Genie+ Wish List: 3 Big Improvements for Disney World
I don’t think you quite realize what you got here!
So, why don’t you just ruminate,
While I illuminate the possibilities!
All you gotta do is rub that phone
And I’ll say
Walt Disney World fan,
What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order
Jot it down
You ain’t never had a friend like Ge-nie (plus)
Sorry for butchering that classic song, but let’s say you’ve got three wishes for Genie+ improvements to the app feature, to be exact. And ixnay on the wishing for free FastPass (or more wishes). That’s all. Three. Uno, dos, tres. No substitutions, exchanges or refunds. What ways would you like to see Genie+ improved at Walt Disney World?
As someone who has used Genie+ at Walt Disney World many times, I have a list that’s three miles long, no doubt. However, of that multi-mile list, there’s a trio of high-priority improvements that immediately jump out to me and are realistically for Walt Disney World to implement. So Abracadabra, let ‘er rip, let’s make those issues disappear! (I’m sorry, the song is stuck in my head; I shouldn’t take that out on you all.)
3. Modify Button – Genie has a number of user interface “quirks” that make it seem like it was thrown together quickly without much reference to its predecessor, and with next to no field testing. Without question, the most frustrating omission is the lack of a modify button on existing Lightning Lane ride reservations.
This oversight is particularly puzzling because the ability to modify a selection was present in the old FastPass+ system. How it worked is pretty intuitive. You would simply click on one of your existing FastPass+ reservations and then click a modify button, rather than cancel. That pulled up a version of the booking flow, allowing you to access the full list of attractions with FastPass+ availability, including different times for your existing attraction selection.
If that’s difficult to visualize, pull up an Advance Dining Reservation and click the modify button on that. It’s the exact same idea with ADRs or, you know, pretty much any other online reservation system!
The lack of a modify button is so significant because that one simple feature would provide a safety net. It would allow you the ability to lock-in a ride reservation and then continue searching, looking for better options. In particular, ride reservation refills and cancellations. If you’ve never used Genie+, this missing feature may not seem like a big deal. Just cancel and rebook instead, right?
In theory, that works. In practice, the process of searching for a new Lightning Lane, then cancelling your current one and rebooking is incredibly time-consuming and involves several clicks. I’d hazard a guess that, 9 times out of 10, by the time you cancel and get back to the booking screen, whatever you wanted is already gone. (I have literally never had success canceling and rebooking something better. I don’t even attempt it anymore.)
Beyond that, losing your original reservation can put you in a worse position, as you have to continue searching until you find a suitable replacement. Meanwhile, the clock has reset on the 120 minute rule. It really feels like having the rug magic carpet pulled out from under you.
2. Lock Times – Speaking of having the magic carpet pulled out from under you, let’s set the scene for the next issue. You’re up early, fully caffeinated, and ready to go. You get all of the speed strategy pre-steps squared away. Right as the clock rolls over to 7:00:00 am on time.gov, you refresh. You snatch Slinky Dog Dash with a perfect 9:00 am return time. Success!
…Or so you thought. After quickly clicking through and reviewing the confirmation screen, you’re surprised to discover that your “perfect” 9:00 am return time has shifted a little bit…to 5:40 pm. (Think that’s bad? Now imagine the same scenario, but with Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, an attraction you specifically paid extra to book at a specific time.) That won’t work, as you have an ADR for Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater at that exact time you booked 60 days ago at the crack of dawn.
Now, you could modify the Slinky Dog Dash Lightning Lane…oh wait, no you can’t. There’s no modify button. Naturally, those highly coveted Sci-Fi ADRs are long gone (in reality, you probably booked this over 60 days ago), so you can’t modify that, either. We probably don’t need to further elaborate on why this Lightning Lane return time drift causes problems–this example tells the whole story.
Worse yet, you manage to snatch a coveted Lightning Lane selection, and while clicking through to complete the booking process, it disappears. You get the dreaded “Currently Unavailable: The Lightning Lane entrance for this experience is not available to book at this time. Please check back throughout the day or try selecting a different experience now.” Translation: someone with faster fingers booked the Lightning Lane out from under you. Tough break, pal!
