My Day Using Genie+ at Magic Kingdom
Magic Kingdom is the best park for buying Genie+ at Walt Disney World. For this Lightning Lane report, I tested my strategy on a fully-booked day over a holiday weekend to see how much time I could save skipping standby lines with paid FastPass.
This Genie+ photo report walks you through my step-by-step day in MK, 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.
My goal here was to “stress test” Genie+ on a day I was sure Magic Kingdom would be busy–my goal was a 9/10 or 10/10 crowd level day. Well, you know what they say: the best laid plans of the Mouse and magical blue men often go awry. In actuality, this particular day at Magic Kingdom was a 7/10 crowd level.
Nevertheless, this day at MK more or less tracks with my last experience using Genie+ about a month prior on a crowd level 8/10 day. In fact, my experiences with Genie+ at Magic Kingdom have been pretty consistent in all crowd levels, although I still haven’t “lucked out” with a 10/10 day.
For illustrative purposes, that’s fine. This pretty accurately reflects a normal day in Magic Kingdom, and outside of a few weeks (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve), will be what you can expect to accomplish using Genie+ at Magic Kingdom.
My other goal using Genie+ at Magic Kingdom was to embrace a more laid back approach to illustrate that you don’t need to get up bright and early at 7 am, diligently set alarms to book subsequent reservations, or develop a tactical plan of attack with military precision.
That’s how to use Genie+ at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Thankfully, such vigilance is not required at Magic Kingdom due to the larger attraction roster and superior capacity. This is good news because, as we’ve mentioned repeatedly, Magic Kingdom is the only park at Walt Disney World where we view buying Genie+ as necessary to beat the crowds.
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+.
Anyway, let’s move along to my day using Genie+ and Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom…
I woke up around 7:45 am, bought Genie+ in the My Disney Experience app, navigated to the Tip Board to see available options, and booked a Lightning Lane reservation for Peter Pan’s Flight. This entire process took only a few minutes.
After Walt Disney World eliminated the Genie+ ticket add-on, there have been fears that guests would need to be up at midnight to purchase Genie+ and again at 7 am to book before attractions. Thus far, there has not been a single day that Genie+ sold out at any park–and certainly not before 7 am. (Many guests don’t even learn about Genie+ until they arrive to the park, and then buy around 10 or 11 am.)
In actuality, I could’ve made this same selection over an hour later–up until 8:59 am–and my day would’ve looked almost exactly the same. At Magic Kingdom, such a laid back approach to Genie+ works just fine.
Since my return time for Peter Pan’s Flight was more than 2 hours into the future, I’d be subject to the 120 minute rule. This meant that I’d be eligible to book my next Lightning Lane ride reservation 120 minutes after park opening, or 11 am. I wasn’t setting reminder alarms, and didn’t remember to do that until 11:08 am, when I booked Space Mountain.
I opted for this instead of Jungle Cruise because I knew I’d be over in Tomorrowland around this time, and felt I could gamble on Jungle Cruise having availability 120 minutes later. In any case, Jungle Cruise remains #1 on our Magic Kingdom Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks, even after the addition of Space Mountain.
I’m largely going to leave the “regular” part of our day out of this because it’s really atypical. For those wanting a “peek behind the curtain” (for some reason), we spent most of the day doing the TTA PeopleMover and Carousel of Progress because Tomorrowland’s Top Two Attractions Got Great Big Beautiful Upgrades!
The PeopleMover, in particular, was a challenge because it kept breaking down. This meant long waits both in line and stuck on the attraction. I was trying to get a clean video of the new narration, failing on my first half-dozen ride-throughs. In other words, our day was not the average tourist experience in Magic Kingdom. (Not to discourage you from looping the TTA or Carousel of Progress. Doing both repeatedly is, of course, a good idea.)
My next selection was Jungle Cruise.
I got this shortly after a ride reservation refill, which meant an earlier return time by a few hours. This was totally dumb luck. I was not spending time refreshing the My Disney Experience trying to improve my selections–I was just taking what I could get.
Above is a look at my Lightning Lane lineup thus far, all obtained by around 1 pm at Magic Kingdom.
Below are Magic Kingdom wait times this particular afternoon.
Throwing out Seven Dwarfs Mine Train because it’s an Individual Lightning Lane and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin because it has near instant returns (see below), I think I chose pretty well.
