Individual Lightning Lane Rides Moved to Genie+ at Disney World
Walt Disney World is once again tweaking the Genie+ attraction lineup, moving an Individual Lightning Lane selection from each park into the bucket for the paid FastPass+ replacement. This post takes a look at the changes, reasons why, and offers speculation for the future. (Updated April 14, 2022.)
Let’s start with the why of this. Basically, it’s a mix of heavy attendance and high use of the Genie+ system. As more thoroughly covered in Spring Sees Peak Season Wait Times at Walt Disney World, the last 3 months have been incredibly busy. March was the busiest month in the last 2 years, with February and April tied for #2. (Once the month is over, April 2022 will likely take the crown of busiest month.)
Suffice to say, the entirety of spring break season has been very similar to before Thanksgiving–the week that Genie+ Collapsed in Crowds. Before these rides were moved over to the Genie+ service, many readers complained of limited ride reservation availability. Since then, Walt Disney World has added a ‘warning’ that “on average, guests can enter 2 to 3 attractions or experiences per day using the Lightning Lane entrance if the first selection is made early in the day.” (Read more in Genie+ Really is Paid FastPass+ at Walt Disney World.)
In a nutshell, there have been many problems with Lightning Lanes and the paid FastPass service. Those first appeared during last year’s holiday season and since resurfaced this year during spring break season. These issues range from increased technical difficulties to limited ride reservation inventory with the whole system and technical infrastructure placed under greater usage.
From our perspective, the biggest “addressable” issue is that Genie+ Lightning Lane availability for many popular attractions was gone not long after park opening. Slinky Dog Dash was unavailable well before that, booking up for the entire day within minutes of 7 am.
There were virtually no worthwhile options by midday, meaning that even savvy users of Genie+ are likely only getting a couple of “good” selections per day. Novices or those visiting parks other than Magic Kingdom would likely be doing worse. Some readers reported only scoring 1-2 Lightning Lane selections via Genie+ for the entire day.
In an effort to remedy this, Walt Disney World reallocated one Individual Lightning Lane attraction per park to Genie+ during peak holiday travel dates last year–the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year’s. That actually relieved quite a bit of stress on the system–but it also “helped” that those peak season holiday dates ended up being less busy than the week of Thanksgiving.
Likely seeing the exact same scenario starting to play out, Walt Disney World is once again moving Individual Lightning Lane attractions to the Genie+ ride roster. This time, it’s for a much longer window.
Through August 7, 2022, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Hollywood Studios, Frozen Ever After at Epcot, and Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom will be included in the flat-rate Disney Genie+ service and will not be sold a la carte as Individual Lightning Lane purchase options.
April 14, 2022 Update: Upon reopening, Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain at Animal Kingdom will also join the Genie+ roster:
We’d recommend anyone visiting Walt Disney World during the busy spring break and summer seasons follow our Walt Disney World Itineraries. In addition to that, below are our Genie+ ride rankings for each park, along with quick addendums for where each of the aforementioned attractions slot into those priorities:
Magic Kingdom Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks – Space Mountain becomes the #3 attraction, with Splash Mountain dropped to #4 or #5 if you’re visiting sooner while the weather is still colder.
Hollywood Studios Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks – Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway moves to #2, still a very distant second after Slinky Dog Dash.
Epcot Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks – Frozen Ever After takes the title of #1, edging out Test Track by a bit based on what we saw over the holiday season.
Animal Kingdom Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks – Once it reopens, Expedition Everest be #3, a good distance behind both T1 attractions.
Let’s turn to commentary on the why of this, plus thoughts on the future. Some of you, let’s call you the optimists of the group, might see this as a sign that Individual Lightning Lanes are “failing” and that’s forcing Walt Disney World to drop an attraction from each park.
While that’s possible, we’re highly skeptical of that being the motivation for this. It’s true that Expedition Everest and Space Mountain have not sold particularly well for many dates, with near-immediate return times much of the time and lower standby waits, as well.
By contrast, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Frozen Ever After have been doing really strong numbers in the last few months, even on non-peak days. Both started out slowly for the first couple months after Genie+ debuted, but have had solid sales since. They would’ve both done well in the coming weeks when crowds are forecast to be higher.
Space Mountain likewise would’ve seen a bump in sales during spring break and summer. Ditto Expedition Everest once it reopens. It’s also difficult to say what good/bad sales look like for those under normal crowd levels, as ILL is pure profit. Even with near-immediate returns, those Individual Lightning Lanes might’ve been meeting expectations for Disney.
