How to Buy Genie+ & Make Ride Reservations

Genie+ is a paid line-skipping service that replaces free FastPass+ for select attractions in each park at Walt Disney World. The service is now available to purchase for $15.98 per person, per day in the My Disney Experience app. This will dramatically change visiting Walt Disney World whether you buy it or not, and we’re here to walk you through the process for purchasing Genie+ and making your first ride reservation.

There are still a lot of questions about the whole Disney Genie system, and we’ve been doing our best to answer those in the Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ. However, launch day for Disney Genie marks the first opportunity we’ve had to actually get our hands on the app feature, so a lot of that is going to change soon.

Additionally, we have updated itineraries to get you ready to use the paid Genie+ service:

Lots more coming on Lightning Lanes and Genie+ throughout this week. For now, let’s get you started with purchasing the Disney Genie+ ride reservation add-on…

To start using the Disney Genie suite of offerings, you’ll need to update the My Disney Experience app to version 7 by visiting the Apple iOS App Store or Google Play Store. You can either click those links or open the respective app stores and search for My Disney Experience.

We’d also recommend setting up the free side of the service before doing this–we walk through the process in How to Set Up Free Genie Itineraries in My Disney Experience. Now, let’s pick up where that left off…

If you didn’t purchase Disney Genie+ as part of the itinerary builder flow, there are still a few options and prompts.

The most visible of which should be the purple banner (above at the bottom “My Day”) offering you the ability to “Take Your Day to the Next Level.”

After clicking that, you’ll see the above screen advertising the benefits of the Disney Genie+ service.

Click “Get Disney Genie+ Service” to begin the purchase process.

NOTE: This only applies to same day purchases, which require valid admission and Disney Park Pass reservations. If you don’t have both, you’re going to get a message to call or contact your travel agent. There’s really not much upside to doing that–just wait until your trip to add it on daily as desired (our recommendation) or buy length of stay tickets with Genie+ for each day (NOT our recommendation).

The transaction screen shows the final price ($15.98, not $15 flat!) after tax.

It’ll also show your contact info (phone & email) and offer payment options of gift card, Visa rewards redemption card, or debit/credit card. That’s a lot to personal info for me to block out and is pretty straightforward–all autofilled if you’ve used Mobile Order or anything have a credit card on file with Walt Disney World–so I’m going to assume you know the drill there. You’ve probably purchased something online before.

After confirming the order, you’ll receive a very long confirmation code that hopefully never needs to be re-typed anywhere.

From there, click continue and you’re deposited back out onto the “My Day” screen of My Disney Experience.

Now, let’s turn to your first Disney Genie+ ride reservation of the day.

As we’ve covered elsewhere, you can begin making these selections at 7 am, regardless of whether you’re an on-site or off-site guest. (I don’t know why it says “Buy at Park Open or if a Resort Guest at 7 am” given that we already purchased and are not resort guests.)

As of 6:59 am, all options were greyed out.

When the clock rolled over to 7 am, selections were still grey, so we scrolled to the top and pulled down hard for a refresh. Perhaps there’s a better way to do this, but it’s still day one. (Will update accordingly once we figure it out.)

Our top priority is Jungle Cruise, so we scrolled down and chose that–9 am return time as of 7 am.

By the time we took screenshots and got to the next screen, Jungle Cruise’s return time had already progressed to 9:05 am to 10:05 am. This is going to work just like legacy (paper) FastPass, with times progressing in tandem with guest selections. The higher the demand, the earlier they’re gone.

No reason for delay or reviewing our plans here–we quickly hit “Continue.”

Above is the confirmation screen. This whole process should look fairly familiar to anyone who has used MaxPass at Disneyland or even the virtual queues at Walt Disney World.

It even features a cute animation with kids wearing Minnie, Mickey, and Donald Duck hats passing Lightning Lane tapstiles.

Back on the “My Day” screen, Sarah now has Jungle Cruise showing as her first Genie+ Lightning Lane redemption.

It also shows the Magic Carpets of Aladdin as her next recommendation, which is arguably not the best advice ever. Giving the system the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this is due to proximity?

On another note, Sarah’s next Genie+ Lightning Lane selection is available at 9:00 am per the banner above. This is interesting since her Jungle Cruise window doesn’t open until 9:05 am.

We were previously advised that the clock would start ticking on the 120 minute rule at park opening, which would mean that this is not because of that (her selection was made at 7 am, so that would be 120 minutes later). Maybe it’s a 5 minute grace period from the Jungle Cruise window opening? Maybe it’s an error? I guess we’ll find out later today!

Speaking of which, there’s probably a lot we’re going to learn by using the paid Genie+ and free Genie services throughout today and this week. Don’t be surprised if things change, or how these features work in practice slightly contradicts prior information.

As noted in our other ‘how to’ post, we’re reserving judgment all of this. It’s still day one and we’ve yet to use it in Magic Kingdom yet. Speaking of which, we’ll be in the park today testing competing strategy (“competing” is probably the wrong word since Sarah will have Genie+) and will have a full report back on our results either late tonight or, more likely, tomorrow morning. If you happen to see us today or throughout the rest of the week—lots of field testing, research, etc. planned—please say hello!

Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!

YOUR THOUGHTS

What do you think of the paid Genie+ service? Planning on using it to skip standby lines, or do you prefer not to pay even more for an already expensive Walt Disney World vacation? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!

37 Responses to “How to Buy Genie+ & Make Ride Reservations”
  1. Lisa January 23, 2022
  2. Sandog October 23, 2021
  3. Harbene Zaleski October 21, 2021
  4. Krista October 20, 2021
  5. Aaron October 20, 2021
  6. Jessica October 20, 2021
  7. Jessy M. October 20, 2021
  8. JP October 20, 2021
  9. JP October 19, 2021
  10. Mick Sharp October 19, 2021
  11. George October 19, 2021
  12. Francisco C October 19, 2021
  13. Andrea October 19, 2021
  14. Chrissy October 19, 2021
  15. Jake October 19, 2021
  16. Max October 19, 2021

Leave a Reply to Francisco C Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *