How to Set Up Free Genie Itineraries in My Disney Experience
The free Genie itinerary building service, plus the paid Genie+ line-skipping service for select attractions and individual Lightning Lane selections for the two most popular rides in each park are now available in the My Disney Experience app. This new system will dramatically change visiting Walt Disney World whether you buy them or not, and we’re here to walk you through the process for setting up the free version of Disney Genie.
There are still a lot of questions about the whole Disney Genie system, and we’ve been doing our best to answer those in the Guide to Genie+ at Walt Disney World & Lightning Lane FAQ. However, launch day for Disney Genie marks the first opportunity we’ve had to actually get our hands on the app feature, so a lot of that is going to change soon.
Additionally, we have updated itineraries to get you ready to use the paid Genie+ service:
- 1-Day Magic Kingdom Plan w/ Genie+
- 1-Day Hollywood Studios Plan w/ Genie+
- 1-Day Epcot Plan w/ Genie+
- 1-Day Animal Kingdom Plan w/ Genie+
To start using the Disney Genie suite of offerings, you’ll need to update the My Disney Experience app to version 7 by visiting the Apple iOS App Store or Google Play Store.
You can either click those links or open the respective app stores and search for My Disney Experience…
You should then see this, albeit with “Update” instead of “Open.”
I accidentally took this screenshot after updating. Apologies, my brain barely functions properly by mid-morning after coffee, let alone in the middle of the night before it. (“We’re off to a great start already!” ~Roz voice)
After launching the update My Disney Experience (and letting the many modules load), you’ll see Genie appear near the top as a “Recommended Activity.”
Scroll down and click “I’m Ready.”
If you somehow miss that button or, more likely, the module doesn’t load, you can also access Disney Genie by clicking on the + at the bottom of the app and clicking on “View Tip Board and My Day.”
Alternatively, click the hamburger button (three horizontal lines) on the bottom right corner of the My Disney Experience app and select the “My Day” button with the lamp icon in the upper right corner.
It all should take you to exactly the same place to start.
The first time you initiate that process, you’ll be greeted with an introduction, briefly explaining the Disney Genie service. (Similarly, when you first launch the updated My Disney Experience app, there’s a multi-step click-through introducing you to the new features.)
Click “Start Now” on this screen.
You’ll start by selecting a date.
We’re visiting Magic Kingdom on Genie launch day, so that’s what we chose.
Then you’ll choose your party.
As with virtual queues, anyone with Disney Park Pass reservations should already be preselected here. Since Sarah and I will actually be field testing competing strategies today, we deselected one another so we could each do our own thing. Otherwise, these plans would be for both of us.
The first thing you’ll do is select from a list of Magic Kingdom attractions.
Each attraction will note whether it offers “Lightning Lane Included with Genie+” or is a “Lightning Lane” (no further explanation given) in the case of Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom.
Either I missed it before, or Walt Disney World never stated as much, but you can only select 8 attractions when building your customized Genie itinerary. This is true whether you’re doing the free or paid version of Genie.
I don’t know about you, but this limitation makes it close to useless for us. We were already skeptical that it would work as intended, but if you can only load a portion of your plans into Genie for optimization and efficiency, it likely loses its utility. (Nevertheless, we’re going in with an open mind when testing it.)
After that, you select restaurants at which you’d like to dine.
These will be recommended at convenient times, with Mobile Order and Walk-Up Waitlist prompts (as available). Today is finally the day that I conquer Mars. Er, the Mission to Mars Burger. Same idea.
Then you select “Enchanting Extras.”
You can choose up to 3 of these, but I only see one option: “Capture Your Moment.” I don’t plan on doing that, but I selected it anyway just to see what would happen.
From there, it’s on to selecting interests. These are arranged into three categories: Disney Favorites, Park Interests, and Dining Interests.
The character and brand categories are all “Disney Favorites.” I’m not sure why the icon says “Park Interests.”
Above are the various Park Interests.
After selecting these, you can also choose types of dining: Casual Dining, Character Dining, Dining Events, and Fine/Signature Dining. I already selected specific restaurants, so I skipped that.
After hitting continue, there’s “One Last Thing!” Height Requirements and Accessibility. I’m not quite that short, so skipped this.
Hitting continue here essentially completes the itinerary builder. You’ll see a blue progress screen for a few seconds with a message (e.g. “entering full strength magic mode”) before an upsell on Disney Genie+ displays:
I hit “Skip for Now” to finish out the free Genie service and see what it would do next.
