My Day Using Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom
Magic Kingdom is the best park for buying Genie+ at Walt Disney World, something that’s true even during peak season 2022 dates. To confirm this, I tested my strategy on what I thought would be a 10/10 crowd level weekend (spoiler: it wasn’t) to see how much could accomplish using Lightning Lanes to skip standby lines.
This photo report walks you through my step-by-step day using paid FastPass, with my Lightning Lane selections & return times, ride reservation screenshots, what I accomplished, and thoughts at the end about whether Genie+ is worth the money at Magic Kingdom. It also includes strategy and other useful advice, plus plenty of useless and random commentary.
This day in Magic Kingdom came after Walt Disney World moved Individual Lightning Lane attractions to Genie+ through August 7, 2022. Theoretically, that should improve the quality of the Genie+ experience, adding availability, and (maybe) how many standard Lightning Lane selections you can score in a day. This is least noticeable at Magic Kingdom, which already had a solid attraction lineup for Genie+ even before shifting Space Mountain over.
As quick background for those who are unfamiliar with it, Walt Disney World’s new Genie+ line-skipping service is the permanent replacement to free FastPass+ for select attractions in each park. Genie+ costs $16 per person per day and excludes the most popular ride per park. It’s a basically a digital version of the paper FastPass system from the “old days.”
For more info and answers to common questions, see our Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ. We’ve already updated that several times, and it’s a great jumping off point if you’re confused, overwhelmed…or fully understand the system, but want some next-level strategy to better leverage Genie+.
As noted at the top, my “goal” was to do this on a 10/10 crowd level day at Magic Kingdom (or at least a 9/10). I assumed it would happen given crowds the previous weekend, and the fact that closing had been extended by 2 hours, until 11 pm. As discussed in our March 2022 Crowd Calendar, Walt Disney World added a significant number of hours this week for reasons we couldn’t explain, but their internal forecasts presumably supported the strong move.
As it turned out, they were wrong. Not that I’m personally complaining about moderate crowds or anything, but they are less helpful when I try to do step-by-step walkthroughs like this. Suffice to say, you might not be able to reproduce my results the week of Orange County’s Spring Break or Easter. But you should be able to come pretty close.
Anyway, let’s move along to my day using Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom…
Starting at 6:55 am, I bought Genie+ in the My Disney Experience app, customized my Tip Board for strategic advantage (see below), and browsed around in Genie to see if anything had changed. I’ve done this enough that it’s second nature, and I can now breeze through this entire process in about 2 minutes.
At 7:00:00 am, I refreshed the Tip Board. I saw Jungle Cruise with a return time of 9:00 am to 10:00 am, but what I got was a start time of 9:35 am.
There was a bit of lag on the confirmation screen, which I assume was the culprit. Still not a bad result, but not my best work. I’m just thankful I didn’t get an error message, as I’ve been seeing those more when tinkering around with Genie+ lately.
By 7:01 am, the clock had already advanced to 2:35 pm for Jungle Cruise. This should underscore just why we highly recommend following our Speed Strategy for Genie+ Selections.
Being able to book a second Lightning Lane attraction at Magic Kingdom before 11 am is important, because that’s the first possible time anyone subject to the 120 minute rule–which is many savvy guests–will be able to make another Genie+ ride reservation. Even though it’s a far longer window, not many people are booking between ~7:10 am and 10:59 am. Return times tend to move slower during that time frame.
One thing to note is that if you’re already seeing a return time this late…just wait. Like mischievous monkeys operating a turntable, the clock will “spin around” on them–meaning that you’ll see morning times if you just wait a bit.
In any case, Jungle Cruise remains #1 on our Magic Kingdom Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks, even after the addition of Space Mountain and with Splash Mountain rising in popularity as the weather improves.
As with the recent My Day Using Genie+ Lightning Lanes in Peak Crowds at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, I’m largely going to leave the “regular” part of our day out of this.
That’s in part because I was only strategizing when it came to Lightning Lanes, so unless you want to do the PeopleMover multiple times, it’s not practical planning advice. It’s also in part because it is really easy to backfill your non-Genie+ day at Magic Kingdom thanks to the abundance of low or no wait shows and other attractions. (There’s also the fact that I didn’t take diligent notes and can’t account for a lot of our time that isn’t covered by screenshots or photo timestamps. Oops.)
My next selection was Splash Mountain.
Based on average daily wait times for March 2022, I should’ve chosen Peter Pan’s Flight. However, it only has a slight edge over Splash Mountain (75 minute v. 74 minute wait), and Splash Mountain had a much earlier return time–and one that was <120 minutes. That made it the subjectively superior pick here.
