Magic Kingdom Parade Coming to Genie+
With heavy crowds on the horizon for Spring Break and Summer 2022 plus high demand for Genie+, Walt Disney World is once again adding more Lightning Lane selections for the lineup. The latest change is the addition of Festival of Fantasy Parade at Magic Kingdom and Red Carpet Dreams at Hollywood Studios.
Prior to this, Walt Disney World moved several attractions to Genie+ that were previously Individual Lightning Lanes. Through at least 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.
That change was made to prevent Genie+ from being overwhelmed during periods of high demand–like the weeks of Orange County’s Spring Break and Easter–which is what occurred over the week of Presidents’ Day last month and Thanksgiving last year. That resulted in some of the longest lines in each park being at Guest Relations, refunds issued for Genie+ and, if comments on this blog are any indicate, poor guest satisfaction…
In case you missed it, Festival of Fantasy Parade returned to Magic Kingdom today (March 9, 2022) and currently has daily performances twice per day, at 11:30 pm and 2:30 pm or noon and 3 pm, depending upon the day. Festival of Fantasy Parade will join the Genie+ Lightning Lane lineup on March 11, 2022.
Tangential to this Genie+ news, but apparently Festival of Fantasy Parade has about half as many performers, the entire Brave unit missing, and a number of other dancers absent. This is disappointing but unsurprising, as the same thing happened with Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmastime Parade. At least the Maleficent dragon is still in Festival of Fantasy.
Booking a Lightning Lane for Festival of Fantasy Parade will be just like any other attraction.
The 120 minute rule will almost certainly be at play here, meaning that if you book reserved viewing for Festival of Fantasy’s first showing at 7 am, you won’t be able to book your next selection until 11 am. That’s 120 minutes from park opening (9 am) and not 120 minutes from 7 am.
Our (very) preliminary practical advice for anyone visiting Walt Disney World during the busy spring break weeks would be to reserve Festival of Fantasy Parade as your #2 Genie+ Lightning Lane selection of the day.
The rationale for this would be that you’ll be able to reserve Jungle Cruise first for an early return time via our speed strategy, then tap in as close to 9 am as possible, and book Festival of Fantasy immediately thereafter–rather than waiting until 11 am to make your second selection if you did them in the reverse order. (See our Magic Kingdom Genie+ Lightning Lane Ride Ranks for more priorities.)
We really want to stress that this is preliminary advice. As of publication time, Festival of Fantasy Parade has not yet been added to the Genie+ lineup, so we’re just going with our gut here. If you’re visiting within the next few days and Festival of Fantasy Parade is a must-see priority, we’d recommend making it your #1 pick.
The viewing areas for both performances of Festival of Fantasy combined have less total capacity than a single hour of the Lightning Lane at Jungle Cruise. These viewing areas are not large at all, and it’s entirely possible that they’ll fill up faster.
If you have Genie+ service and are redeeming Lightning Lane entry for Festival of Fantasy Parade at Magic Kingdom, you’ll want to see a parade-viewing Cast Member at the courtyard in front of Cinderella Castle during your arrival window.
The Lightning Lane entrance for Festival of Fantasy will be on the east side of the Cinderella Castle area.
Above is the view you should expect from the Genie+ Lightning Lane location. In my opinion, this is the best location for watching Festival of Fantasy Parade at Magic Kingdom.
For what it’s worth, this was also the viewing location offered for Festival of Fantasy Parade during the FastPass+ era.
It’s pretty much the same deal for “See Disney Stars at Red Carpet Dreams.” That character sighting Lightning Lane is available at Disney’s Hollywood Studios beginning March 11, 2022.
It joins the lineup there alongside “See Olaf at Celebrity Spotlight,” which is not a popular Genie+ selection at all. In fact, Olaf doesn’t even rank on our Disney’s Hollywood Studios Genie+ Priorities & Lightning Lane Ride Ranks because his standby wait time is usually so short. (Mickey & Minnie usually have longer waits, so they’ll likely come in at #8, behind Alien Swirling Saucers.) Nothing else really to know about that one.
We hope more entertainment is added to Genie+ at Walt Disney World. While it doesn’t hurt, Magic Kingdom is the last park that needs more Genie+ Lightning Lane capacity, as it already has a much more robust lineup than any of the other 3 parks. As such, Festival of Fantasy Parade doesn’t really move the needle on improving the experience there.
