Park Hopping Strategy & Tips for Genie+ at Disney World
Park Hopping is a good way to use Genie+ to make the best Lightning Lane ride reservations. By doing two parks, you can extend your day at Walt Disney World, save more time, and also save money by not buying the paid FastPass service every day of your vacation. This post explains how to Park Hop with Genie+, selection strategies, and more. (Updated April 24, 2022.)
It’s important to understand that Genie+ is not equally valuable at all of the parks or even worth purchasing. Our recommendations have strongly cautioned against purchasing length of stay tickets with Genie+ already included, because it’s simply not necessary every day of your trip. No sense in wasting money where it’s not needed.
There are two parks where Genie+ is absolutely advantageous: Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Even at DHS, using Genie+ doesn’t work the same way (or as well) as at Magic Kingdom. Then there’s Epcot and Animal Kingdom, which only offer a few attractions each that’ll save significant time via Genie+ and making Lightning Lane ride reservations. That’s where Park Hopping comes into play…
Let’s start by discussing how to Park Hop in the Genie+ service, which is to say how to book Lightning Lane reservations in a different park than where you’re starting. Since the system defaults to wherever you’ve made your Park Pass reservation, you’ll need to switch away from that park.
Do this by navigating to the Tip Board via the + button at the middle bottom of My Disney Experience or the hamburger button on the bottom right. Towards the top of the screen, you’ll see the park name and the park. Just below that, click “Change Park.”
A pop-up will appear giving you the option to “Select a Park.” Choose whichever one you want to visit next, or wherever you want to make your next Lightning Lane selection. You’ll then see the “Tip Board” for whichever park you chose, and its current Genie+ Lightning Lane options. If you do this early in the day, the times displayed will likely be before 2 pm.
Despite this, you can start making Lightning Lane ride reservations via Genie+ before Park Hopping time, if you so desire. In fact, you probably should do this, as afternoon waits are worse than morning waits. This means you’re better off doing as many attractions via standby lines at your first park, and building up a stockpile of Lightning Lane selections at park two or three.
In previous posts, we’ve noted that Genie+ is mostly a “dumb” system. Despite the negative connotation, this is actually a good thing. It simply means that Genie+ won’t stop you from double-booking yourself.
If you want to make multiple ride reservations from 3 to 4 pm, for example, it’ll let you do that. You’ll see a warning that you have overlapping plans, but the system doesn’t prevent you from making them like FastPass+ did.
One (positive) exception to this is with Park Hopping. If you have a Disney Park Pass reservation in one park and try to book a Lightning Lane selection via Genie+ for a second park that’s before 2 pm, the system will automatically adjust the time to start at 2 pm. In the above screenshot, you can see with a “time changed due to park hopping” message.
Depending upon how and what you book ride reservations, this means you could potentially end up with multiple selections in that 2 to 3 pm window.
During most normal park days, things won’t work out that way. Rather, you’ll be booking Lightning Lanes for your first park so long as it’s advantageous, before moving on to the second park, prioritizing the most popular attractions in that park.
However, you might want to spend morning at the pool or outside the park, in which case booking a Disney Park Pass for a different park and then switching is a potentially savvy way to “force” the clock forward.
There are probably other potential use cases where you’d want to start booking the second park early–so much of this is circumstantial. The point is that you should be mindful of return times, overbooking yourself, and time slot availability.
Most of the time, you’re not going to run into this issue–you’re going to be using Genie+ to book Lightning Lane ride reservations once every 120 minutes. The return time clock will likely advance beyond 2 pm for your second-highest priority attraction after that 120 minutes has elapsed.
There are a couple of elements of the Genie+ system that make it especially attraction and conducive to Park Hopping. First, the no re-ride rule. This means you can’t use Lightning Lanes repeatedly to bypass lines on Na’vi River Journey, or your favorite attraction.
Second, the aforementioned weak Genie+ attraction lineups in Animal Kingdom and Epcot. At best, each of these two parks have 3-4 attractions worth using Lightning Lanes. The rest are holdovers from the FastPass+ days; they’re ‘consolation prizes’ to make sure there were enough attraction selections to go around for everyone booking the park to hold 3 FastPasses. On all but the busiest days of the year, there won’t be any lines to skip for these shows and lower-profile attractions.
Although not a feature of Genie+, there’s also the reality of operating hours, which makes starting the day at Animal Kingdom and ending at Epcot attractive. This allows you to extend your day by up to 3 hours, depending upon the season.
As a general matter, Park Hopping between Walt Disney World theme parks is available starting at 2:00 pm. We typically recommend those with it in their budget purchase Park Hopper tickets, and that’s doubly true now that Genie+ has debuted. (See other recommendations in Tips for Park Hopping at Walt Disney World.)
Then there’s Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which has 6-7 worthwhile Lightning Lane attractions that are worthwhile uses of Lightning Lane. (See our Genie+ Priorities & Ride Ranks for DHS.) The problem here is almost the opposite of what you’ll encounter at Epcot and Animal Kingdom. (Sort of.)