Following that, I opted for Space Mountain.
The discrepancy better this and Peter Pan’s Flight is greater (75 v. 60 minutes), making that Fantasyland classic a better pick, all else being equal. Peter Pan’s Flight did have a much later return time, but that shouldn’t have matter since both were beyond 120 minutes. (In other words, all else was equal.)
As such, Space Mountain was an objectively poor pick here.
However, I wanted something more immediate and indoors during the middle of the day, and was very confident Peter Pan’s Flight would still be around 120 minutes later. If you’re visiting on a peak season day, swap these two.
As expected, Peter Pan’s Flight did have availability 120 minutes later.
When my window first opened, its return time was ~8 to 9 pm. I didn’t really want that slot, as wait times elsewhere would be dropping by then. Figuring the clock would roll over, I gave it a couple of minutes. Sure enough, I was able to score 5:45 pm to 6:45 pm.
Haunted Mansion was my next pick, and literally the exact same scenario played out there.
Return times were originally after 7 pm. I waited a couple minutes, and got 4:45 pm to 5:45 pm.
Lightning Lanes are now available to See Mickey at Town Square Theater, See Princess Tiana and a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall, and See Cinderella and a Visiting Princess at Princess Fairytale Hall.
However, we did the first two of these with under 10 minute waits via standby (which also allowed both of us to do them). Mickey still doesn’t have a PhotoPass photographer, the lighting remains uneven, and it’s still a sighting rather than a traditional meet & greet. It’s thus not much of a surprise most guests aren’t interested.
Given the recent end of the indoor face mask rule, plus the entirety of the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience being normal, it’s likely we’ll soon see other awkwardly-modified entertainment and character interactions return to normal. At least, that’s our hope.
At this point, I had a pretty good afternoon at Magic Kingdom lined up.
These three Lightning Lanes alone would save me over 3 hours as compared to posted wait times (which are inflated, but the point still stands). Add to that my morning stops at Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain, and that time-savings is already up to around 5 hours.
Next up was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
I was really excited to see this appear when I refreshed, with a return time of 5 pm (!!!) at 4:47 pm. I quickly clicked through, and didn’t notice the time jumped to 6:50 pm to 7:50 pm. This was really annoying, and I’ll reiterate here my position that My Disney Experience should place a ‘temporary hold’ on cancelled Lightning Lane reservations (what this must’ve been) once they’re in your “cart.”
Adding insult to injury, there was no way to cancel my Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride reservation and book something else with a more immediate return. For whatever reason, attempting to ‘manage details’ of my selection just took me to the normal attraction page.
This often happens when the window for a Lightning Lane reservation has yet to open. I’m not sure if there’s somewhere else in the clunky Genie interface to cancel, but if so, I couldn’t locate it.
On a positive note, I lucked out with a stoppage on Peter Pan’s Flight while perfectly positioned flying over London.
I was able to brace my camera against the ride vehicle and use a very slow shutter speed to capture the cleanest shot I’ve ever gotten on Peter Pan’s Flight. (Not really relevant to the topic at hand, but it was a highlight of my day!)
This wasn’t the only problem I had with Genie+ at Magic Kingdom.
There also were a couple of occasions when the app told me I wasn’t eligible to book another Lightning Lane selection, even after the time had passed. In the above case, it started working 1 minute later. In other instances, I’ve had it take up to 5 minutes to register my eligibility. Also frustrating.
Once eligible, I was able to score a quick return time for Pirates of the Caribbean, which seems to be about par for the course.
Even when POTC is posting 45 to 60 minute wait times (as it was this evening), it has abundant availability for Genie+ Lightning Lanes. This seemed to be the case with FastPass+, too.
Same deal with Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.
Got this Lightning Lane reservation at 7:20 pm with a return time only 10 minutes later. The posted wait time was 35 minutes.
My return for “it’s a small world” was only 5 minutes later despite that attraction posting a 45 minute wait time.
It’s difficult to gauge accuracy now that Lightning Lanes are in use, but “it’s a small world” has seen its wait times spike recently.
My evening ended with the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
I could’ve knocked out many other attractions instead with near-immediate return times, but most of these were either also walk-ons via the standby line (e.g. Little Mermaid dark ride, Dumbo) or things I had no desire to do (e.g. Barnstormer, Magic Carpets). I’m almost positive I could’ve booked those all had I been a bit more aggressive and wanted to “prove” that I could do everything via Genie+ at Magic Kingdom in a day.