Again, the suggestion for how to fix these issues comes from…pretty much every other online reservation system in use everywhere else? Lock the selection time for 60 seconds, 5 minutes, or whatever is deemed appropriate to give guests adequate time to complete the process without any surprises.
Neither of these first two suggestions are anything revolutionary, and that’s part of what makes them so frustrating. These are both painfully obvious features that should’ve existed from the get-go. The omission of both is conspicuous, and suggests that Genie+ was rushed to market with insufficient development time, resources, and testing. (Two things that frustrate me to no end as a consumer are when companies charge me for a service they didn’t properly invest in themselves or when they don’t value my time. Disney is arguably the biggest offender on both fronts.)
1. Start Upon Park Entry (not 7 am) – Another big complaint we’ve heard from readers concerns the stress of having to wake up early to book Lightning Lane ride reservations at 7 am. Our suggestion here is that Walt Disney World use the rule in place at Disneyland, which is that booking begins as soon as guests enter the park for the day. This policy at the California parks is sensible and workable–we know that because it’s exactly how both MaxPass and paper FastPass before that operated.
While the first two conspicuous omissions are inexcusable, I’m a bit more forgiving of Walt Disney World’s decision to use the 7 am start time for Genie+ booking. While this might seem unprecedented, this rule is actually inherited from the virtual queue system used at Walt Disney World. To understand the “why” of this (which is important context), we’ll go back to the opening of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. For the first couple weeks the attraction was open, guests could enter its virtual queue immediately upon tapping into Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Realizing this, guests showed up earlier and earlier to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Even though the official opening time wasn’t until 8 am, people were packing the area around the entrance several hours before that. Walt Disney World likes to avoid crowds outside the turnstiles for safety reasons, so they quietly opened the park long before then (between 6 and 6:30 am) before moving up the park opening time to 7 am. That fixed nothing. All it did was cause guests to arrive even earlier, wanting to beat the crowds and be the first to score spots in the virtual queue. (The photos above and below are from the morning before sunrise–not the evening!)
This problem persisted to the point that Walt Disney World instituted the 7 am entry time for the virtual queue. Because demand far surpassed supply, guests also had to be in the park. There continued to be an early morning crush of crowds, but it wasn’t as early since there was no advantage to arriving increasingly earlier. Someone who showed up at 4:11 am might get a worse boarding group than someone who arrived at 6:59 am.
With the reopening of the parks, Walt Disney World wanted to avoid high crowd situations and earlier opening times, so they tweaked the process yet again. This time, the assist of Disney Park Pass allowed for the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance virtual queue entry process to be limited to only guests with reservations. Why am I recapping the evolution of virtual queues in a post about Genie+ improvements? Because this history informs how the 7 am ‘rule’ came to be, and why it’s not so unreasonable.
Nevertheless, I would argue that this this policy–so clearly inherited from the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance virtual queue and not part of the Genie+ experience at Disneyland–has outlived its usefulness. For one thing, Walt Disney World long ago dropped any semblance of concern about congestion as was the case shortly after reopening.
For another, park hours have normalized to the point that Disney’s Hollywood Studios is regularly opening to the public at 8 am once again. In addition to that, the tapstiles are typically open by 7:30 am, with a steady stream of guests entering at that hour–a far cry from the onslaught of early 2020.
The argument could be made that changing the Genie+ policy to allow guests to make their first Lightning Lane ride reservation only after entering the park would change this dynamic. It would pull forward crowds, a repeat of that unpleasant scene in early 2020. I’m highly skeptical that would be the case for a couple of reasons.
First, there’s the simple reality that Early Entry precludes the majority of guests from doing so even if they wanted. As it stands, on-site guests are able to enter the parks (or proceed past a certain point, in the case of Magic Kingdom) long before off-site guests.
