Ride Reservation Refill Rules at Disney World
As crowds increase, so does “competition” for Lightning Lanes with more guests purchasing the Genie+ service. Despite surge pricing that can cause the paid FastPass service to cost ~$30 on busy days, demand is highest when attendance and wait times are at their worst.
Accordingly, you need advanced-level Genie strategy to score the most ride reservations, especially during the busy holiday season. There are three other advanced strategy posts you should read first for fully leveraging the Genie+ system: How the Genie+ 120 Minute Rule Works, Tips for “Stacking” Genie+ Ride Reservations, and Speed Strategy for Genie+ Selections.
None of this is explained by Walt Disney World on its official sites, and probably for good reason–these tips can be confusing and overwhelming. However, if you take ~30 minutes to learn those ins and outs, you won’t just be above average–you’ll be a top 5% Genie+ power user.
This post puts you in the top 1%, perhaps even top .5%. Before we dig into the details, a couple of warnings are in order. First, this will absolutely increase your screen time. I know that’s a major concern with a lot of Walt Disney World vacation planners, and some of our other advice avoids being glued to your phone. This does not.
Second, this is going to be confusing or intimidating at first and it will likely require several hours of your own “hands on” research before your trip. While you can comprehend the contours by reading, you really need to learn this one by doing.
If you’re so inclined, it’s worth mastering these ‘advanced’ Genie ride reservation refill rules as they will improve your day tremendously. If it were easy, everyone would do it. But it isn’t, so the vast majority of planners–even those who read this post–won’t follow the tips & tricks. Never mind the 98% of park guests who will neither read nor accidentally implement this advice. That’s okay–different strokes for different folks.
The salient point is that this is advanced-level and beyond what 99% of guests will do or even need. In other words, these are not the basics of Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World–feel free to skip this without worrying that you’re missing out on something essential about the Genie+ system. This is pretty far from that.
With that preface out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks and discuss what the heck ride reservation refill rules even are. And for that, we rewind to March 2020, in the halcyon days of FastPass+ at Walt Disney World…
There’s a reason we’re calling this “ride reservation refill rules,” and it’s not just because I’m a sucker for a good alliteration. It’s because this is nothing new, and was something Walt Disney World had been fine-tuning in the final days of FastPass+. I don’t remember precisely when they started, but it became a more pronounced practice in 2019. (Or so it seemed to me.)
Walt Disney World would add same-day FastPass+ ride reservations for headliner attractions “at random” throughout the day. Except it wasn’t really at random, it was based on a set schedule. The whole purpose of this was to throw a bone to guests who didn’t realize ride reservations were booked 30/60 days in advance, and showed up at the parks with nothing in hand. Essentially, it was an attempt to remedy guest complaints about FastPass+. Except, like all things, the predictable process was reverse-engineered and it was better exploited by the savviest planners than ill-prepared first-timers.
Almost identical ride reservation refill rules were built into the Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane systems. I’ve mentioned these in passing in a variety of posts, and even explained this in our ~4,500 word Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ.
However, I’ve never really elaborated on it. In part that’s because I don’t want to ruin a good thing, and in part because it’s complicated, not easy to follow, and subject to change. (The latter should cancel out the former, to some degree.) Here’s everything else you need to know about ride reservation refill rules…
Refills v. Cancellations – It should go without saying, but these are not the same. If one party cancels a ride reservation, that single reservation returns to the system along with its exact time slot. There are a lot of guests all using Genie+ at the same time. Let’s say that 9 different parties all see and attempt to book one reservation for Slinky Dog Dash. Obviously, only one can–and that happens in milliseconds, before Disney’s systems can reflect that it’s gone to everyone else. Making matters worse, all can initiate the booking process and it will disappear out from under 8 of you.
Cancellations can become easier to identify over time because they will be for some random time. Once that’s booked, the return time clock jumps back to wherever it was in its cycle before (or goes unavailable, as the case may be). By contrast, reservation refills restart the clock and advance incrementally over the course of a few minutes (sometimes less, sometimes more) before booking up.