More likely, this change is being made to prevent Genie+ from being overwhelmed during periods of high demand, which is what it sounds like has been occurring during the Presidents’ Day/Princess Half Marathon crowd surge. When Genie+ is useless or guests feel they aren’t getting their money’s worth, there are long lines at Guest Relations, refunds are issued for Genie+ and guest satisfaction scores drop.
None of that is good for Walt Disney World, which is why this change is being made. I know many of us are overly cynical about Disney because of *gestures at all of the negative changes to the guest experience of the last 2 years* but there are not ulterior motives here. Quite simply, it’s to improve the guest experience.
Before we get carried away patting Walt Disney World on the back here, we should add the very important caveat that 3 of the 4 parks shouldn’t have Individual Lightning Lanes, period, because their eligible attraction capacity is too low to sustain the system.
Or, they should cap sales of Genie+ to make it more pleasant. Really, this is a matter of Disney (partially) “solving” a problem of its own creation. No applause necessary for that.
There are two ways of adding more attraction capacity at Walt Disney World, with the first being to build more attractions. Given that it’s taking them ~6 years to clone a launched motorbike roller coaster in a warehouse from Shanghai Disneyland, this doesn’t seem like a realistic short-term suggestion.
Another would be to add stage shows, character meet & greets, nighttime spectaculars, and parades. Some of those are low capacity and don’t help a ton. Another would be to add Lightning Lanes to things that don’t really need line-skipping. This happened during the FastPass+ era and “worked” pretty well (if success is measured by giving guests an option, not saving them time).
The final one is to remove Individual Lightning Lanes and roll those into the Genie+ service, which is what Walt Disney World is doing here. Prior to this change, that might’ve seemed like the least likely option, because money. However, the case could be made that including them with Genie+ would increase purchases of that system and/or guest satisfaction, and ultimately be a net positive for Disney’s bottom line.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Walt Disney World adopts the other approaches in the coming weeks and months. Will we see Festival of Fantasy Parade or Harmonious viewing at some point? More meet & greets added to the lineup? (On a tangentially related note, I’m downright shocked that Disney still hasn’t increased the price for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. It made sense over the holiday season as being “too soon,” but I’m surprised that change didn’t happen simultaneously with this news.)
Ultimately, this changes the equation for purchasing Genie+ when visiting Walt Disney World in the coming months. Previously, we’ve said that crowd levels in the 6/10 to 8/10 range were the sweet spot for buying Genie+, with it being unnecessary when numbers are lower and frustrating/less useful during peak season. This should expand that range in both directions, making Genie+ more useful in slightly lower and slightly higher crowds–but probably not on peak 10/10 days.
This does nothing to alter the “frustrating” part of that–unless Disney IT magically irons out a decade worth of problems in the coming months, intermittent tech problems will persist. However, assuming you don’t mind some My Disney Experience glitches and email codes, Genie+ is an absolute no brainer for Magic Kingdom. The same is true for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, so long as you go in with a strong strategy and awareness that availability for headliners goes fast. Epcot is more of an open question, with my gut saying it’s probably going to be hard to score both Test Track and Frozen Ever After in the same day. The best-value approach there will be Park Hopping between DHS and Epcot.
We’ll continue to keep you posted with on-the-ground reports and developments about Genie+ at Walt Disney World. As noted at the top of the post, we’ll be in the parks at Walt Disney World this weekend and next week to do more testing. Things are really busy right now with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser and the start of the 2022 Epcot Flower & Garden Festival, but we’ll do our best to get updates out ASAP.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on Walt Disney World moving an Individual Lightning Lane attraction from each park to Genie+? Think it’s a sign of ILL failure, or a simple rebalancing of demand and capacity? Think it’ll turn into a permanent change anywhere? 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!
When we went to Disney in December, we were one of those standing in line at Guest Services to get a refund on their new Genie system. I’d purchased ILLs for Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railroad, however when our window became available, the ride was closed down & no one could say when it would reopen. And while I realize that we could have just ridden whenever it opened back up, that was our last ride for the park and we had reservations we needed to get to.
So we won’t buy the Genie+ or ILL now. For us, it’s like investing in the stock market. You spend money without knowing if you’ll get anything in return for the investment. Even with Genie+, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get the rides you purchased the Genie+ for. At least with FastPass, if you couldn’t get the ride, while disappointing, you hadn’t invested any money into it.