Indirectly, this would also give on-site guests another advantage, and at a time when perks for booking Walt Disney World resorts are limited by historical standards. Being able to book their first Lightning Lane around 30 minutes before off-site guests would give on-site guests better return times, and potentially mean 1 extra booking per day with Genie+.
Second, aside from Slinky Dog Dash and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, no attractions are running out of availability particularly quickly with the Genie+ system. (Add Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind to that list soon.) So to the extent that this problem would even theoretically occur, it would only happen at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot.
However, it probably would not even happen there, as it’s not happening with Early Entry. Even on busy days, there is not the same ‘crush of crowds’ stampeding DHS each morning to be among the first to experience them during Early Entry. This could be a matter of awareness, but that’s doubtful. (It’s avoidable at Epcot by using a virtual queue for Cosmic Rewind.)
To be sure, changing the approach is a risk for Walt Disney World (albeit one specifically confined to DHS). It’s one thing for me to express confidence in this not being a problem as an armchair analyst with a guest-centric point of view. There’s no accountability for me in being wrong (other than saying: “my bad, maybe they shouldn’t have done this”). Moreover, this would almost certainly be a win for early-rising tourists staying on-site, even if it might cause problems for others.
Admittedly, I would not have this same confidence if I were in charge of operations and my words had consequences. Instead, my perspective would be “maintain the status quo at all costs” because so many alternatives had been tested (with the Rise of the Resistance VQ) and so many did not work. In other words, it’s understandable why operations wouldn’t want to rock the boat.
Nevertheless, I think it’s worth the risk. This 7 am start time is incredibly frustrating for a huge segment of guests, and also makes availability go faster (again, primarily for DHS). Changing things up might be a bit of a gamble, but there’s also the reality that Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance isn’t the shiny new thing it was 2 years ago, and Slinky Dog Dash isn’t worth that much effort. A lot more people were willing to get up early and jump through hoops for a “free” brand new blockbuster attraction than will do so for a ~2 year old ride that costs $15/person or a weiner dog-themed outdoor roller coaster that’s also part of a paid package.
I’m willing to bet that if the policy were changed to allow the first Lightning Lane reservation to be made upon entering the parks, it would normalize demand. There would be some pull-forward of guest arrival times to the parks, but also a slow-down of distribution/return times.
While it’s not directly analogous due to demographic differences, this is more or less what can be observed at Disneyland. (Even if it played out differently, there are other fixes for this–like staggered refill times, and a bit more transparency about them.) By and large, the guests who were always going to wake up early would do exactly that, and those who wanted to sleep in would do that.
In short, starting Genie+ booking when guests enter the park would strike a better balance, dial down the competitiveness, and make for a more pleasant overall experience. The story is similar with the top two improvements, too. If the complaints we’re hearing about Genie+ are representative, this trio of improvements would be a nice compromise between the current system and its FastPass+ predecessor, which would be very welcome by Walt Disney World fans. It wouldn’t instantly address all of the outrage, but it would like make guests happier who have come to terms with now paying for something that was once free.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of these suggested improvements for Genie+ at Walt Disney World? Do you think any of these wishes are bad ideas, or ones that could have unintended negative consequence? Assuming that advance booking days/weeks/months is out of the question, do you favor making reservations at 7 am or upon entering the park? What would be your three Genie+ wishes? Do you agree or disagree with my picks? 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 would pay as much as 29.99 per day IF I could select 3 rides and times , 30 day’s in advance , make all my reservations at once dining and rides ,,
Basically it’s an easy fix for on site guests set it up exactly how FastPass was just pay for it
YES! I have no problem paying for a service that will work, save me time or improve my experience. G+ is none of those.
Tom, thank you so much for the information and ideas you share with us. As a UK resident with out last trips cancelled we hope to visit summer this year and I want to be ready to plan for all the changes. We have purchased genie with our 14 day tickets as were offered a discount to add it on, We are staying a mix of on and off site but the one thing I like about Genie is that we can ‘stack’ for an afternoon visit (I have teenagers) but can equally see that working for children with small children on some days where the visit is longer like ours.