Party Size Does Not Matter – This is really only a tangential point, but it’s something that comes up a lot, and relates to the first point of confusion. If you see a cancellation, but are one of the disappointed parties that were too slow to book it, there might be the assumption that it’s because your party was too large. Truthfully, I don’t know whether that’s the case with cancellations–if it shows for everyone despite not being a fit. Nothing would surprise me, but I do know that even as a party of 1, I am routinely have the cancelled reservation rug pulled out from under me.
What I also know is that party size doesn’t matter with ride reservation refills. Lightning Lanes are not like Advance Dining Reservations–Walt Disney World is not trying to match attraction vehicle seating with hourly capacity. That’s not even remotely feasible. It’s a pure numbers game: X number of ride reservations are released, and that number can be booked in any permutation possible.
No Modifying – Unlike FastPass+, there is (still) no modify button in Genie+. Making matters worse, cancelling is a tedious, time-consuming process. If you’ve already booked a Lightning Lane and are watching for something better, by the time you cancel and attempt to book that, it’ll likely be gone.
As such, it’s better if you simply don’t book anything and wait for a refill. That’s obviously higher risk and the temptation to hedge is understandable, but this is one of the big reasons why we recommend doing a trial run at home so you see for yourself how the refills work in practice, and can develop a rhythm.
Refresh Aggressively – It’s always better to force refresh Genie rather than to wait for it to do so on its own. There are several ways to do this, but I prefer the pin and pull-down method described in Speed Strategy for Genie+ at Walt Disney World.
Booking reservation refills isn’t really about speed (this is arguably an antidote to the 7 am mad rush, as explained below), but the same principle applies.
Refills Bring Stability – Another big complaint we’re seeing from those doing the aforementioned 7 am mad dash is that their confirmed Lightning Lane time is often hours later than what they saw earlier in the booking process. Like the lack of a modify button, this is yet another design oversight. This one results from a surge of people all trying to book the same ride reservation right at 7:00:00 am.
If you wait and do one of these ride reservation refills–especially the first one of the morning–the times are more stable and it’s less likely that you’ll see 9 am and get 2 pm (or whatever).
Refilled Ride Roster – Now we’re getting down to business. Here are the attractions that we’ve seen get reservation refills at one point or another:
- Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan’s Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain
- Epcot: Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World, Test Track
- Hollywood Studios: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Slinky Dog Dash, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Toy Story Mania, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
- Animal Kingdom: Avatar Flight of Passage, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Na’vi River Journey
Do These Ride Reservation Refills Always Happen? – Nope. Some attractions have their Lightning Lane availability replenished like clockwork at set times every day, others happen on rare occasion, and most are somewhere in between the two extremes.
Again, this is another reason to set aside a morning before your trip (ideally as close to your travel dates as possible) and do a dry run. You don’t have to pay for Genie+ to see the refills (in my many mornings of researching for this article, I didn’t) and it’ll give you an idea of what’s happening currently. I could share a bunch of refill times here today, and they could be wrong tomorrow, next week or month.
What Are Those Potentially Wrong Genie+ Ride Reservation Refill Times? – I want to, once again, stress that there are no guarantees. (There’s a reason I’m “backloading” key details like times towards the end of the article–I want anyone who simply wants a quick and easy hack to have given up and closed the browser tab by now.) I’ve been watching these refills since last November and the one thing that has been consistent is the inconsistency. There is risk in this approach.
With that said, I’ve found that the first Genie+ Lightning Lane refill typically occurs at 7:08 am (see progression in screenshots above). This is not always on the dot, and I’d recommend starting to refresh around 7:05 am and (potentially) continuing until 7:25 am. That’s right–you could be spending the first half-hour of your morning obsessively refreshing the My Disney Experience app. I hope you’ve had your coffee.
After that, Genie+ Lightning Lane refills tend to occur throughout the day, usually shortly after the hour or half-hour (e.g. 9:02 am, 9:33 am, 12:02 pm, 1:32 pm, 2:03 pm, etc). Those are examples, not exact times. Actual ride reservation refill times vary by day, park, crowd levels, and attraction downtime.
