Characters Coming to Genie+ at Disney World
Walt Disney World is making more changes to Genie+, adding select character sightings with the goal of increasing capacity and variety to the paid FastPass replacement. This post offers a rundown of what’s getting a Lightning Lane, what to expect going forward, and our “wish list” for additional line-skipping access.
This actually isn’t Walt Disney World’s first tweak to the Genie+ system, but it is the first permanent one. Prior to this, Magic Kingdom added Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmastime Parade to the Genie+ lineup for the peak holiday weeks. Additionally, Walt Disney World moved one attraction per park from the Individual Lightning Lanes to Genie+ access. All of those moves “expired” earlier this month.
Those changes were made to prevent Genie+ from being overwhelmed during periods of high demand–like the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s Eve–which is exactly what occurred in the lead-up to Thanksgiving. That resulted in some of the longest lines in each park being at Guest Relations, countless refunds issued for Genie+ and, if comments on this blog are any indicate, poor guest satisfaction. Things have gotten better since then, so this is more about forward-looking demand plus Spring Break and Easter crowds.
Beginning January 26, 2022, guests will find select Character Sightings have been added as selections for Lightning Lane line-skipping with a purchase of the Disney Genie+ service.
On that date, three Character Sightings at Magic Kingdom and one at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be added to the permanent Genie+ Lightning Lane lineup. Expect more to be added as more character locations return.
First up is Princess Fairytale Hall in Magic Kingdom.
There, you’ll be able to book a Sighting with Cinderella and a Visiting Princess or a Sighting with Tiana and a Visiting Princess. In other words, these are two separate Genie+ Lightning Lane selections–each with two princesses. (NOTE: Every photo here of us is archival–we don’t have an “publishable” photos of us from the modified sightings. I shot the below photo of Mickey Mouse at the modified sighting, and even that required a decent amount of postprocessing to balance out the light.)
Also in Magic Kingdom, you’ll be able to see the Sighting with Mickey Mouse at Town Square Theater on Main Street, U.S.A.
As a reminder, Mickey Mouse is sporting his all-new EARidescent look designed for the Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary Celebration.
Finally, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will have one Genie+ Lightning Lane character option: Olaf at Celebrity Spotlight.
Interestingly, the Sighting with Minnie Mouse at Red Carpet Dreams and stars of Disney Junior in the Animation Courtyard are NOT part of the Genie+ additions at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. For now.
Also not part of the changes are all of the characters who returned to Epcot over the weekend. In case you missed it, Vanellope and Joy are back in the ImageWorks post-show area at Journey into Imagination (which can also be accessed through the exit without riding).
Additionally, Donald Duck is back at the Mexico pavilion, appearing in the outdoor meet & greet location tucked away to the right of the pyramid.
These character sightings at Walt Disney World offer individualized time indoors for selfies and posed photos, but are physically distanced—meaning no hugs or autographs. Additionally, these offerings occur alongside pop-up cavalcades, motorcades, flotillas, and spontaneous sightings.
My only complaint about these character sightings is that all the ones we’ve done (so far) haven’t had PhotoPass photographers and the resulting photos have been very bad. That apparently changed with the Epcot additions over the weekend, and hopefully these sightings at DHS and Magic Kingdom moving to Genie+ means they’ll add PhotoPass there.
While we aren’t exactly checking character sighting lines and wait times with every visit to the park, we’ve yet to see any appreciable wait times at any of these locations. Even when the parks have been busy, the waits for these character sightings have been relatively short–and moved faster than normal.
We’d attribute this to a few things. First, the lack of PhotoPass. From what we’ve seen, many guests are surprised to find no photographers and move quickly through after snapping a selfie or quick shot. Second, it’s also likely that at least some guests don’t want masked vacation photos. Finally, no hugs and autographs speeds up the process and makes it solely about the photos.
If “line speed” is your sole criterion for measuring character encounter quality, all of this is perhaps a good thing. It’s hard to imagine that being anyone’s sole metric, though.
We’ll gladly take longer lines for normal character meet & greets, once the time is right for it. At that point, you can also expect wait times to increase significantly. (Again, another ‘fair trade’ from our perspective.)
It’ll be interesting to see what impact adding these sightings to Genie+ has on standby wait times at the aforementioned character locations. It wouldn’t surprise us in the least if there’s some degree of induced demand, with the idea that anything scarce or exclusive is better. In other words, people who wouldn’t have done the sightings in the first place might book Lightning Lanes for them due to the perception that they’re “better” by virtue of Genie+ inclusion.
If that results in higher standby wait times–and there’s every reason to expect that it will–this could in turn result in more guests without Genie+ also flocking to these character sightings. This is purely speculative on our part, but there’s certainly precedent. (Anyone remember “Surprise FastPasses” for PhilharMagic or Carousel of Progress in the paper FastPass era?) Walt Disney World vacation planners are highly FOMO-motivated, which is why things like dessert parties book up with ease despite nonsensical price points. Same idea here.
It’ll also be interesting to see where Genie+ goes from here, as more changes are likely on the horizon in 2022. All of the parks that aren’t Magic Kingdom could really use more variety and capacity with the Genie+ service, and adding character meet & greets and entertainment is one way to accomplish this. We saw that with FastPass+ and with the old MaxPass system at Disneyland.