Your first two suggestions should already be part of Genie it seems bizarre that they aren’t. Being able to book one Genie the night before would be nice but would then put off the on the day purchases. As this is a paid service it seems wrong to me to then give on site guests a head start when you are paying the same amount. You could do this with fast pass as it was free. It just seems unfair for a paid service – especially when lots of people will have already paid.
What Disney needs to do is bring back a decent amount of EMH and run the LL rides during this time. Half an hour at each park is an irritation to off-site guests and feels like a tiny give to onsite guests for rushing in a morning. Let’s have at least two parks with an hour EMH and more evening hours – then I would definitely have split my holiday more onsite than offsite.
I really hope our holiday happens this time (we have rebooked 4 times now!) but I am also slightly apprehensive that it won’t live up to past trips. Hopefully with all the tips from your site I will be able to capture the magic but Disney are really making it hard – for universal we just stay at Portofino and need no planning it’s just all easy! Fingers crossed for a Modify button for Genie soon, And again thank you for your fantastic site.
Since the intention of Disney was to use Genie+ and Lightning Lanes to basically have a paid Fastpass; my wish is that they would have left the Fastpass system that already worked in place and just charged me. If I chose to pay for Fastpass, I could then make all my reservations before leaving on vacation with no ADR conflicts and not spend all my vacation time on my phone.
Anything that takes this much of my time to learn and/ or operate is not worth it.
Will be at WDW Dec. 1-9, 2022 and will not use Genie+ or pay for Lightning Lanes. Maybe we won’t make it on some of the attractions but I won’t be going crazy; glued to my phone all day.
I agree, my family and I will be going later this year. I won’t use the app either. There will be 8 of us. There is no way I’m going to pay an extra $120 per day to skip a few lines and not even be sure I’ll get the rides I want. If we don’t get on enough rides in the standby lines I simply won’t come back. We pay too much to be treated like 2nd class guests for not buying Genie +.
1 and 2 need to happen ASAP! I would even be willing to give up #1 if they would just implement the time slot hold. It is absurd that they require payment before you even know what time you’re booking!?! End rant.
#3 Option for purchasing Genie+ day of OR 3 paid fastpasses at the same cost to be booked 30 days out. Hear me out… an option for the type A planner and an option for the last minute spontaneous types, I think it could work. Thanks for your insight, and for always advocating for a better guest experience!
Love your blog Tom, but I’m sorry, your 3 wishes are so obviously the wishes of a couple without children (and thus not Disney’s primary customer) that I laughed. Of course, you’re entitled to your wishes! Mine for a mom with kids:
1) Book your first LL and any ILLs at least a week in advance. Yes you might be awake at 7am with little kids, but do you think they are peacefully letting you mess with your phone for 15 minutes?! Um, no.
2) Book 3 LLs in advance, to work around nap times, meals, and avoid criss crossing the park with kids that cover only 8 inches with one step. Seriously, do any Disney executives have kids?! Seems no.
3) If #2 is impossible (its possible but if Disney insists), an alarm when it’s time to book your next one. Again, with kids, the opportunity can skirt by and then the good stuff is gone. Isn’t this about making things easier on the non-power user?
Those are the wishes of nearly every parent I know who has been to Disney World since Genie launched.
Sorry one more thought – aligning booking LLs with entering a park would be difficult for parents. Rope drop is very hard, and a bit dangerous, with little kids in such big crowds. Again, Disney needs to remember its primary market – families with kids.
^^^^^This.
My 3 wishes Genie, please and thank you:
1. Modify button
2. Time Window hold on a reservation for 2 minutes
3. Just for the first G+ selection of the day, divide the options into 2 tiers. Tier 1 would allow one reservation, Tier 2 would allow 2 reservations. Also, this first use allows selection from all available time windows. Only for the first selection, then the rest of the day everything is the same as Genie+ has been operating. This could change everyone pouncing on the hardest rides ASAP. Some guests have other means to accomplish the most popular rides through a mix of Early Entry, Night EMH, etc. If given the option, some people will trade the repeating of one hard ride for two easier experiences with mid-range attractions. Right now there’s not much advantage for them choosing not to repeat hard rides. Also I think Genie+ needs to expand the list and include more character meets, night shows and parade viewing areas.
