dash was marked as unavailable and had no additional return times for the day, the next available Lightning Lane was 2:30PM at Star Tours, and other popular rides (like Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and Toy Story Mania) were only available much later into the evening.
We ended up booking a few additional Lightning Lanes further into the evening but weren’t able to reserve many attractions due to the late return times.
So, do you need to arrive at Hollywood Studios at park opening to make Genie+ worth it during the holidays? Well, luckily we had tested it out the week before on December 22nd, 2021 — here’s what we found!
Right at 7 AM (which is when all guests can make their firt Lightning Lane reservation), we tried to book Slinky Dog Dash, as this ride tends to sell out of Lightning Lane return windows really fast (even on less busy days!).
When we started our booking through Genie+, it had said we were getting a reservation for 8AM but by the time we were through all the steps to book, the reservation had been pushed back to 11:15AM. This means that a lot of people were booking their Lightning Lane for Slinky Dog Dash at the same time and the timeslots were filling up even as we were booking our reservation.
Because our Slinky Dog Dash reservation was scheduled for 2.5 hours after the park opened, we were able to make another Lightning Lane selection 2 hours after the park opened (thanks to the 120-minute rule).
So, at 10:30AM we opened up the My Disney Experience app to find that both Millennium Falcon and Slinky Dog Dash had both sold out for the day already, and decided to book the next available reservation for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway (which is only part of Genie+ for a limited time) at 5:20PM.
At 12:30PM (after using our Slinky Dog Dash reservations), we were then able to grab a 1:30PM reservation for Toy Story Mania after some “fiddle faddling” (aka refreshing the app repeatedly).
Especially during busy times like the holiday, it’s useful to fiddle faddle and check the tip board often —Â you never know what might pop up!
And, after we rode Toy Story Mania, we did some more refreshing and we were able to get a Tower of Terror reservation later in the evening…
…and later on, a Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster reservation.
So, while we didn’t get to ride much early in the morning using Genie+ due to the crowds booking up reservations, we were still able to skip many of the biggest standby lines in the parks by staying later into the evening and refreshing the app often.
The only issue that we ran into at Hollywood Studios more often than other parks was Lighting Lane return windows changing or selling out while we were in the process of booking them, so you’ll need to be sure to move through the steps quickly once you’ve selected.
EPCOT
We also scrolled through the My Disney Experience app to check in on the Lightning Lane reservations at EPCOT during the holiday week and noticed that return windows for Frozen Ever After (which is included with the cost of Genie+ instead of being a pay-per-ride attraction for a limited time) had become unavailable by 1PM…
…and Test Track had also booked up by 1PM as well.
But, there were still quite a few other attractions available with return windows within the hour. So, like other parks, it seems that the popular rides “sell-out” pretty quickly in terms of Lightning Lane availability.
Disney’s Animal Kingdom
We visited Animal Kingdom on December 29th, and promptly at 7AM we went to book Kilimanjaro Safaris for an 8AM to 9AM return window. But, Genie+ glitched, and we ended up with a 9AM to 10AM return time.
After we scanned into Safaris, we were able to get a 10:40AM Dinosaur reservation by fiddling around a bit in the app, since at the time Genie was mostly showing 12:30PM reservations.
Next, we wanted to book an Individual Lightning Lane for Expedition Everest, but Genie was only showing times for 3:30PM. However, after checking around for a short while, we were able to reserve a 12PM time slot!
After Expedition Everest we wanted to park hop to Hollywood Studios, so we decided to start booking there.
Disney’s Hollywood Studios
We rode Expedition Everest around 12PM, and we wanted to book a ride for Hollywood Studios around 3PM to 4PM so that we could kick off the 120 minute rule before even making our way over there. After we fiddled around, we reserved a 4:05PM Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Lightning Lane, which was originally showing us 6:30PM time slots!
Like we noted during a previous visit, it’s important and useful to fiddle around and check the tip board often. On this day we were able to book three different rides at earlier times than were initially shown, so don’t give up!
Overall
All in all, using Genie+ during the holidays certainly can save you time, but you’ll need to be willing to do some planning ahead and have your phone out often to find the best return windows.
Here are our key takeaways to help you use Genie+ during the holidays:
- Getting to the parks early pays off. With major attractions selling out quickly, the key to maximizing your day at the parks is to arrive at the parks close to opening. And, if you’re staying at a Disney World hotel, then taking advantage of Early Theme Park Entry can help you ride even more.
- Prioritize which rides you want to “skip the line” at. It’s important to select Lightning Lane return windows in the order of which rides you want to hop on the most rather than the next available return time during busy seasons. You might not check off all the rides on your list, but knowing your priorities will ensure that you get on your must-do attractions.
- Go for the big rides first — they go fast. Lightning Lanes for the bigger, more popular attractions do tend to “sell out” during the holidays, so you’ll want to make those selections first and then fill in your day around those.
- Embrace the Fiddle Faddle. Guests are constantly changing, canceling, and rearranging their Genie+ reservations, so it can pay off to refresh your app often to see if something you want becomes available. This will require you to be on your phone pretty often, so pack a portable phone charger with you to be sure your phone doesn’t die.
And, don’t forget that all of these attractions still have standby lines available for free so you don’t have to pay for Genie+ if you’d prefer not to! Of course, we’ll continue to bring you all the latest tips and tricks for skipping the lines in Disney World, so be sure to stay tuned to AllEars for the latest!
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We just got back from 2 weeks and were able to really maximize the use of G+ once we figured out the tricks. HS we would try to get a Slinky Dog within the first hour. If that didn’t happen then we would book it for early evening as we love it at night. We then spent early entry getting done what we could — usually SDD / Saucers / TSM and either MMRR or Smugglers. We’d then spend the rest of the day at the resort stacking for the evening. We’d usually have 5 of them lined up over the course of an hour and a half or so.
We used a similar strategy at MK and AK. For MK we’d go for a Peter Pan right at 9:00a and then fiddle fiddle. We’d usually end up also getting Space, Big Thunder, and Splash for use before 10:30. One day we ended up with 11 or 12 G+ LL’s in MK.
EP we found it worthless for us because we don’t care about Test Track.
I’ve been finding that most Genie+ Lighting Lanes are filling up quickly and you have to already have planned what attractions you want to do and just grab them when Nd if they are available. Heck I’ve had better luck with mobile ordering times slots than Genie times. Definitely not worth the money on high capacity days.