Given the precedent set with the Christmas parade (and FastPass+ before), it stands to reason that Festival of Fantasy Parade will have a Genie+ viewing area when it returns to Magic Kingdom. Same goes for Fantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
However, that’s purely speculation on our part. Notably, this has not happened with Harmonious. As you might recall, IllumiNations offered a FastPass+ viewing area in the ‘front of the house,’ which was the best viewing area for that fireworks show–and the same is true for Harmonious.
Currently, the ‘front of house’ viewing area for Harmonious is open to anyone (unless there’s a special event/private party). However, given the lack of Genie+ attractions at Epcot, it would make sense to include Harmonious as a value-add to incentivize Genie+ purchases—especially if it doesn’t sell well at first.
Walt Disney World might want to separately monetize that viewing area down the road—either with dessert parties or standalone paid access for nighttime spectacular viewing. Nothing would surprise us. Harmonious viewing might be enough to tip the scales in the favor of buying Genie+ at Epcot.
It should go without saying, but this is not all that’s on our Genie+ wish list for Walt Disney World. It would’ve been nice if Epcot and Animal Kingdom permanently moved an attraction from the Individual Lightning Lane lineup to the Genie+ service (although that’ll effectively happen in a few months when Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opens).
Beyond that, there are a ton of minor technical tweaks that would greatly improve the feature. Truly, too many to list. The biggest is a modify button along with a generalized “fix glitchiness.”
Ultimately, the addition of character sightings to the Genie+ Lightning Lane lineup is interesting, but doesn’t change the equation for purchasing Genie+ when visiting Walt Disney World. That’s simply because these changes are happening at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which are the two parks where Genie+ was already worthwhile.
Beyond that, this isn’t a significant value-add as compared to other changes that could be made. Character sightings don’t have much demand right now, and that probably won’t change until they become traditional meet & greets. However, this opens the door for further changes–and we’re curious about when and where those will occur. It’s an inevitability at this point that more entertainment is added, and there are a few options there that actually could move the needle on whether to buy the Genie+ service.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on Walt Disney World adding character sightings at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios to Genie+? Hope more entertainment will be added to Genie+ or would you prefer first-come viewing locations? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? 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!
Can someone tell how much it costs for genie plus per day? I thinking of getting the base tickets and add genie plus per day?
What is everyone complaining about? Last year when Disney was just barely scraping by because they were trying to recover from the Covid closures, they could only bounce back enough to pay their 2 top VP’s double salaries and bonuses. They should have been paid at least quadruple like all of the people who save years to even be able to afford admission alone. Disney is not quite so slowly, nor cheaply, becoming the most expensive vacation week of a lifetime. I have traveled to Germany (3 people) 2 weeks, including airfare, nice hotel, excursions, souvenirs, pictures (thousands of pictures), car rental, relaxation and not shuffled like cattle or had to deal with such rude people fighting or insignificant things such as things at Disney, for less. Same with once in a lifetime dive trips all over the world.
Paying to stand in line to take your own selfie with a dressed up person from a distance is absolutely a waste of money on top of the already wasted increased “losses” you have double lined the poor “Michaels’’ pockets with.
It’s getting pretty un-fun. Was there late Dec thru early Jan. Although I figured out Genie+ I was running ragged, having to also do ropedrop to get on resort early hours rides, Special Ride fees with late return times, staying late for fireworks. It’s expensive, exhausting, and way less fun than years ago. Makes me sad. Liked when FastPass+ let me schedule 3 rides in each park before we arrived.
Just used/tried to use Genie+ for the first time yesterday and basically, we paid $15 to ride Millennium Falcon at a set time. We were up before 7a, had put in our two top selections the night before and thought we were all set. 7a rolls around and I couldn’t get Genie+ to work on my phone. Fortunately my husband got us MF. We don’t stay on property because we have a timeshare. We have always been big Disney supporters. But as of late, we feel Disney is punishing us by only allowing certain things for Disney resort guests. We have been coming here for years from the west coast, but with the constant rise in ticket prices, not allowing off property guests access until Disney resort guests get to select everything first, we are talking about not coming back. I also agree with “Ears”, that you are going to need a computer training program and also a phone with a large battery life to be able to do anything. It is taking the FUN out and EVERYBODY has to be on their PHONE!
I was told if you stayed off property you had to wait till the park opened to use genie plus?Did it let your husband book the ride before the park opened?
I was there over MLK weekend. My phone is an android. I NEVER had a cancel button. It’s apparently an Andorid issue, but Guest Services told me they were getting rid of the cancel button because people kept accidentally kept canceling things they didn’t want too. It was beyond frustrating! And I had to keep going to guest services to have them help when I needed to make a change. They need to fix this for android users immediately!
“these changes are happening at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios”
Do you think this means that meet and greets will be expanded at Epcot and Animal Kingdom? It seems unlikely that WDW decisionmakers have learned that FastPass/FastPass+/Genie+ should be calibrated differently at differently designed parks.