(Trading the 7am start of Genie+ to DL’s version won’t satisfy the angered people because they’ll then be upset at the disadvantage they have against guests arriving earlier than them)
To imagine this in action, loosely think back to FP+ tiers but take out the Individual LL(s) for each park. Would enough people start their G+ day picking the Tier 2 options that it prevents the highest demand rides from running out or having very late return times by 10 or 11am?
Wishes 2&3 you bet!!!!
I have been frustrated when I think I am getting a certain ride and time and it changes or I don’t get it.
#1 is hard. We try and do early entry and sometimes you have folks cutting in line or you pick a line and someone has issues with their ticket while the othe lines move ahead. If you had to tap in to make a selection those things would be SO much more upsetting.
I wish on-site guests could book earlier, maybe a day earlier say evening before.
I will say I don’t know if Disney is limiting the number of Genie+but they definitely should. It is constantly compared to Universal’s express pass which is limited
My 3 wishes:
1) I want my fast pass back
2) I want my fast pass back
and third you guessed it
I want my fast pass back
Plain and simple….
The first 2 suggestions are no-brainers.
The 3rd — I would suggest a major tweak. Waking up at 7am should not be “painful” if you were planning on a morning park arrival. If you were going to get to a park by 8-9am, you’re probably up by around 7am. And remember — You had to wake up early under FP+ (I’d say this is where it is inherited from). But I would make this tweak — Just like purchased LLs, only allow 7am booking for on-site guests. A truly major on-site perk.
Now, my really controversial improvements:
**** Limit G+ sales. Either by capping the number that can be sold, or limiting it to on-site guests during peak periods, or raising the price (and letting economics limit the demand). When you sell so many G+ subscriptions, that people can only get 1-2 decent passes, you create major frustration.
I do believe you will get greater guest satisfaction even at a much higher price — $50 for a G+ that lets you easily and pleasantly book 5-7 good passes over the day if you subscribed. Versus paying $15 for a very limited and frustrating “extra.”
Truthfully, limiting it to on-site guests would probably be a win-win for Disney. Yes, there would be slightly less revenue from off-site guests buying G+. But it would encourage more guests to stay onsite (letting you charge more for on-site rooms). And it would increase guest satisfaction as G+ would immediately be a superior product, with fewer people using it.
I agree, I think raising the cost by a lot and letting economics limit demand might be the best way to go. People would definitely be mad, but every other theme park I’ve ever been to charges $70+ for their express passes. The trade off is that when you buy it, there’s none of this booking business, you just walk up up a ride and skip the line, eliminating the stress, concern about having to be up early, back tracking, and increased screen time complaints.
And I want to be clear I am not some rich elitist; I would not be able to afford an extra $70-$100/person each day. This would price me out of using it, just like a lot of people. But then the standby lines would move much faster and I think we can all agree that if you have to be in a long line, one that is constantly moving is a lot more enjoyable than the stops and starts caused by the FastPass/Genie+ systems.
Jared — yes. And yes, it would price out a lot of people. But it would also make a lot of people simply pick and choose. Not necessarily buy it all the time. But splurge the extra $100 for 1 day of the trip.
And yes, people would complain about being priced out. But I suspect the higher you price it, ironically, the fewer people will complain. Ironically, people don’t mind being priced out of luxury. Few people complain, “it’s no fair that First Class costs so much on airlines.” — They say, “sheesh, $2,000 for a more comfortable chair on the same flight and a cocktail? No thanks.” I don’t see many guests complaining about the high costs of VIP private tours at WDW — Nobody saying, “those VIP private tours should be $20 per person!”
Price it high enough where it’s a fairly small minority of guests purchasing it, the remainder will shrug. “It’s not worth $100 per person per day for me.”