With that said, there’s no way I saved 235 minutes waiting in line. The standby line for Space Mountain was bad when I returned, but the lines for Peter Pan’s Flight and Jungle Cruise were quite short. It’s difficult to eyeball these due to the Lightning Lanes, but I can’t imagine either had actual waits that were over an hour. They were probably closer to 30-45 minutes.
Most of this day at Magic Kingdom was laid back; after tapping into Jungle Cruise when my window opened I made Splash Mountain my top priority.
The reason was simple–it was really hot and I wanted to ride Splash Mountain during those triple-digit “feels like” temperatures rather than after sunset. Also, Splash Mountain was an objectively good choice at this point.
Haunted Mansion was my next pick, and literally the exact same scenario played out there–I tapped into Splash Mountain and immediately selected Haunted Mansion.
At the time I made the selection, Haunted Mansion had a lengthy standby line and hour-long posted wait time. By the time fireworks roll around, it’s usually a walk-on or close to it.
Next up was Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. I made this selection at 6:44 pm and my return time was one minute later.
I’ve noticed this is a relatively common occurrence with Space Ranger Spin. Even when the overflow queue is in use, you can score a Lightning Lane reservation with a return time not too far into the future. (Avoiding the miserable line for Buzz is arguably worth the cost of Genie+ by itself.) It seems like every park has an attraction like this, with a disproportionate amount of its capacity allocated to Genie+ and easy availability.
My final selection was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
This wasn’t because nothing else was available (see below) but because this had more or less exhausted everything I wanted to accomplish in Magic Kingdom. Normally, we also would’ve done some of the meet & greets, but that was a nonstarter thanks to the aforementioned heat, humidity, and afternoon rain. Suffice to say, the resulting photos would not have been usable.
With that said, everything except Jungle Cruise (and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train) had availability.
It would’ve been easy to book another 2-3 Lightning Lanes…it just wasn’t necessary. I had already done all of the high profile ones, and everything else would have short waits by the time their return windows rolled around.
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. Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Little Mermaid, Dumbo) or things I had no desire to do (e.g. Barnstormer, Magic Carpets).
Doing most or all of those would’ve been possible had I been a bit more aggressive and wanted to “prove” that I could do everything via Genie+ at Magic Kingdom in a day. But it wasn’t necessary. Our actual wait for the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh via standby was under 5 minutes. It’s also nice to do these attractions together; it’s still a bit awkward for me to do Fantasyland dark rides by myself during these tests.
With ~20 minutes left on the clock, we passed Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and opted against doing it.
Instead, we raced over to Tomorrowland for one last ditch attempt at a clean PeopleMover video. That’s right–even after riding a half-dozen times earlier in the day, we still had not had an uninterrupted ride.
Success!
We exited the TTA PeopleMover at 10:58 pm and booked it back to Fantasyland in a buzzer-beater attempt at queueing up for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train before Magic Kingdom closed at 11 pm. I’m not sure how long that walk normally takes, but the answer is definitely more than 2 minutes.
Success!
We ended up in the very last train of the night, with an actual wait time of <10 minutes. This is entirely consistent with our Seven Dwarfs Mine Train “buzzer-beater” experiences in the last year. The actual waits is, at most, one-third of posted wait times at the end of the night.
I can’t recall the last time we waited more than 15 minutes for SDMT, which is why we never do it during Early Entry. It’s so much easier, consistent, and more pleasant at night. (Those fans hitting you with a blast of cool air are refreshing in the evening, rather than strictly necessary during the daytime hours.)
Ultimately, I ended up using Genie+ to secure “only” 7 Lightning Lane selections during this day at Magic Kingdom, but did so with minimal effort and screen time–and without setting any alarms. Another 5 ride reservations would’ve been easy to book, but also largely useless. It was only a moderately busy day at Magic Kingdom–not too bad aside from the weather–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 supposedly saved ~6.5 hours waiting in line with those ride reservations. That’s probably inflated by at least 2 hours due to the disparity between posted v. actual wait times at Walt Disney World. Still, it’s at least 3 hours saved waiting in line on the conservative side. Even if I arrived for Early Entry or didn’t spend half my day in Tomorrowland, I would’ve been hard-pressed to accomplish all of this without using Lightning Lanes.
Given all of that, Genie+ is easily “worth it” at Magic Kingdom in terms of the time v. money cost calculus. This is the conclusion we’ve reached every single time when using Genie+ at Magic Kingdom–and it’s the only park at Walt Disney World with this consistent outcome and ease of use. Buying Genie+ for both Disney’s Hollywood Studios and EPCOT can make sense, but there are superior alternatives at both, and DHS certainly is not a laid back experience (if you want to score more than 3 good Lightning Lanes).