I was just at Disney this past week and Hollywood Studios was a complete disaster. Multiple rides broke down, including Rise of the Resistance, Buzz Lightyear, and Tower of Terror. When it was time for my 1pm lightening lane selection, all selections were no longer available. We had only used 1 lightening lane. We literally left the park to go to the pool because my kids were crying. I feel I should be refunded for my lightening lane purchase since it was sold out so early in the day. What do you think is the best way to reach Disney with a complaint? I appreciate any input! I’ll be steering clear of Disney for a while as it was certainly not the magic I remember from two years ago!
In a way this is actually a price increase for Epcot, since many people skip the $15 Genie+ there for obvious reasons but smartly paid the $10 or so for Frozen.
Still boggles my minds why they didn’t just raise ticket prices by $7.50 per day and a few weeks later announce the return of free fastpass. They’d be making the same money as a 50% G+ utilization but not ticking off everyone into feeling nickel and dimed.
I think this is good news! I do think they should also do something for people staying on property, though, as a perk for staying onsite. I doubt they will until they can stabilize and increase their work force, though. If they are filling hotels to what they can handle right now as your other post implies, they don’t need a reason to entice more to stay on site.
We will be there second week of July. For Hollywood Studios we will only care about doing Mickey and Minnie Runaway Railway, Tower of Terror, Rockin’ Roller Coaster (only me so I go up single rider line) and Toy Story Midway Mania. At Magic Kingdom we are only planning on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. Are planning more time at resort than at parks. Would you suggest using Genie + or just do stand by? And in what order would you attempt these rides?
Personally not a fan of these changes. We’re headed back to Disney on Monday and was looking forward to being able to purchase the individual lightning lanes for the big ticket rides and not even have to mess with Genie+…which is an absolute nightmare. Just feel like Disney did not think this system through well.
I’m glad they’re making these changes. We had a very smooth experience with Genie+ the weeks of Christmas and New Years when they did this (of course, park hours were longer, too, giving an extra hour or so of availability). I even went in expecting to dislike it because of the thanksgiving drama, but while I didn’t love paying for it, I had no complaints about its benefit.
We also used the speed test/time.gov approach to get an early time slot for headliner one, that way we could tap in and become eligible for a second booking before the “two hours after park open” wave. We were successful at booking multiple headliners that way (even Test Track and Frozen!).
Can you please elaborate what the speed test/time.gov method is exactly? Thank you.
Please let me know what that system is! I am taking my family there the beginning of June and need any help I can get!!!
Thanks!
Patti
My husband and I hoping to get to WDW in the next month, we are from the northeast. I want to try the Genie+ experience for myself before taking any family members with me. If Genie+ is a replacement for Fast passes, then my biggest problem is not letting us book at least 2 rides in advance, like 30 days out so I am not setting my alarm for 6:50 am every morning so I can go hide in the bathroom in my room (don’t want to wake up the family every morning for this nonsense) and try to grab early reservations for my 2 rides. If I bring my toddler granddaughter who occasionally still needs a nap and the only times that are available are in the afternoon, then I’m screwed. Does this sound like any way to start a vacation every morning?!
It makes no sense not to cap the Genie+ purchases, based on expected crowd levels which they have a good estimate of because of the park reservation system. Do some type of mathy thing based on the Genie + data they have so far, ie LL wait times for each ride per park, and figure out how many to sell per park per day to limit LL to 30 min usually. Then have a tiered purchase similar to Universal, for example. Genie + MK park, Genie+ AK park etc one time each ride,for one price, Genie+ all parks one time, another price, Genie+ all parks unlimited even higher price.
If you pay for something, especially stuff than was inclusive before, you expect value. Don’t even get me started on trying to use a DAS, because you can’t stay in a hour+ line, only to be given a return time to stand in an hour LL line?
I’m a fan of Genie. It’s more the “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” scenario. Genie exists, you can’t go back, other people are using it, so you are behind if you are not using it. Adding Everest and Space will keep the teens happy, for sure. I also think Runaway railway is a better consolation prize for not getting Slinky, than the other options for families with kids that aren’t Star Wars fans. My only problem with Genie+ is the fact that it’s not limited. This is the only theme park line-skipping product in the world, i think, that isn’t limited to a certain number of guests. I know they wanted to allow people to be more spontaneous and not have to plan so far out, and that was why they went to Genie+, but WDW is just not a place where you can be very spontaneous. So I think they should have looked at it more realistically to what the situation at WDW is actually like, and not what they wish it would be like. AK basically has 5-6 rides that most families would want to do. Epcot has 6-7. HS has about 8. It’s just tough when you say ‘an unlimited number of people can prebook access to 6 rides. It’s honestly ridiculous. I think it should be available to onsite guests only, and APs.