Beyond that, all of this is subject to change. I’m just one person monitoring this (and not a very organized one, so my notes aren’t the best) without the use of data scraping or fancy technology. I could be missing some attractions, drop times, etc. With that said, I’ve never seen any refills in the 8 am hour or after the 3 pm hour. To the best of my knowledge, most occur between 9 am and 1 pm.
What About Potentially Wrong Individual Lightning Lane Ride Reservation Refill Times? – This is actually one that has happened with a greater degree of consistency, and that’s Individual Lightning Lanes starting at 7:17 am (see progression in screenshots above). At one point, this was primarily just Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, but I think that was probably because it was the only attraction selling out quickly.
In more recent weeks, I’ve noticed all ILL attractions being refilled at 7:17 am (see recent refill availability in screenshots below). As an added bonus, the clock progresses much more slowly with this refill than the initial stock, making it easier to book the return time you actually want.
Where Does This Matter Most? – There’s a good chance this will be overwhelming or too much work if you are the type of person who goes on vacation to, ya know, vacation. If you want to spend time gazing at your family’s smiles and enjoying time with them at Walt Disney World and not glued to your phone, we would recommend only embracing this approach in one park and being more laid back with the rest.
Without question, that park is Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Distilling all of this down to its key components, you could (theoretically) sleep until 7:06 am, then book Slinky Dog Dash for an early return time during its first drop, followed by Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance during its first refill. Unlike the 7:00:00 am mad dash, this would not require two adults and would thus be easier since these times are staggered (for now, at least).
If you don’t plan on buying the ILL, you could sleep in even later, booking Slinky Dog Dash during its next refill (see half-hour progression screenshots of Slinky Dog Dash above). You could then use that when eligible, reserving your next Lightning Lanes as normal pursuant to the 120 minute rule, and then trying to score a couple ride reservation refills with your early afternoon slots.
That’s not really a ton of screen time (these reservations are literally occurring at least 2 hours apart) and has the potential to save you a tremendous amount of time waiting in line at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Although you can better leverage refills at Magic Kingdom, I just don’t think it’s necessary most days unless you’re doing this for sport or plan to Park Hop. Even then, the cost in stress and time spent refreshing is too high for my liking.
As yet another reminder, Genie+ is not the end-all, be-all of park touring strategy. Our Genie+ v. Savvy Standby Strategy at Walt Disney World covers the best and worst ways to beat the crowds right now and Genie+ and Lightning Lanes are not the best (and certainly not the easiest) way in 3 of the 4 parks.
The only park where Genie+ was the clear-cut winner was Magic Kingdom. Everywhere else, there were superior strategies for saving time waiting in line. Following these ride reservation refill rules and accompanying strategy bridges the gap, and makes Genie+ more viable for DHS, as well.
If you’re overwhelmed by all of the recent changes, crowd reports, and everything else, the aforementioned post is the most succinct resource for current strategy. (Seriously, if you only read ONE strategy post prior to your trip, make it that. The advice there is definitely more practical than this post for most.)
Ultimately, a lot of you will likely leave this post even more confused or frustrated, and perhaps further infuriated that Genie+ and Lightning Lanes are so unnecessarily complicated. In general, we agree with that sentiment. However, in this specific case, that doesn’t really apply. This isn’t really a loophole exploit, but there is a reason why Disney doesn’t publish this info itself. These ride reservation refills are not meant to be understood or common knowledge–they’re supposed to be a ‘relief valve’ of sorts for guests who don’t know all of the ins and outs, and are just randomly looking for availability. That’s true with a lot of Genie+ hacks–it’s leveraging the system in a way that wasn’t intended.
This is also why we’ve included so many caveats throughout this post about all of this being subject to change, inconsistent, and so forth. Walt Disney World will toy with these times to keep power users on their toes, meaning there are no guarantees and all of this is risky to put into practice. You really need to understand these pitfalls going in–this is not for the faint of heart, especially without the safety net of a modify button. This is a perilous approach, but to quote the great Indiana Jones (Adventure): “Real Rewards Await Those Who Choose Wisely.”