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 instead of paying for Genie+. That’s not true with Magic Kingdom. The sheer number of attractions and availability of Lightning Lanes makes it the clear-cut winner. Save your money elsewhere if you’re on the fence about Genie+, but definitely buy it at Magic Kingdom. Even accounting for the cost, Genie+ is better than FastPass+ at Magic Kingdom.
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 on a moderately crowded day? Are you planning on buying Genie+ or sticking to free standby lines? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment that Genie+ is worth the money and can be a laid back experience 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!
We will be doing MK on Sunday, Dec 18th – we also have tickets to MVMCP that night – is it a good idea to do both on the same day? We are a family of 4 – my daughters are 17 & 21 (trip is our oldest’s 21st birthday present).
We visited Magic Kingdom and Epcot the last week of June and bought Genie + both days. It was definitely worth it. I didn’t feel like I was on my phone all day. I thought the system was easy to use and efficient. We rode everything we wanted to ride, including the MK mountain range, frozen, rat ride and guardians. The longest we had to wait in line was for guardians after our call back time. We had so much fun on this trip and we can’t wait to go back! I’m already planning another trip for next Spring.
Hey Tom, we visited last month (June) with our party of 13. Although the weather was warm, we were able to manage our days at all the parks so that it didn’t feel like we ever experienced unbearable wait times. We did use G+ in all the parks and it was worth it to us. This was all thanks to reading your posts over the past 6 months which really helped us plan and move efficiently. Thanks so much!
Hi, my daughter has autism so we’re therefore eligible for the DAS. We will be in Florida 11/10-11/17. Can you use both DAS genie +? And if so do you think it’s worth to use both for magic kingdom? I have 3 kids in total all 7 and under so waiting in line can be torturous lol Thank you
We visited DW back in April with the same situation (kids 7, 5, 2 – youngest with ASD). IMO it’s not worth it to add Genie+ with DAS. Just keep in mind that you can only use DAS if your child with ASD is tall enough to get on a ride.
Because our youngest was under 40 inches, we rope dropped Big Thunder and Splash Mountain with one parent accompanying our 2 older kids on the rides while the other did Aladdin with our youngest. The only other ride where we would’ve needed Genie+ is Space Mountain but our oldest wasn’t interested.
Hi Tom , first and foremost , thanks for all the great information! I look forward to your updates. I’m hoping you respond to my question… coming to disneyworld in September . We have a disabled adult daughter my husband and I . She can only tolerate being in the parks for maybe 3 hours. Is it worth getting the Genie + ? We do get DAS for her as well.
We were just there and my husband was registered for DAS. You do not need Genie+. DAS is awesome! We got on a ton of rides. I booked maybe one Genie+ ride per park – not worth the money. Each park treats wheelchairs and scooters differently, even rides inside each park – sone have a third entry area. Some make you transfer from your scooter to their wheelchair. Do NOT try Space Mountain. You have to push uphill. It’s awful. The newer rides are very accessible friendly. My husband rode his scooter all the way up in Soarin, Rise of the Resistance…. Make sure you book your advance DAS selections as soon as you are able. They fill up!!!
@cheryl . Thank you for the info !!
We will be there for 3 days in September (14-17), we are staying at the swan so we have extended evening and have genie + / park hopper
So far I have made the following reservations : Epcot (hopping to MK+extended) ; AK (possibly hopping to MK) ; DHS (hoping to MK + MnSSHP)
Do you think this sound like a decent plan?
Going to WDW Nov 20-27. I know probably not a good time but time share restraints. Anyway there will be 4 of us. I feel getting the Genie+ Will be they way for us to go since we’re doing 1 park per day. I just haven’t quite grasp how to use it yet. I’ll keep reading to understand. But you said you can book “X” amount of rides per day in a time limit except the most popular ride. So we can book say 3 rides at a time or not? And let’s say the #1 ride at MK you can’t book on Genie+. You have to stand in line. Is that correct?
Genie plus is limited to one reservation at a time, u can make another reservation 2 hours after your first reservation, or after u use your first reservation, however the 2 hour rule is different if u make your first reservation at 7 am which is when your able to make your first reservation, cause I thought at 9 am I would be able to make the next reservation but turns out the next reservation can’t be made until 2 hours after park opening or until after u use your first one so after I made my 7 am reservation which was for haunted mansion at 1030 am I made my next reservation after we swiped in at haunted mansion, seven dwarves mine train is not included in Genie plus so if u want to skip the line for it you have to pay extra which is usually about $10 per person, sometimes it can be $12 depending on the time of year.