We didn’t stay until the bitter end of the night, but here’s a look at posted wait times 5 minutes before park closing.
The vast majority of attractions would’ve been walk-ons at this point. Our experience with Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in the last ~6 months is that actual waits are, at most, one-third of posted wait times at the end of the night. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the wait time at SDMT was 10 minutes or less when Magic Kingdom closed for the night.
Ultimately, I ended up using Genie+ to secure 10 Lightning Lane selections during this day at Magic Kingdom, and could have scored at least another 5, but they would’ve been largely useless. It was a moderately busy day, but not too bad and the combination of manageable crowds and long hours really made my job easy here.
Based on posted wait times at my return times, I saved around 550 minutes with those 10 ride reservations. Even if 2-3 hours were knocked off that due to the disparity between posted v. actual wait times at Walt Disney World, I still would’ve saved at least 6 hours of waiting in line. Given the $16 cost, that’s less than $3 per hour, making Genie+ easily “worth it” at Magic Kingdom in terms of the time v. money cost calculus.
Genie+ is not great every day in every park at Walt Disney World. It can save you a lot of time in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but also be very stressful. It may not offer much benefit at all in Epcot and Animal Kingdom. The one park where it is consistently worthwhile is Magic Kingdom. Not only will it save you a lot of time waiting (unless the crowd level is 4/10 or lower…but how often does that happen anymore?!), but it’s not stressful and requires less screen time. Even dealing with a few glitches, I had a pretty easy go of it.
With the other three parks, the argument could be made that a strong itinerary, arriving for rope drop (or for Early Entry) and staying until park closing would yield similar or superior results. I’d personally rather utilize savvy strategy in those parks than just Genie+. That’s not true with Magic Kingdom. The sheer number of attractions and easy availability of mid-tier and above Lightning Lanes makes it the clear-cut winner.
If I were looking to court controversy, I might even take this a step further and say that Genie+ is the best ride reservation system that has ever been offered at Magic Kingdom, surpassing its FastPass predecessors even taking into consideration its cost. I’m not the kind to stir the honey pot (I’ll leave that to Pooh), so I won’t say that, but I wouldn’t disagree if someone else were to say it.
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
Thoughts on my day in Magic Kingdom using the Genie+ service after the Spring Break 2022 Lightning Lane changes? Are you planning on buying Genie+ or sticking to free standby lines? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment that Genie+ is the best ride reservation system ever at Magic Kingdom? 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!
I found your blog one morning while trying to navigate the app and Genie+. In theory, the app should work great but we had a party of 6 – the first of multiple problems. I (being the mom) got up at 6:50 am every day of my vacation to try to get the best rides.
1. The app unlinks your group and you need to get it fixed by guest services who winds up having to call corporate for help.
2. The first guest services person who relinked us said, “the hood thing is this usually only happens once”. Ya no, it happened 4 times. Once at each park and when you’re unlinked you have to immediately stop what you’re doing to get it fixed.
3. A party of 6 gets ready to leave the hotel around 11 am but when I’m trying to schedule the first ride my window starts at 8am so I have to continually refresh until I get the perfect time which pushes my 2 hour window back to sign up for the second ride therefore leaving me with zero good rides.
4. The best rides (Ratitoulli, Secen Dwarfs, Glight Of Passageetc) are held for guests staying on property. Even though we bought Genie+, and I tried buying at 8 am when the parks open, the app told me every Lightening Lane was booked.
5. The app suggested while we waited for our Lightening Lane window to stand in line for Space Mountain because the wait was only 50 mins. Fake news, it was 3 hours. Thank goodness Splash Mountain was “Temporarily Closed” (which happened to A LOT to all the rides) during our Lightening Lane window. I wound up sprinting to Splash Mountain to be told we could sign up for a different ride of our choice. Great news! We could ride the Seven Dwarfs Mine ride or Peter Pan, right? WRONG! You can pick any ride that’s not an awesome new ride. WTF?
6. There are no suggestions about reservations for things like building a lightsaber or droid. No suggestions for the Den of whatever dudes antiquities. My son was in tears. I had no idea you could build a lightsaber let alone signing up for it.
7. Third park was Epcot and it rained so the park wasn’t at peak capacity. The app unlinked us for the 3rd time. We explained to guest services everything that happened, showed them receipts of what we bought, showed them screenshots and Megan from NJ called corporate (again). They authorized her to let us ride Ratitoulli – one of the new awesome rides.