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
Do these ride reservation refill rules make sense to you or is it too overwhelming? Will you use this strategy for scoring Genie+ or Individual Lightning Lane selections? Have you had success in getting Slinky Dog Dash during one of these refills? What about headliners in other parks? Thoughts on leveraging Genie+ refills versus other strategy? 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!
We just came back from our vacation from April 1-8.The parks were crazy packed . Way too much time spent on genie plus along with all the issues . Two of my Grandkids were hit with strollers by people looking at their phones and saying sorry doesn’t cut . I don’ t understand why it is that if you pay to ride and skip the lines it can’t be more vacation friendly ? For the most part we have caved in to paying, so why the crazy from 7 am till closing? Design a system that lets you book 30-60 days out for the rides . Fans should be asking for something better and maybe we will be able to see more of the parks’ beauty rather than refreshing and looking at our phones. Stop the insanity!
I feel like the big change with this knowledge is to consider prioritizing earlier return times for your first Lightning Lane. For example, if you can snag a mid-priority attraction (say, Runaway Railway or Toy Story Mania) with a return time in the first 30 minutes of park operation and then refresh just right after 9:30am to grab a higher priority attraction after it replenishes (say, Slinky Dog Dash or Tower of Terror), you could be one Lightning Lane ahead of where you’d have been if you had just snagged a late return time for the top-tier ride in the first place. Combined with a good rope drop strategy, of course.
I was getting coffee at Yacht Club on 3/17 and heard a woman saying she’d missed the Rise ILL so I told her about the drop at 7:17. Adorably she thought it was a one day thing Disney was doing for St Patrick’s Day. Such a cute idea but nope. We had good luck with drops and refreshing that trip and are hoping it holds for our trip next week.
I’m so glad you posted this information. We have a group of 13 going in October and this will be super helpful. However, I may need a weekend trip before that to “test” it
Is it my imagination or did we never get an actual list of the refill times with their attractions beyond the two very early ones?
It’s not your imagination.
The problem with the later times is that they are incredibly hit or miss. One day, X attraction will recieve a refill at X time. The next day, it might not. When it comes to the ‘shortly after the hour/half hour’ refills, I’ve yet to ascertain any pattern with the specific attractions that do and do not get refills. I assume there is one, but I cannot figure it out–it seems almost random to me.
From my perspective, knowing that these happen is much more important than knowing the times. Those times will almost certainly change–they did in the FastPass+ days–between now and your trip. It’s the foundational knowledge that matters, as it’s something you can account for in building your own plan. (And also, you can do a dry run a morning or two before your trip and learn how this is working then, rough times, etc.) It’s one of those ‘give a man a fish v. teach a man to fish’ kinda deals.
We used this on our winter break trip after you mentioned it on a breakdown day post. The hardest part was waiting for the refills and resisting the urge to book something. I also gave myself a 5 minute rule for refreshing to reduce screen time.
Hopefully you’re right about most people not having the patience for this.
I am here now and all of this is 100% accurate. Thankfully I knew refills are a thing, so I was able to benefit from it. I was at Hollywood Studios on Sunday, 4/17/22, and after experiencing the Genie+ disaster over Thanksgiving, I wasn’t hopeful. On 4/17/22 at 7:00am, I got SDD for a noon return (first time ever being able to score a LL for SDD). At 7:01, as I was trying to get a ILL for ROTR, the app started to glitch, and I was using my Verizon data, not WiFi. We were rope dropping ROTR (wanted to ride it twice). By the time I could get back into the app, ROTR was “gone.” I continued to refresh for the next (approximately) 25 minutes, and new times started to appear. For about 5 minutes, everytime I tried to get one I saw, it was already gone, then finally luck and I got one after 5 minutes of OCD refreshing. We were in the ROTR queue by the time I could put my phone away. I missed the entire experience of entering the park, was not able to enjoy that moment, look around or anything. Most of this time, my daughter was asking me to get off my phone, not really understanding what I was doing. After ROTR, went to MFSR with a 15 minute wait, then on to MMRR with a 30 minute wait. Was also able to get LLs for MMRR (so rode it twice) and Rockin Roller, but only after OCD refreshing. Never could get a LL for MFSR, but we had already ridden it at rope drop. Rode SDD again just before park close, posted wait was over an hour, we waited 30 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised by what felt like a very successful day at HS. Rope dropping HS is a must for us, at least during high peak crowds.