Instead of running out of good Lightning Lane options early in the day, these attractions run out of early in the day return times. After your first ride reservation, almost all of the return times at Disney’s Hollywood Studios will be in the late afternoon or evening. If you’re doing all day at DHS, this means you’ll have several hours to kill without any Lightning Lanes during that late morning to early afternoon window.
In addition to that, crowds at Disney’s Hollywood Studios are worse in the morning, usually peaking by 11 am. As such, it can be a better course of action to start at a different park and do attractions there via standby (or enjoy a morning at the pool, Disney Springs, or whatever). While doing that, book Lightning Lane reservations as eligible for Disney’s Hollywood Studios in the afternoon and evening.
(Speaking of which, see our Tips for “Stacking” Genie+ Ride Reservations. While Walt Disney World officially states you can only have one Lightning Lane ride reservation at a time, that’s not technically accurate. That post covers what is and is not possible in terms of stacking.)
By the time you arrive to Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 2 pm, you can have a stockpile of 4 Lightning Lane ride reservations (made at 7 am, 10 am, 12 pm, and 2 pm pursuant to the 120 minute rule, assuming a park opening time of 8 am). Realistically, you probably won’t be able to book anything good after 2 pm, but 4 solid attractions isn’t too shabby for a day with Genie+ at DHS.
If you’re able to score Slinky Dog Dash, Tower of Terror, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, and Toy Story Mania, this will save you well over 4 hours waiting in line. Mix in a couple of stage shows, and then do other attractions via the standby when wait times are lower during the last 2 hours the park is open.
Ultimately, combining Park Hopping with Genie+ is one of the best ways to use the paid FastPass replacement for Animal Kingdom and Epcot. It’s arguably a stronger strategy than doing all day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but that’s largely because it’s so difficult to book more than 3-4 Lightning Lanes at DHS, and due to return times usually being later in the day there.
Disney’s whole goal with Genie+ is to increase per guest spending. Ironically, I could see the service enabling many families to cut a day from their Walt Disney World vacations thanks to it, or at least reallocate park time to pools. We’ve also been fairly strong advocates of Park Hopping, and Genie+ further reinforces that. Like the paid FastPass feature, there’s an up-front cost to buying Park Hopper tickets, but the option opens up more strategic and time-saving possibilities, while also stretching your vacation dollars further. Spending more money saves more time, which in turn can save you more money.
Additionally, see our Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ for foundational need-to-know info about this paid FastPass+ replacement. The Genie system is confusing and convoluted, so you might have a question or 17. That answers all of the most common ones we’ve been receiving from readers.
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
Did this help you understand how to Park Hop with the Genie+ system? Thoughts on strategy for making Lightning Lane ride reservations and the ability to stack selections for later in the day at a second or third park? 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!
Hi Tom – if you get the chance, tell me your thoughts on our small conundrum…
Veteran Disney-goers headed there in August – stupid Halloween Party ruined our whole plan. Now we’re getting Hoppers to hopefully take advantage of the small crowds on 2 Friday party days at MK. Problem is, we wanted to hop to Epcot afterward (easy transpo, etc.) but with all the talk of the frat-party atmosphere on Friday nights and two little kiddos, we opted to head to the Studios both times.
Sooo….having never used Genie+…do we stack rides for DHS both days, and go standby at MK, assuming light crowds because of the party? Do we use a few at MK early and try to grab others at DHS?
And on our Epcot morning/MK evening day…do we use Genie+ for an early Frozen, then purchase Remy, hope for a spot in the GotG queue, and then stack for MK that evening? SO MUCH STUFF.
I know you can’t answer everything, but any tips you’ve got would be most appreciated!
Tom, I’m trying to get used to the Genie system but have you possibly heard whether Disney might ever go to a simpler one time daily purchase of a “fast pass”? Going to Busch Gardens, SeaWorld, Universal, all have a 1 time purchase (if you want to buy it) and it’s good all day any ride anytime, no time slots, it simply takes all the stress out of the trip (again, if you want to buy it extra) which I would in a heart beat.
Thank you
“However, you might want to spend morning at the pool or outside the park, in which case booking a Disney Park Pass for a different park and then switching is a potentially savvy way to “force” the clock forward.”
If you book a park pass but choose to go to Disney Springs or to the pool instead and then just park hop to the 2nd park, I have heard that you have to “check-in” at the 1st park before you are allowed to park hop. Is that accurate?
There seems to be an unexpected “penalty” built into the park-hopping rules. We PH from AK to HS on a day early in April. On that date, AK opened at 7:30am, and HS opened at 8:30am. At 7am I booked our first LL for MFSR. At 9:30am, I should have been able to book another LL for an AK attraction, but I was not able to. However, at 10:30am, I was able to make a LL reservation at either AK or HS (I tried both out of curiosity).