Though I will note — the total-line-skip Express Pass at Universal is far more than $100 per day. During peak crowds, they price it as high as $300 per person, per day.
Adam and Jared – completely agree here. The modifications that Tom recommends would improve the system but the bottom line is that Genie+ is broken by overuse.
A line skipping upgrade simply cannot service upwards of 50% of visitors, ever, no matter how efficient and thoughtful it’s interface.
When I think about what $16 buys at Disney World vs the premise of Genie+, it’s no wonder that it just doesn’t work well. For the price of a (redacted) bubble wand, I can buy two Genie+ passes. That’s insane!
Your analysis of prices is correct too – most park goers should not be able to afford the luxury of skipping lines a WDW if it is priced at market comps.
To all those commenting how you would tweak this system to work for parents, night owls, ADRs, those with mobility challenges, type A planners and procrastinators (simultaneously!), you are arguing for a system with very limited use so you are not competing with other park visitors. That’s a Genie+ with a high, high starting price.
I think selection time should be based on the park, not the same time for every park like it is. This would space out the demands on the Disney servers which would hopefully make the process less frustrating. I think one hour before park opening for resort guests and 1/2 hour before park opening for non-resort guests. We resort guests need more perks. Also there could be an early afternoon refill for people who like to sleep in on vacation. This could also take into account how much a ride has been down that day, so if a ride is having a really bad day there wouldn’t be any refill Genie+.
I agree with your first two suggestions, but I wish Genie+ worked exactly like FastPass where you could book up to 3 rides well in advance of your park days, and be able to choose any available time during the day. The way it works now is terrible, especially when you have ADR. By the time we were eligible for a 3rd selection, every attraction we wanted was no longer available. Not worth the extra money in my opinion. Won’t get it again unless they make some changes.
Prior to 2020, we went to WDW every year, sometimes twice. Since then, everything sounds terrible…overcrowded, difficult to get on the rides you want, price increases…is it as bad (compared to 2019) as it sounds? My husband and I feel like we should just continue to “stay away”.
Three wishes:
* If you’re staying onsite at WDW resort, allow first Genie+ reservation to be made at 6:30am.
* Shorten rebook time window to 60 minutes
* Radical concept: Allow multiple bookings if within a single land within a park within a 2 hr window (i.e., You select “adventureland” window from 7-9am and you are allowed to book all the Genie+ reservations you want within that 2 hour window.. Jungle Cruise at 7:05a, Pirates at 8a, Tiki Room at 8:45a, all booked at 7am). Guest satisfaction scores would go through the roof if families would be allowed to stay and enjoy an area and not have to race across parks to get to their next reservation– also you encourage more wandering and store browsing and snacking if you are encouraged to stay in a certain area for a longer period.
Disney should allow you to book your first genie + when you make a park reservation if you have already purchased it. If you buy it for your whole trip you can reserve 1 ride a day. If you decided to buy it day of you get to wake up and do it. This way more people will add it to their trip…. Disney makes even more money. People who want to sleep in are happy.
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Limit the amount of Genie+ purchases duly.
Limit the amount daily. Cap genie+ based on reservation numbers.
If you can’t make your first genie selection until you’re in the park, a lot of people are going to take three steps into the park and the .come to a dead stop to make their selection. It would be awful for traffic!
Plus, those first few steps into the park are awesome for a lot of people. I don’t want to have to pick between seeing Cinderellas castle for the first time with my daughter and getting a good Genie selection.
Agree with this. I actually prefer the 7 am start for this reason!
MODIFY BUTTON!
Because the parks (except MK) seem to have earlier openings my family needed to be up and about by 7:00 just to get to rope drops. I agree this may seem early to some guests, but Disney vacations are not a time for my family to sleep in.
I know some people don’t vacation that way.
I agree with the modify button and the holding the time so you can complete your transaction. I don’t mind the 7 am time because I am always up anyway and would prefer to do that than wait until I arrive at the park.