@Larissa There are multiple solutions to beating the crowds that don’t rely on giving Disney one more dime. I’ve never paid for Genie+ and never will; my money goes towards things that actually work.
We refuse to buy Genie or pay for rides. Just do what rides we can and don’t worry about Genie.
We’re here this week. Wed at MK then Epcot, Thurs at AK, Fri at HS. Went in knowing its high crowds (time off from school is limited) and planned to by G+ and LL as needed. I am tech savvy, liked MaxPass, and did ALL the prep and it was still so frustrating.
Don’t make any plans to leave the parks in the afternoon or evening because that’s when your ride times will be, if you are lucky enough to get them.
Worse was that they announced the ILL change yesterday effective today. Absolutely no notice in the app or by email. So between yesterday in the parks and 7am today the news was barely out and booking for HS was super confusing. Thought I had Slinky when I had used my G+ on MMRR thinking it was an ILL still. They couldn’t have made the change a week ago so people knew? Was the holiday week a surprise to anyone?
We’re making the best of it, but so many annoying glitches. I feel even worse for those who don’t understand the system or have an extra week here like we do.
Any intel on Expedition Everest’s refurb and when it might realistically be back up and running? We will be in AK on April 29 and am bummed that they extended the refurb to overlap with our visit (I wanted my son to finally be able to ride this). I was naively optimistic that if they gave the April 30 date for the end of the closure, that maybe it might reopen a few days ahead of schedule. Your comment above makes me feel not so hopeful on that front.
I think they should move everything over to Genie+. I mean I miss the Fastpass days, but if I have to learn to live with Genie+, I do wish they’d make some improvements. If they moved everything over to Genie+ and got rid of the a la carte Individual Lightning Lanes it would be much better. It would simplify things, as well as increase guest satisfaction. Another way to help even things out would be to release a select amount of time slots at 7 a.m. but hold back some back (especially for the more popular rides) to drop at 1 p.m. Then everything would not be gone at 7:01 a.m.
Genie+ is oddly underpriced, especially during busy periods. Compare the sustained high prices for Individual Lightning Lanes (one ride) to Genie+ at its worst (1-2 rides, often 3-6 rides) – it doesn’t make sense.
Why would Disney impose a capacity cap on a $15 upgrade instead of raising the price to $25/pp/day? I trust that Disney knows its pricing strategy better than me… but I’d prepay for Genie+ if I had a trip planned for late 2022 in order to lock in the current price.
We are arriving August 8, what do you think are the chances that these changes extend past the 7th?
This whole essay is a farce, right? I almost fell for it and thought you were seriously expecting people on vacation to spend this level of military strategizing just to get onto rides that last a few minutes at most. You had me going there, Tom! You kidder, you!
Agreed!
Couldn’t agree more! We went in November and are headed back on Monday and I’m honestly dreading all this. It’s an instant headache on a supposed to be vacation! Fast pass was so much easier and user friendly.
What are your predictions on Genie+ being offered as an annual pass option? I know this was ‘suggested’ as likely this year, but between pass sales being suspended, and the capacity issues with G+, it’s feeling less likely.
There were plans for the add-on as of late last October. However, I haven’t heard a word since November–probably for good reason.
I don’t think there’s any chance of it anytime this year at Walt Disney World. Disneyland is a different story, but they may want to keep things consistent between the coasts. Not totally sure.
I still refuse to purchase any opportunity to stand in line. The crowds have been around for years, they are nothing new, To give the s the high crowd level for the sale of Genie+ is ridiculous.
We don’t want the frustration of Genie and don’t mess with it. We get to the parks early and ride a few things and leave. It sure was much better with fast passes. The parks will never be the same with the Genie money grab. We just got back home on Monday, just unreal!
Like your suggestions on increasing the number of activities guests can participate in. Galaxy’s Edge was good for two rides and Oga’s but there wasn’t a whole lot to do afterwards; ditto Toy Story Land.
And additional rides don’t necessarily have to be budget busters for Disney. Bringing back or designing rides such as the Swan Boats or Keel Boats (if they can) would be a welcome respite from the heat, lines, and commotion elsewhere.
I wonder if this changes the calculus on whether you consider Genie + a decent investment at Epcot?
I’d been thinking that our family would likely buy a ILL for Frozen during our April trip but not do Genie that day. Now I’m wondering if maybe I should just spend about the same amount of money (maybe a few bucks more) to just get Genie+ at Epcot for that whole day.