I highly doubt this would work the opposite way–if I were starting at Epcot on a day that it opened at 10:00am and PH to HS on a date that it opened at 8:30am, I am guessing that I would have to wait until noon to make a second LL (assuming I did not have a morning return time at Epcot). In other words, the later park-open time controls, not the park to which you have a Park Pass reservation.
Hope this is all making sense. I’d be curious to hear if other people have had different experiences.
Tom
I’m going to Disney in September on the 10th they 17th.
Do you suggest genie plus or lightning lanes. I will be purchasing a 4 day hopper pass. There are 7 of us going. I’m trying not to stress with all the new rules.
Pat
So if we start at Animal Kingdom and hop to epcot but make Genie + LL for epcot and get say 2:30 PM and do this at 7:00 then we have to still wait to make another LL until 2 hours after AK opens correct or since we made those for Epcot later in day can we make another LL for AK right away? We will be there during a busy time and am thinking that we should just stick with LL at AK that morning……dates of park for us. AK Feb 22nd, HS Feb 23rd, MK Feb 24th. Love your articles and guides by the way.
Hoping you could explain how the Park Hopper Plus option works. We have a 5-day PH+ ticket. We are arriving early on our check-in day and would like to visit a water park on that day. Would that count as one of our 5 ticketed days? Or do the “plus” options get tabulated separately from park days?
You have five park days and five water parks days.
Tom, have you already addressed how WDW Park Hopper tickets are currently unavailable?? I was shocked to discover this is not an available ticket option. Do you know how long this will last? Do you know whether Park Hopper tickets from Get Away Today or other third party sellers will still be valid and/or can still be purchased?? Thank you so much!
“You can go in with a more laid back approach and still do just fine.” THANK YOU. You always relieve my stress when it comes to planning a WDW trip. I seriously was dreading our trip after marathon weekend until I read this
I read as much as I can of your blog to be well-informed for our once-every-few-years trips. I was sold on strategically only buying Genie+ for MK and HS but then I read your article about the week after Christmas when our trip is planned. Sooo, Genie+ for the entire trip it is then! Thanks Tom. Appreciate all the hard work that goes into these posts so fans like us can get the most out of our vacations.
Tom, as always your posts are informative and beneficial, and we are grateful for them. My comments below will certainly reveal my age (or at least to which generation I belong); and if they alone do not, telling you that my wife and I honeymooned at WDW pre-EPCOT most likely will. So now I am categorized.
Perhaps my comments do not belong in this post. For that I apologize as I realize your intention here is to outline the benefits of Disney’s most recent attempt to maximize guest experience and (in some ways) to keep a handle on crowd-control. (I’m not sure the latter is a possibility.) But – where else to place my comments is not readily apparent to me; so here it goes …
Clearly Disney attempts to remain at the forefront of the most modern in technological advancements which has also been a Disney staple. I get it. But at some point, it leaves behind a generation of folks breathing in the dust of those ahead of them in the rat race (no Ratatouille pun intended). I am admittedly among those dust inhalers.
Since the days of our honeymoon, we have been to WDW over twenty times. Understand that we live in a north central State, so getting to FL in the first-place is not a mere last-minute nor sporadic decision. So once our shoes land on Disney property, we are ready for a relaxed vacation. Those days of relaxation faded years ago. We have attempted to advance with the times and (if I may be so bold as to say so) I believe we have done quite well. So far …
But, this latest Disney feat has left many members of the grandparents’ club (of which I am proudly an enrollee) completely overwhelmed and in-the-dust. No, I do not feel the need to stand in a 35-40 minute line to experience a ride on which I have previously embarked 15 times and which have not changed much (if at all) over the past 15 years. I am content to be the one left sitting on the curbside bench holding back-packs and half-full cups of LeFou’s Brew while younger members of my party await the joys of a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. But, one does have to wonder whether my WDW days of relaxing in the Florida heat (again I’m from the north) and basking in the sounds, sight, and smells that only Disney can create are sadly by-gone.
It will be interesting to see (if I am still among the living) what gimmick Disney will come up with next when Genie+ has lost his appeal and retired to his lamp. Some of us may find ourselves retiring from the WDW experience as well – and not necessarily by our own choice.
My thoughts exactly. We are going soon with family and like you have been every 3 years over the last 25. This time I am dreading it, I’ve read about the Genie+ but can’t for the life of me see what I’m meant to be doing. We have to reserve our time in the parks and yet they seem busier than ever, I really want everyone in our party to have a good time, but time will tell. Can’t even get excited yet anyway cos of the test needed to come into the Country. Sorry all this gloom. I have been lucky enough to have been numerous times and have had some amazing experiences 🙂
Thanks, Tom! I felt like I was back in school, in front of a white board! Or maybe X’s and O’s on a game board! Great post. Fortunately, I’ve got a weekday only trip planned for the week after Thanksgiving. Should give me some time to try this all out! Looking forward to your reports next week.