8. Went to Hollywood Studios on our last day and my 11 year old wanted nothing more than to go to Galaxy’s Edge. Rise Of The Resistance stayed at a wait time of 210 minutes pretty much the entire time. Lightening Lanes we’re sold out by 8 am to on property guests so our only choice was to wait. My son refused. Said, “it’s just not worth it mom. I’d rather go back to the hotel and swim in the pool.”
9. Both my 9 and 11 year old said, “Why do they call Disney the most magical place on earth? Mom’s head is buried in that stupid app that doesn’t work and everyone is fighting and sad. Can we just go home?”
10. Every employee we spoke to about the app told we weren’t the only ones having issues and that if we thought it was a headache, try working at the park and dealing with all the unhappy guests. Every single employee said, “ya, that app is garbage”.
We spent almost $20k on our trip to Disney and my kids would have been happier hanging by a pool. We felt horrible for the families who saved every penny they had for what we have deemed the worst vacation ever. A complete waste.
Save yourself the money and headache and wait until Disney figures out the app or returns to the Fast Pass. Or better yet, go anywhere else but Disney.
I really feel targeted by your post (jk). We had an awful experience all day trying to use this app. For one ride I went to confirm the time we were reserved for to find the reservation booked for myself and one daughter but not the other. We couldn’t get her booked on the ride and had to cancel our time. Myself and my kids would rather hang out at the resort then ever go back to Magic Kingdom. I grew up going to M.K. and Epcot but I’ll probably never go back to M.K. We had a miserable day (and we would be one of those families that save and save for this).
I feel so bad that you had an awful time. It is very confusing and you can’t preplan. However, if you don’t get meal reservations on the first allowable morning, you’re screwed for meals. I know a few people who successfully got refunded for genie+. It’s worth a call to guest services and a written letter. If enough people complain, maybe something will change.
I get it, you need profits to expand and satisfy shareholders, but you are damaging your brand with Genie Plus. Yes I understand demand is high right now, but will that last after the pandemic pent up demand is spent? Look my family is a regular WDW visitor; 2006, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021 and each time we visit we spend $18K or more, so we are willing and able to choke down the cost, but let me tell you we are not willing to choke down longer lines so you can push Genie Plus and lighting lane access. Stop this foolishness, get rid of the two tier system, allow booking days, weeks even months in advance so people are not frantically competing in the early morning hours. Allow your system to smooth out the traffic like pre-booked fast-pass used too. Believe me you could charge more for it, and we will swallow it. What we cannot swallow is this silly system you have in place now. Stop the maddness.
Stop the Crazy !!! So Disney got what they wanted , we are paying for G P, so let us plan all our days , 60 days out like the old Fastpass system . I am the family planner and we were there in Feb. way too much time on my phone , need to improve big time .
Agree 100%
They ae forcing visitors to compete for time slots that same day, when the ride booking system could be smoothing everything out during the day. Stop the crazy.
Agree 100%
They ae forcing visitors to compete for time slots that same day, when the ride booking system could be smoothing everything out during the day.
By myself I make excellent use of Genie+ and early entry but with my family it’s not so easy or advantageous. I have a teen who likes to sleep in. You can not do rides twice so does he just ride by himself? Do we wake him and make his vacation less enjoyable? Do the early risers have a less enjoyable morning/early afternoon with Genie+? Plus, crisscrossing the park is much tougher with the family. I have a love hate relationship with Genie+. The cost for a family is very high but as an individual not bad, crisscrossing in a small group of able bodies adults doable but not easy with family and grandparents, the constant unknown of what you can get can be stressful but at times it is exciting when it’s adults it all works out kinda like gambling is.
We are here at Disney the week of March 6, 2022. Using Genie+ is a nightmare. We are both very tech savvy and are staying at a WDW resort. We have our cell phones ready and waiting by 7 am. Exactly at 7 we start trying to get a Genie+. We are lucky each day to get at least one Genie+ reservation around 10 am to 1pm. We learned the hard way that we were not eligible for a second Genie + until we had used the first. By the time we finished that ride, there were not any Genie+ reservations left for the rides we wanted to do. Wait times at Magic Kingdom for rides like Space Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad are never shorter than 60 minutes.
We fly into Orlando on 4/22, arriving around 10:30 am. Hope to be at MK by around 1pm.
If purchasing genie+ for that day, what time should we purchase? We will be in the air at 7am Mickey time. Can/should we purchase before takeoff? How early in the morning can it be purchased? I miss fast pass!
