Red Carpet Dreams Removed from Genie+
Walt Disney World has removed the Lightning Lane for Mickey and Minnie’s Red Carpet Dreams. This post covers why it’s no longer part of Genie+ along with some other thoughts & strategy about experiencing this popular meet & greet at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
For those who are unfamiliar with it, Red Carpet Dreams is the dedicated Minnie and Mickey Mouse meet & greet at DHS, located across from BaseLine Taphouse and Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater and around the corner from Celebrity Spotlight with Olaf. It opened 6 years ago, making it a relatively new addition to Walt Disney World in the grand scheme of things.
If you’ve never noticed Red Carpet Dreams, there’s probably a good reason for that: it’s in a nondescript blue building, with a small “Red Carpet Dreams” marquee flanked by posters of Mickey and Minnie. From the outside, it’s not at all impressive–very generic and boring.
The inside is a different story. The hallway leading to Minnie Mouse has Art Deco-inspired wallpaper evoking old Hollywood; it would be right at home at a historic theater in Los Angeles.
There are also a number of digital posters featuring the Mickey Mouse and friends, as well as elegant light fixtures. It looks nice–reminiscent of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and portions of the queue for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.
Despite having hundreds of photos of random details at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, naturally, I only have one of the interior queue:
That beats the zero photos I have of the outdoor queue, which is literally just a small area of switchbacks that are partially/mostly covered. Just like the exterior entrance, this area is very nondescript.
We’ll circle back to that in a minute, as the setup of this meet & greet is relevant to why Red Carpet Dreams is losing its Genie+ Lightning Lane.
The conceit of Red Carpet Dreams is that you’re visiting the mice while they’re working on their latest films. Minnie’s greeting area is the set of her latest musical, and she’s dressed in a dazzling gown like a Hollywood starlet from a bygone era.
Meanwhile, Mickey Mouse is reprising his role from Fantasia, so he’s dressed as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Both have elaborate backdrops with props and a variety of fun details. I’d say that Minnie Mouse is the better of the two, but I’m also not a huge fan of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice–I wish they would’ve given Mickey Mouse a dapper look for this.
Red Carpet Dreams was first added to the Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane lineup in March when it returned as a physically-distanced character selfie spot.
It wasn’t particularly busy at the time–I think we waited about 10 minutes without Genie+ to see the characters then, and did not recommend burning a Genie+ selection on it as a result.
That has changed dramatically in the last month or so with the return of normal character meet & greets.
According to Thrill-Data.com, is now the 5th longest standby wait at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Its average wait time for the month of May has been 58 minutes, which puts it above Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, and Toy Story Mania.
Because of this sharp spike, we just wrapped up testing new strategy for Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Yesterday, we shared our new 1-Day Disney’s Hollywood Studios Itinerary (Without Genie+), which moved Red Carpet Dreams to the #3 attraction of the day. Immediately after it is Meet Sulley at Walt Disney Presents. (We were going to update our Genie+ Lightning Lane Priorities at DHS today to move up Red Carpet Dreams, but that’s no longer necessary with this change.)
The reason Genie+ is being dropped from Red Carpet Dreams is likely because the meet & greet was never configured with it in mind, and the small location cannot support it. Unlike a lot of the other meet & greets added to Genie+ around that time, Red Carpet Dreams had not previously been a FastPass+ location.
Red Carpet Dreams is a lot more compact than the huge Magic Kingdom meet & greets for Mickey and the princesses, and feels like it was shoehorned into this space. (Again, it’s great on the inside, but from the outside doesn’t look or feel ‘purpose-built.’)
In our touring tests over the last couple of weeks, we’ve noticed ‘operational hiccups’ with Lightning Lane at Red Carpet Dreams. Because there’s no dedicated Lightning Lane, a Cast Member is stationed at a makeshift merge point in the outdoor queue.
However, if the line got too long, that would back things up beyond the merge point. It’s difficult to explain and would probably make more sense if I had photos, but I didn’t anticipate needing them–and this is irrelevant now since Genie+ has been removed from Red Carpet Dreams.
Whether removing Red Carpet Dreams’ Lightning Lane is a good or bad move probably depends on your perspective, and specifically, if you’re buying Genie+ at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We don’t really have a strong opinion on it, either way. We’ve figured out how to beat the Genie+ crowd to this meet & greet, so that was a plus for guests opted against buying the Genie+ service.