So is you pay for Genie Plus and then extra for Lightning for other rides?
Going to WDW Nov 20-27. I know probably not a good time but time share restraints. Anyway there will be 4 of us. I feel getting the Genie+ Will be they way for us to go since we’re doing 1 park per day. I just haven’t quite grasp how to use it yet. I’ll keep reading to understand. But you said you can book “X” amount of rides per day in a time limit except the most popular ride. So we can book say 3 rides at a time or not? And let’s say the #1 ride at MK you can’t book on Genie+. You have to stand in line. Is that correct?
So you can only reserve one ride at a time. Once you redeem/get on the ride, you can select another ride. Alternatively, you can select another ride two hours after your last selection. If at 7:30 AM you reserved your first ride, and you time to redeem is at 10 AM, you can make your next reservation at 9:30 AM (assuming MK is open), or once you redeem your previous reservation .
Were you able to “Stack” three LL’s as shown in the photo before you used your first one? I was able to do that a few years ago in Disneyland with MaxPass and Genie+ looks very similar. We will be there in October and have already purchased Genie+ as part of our multi-day tickets.
I feel like I’ve hit a wall. I think my mental capacity for learning and implementing these changes has reached its limit. I’ll study this post, probably a few times, and greatly appreciate you breaking it down, but I am tired! I’m the planner of our trips, and have been successful thus far getting on the various hot new rides when the pressure is on, and I’m not giving up yet. I have three weeks to learn (and most likely relearn) this process. Bring it!
I highly recommend Tom’s “savvy strategy” post for using or not using Genie+ WDW vacation planning (linked in red in the above post). It summarizes the best strategy for each Florida park while briefly comparing the alternives. He documents his work through links to many, many other posts, but they aren’t necessary if you just want the bottom line for your trip.
As for this post, I wonder if WDW has mastered the art of avoiding 10/10 days in the MK by tweaking the attendance caps depending on the day’s special entertainment. Maybe not, but it sure seems that they’re trying.
Okay so we have a trip for 7 of us planned in mid September (17th-24th) with reservations at all 4 parks…AK on 18th MK on 19th HS 21st and E on 22nd. Which parks would the Ge ie+ typically benefit us? All are adults except a 10 year old visiting for first time. Any help and insight would be appreciated. We are NOT staying on property if that makes a difference (We cancelled when we heard meal plans wouldn’t be ba k and got a huge VRBO instead lol)
Thanks Tom for another amazing article. We’re thinking of going to FL hitting MK/Epcot/US next year which of course means most of this will have changed by then. But then of course, we’ll already know if the changes from reading and keeping up with your articles.
What are your bets on whether the current G+ rides will stay after Aug 7? Should we expect Space and Remy to go back to ILL for fall?
I think it’s unlikely that Expedition Everest or Space Mountain go back to ILL as neither are the #2 attractions in their respective parks, and didn’t sell that well during last fall in the off-season. On top of that, it’s likely that LL capacity will be needed again from Thanksgiving through Marathon Weekend.
Really depends on how greedy Disney is, but I think/hope the odds are strong all of those G+ rides stay after August 7. It doesn’t make much sense to bounce them to ILL only to bring them back to G+ two months later.
Plus Tron will be coming soon in MK and that will be an ILL
Right.
It would be absolutely mind-boggling for MK in particular to revert to two ILLs in August. But clearly they don’t care about confusing consumers with constantly changing policies, so who knows.
Hi Tom………How much of your experience is due to being a single person? Does having a group of 10 make any difference on this strategy?
Thank you
None whatsoever. Genie+ isn’t like ADRs where party sizes are matched to tables in the restaurant. That’s simply not possible or practical on the scale of ride reservations, especially with the hour return window.
For the attractions, what’s available is what’s available–it doesn’t matter if you’re a party of 1 or 100.
While it doesn’t make any difference on the technical side of booking the Genie+ reservations, it absolutely does make a difference being a group of 10 on actually carrying out the booked reservation. For example, if you do rider switch, it’s a totally different experience in the way of time spent, because you have to go in two groups.