This is a very informative article, however, it does need to be taken into account that a person trying to get around Magic Kingdom or any of the Disney parks with a family or large group will definitely have a more difficult time, also if the person and or family are first timers then they don’t know their way around the parks to get from attraction to attraction very quickly. A simple heads up to anyone who will be visiting Walt Disney World in the coming weeks (today is March 10, 2022), be warned ahead of time, the crowds have been and are going to be absolutely insane. I live 20 minutes from the parks and have not visited in almost a month. It’s not enjoyable to be there right now. You literally spend all day in huge crowds moving slowly from place to place. I think the Genie plus/LL have made wait times for rides extremely long due to how bad the system is set up. When there are very high crowd levels it makes the ratio of guests to LL guests at the merge points near the ride platforms very high. Some ratios on very crowded days would be 80 LL guests to every 10 standby guests. The other issue is you just cannot walk up to a restaurant and eat, you have to mobile order everything, or have a reservation for a table service restaurant. Sometimes mobile ordering gets very backed up, due to not having enough kitchen staff and you can at times wait close to an hour to get your food after you’ve already paid. Even with the table service restaurants, if the kitchens get backed up because of low staffing, you could be waiting for your table for 1 to 2 hours after your reservation time. Disney simply does not have the staff currently to operate at the current capacity level, which I’m guessing is close to 70-80 percent. I wish everyone luck on their upcoming vacations and remember, pack your patience and be ready for some extreme crowds. I think in a year or two after all of this catch up travelling is done, things will be much better crowd wise, but right now it’s pretty bad.
It’s terrible right now. I was thinking I hadn’t seen it this crazy before. My daughter had several mini panic attacks today (anxiety) over the crowds and the LL process (awful). It was probably the worst day I spent at MK in my life.
We have been going to WDW since it opened. I know the parks just like you and can maneuver my way around well. I resent having to spend my time on a phone. I have written Disney and received a very nice response to my concerns with genie + but I know Chapek is chasing dollars, not magic. Just let me pay for my meager 3 fast passes so I can pre-plan my meals and attractions and remove the stress and anxiety. At 70 years old I still want to get away to a place where I can enjoy the atmosphere and relax, not work to have a good time.
Amen brother
Was it letting you book new lightning lanes after every time you checked in on a reservation? We park hopped a couple weeks ago- stacked up a few rides in the afternoon at DHS, but once we got there it wouldn’t let us book new reservations after checking into rides unless the two hour window had passed, or once we had finished checking into ALL of the rides we had stacked. Have you heard of that happening to other people? We tried again and again to book new ones with no luck.
This article was really helpful! However, I am worried now. I booked my trip to Disney the same week Orange County has spring break. Just how busy does it get? Should I be worried about how crowded it will be?
Following!!!
Tom, My 7-year-old daughter, my grirlfriend and I head to DW in 2.5 weeks: We signed up for 5 days of Disney parks and added Genie+ each day. For days we are planning on:
2 x MK
1 x HS
1 x AK
1 x Epcot/Open to change
Should we cancel Genie + for AK and Epcot?
Tom, I am going in 2.5 weeks for 5 full days with my daughter and GF and it’s her first DW experience! Thank you and your wife for doing what you guys do and relaying all of this detail to the world on your site!
Not everyone reads this topic as efficiently in an article form. I am a visual person and flow charts with bullet points would seem to be an easy way to show how you did this or another day as Genie+ seems like it can get complicated fast.
Have you already done something like that or thought about doing that with a visit like this or maybe even a hypothetical visit in a post that is a basic visual flow chart (vertical) timeline of the booking actions only for the attractions and when/how you did it? Basically, leave out all of the descriptive verbiages and just what you did and how you did it? So for example:
Magic Kingdom Day
–
7AM: booked XYZ using Indiv Lighting Lane (or Genie+?)
(resulted in ride XYZ at xx:xx)
–
120 minute (2 hour freeze) till xx:xxAM when the 120 minute
–
xx:xxAM: ATTRACTION 1: (early entry/rope drop? reserved? reserved Genie+/LL?)
–
xx:xxAM: Approximate free time for low wait attractions
–
xx:xxAM: ATTRACTION 2: First Genie+/LL booking made at 7am
–
120 freeze expires on Genie+ so book next attraction XYZ for xx:xxAM/PM
–
etc….etc….
Tom, are you making your first genie+ picks at 7am from home? Or m just you be a guest at a resort to be able to make genie+ picks at 7.
Thanks
Kathy
I will say gay and i will avoid Disney World. I am gonna bet Disney Pride is not gonna be a big thing this year.
