On our recent trip to Walt Disney World, my family got to try out Disney Genie+ and Lightning Lanes. Disney Parks recently introduced Genie, the new in park planning tool, as well as Genie+ and Individual Lightening Lane services and people have a wide range of opinions. Today, I will talk a little more about the Genie Plus service and tell you what I thought of it!
As a person who lives too far away from Disney to be a frequent visitor, the changes felt very overwhelming at first. My husband and I still remember running to get paper fast passes on our Honeymoon and we were also pretty comfortable with digital Fast Pass system that had been available for free up until the parks closed due to the pandemic, so the thought of paying to wait less wasn’t something we loved, but we were willing to give it a try.
You can purchase Disney Genie+ in advance for your entire trip, but we decided to purchase it in the morning on the days we wanted to use it. The service is $15 a person per day however, that does not include tax, so it ends up being $15.98 per person. For my family of three, it was just under $50 a day. We bought it three times, so the extra expense came to almost $150 for the week. It felt like a lot to spend on a service that was once free, but when we compared it to similar services at other theme parks we’ve been to, it was much less expensive.
Now that we’ve gotten a few of the basics out of the way, let’s talk about my experience! My dad and step mom got us all an Individual Lightening Lane pass for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in Epcot and we purchased three days worth of Genie+. The wait for Remy through the Lightening Lane was very short. Unfortunately, it broke right as we were about to get into a ride vehicle. They scanned our band and told us to come back at any time. When we did go back, we ended up having to talk to three cast members to get back into line. The first two told us that we had a boarding group, but not a Lightening Lane. It did get sorted out and the ride was a lot of fun! The boarding groups for the ride were gone right at 7AM that day, so if Disney World’s newest ride is a must for you, it is worth paying for!
We used the Genie+ at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood studios. It was amazing in Magic Kingdom. Our first MK day was a busy Sunday, and we were still able to get almost constant Lightening Lane selections. The longest we waited in line all day was about 10 minutes. My daughter is just under 40 inches, so she couldn’t ride any of the big rides, but we rode almost everything else in a day. In my opinion, the service is a must for Magic Kingdom, even if you have several days planned at the park. After our second day at MK, we park hopped to Hollywood Studios for dinner and a few rides. I was very disappointed to find that almost all the Genie+ selections for gone by 3:30PM. We were able to get one for Alien Swirling Saucers for much later in the evening. We originally were going to buy Genie+ for our full day at Hollywood Studios, but because of that experience, we decided not to.
Overall, I really enjoyed the Genie+ service and found it to be a good value for our time at Magic Kingdom, but didn’t think it would have been worth the cost at any other park.
Have you used Genie+ yet? I’d love to hear your opinions!