I was a big fan of FP+, mainly because of the ability to plan ahead. Ride reservations could be booked around ADRs and to accommodate afternoon rest breaks. I don’t mind paying for this service, but having the ability for advanced planning would make this so much better.
Correction to my own post. My HS day was Sunday, 4/10/22. I’m still here and apparently I’m living in the Disney time warp. I guess the sign of a great vacation is losing track of the days!
The 7:17 refill saved us at HS last week. We had only 3 park days and hitting the headliners at HS was a priority, so we snagged SDD at 7:00 and then Rise was already gone. I knew about the 7:17 thing but was still super nervous, but just kept refreshing from 7 until 7;17 and then all the good Rise times popped up. Also, they opened the parks super early last week, so we were actually standing in line for Rope Drop during my first 2 days of ever using Genie+. (We literally were going thru the tapstiles with our family of 4 at 7am The First Day I’m trying to actually book Genie+, with kids little enough to struggle with the fingerprint thing… it was a mess). However, all the strategies worked and we had an amazing 3 days at 4 parks. (plus a rest day to try to recover).
Thanks Tom for the great info!! I knew something was going on with the times, but didn’t understand it to this extent. I checked MK times this morning for Thunder, Jungle and SDMT, and at exactly 7:17 there were earlier times available. Thunder went from 2:30 to 11:00, Jungle from 6:30 to 2:00, and SDMT from not available to 9:00!! And these were not just one time pop ups that then immediately go back down to the later times. They gradually worked their way down to later times; with the exception of SDMT. That early time was available really long and advanced to a later time at a much slower pace. Seems like the best strategy is get a Genie + right at 7am and then wait for the refill on ILL. Thanks again Tom, this certainly fixes having to use multiple phones at 7am, which is what some pros have been suggesting. And this gets better times with this strategy!!
Do you need to be at a Disney hotel to use Genie + at7:00?
I am getting conflicted messages about access time to Genie + for guests of non-Disney hotels. We are staying a a Disney “official partner” hotel. I though we could do the 7:00am booking, but when I spoke with Disney, they say I cannot access it until park opening. Which is correct?
I stayed at one of the Good Neighbor hotels (Signia by Hilton at Bonnet Creek) in early March and can answer this question. The reason you’re getting conflicting information is that both are technically true. You can purchase and book your first Genie+ selection at 7am regardless of where you are staying. However, if you want to get an ILL (like Rise of the Resistance), you MUST be staying at an actual Disney Hotel for this in order to get one at 7am. Otherwise, you have to wait until the park opens to purchase an ILL.
This is also confusing because my Good Neighbor hotel did have access to Early Entry. So…there’s perks to the Good Neighbor hotels, but booking ILLs is not one of them.
Thank you Maggie for replying.
Is it correct that ILL cost extra even with Genie+? Did you find you needed the 7:00am ILL slot? Or did you still manage to get onto Rise or other rides?
We are going in July and I am trying to get my head around Genie+ and ILLs. I hate change!!
Disney used to be the land of the Mouse, Magic, and fun. Just left after a 10 day vacation there and witnessed parents so wrapped up in their phones trying to make reservations that their little ones wandered away and got lost. Was struck several times by similar nose to phone adults. People were running from one side of the park to the other because these reservations cannot be scheduled in a logical order. Doing extra early morning opening got us on multiple rides we wanted before each park opened. The late extra hours also gave us multiple rides, Only disappointment was the food booths closing so early at epcot. Did not purchase any individual LL or genie plus and still had a great time.