What does that have to do with this article? Nothing at all, that’s what.
It’s been a long time coming but after reading Chapek’s response to this bill, I’m completely and utterly done with Disney. WHY, OH WHY, DOES DISNEY HAVE TO TAKE A POLITICAL STANCE?? HOW ABOUT SAYING NOTHING?? If everyone actually. READS the bill, there wouldn’t be controversy. BTW, I don’t want my children being exposed to sexually graphic language, content, or opinions regarding ANY ORIENTATION in grades K-3. Can’t we let children be children? I really don’t care at all what people do privately and I don’t feel the need to advertise my private life. Why is this even an issue?? Just read the darn bill and, DISNEY, stay the he— out of politics.
You could say that Genie+ is superior to FP+, if you’re a single, able-bodied, childless young man who can crisscross the park multiple times in order to make the most of the system. The brilliant thing about FP+ was that I could book my day so that my FP were in a logical geographic order, minimizing the time and distance I spent pushing a stroller through crowds. Quite regularly, we would have a morning FP for the Mine train, and then rope drop Pooh and the other Fantasy land attractions. Then we would mosey over to Liberty Square for our FP for Peter Pan and Haunted Mansion, at which point I could usually get a 4th FP for something in Adventureland to enjoy after lunch. No running around like a headless chicken, fighting with a buggy app, or paying $15 per person in my party for the privilege.
That’s a very fair point and something I need to take into account next time I do one of these step-by-step days. I suspect it would be possible to do this to some degree in Magic Kingdom (albeit not as efficiently as this day or under FP+), but not any of the other parks.
Going April 2 with a family group of 13! I’ll let you know how we make out. My daughter qualifies for DAS and has been waiting on the computer to video chat to get approval all day!! Hopefully Genie plus will work.
I would love you hear how it goes my daughter will have das too and we go in may
Does anxiety disorder qualify you for that (if anyone knows)? The online chat CS person seemed to think it did but the face to face person I talked to acted like I was a crazy person trying to scam Disney or something. My daughter essentially had 4 mini panic attacks today because of the closeness of all the people, the heat in the lines, the noise, people bumping her. Nothing like spending thousands on a vacation to torture your child. I’m curious to know if anxiety is considered a valid medical condition for this program.
It definitely counts. Go to guest services at the park if you can’t get through online. No drs note needed. Anxiety around crowds of people that would make you have to step out of line is a valid reason for DAS. Good luck
That’s a great PP shot!
Did this plan cause you to skip the fireworks?
I appreciate all the tips but as a 60+ year old this all sounds way too complicated and like you could constantly be back tracking and walking all over the park all day. And spending too much time on phone!
Also sounds like it would be frustrating for families with toddlers and preschool age having to arrive so early and or stay so late !
100% we went with a 2, 4, and 12 year old and it was absolutely miserable. Genies and ligning options blanked out for hours and the app suggests you wait in standby lines over an HR each, many over 2 hrs. We would have paid our way on each ride if we could.
That’s exactly right. Last week we were a party of 7 my two adult sons managed to figure out Genie+ and we made good use of it. However we traversed the park in zig zag fashion from open to close. Our 7 and 10 year olds were troopers but we were always sprinting off to another attraction. Despite Genie and Lightening we often killed time by waiting in standby lines for over an hour. An afternoon cappuccino actually required an hour wait. Running around with a phone in my face is not my idea of fun I thought it was stressful but we had fun because we were in the right frame of mind. Also if you don’t book dinner reservations weeks in advance you’ll be sitting dow around 9 pm to eat, but, unless you’ve been there many times, how would you know. Exactly where you will be on that particular day.
We just got back from a five day trip and I had nothing but trouble with Genie+ and lightening lane pay per ride. It would not let me make a reservation for any other rides until my 1:00 Rockin roller was done. It kept saying we were ineligible. By that time there was nothing to do. It also would not let me make reservations in another park. It would come up that we were all ineligible. This was when we were over at &EPCOT with a park hop. There were only four of us. I wasted $60 on this because two of us didn’t ride Rockin so we didn’t get to use it on anything. This was VERY frustrating. They need a book Genie+ for Dummies. I wish they would make it like the old system where you could book three reservations at once. It is bad enough that we have to pay more, but even worse when you pay and can’t get anything you want or anything at all after 1:00
Very nice. I appreciate the picture of London from Peter Pan’s Flight. I have been trying (unsuccessfully) for a few years to get a decent picture of Mr Smee.