For what it’s worth, that standby strategy will hold true even with the removal of the Lightning Lane at Red Carpet Dreams. We’re confident in that because Sulley’s meet & greet is a similar story, and that wasn’t part of Genie+ before. (Also, Sulley is less popular than Minnie & Mickey Mouse.)
With that said, Disney’s Hollywood Studios desperately needs Lightning Lane capacity for this system to be viable at the park. Aside from these random meet & greets, there are no good near-term options for that.
Not to belabor a point that we’ve made repeatedly about Disney’s Hollywood Studios being the most frustrating park at Walt Disney World…but it really is! This was true pre-closure, when all of the shows and nighttime spectaculars were running. Even then, DHS needed to expand its supporting roster of shows and attractions to balance out the headliners.
Building more rides and adding shows is the long-term solution, but there’s no immediate fix in sight. Bringing back Fantasmic and adding Genie+ to that would definitely help. Same goes for putting something–even temporary productions–in Animation Courtyard.
In the meantime, Early Entry or a late arrival are the best options for beating the crowds and long wait times at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (more new report/strategy posts about both coming soon). If you’re going to be in DHS during the middle of the day, Genie+ can be a good purchase–just lower your expectations about what you’ll be able to accomplish with it.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on Red Carpet Dreams losing its Lightning Lane and being removed from the Genie+ service? Are you planning on buying Genie+ or sticking to free standby lines at DHS? 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!
This is only tangentially related, but 6 months ago you mentioned cutting Disney some slack on the poor quality of the new ‘Lightning Lane’ signage, on the basis that it was likely designed in a hurry and would hopefully be temporary.
Now that it clearly isn’t temporary (I haven’t noticed a single ‘temporary’ sign replaced or upgraded) — and there is a significant decrease in the polish of attraction entrances — when would you suggest that fans grab the pitchforks? 🙂
Where is meet and greet with sully? I’m at WDW now and I don’t see it listed I. My experience app?
I think Animation Courtyard for Sully.
Wait… what? We went twice to Disney World in 2018 and somehow I didn’t even know that you could Mickey with his sorcerer outfit, can’t believe I had not seen this!
We are finally coming back in September and that will be a must do!
Btw, we will be spending 3 days at Disney, rest being universal. What would you recommend we do for park reservations?
I was thinking one day DHS and park hopping (maybe AK) later on that day, one Epcot and park hopping and one at MK with MNSSHP that night
We will have Genie + also
Do you think it’s ok?
“…not a huge fan of Mickey as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice” Sacrilege! That’s my favorite outfit. 🙂 Some of that is fond memories from meeting him in the Animation courtyard – that is the one line my DD would always fall asleep in so I have a couple pictures of her meeting him while asleep.
Oh, it’s totally a “me problem.” We got tons of photos with Sorcerer Mickey in like 2006 to 2009, and I’ve been “over” that costume since.
Can’t deny that it’s iconic and one of Mickey Mouse’s best roles. Personally, I’d just rather see him in a ‘red carpet’ look matching Minnie.
I know it is coming from my localness, but DHS is such a difficult park to prepare family members and friends for. It is not easy to strategize around it. For a person with only 1 day you need to grab that G+ just to help your party out with getting some attractions out of the way without the wait, however nothing beats early morning entry if you do the work to get there EARLY!!!! Not strolling in at 7:55am when it opens at 8 LOL. As for Mickey and Minnie disappearing I agree with you and your assessment on the line configuration. It simply can’t handle two lines very well in that space.
“DHS is such a difficult park to prepare family members and friends for. It is not easy to strategize around it.”
100% accurate, and has nothing to do with being a local. DHS is just a really tough park to “beat” from a touring perspective unless you have multiple partial days.
My local perspective makes it even harder to help my family is what I meant LOL For Rise of the Resistance we often wait at closing, but of course it comes with a risk of it breaking down. Trying to navigate someone on how to weigh that is hard. DHS is the hardest one with those types of risks. We have done early entry before and get on so many things. I point people to your articles all the time as they are the way!
This is great advice to keep in mind. Thanks for the valuable local insight!
We’re finally back in WDW next week after 2.5 years (including a few trip delays) with 1 HS APR.
With HS now officially opening 30 minutes later at 8:30am, how early should we go for ETPE (8:00am)?