Did test run this afternoon more out of curiosity than anything (my trip isn’t until late October). Can confirm 1:32 p.m. refresh of rides at MK, Epcot and HS.
How can you test run genie plus without buying it?
I went to the app, clicked My Day, and switched over to Tip Board. It shows the available time slots for Genie+ as well as standby times for the rides at each park. I refreshed at 32 after the hour and it showed earlier times, suggesting the reservations had been refilled.
Checked again this morning from 7-7:15. As an example, Millennium Falcon had 6:15p showing when I first looked, but times kept changing on refresh until 7:15 when there was a 9:15a spot open. Thanks for this tip, will keep playing around with it to see if it’s still happening by the fall!
While at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios in a July 2021. It was awesome just walking from ride to ride not fighting to go on anything not looking at my phone to plan plan plan except Rise of the Resistance. It was so magical and fun. No stress at all. Get rid of all rice reservations and just wait in line and enjoy. Disney is not so much fun anymore!
Thanks Tom ! Definitely a good idea to have some practice runs……We head to WDW in 3 weeks plus two days! Very much looking forward to all the strategizing (I’m an A type to the extreme) so this stuff really brings me a great deal of joy.
Thanks for posting this Tom! I had used this method in March! I anecdotally noticed they would restock rides around 7:08 from my dry runs at home before the trip. On our Epcot day, Frozen return time went by way too quickly one morning (like return time of 6pm booking at 7:02), I anxiously waited until 7:08 with constant refreshes and saw it restart at 12 noon returns. I was able to then get a 2oclock window which was much better for my family. I’m glad you did an article about this!
This is one reason why I recommend doing a dry run prior to your trip–it’s a lot easier to see these refills occurring when you’re not actually making LL reservations. A couple of mornings watching from 7-7:30 and you could probably catch whatever the current times might be (assuming they change).
Maybe we can just go back to whoever gets up early, runs the fastest, doesn’t mind standing in line, and stays till closing can ride the rides they want to ride like amusement parks used to be. I am not anti technology, but the amount of planning and strategizing it takes to go to Disney and ride want you want to ride is ridiculous. Disney should be rebranded to the “The most stressful place on earth”.
I find doing things electronically a lot more civilized than getting the whole family up at the crack of dawn to rush to the parks and run to the rides while still in a zombie like state. You are anti tech and biased.
You absolutely can still do it the old fashioned way. Just come and go as you please and use the standby lines instead. No one is saying you HAVE to buy or use Genie+. I’d actually prefer if everyone felt this way and didn’t want to bother with working smarter instead of harder so that those of us who prefer to make efficient use of our vacations have a better shot at booking LLs.
I benefitted from you mentioning this in previous posts on my trip in February. I was patient and didn’t give up when I really wanted to just book something else. I got SDD at 7:17 with a 9:35 return time. I felt like a rockstar.
Love this guide! It suits my hyper-focused (read geeky) mind! Who needs to pay for games to keep your mind sharp when you can just blogs like this! I’ve used tips/techniques I’ve read here a number of times in the past, but I get the biggest kick when I can help others also be in the know. They are always so grateful.
Love it! I agree it suits my somewhat obsessive compulsive nature. It’s very satisfying to win at Disney.
I definitely saw FOP refills. I was out of things to do at AK, and booked a LL for Dinosaur, not because I wanted to go on it, but because I was out of things to do and didn’t want to go “home”. And then FOP showed up, and had several times available. I hadn’t planned on going on it, and wasn’t looking to book it at 7am, but at that point I thought why not. (I am solo so it is just the cost for 1 person) So I ended up cancelling Dinosaur and heading to Pandora for dinner at my least favorite place to eat at AK (Satuli Canteen, that was their 3rd failed chance with me) and then going on FOP.
Great info, thank you!!
Between refreshing, your “fast fingers” strategy, and rope drop, we manage to get 80% of what we want. The remaining 20% is a good lesson in very, very low-stakes disappointment. My over-privileged kids now understand that money can buy many things, but we can’t always get a spot on Slinky Dog.