It continues with the blue screen for another couple seconds while ‘creating my best Disney day’ and then deposits me out at the “My Day” screen of My Disney Experience.
This was all done at like 5 am, at which point no itinerary was yet available. Not sure if this was because of the hour, or due to it still being launch day.
Regardless, at 7 am, My Day populated with 10 recommendations for my day:
Now, my brain is not powered by sophisticated algorithms (pretty much just chocolate milk and beef jerky at this point in the morning) but I’m already going to call into question these recommendations. Prioritizing Prince Charming Regal Carrousel first thing in the morning over attractions that will actually have short lines at rope drop–and long lines later–is certainly a choice.
As we’ve said before, the free Genie feature might very well be aimed at benefiting Walt Disney World, and redistributing crowds to places where they’re low. In some cases, that can be mutually beneficial for guests and park operations. Here, that’s only true for the latter. I would’ve been better off starting at 7 of my 10 other recommendations (the other 3 were things that aren’t yet open at 9:20 am, so there’s that).
Ultimately, we’re still reserving judgment on the free Genie feature. It’s still day one and we’ve yet to use it in Magic Kingdom yet. Speaking of which, we’ll be in the park today testing competing strategy (“competing” is probably the wrong word since one of us will have Genie+) and will have a full report back on our results either late tonight or, more likely, tomorrow morning. If you happen to see us today or throughout the rest of the week–lots of field testing, research, etc. planned–please say hello!
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the free Genie service? Planning on using it to build your itinerary, or do you think it won’t be useful? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? 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 type of optimization is very difficult, and Disney IT cannot accurately predict bus arrival times for GPS-enables buses on known routes. To say I’m skeptical would be a gross understatement.
I’ve seen people dunking on the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel recommendation on Twitter (and with good reason!). I still think (in general) that Genie will benefit those who are more prepared, much like FP did. If you don’t know anything, you might follow that suggestion and do the Carrousel first, thereby making the standby line at, say, Peter Pan shorter for those of us who understand park strategy. So I say let them suggest whatever they want!
When I went to Genie on the app, it told me that my party and I did not have a park reservation for any of our 6 days even though I made them and My Disney Experience shows one confirmed Park Pass for each day. I went back to My Disney Experience and redid the Park Pass for Day 1 to see if that would make a difference. After I did that, Genie let me continue for that day but not for any other day. I am going to be at Disney World for 2 visits in November and would hate to change 12 Park Passes. Has anyone else had this problem? Thank you.
I am laughing at 8 selections. I mean at Disneyland, most people can rope drop 8 rides in UNDER AN HOUR, even on busy days, if they use the right strategy. Lack of ambition in this planner. Makes me think of those Twitter quizzes where it’s like “What is your dream day at WDW?” and it only gives you choices of Attractions #1 through #3. I don’t know about you guys, but my dream day is Attractions #1 through all of them in one operating day. Even though my first trip to WDW is upcoming, the Genie planner is probably not for me.
“…you can only select 8 attractions when building your customized Genie itinerary….if you can only load a portion of your plans into Genie for optimization and efficiency, it likely loses its utility.”
I also did not know about this limitation and I feel like I know a lot about Disney Genie now through TA training. I also agree that I don’t understand how this can be a useful tool if I can’t tell you all of the things I want to see/do and then let Genie optimize how best to experience them all. So basically Genie is going to optimize a portion of my day. I did see that there were no limits on selecting dining experiences and anything else other than rides/attractions. Still…
Thank you, Sue. I figured I just missed something;)
Shell, I think an earlier post said that if you want to get Genie+ for one day, you can begin booking it at midnight on the day of. So, if you want Genie+ on a Wednesday, you can purchase it at 12:01 Wednesday morning. (I personally wouldn’t wait up till midnight just to book it!)
i have no trips on the horizon. but if i’m at all inclined to pay $15 anywhere, i’ll gladly give it to touringplans for a year’s subscription to get a much more complete itinerary than this. i think genie is a hard pass for us. i get this post is the free “service” but it’s essentially worthless.