Whats next Genie+ to cut the line in restrooms and Genie+ for a special exit to less packed buses after the fireworks. Seriously. Pretty soon mandatory computer program training will be required before purchasing a park ticket in order to learn how to navigate a Disney property.
I used genie+ for Hollywood and was able to ride through everything. I can justify the extra $15 per person to avoid the lines, but I don’t think there should be individual lightening lanes. Everything should be genie+. They are nickel and dimming with ILL.
The difference a PhotoPass photographer makes is HUGE. When my girls were 2&3 we saw princesses at Disneyland with a PhotoPass photographer and they are some of the best photos I have and a highlight of the trip. The next year, no photographer and I was trying to balance taking pictures with helping my girls interact with the characters, particularly my autistic 3 year old who doesn’t walk. She got frustrated and started crying and we were escorted out with a strict reprimand that there’s no crying in the castle! Very opposite experience and that year the low point of our vacation.
We were in Disney World last week and didn’t purchase Genie+ on our MK day (we had a 4 year old with us as well). We were able to get to all the attractions we wanted to (didn’t do the “big kid” roller coasters since my daughter doesn’t like them) and had a mid day break, a sit down dinner at Be Our Guest, and got everything done that we wanted to. We followed Tom’s MK itinerary, with obvious tweaks with not doing the more thrilling rides and it worked out great. You can still have a great day at MK without Genie+ !!
If we have DAS, is it worth getting genie plus as well or not worth it?
Per Drew’s comment about using multiple rooms for multiple characters/princesses, as Tom noted they’ve been doing this for a long time, and maybe doing it so well you didn’t notice. One of the big pioneers of this approach was Macy’s, where each family at Santaland feels like they’re going to see the one Santa on duty, but there are actually a LOT of different rooms filled with different types of Santas.
What do I mean by different types? To quote the New York post: “Macy’s Herald Square has a secret army of “special” Santas of other races and ethnicities for families not dreaming of a white Christmas.”
Adding character sightings is a plus for families of little kids particularly if photopass and more traditional sightings come back and slow the line down a bit. In the old fastpass+ days I remember Frozen Ever After breaking down right before our FP window opened, which was near the end of our Epcot day. The line to meet Elsa and Anna was 45 minutes, which unfortunately wasn’t feasible for our 3 and 1 year olds. I was disappointed that we couldn’t use our universal FP that was granted to us as a result of the breakdown to meet the characters. We had a pretty devastated 3 year old! It wouldn’t sway me to purchase genie+ on its own of course, but I could see many families with littles getting a benefit from skipping even a 15 minute line.
I’d be curious to know which (if any) shows and other non-ride things are worth using a Genie + reservation on. Do any of them fill up to where it’s really worth saving a spot? Is the viewing area better?
As usual, I’m sure you’re correct. I would love to see all of the old character meets back with Photopass, even if there is no hugging. Maybe the characters could pass out printed autograph cards like they had for Olaf and the Minnie’s dinners at Hollywood & Vine. That would make a sweet souvenir. As for Harmonious I’d expect them to create a dessert party in the space they used for the Frozen dessert party. It will be interesting to see if it comes with premium ride access to FEA or Remy or if, due to the limited sight lines for Harmonious, they will limit it to food. I’m guessing based on the success of the three MK fireworks dessert parties at $100+ pp they won’t feel the need to add lightning lane access. My next question for you, is how do you expect day guests from the Star Cruiser hotel to impact LL availability at Galaxy’s Edge since those rides are included as part of the “shore excursion”? I think it will further reduce access to those rides for other guests as they’ll need to accommodate ~500 resort guests
I’m in Disney world right now. Genie+ isn’t worth 2 nickels.
Were in Disney world in October. Boo Bash worth every penny but the dessert party for special fireworks viewing was a total ripoff. Lots of desserts, most too fancy for kids, and how many can you eat? Then you don’t get to munch on dessert while viewing. You have to finish food and get escorted to another crowded area where my grandson saw little.
Armchair Imagineering…I’ve always had a very low tolerance for waiting to meet characters with my kids. It always bothered me that Disney never implemented a Lazy Susan type of design (i.e. waiting area feeds into a slowly rotating room) at the dedicated character meet and greet locations. You could have multiple rooms/characters that are all the same, and it would be invisible to the guest to maintain the one character in the park thing. Would love to see things like that (and way better ideas than I could ever have) that actually increase attraction/character meeting/whatever is in demand capacity.
If I’m understanding what you’re saying correctly…they do already do this at the major meet & greet locations.
You should notice some locations have a merge point with a Cast Member who holds the line and sends you on to the character location.
I agree with you. These character meet and greets need photo pass!
I was surprised the Mickey sighting at the Town Square Theater was less than 5 minute wait over Christmas. In the middle of the day. Looking now, it’s 40 minutes for nearly the same time slot. Will be interesting to see what G+ does to those times.
One of the things we’ve noticed is that the wait times for the sightings are really inaccurate (unless low). Anecdotally, it seems like a decent number of people breeze through upon finding out there’s no PhotoPass. Who knows, though, maybe that 40 minute wait is accurate!