We just got back from Disney July 10th-15th with a group of 26 (11 kids) and Genie + Worked amazing for us in Magic Kingdom the first day (It worked great in every park). We did all the main rides except for splash mountain (Made it priority the next time we were in MK). we arrived at the park 8:45ish left for mid-day pool break around 11:30-3:30 then had dinner at liberty tree at 4:15PM. One thing I did learn later in the trip was that I was able to make LL reservations for 23 at one time instead of the 10-12 that everywhere online was saying. Only Individual LL stopped us at 10 per booking slot.
Question-if you had tapped into Peter Pan at 12:25, would you have been able to immediately book a new selection based on that tap AND around 1 pm make a selection based on space mountain being booked around 11 am? Or does the Peter Pan tap in and subsequent selection of something start a new clock allowing for another reservation no earlier than 1:25/negating the 1 pm window caused by space mountain booking?
It’s either tapping in OR 120 minutes elapsing, not both (that loophole was closed in November).
The only time there’s any sense of urgency to return quickly is when your ride reservation is inside 120 minutes, as then tapping in makes you eligible to book your next attraction–instead of having to wait the full 120 minutes. Make sense?
this confuses me still and I’ve been twice since genie launched. Tom said below that he purposely tapped into JC to open his next window but according to his screenshots his windows would have opened at ~3:09 anyway? Or am I missing something
@Disgal – You are correct and I am embarrassed. I don’t know why, but I was thinking my window would open at 4:09 pm. To make matters worse, I made this mistake both in the park and while writing this post. /facepalm
Oh Tom, these things happen to even the most savvy planner! What confuses me most is when “tapping in” is the catalyst for the new window to open – I understand that is the case if your first LL is booked prior to the 2-hrs-after-park-open marker (i.e. park opens at 9, first LL is booked 9:30-10:30, your window opens when you tap in, not at 11) but in what instance does tapping in open an earlier window? When your next LL is open prior to the 120-minute mark?
“When your next LL is open prior to the 120-minute mark?”
Correct! If I had booked this at 1:09 pm and my return time started at 2:30 pm, it would’ve been advantageous to arrive right away, rather than waiting until 3:09 pm to book another.
Hope that makes sense!
It does thanks!
What is your best buzzer beater to the Dwarfs? Ours is 10:59 from Peter Pan to it, but your PM to Seven Dwarfs is impressive! Great report! Also the other night Dwarfs was down we went from TLM to PM at 10:57 🙂
In recent memory…definitely this. This has been our go-to SDMT approach for years, but I don’t remember the last time we had a better outcome than this. (We have waited slightly less time, though.)
A question for August 20-27th family of 6 trip. Crowd levels look really low but I can not get a reservation at Beaches and Cream for any date while we’re there. We just want to get the kitchen sink sundae. We’ve never had a problem on any other trip. Is it being refurbished or something?
ADR availability is still limited, but that isn’t necessarily indicative of crowd sizes. There’s just way more demand for restaurant reservations than there is supply.
My advice would be to keep checking–especially the evening before you want to do it, and the subsequent morning. I’ve seen a decent amount of night before and same-day availability for Beaches & Cream. (However, I’m searching for a party of 2, not 6 and there’s a BIG difference.)
This is our first trip with 6 and it is a bit of a challenge. Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep trying.
I wonder if Beaches and Cream is even doing parties of 6 at all. It’s so small in there. I had a similar issue with Garden Grill 68 days out and nothing was available for 6 ppl. I booked for 4 since I thought we might go to different restaurants and my son really wanted garden grill. Fast forward to 30 days out and it occurred to me I should try booking a table for 2 around the same time. After much time changing and refreshing over the course of 2 hours I was able to get a table for 4 at 7:30 and for 2 at 7:10. We are hoping to be seated near each other when we go but totally ok if a bit separated. I think you should try this for Beaches and Cream. I was astounded at how quickly the availability for tables of 2 and 4 were changing during those 2 hrs. I am guessing lots of ppl or travel agents doing the same thing.
Hi Becky, you don’t need res if all you want is the kitchen sink. Use the outdoor window. There’s seating available outside too. Also with party of 6 try for smaller parties. When you arrive they usually can seat you together. If not ask to be served outside. They may accommodate you.
I agree with Liz. Try booking reservations for 4 and 2 around the same time. Our group of 9 did this last July – we only found one reservation for 9 but were able to book a bunch of 4s and 5s either at the exact same time or just separated by 10 minutes. We would show up to the restaurant a bit early and ask for our groups to be seated together. They were very accommodating and always sat the 9 of us together. Just be sure that two different people are booking the ADRs because I don’t think it lets you double-book yourself on the app.