Forgive me if I missed something. My trip is booked for December. No problems entering info for free version. I want to ‘upgrade’ for the paid version, but only for Hollywood. Re-directed me to my reservation, and the only option is to add to all my tickets(purchased 3 day). Not the end of the world since its just me and my daughter, but I don’t think I’ll need it for AK or epcot. (We’re doing the holiday after hours at MK). I’ll try calling to see if I can purchase for just the one day
Funny as we would actually do (and have done) the Carousel at rope drop. It’s my wife’s favorite. Look forward to what your experience with the new genie is Tom.
Was messing around with it this morning for my trip that starts 1/5. While it’s relatively useless that far out, it does say that I can make dining reservations in 11 days, which is nearly a week earlier than I should be able. Curious if this is a math glitch or some kind of bonus of using the service – guess I’ll find out!
As an aside, the Legal Disclaimer at the bottom of the Tip Board is currently “lorem ipsum,” which is both fitting and hilarious.
Thanks for this as contrasting your own touring plan vs Genie should prove very helpful. Lets hope rope dropping the carousel was just a fluke but yeah, probably not. If intentional, guest relations and CMs will hear an earful from upset newbies. I likely won’t be in WDW until next fall so gives me lots of time to learn from others and pick up some skills and coping strategies. My gut now is to ignore the free Genie+ and do my own thing. Perhaps purchase the $15 Genie+ for one day at MK and HS to take it for a test drive. Really hoping to avoid the paid LLs altogether but will see how that shakes out for FOP and Rise. Trying to be open minded about the new reality but not quite ready to abandon my old tried and true touring plans. Some hybrid plan will likely be the norm for me.
Well, this is a disappointing start (but not surprising).
I must admit, I was hoping for one item that doesn’t appear to be included: inputting the age of the children.
For example, if I told Genie that I had three kids all under the age of 8, I would expect an entirely different plan (and hey, maybe the carousel to start the day) than if I said I had three children from ages 8-12. I would love it if I could deselect specific attractions that I know my kid won’t ride (the big rollercoasters, to my dismay) OR if it could be truly magical and suggest party-splitting options.
Oh well. It’s only the first morning! Perhaps things will improve!
Hi, thank you very much for getting this out so quickly!
We will be arriving Thursday for our week long trip and I’m very interested/concerned with how the paid version works, but in particular wondering how efficient I will need to be at 7 am trying to purchase an attraction. Mostly concerned with 7 dwarfs, RotR, etc.
And more fun, if it’s easy or difficult to work those attractions around our dining reservations.
Thanks and as Mickey says, “Oh Boy”!!
Great post, Tom! Genie service might help a lot of guests who are first timers or unfamiliar with the parks. But from what I’m reading here, sounds like the free version will be totally useless for our family’s trip this week. So how do you “cut to the chase” and go directly to buying the Genie+ service and start scheduling Lightning Lanes or virtual queues at 7am?
That is an interesting run through. We’ll have to see how useful Genie is overall for everyone but I can see the benefit for vacationers that don’t know the parks as well. Their suggested itinerary could be helpful to both Disney and first timers, to get them started. Whether setting up the genie be worth the effort to pass holders is still in question though.
It could be useful if it is dynamic, changing during the day and giving you a notification for a ride you want to do that now has lower wait times. That would be extremely useful. I hate having to constantly go back and double check ride times all day. If this monitors the wait times and tells you, it would be beneficial.
Rope dropping the carousel, eh? That’s a free thinking machine. Interested to hear your results with competing strategies, and curious if the longest queue of the day will be for guest relations?
Thanks for your devotion to Disney research, Tom! So far it sounds cumbersome to me. A lot of steps if I’m only interested in Genie+ for scheduling Lightning Lanes for rides of MY choice or buying the Lightning Lanes for the two top tier rides. I agree with your analysis. Seems like it’s mainly geared toward trying to redistribute crowds and optimize operations for Disney. We will be in the parks tomorrow and I’m doubtful I can figure it out by then! But I’ll keep checking back with you for future updates!
Just tried the free version. I entered 2 attractions and 1 dining option. Planning to leave the park around 1pm for a movie at Disney Springs. It populated my whole day park open to close, with attractions I have no interest in. (It also suggested the rides I wanted at high wait times, so they’d fit in the schedule of things I don’t want to do)
When I removed them, it did not revise the suggested attraction times for my choices. Could not find anywhere to let Genie know what hours I’d be in the park. I will not be using Genie to assist in planning again
Thank you both for your hard hitting research! We will eagerly be anticipating your results !