By contrast, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the worst and most frustrating park for Lightning Lanes…and just in general. It would benefit tremendously from Fantasmic returning and a portion of that nighttime spectacular’s viewing area being allocated to Genie+ users. (The whole DHS guest experience will be improved dramatically by the return of Fantasmic, but that’s another topic for another day.)
We’ve also been hoping for Harmonious to join the Epcot lineup. As you might recall, IllumiNations offered a FastPass+ viewing area in the ‘front of the house.’ That was the best viewing area for that fireworks show, and the same is true for Harmonious. This is only one of two locations where you get the full effect of the Stargate.
Currently, the ‘front of house’ viewing area for Harmonious is open to anyone. However, given the lack of Genie+ attractions at Epcot, it would make sense to include Harmonious as a value-add to incentivize Genie+ purchases and give guest sufficient value for their purchase. Walt Disney World might want to separately monetize that viewing area down the road—either with dessert parties or standalone paid access for nighttime spectacular viewing. Nothing would surprise us. Harmonious viewing might be enough to tip the scales in the favor of buying Genie+ at Epcot.
Ultimately, all of the recent additions to the attraction lineups change the equation for purchasing Genie+ when visiting Walt Disney World this spring and summer, but the Festival of Fantasy Parade’s addition is not one of those changes. That’s because, as discussed in My Day Using Genie+ Lightning Lanes for Spring Break 2022 at Magic Kingdom, it’s already the best park for Genie+ and a no-brainer purchase there right now while crowds are elevated. This move doesn’t change that one way or the other.
It’s Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom that need the help, and adding one meager character sighting to DHS also doesn’t move the needle on that one, either. Perhaps that’ll change once Red Carpet Dreams is converted from a sighting to a traditional meet & greet, but for now, this is a low priority experience that the vast majority of guests are passing up even with short standby waits.
Nevertheless, we remain of the perspective that Genie+ is ‘worth it’ at Disney’s Hollywood Studios so long as you use savvy strategy, know what you’re getting yourself into, and don’t mind some headaches. The Genie system still is frustrating, buggy, and incredibly competitive for DHS headliners. Without good technique, diligence and screen time, the bad can outweigh the good at DHS. We still don’t recommend Genie+ at all at Epcot or Animal Kingdom, unless you’re Park Hopping.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts on Walt Disney World adding Festival of Fantasy Parade at Magic Kingdom to Genie+? Will you book a Lightning Lane for the Magic Kingdom daytime parade? Hope more entertainment will be added to Genie+ or would you prefer first-come viewing locations? 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, any advice about the parade schedule for July? When it will be announced or if there will there be 1 or 2 showings?? Having never been in the summer before, I’m trying to plan our dining reservations to make sure they don’t interfere with a possible 11:30 or 12 one, but having no luck turning up any info..thanks o much!
Is the view from the Genie + area really so much better that it’s worth using a LL on? I’ve never seen you recommend using an early pick on anything other than a ride!
I’m confused about the 120 minute rule. I thought you could stack up a few genie plus at one go? Also if you are not going to park in morning is it still worth a 7 am genie check. Or do I wait until I’m ready to enter magic kingdom?
You can still stack *return times* on top of each other, but *getting the next one* requires waiting until you checked in for your next ride or 120 minutes, whichever comes first.
Depending on how busy the park and Genie+ are, you could check in at 7am and shortly after and already see return times pushing into 10am or later, making them quite useful for touring.
Thank you for explaining!
Yes, do Genie+ at 7am. That’s when we scored Peter Pan for 1:10pm (March 7), bought Ratatouille for 7:55pm (March 9) and finally got Rise of the Resistance for 8:00pm today after three days of trying. The app is quite glitchy in the first minute.
If this is the least competitive week of March 2022, I would hate to see the others!
Thanks Tom, this is definitely off topic but do you think something similar also might happen for Disneyland and California adventure when their respective evening shows return? Monitoring the Disneyland app,Because it’s so different than WDW, it’s not clear if I should even try for a first genie + lane at entry or until after standby starts getting long in non genie rides in fantasyland etc. having spots for evening shows would change that I think, and definitely make them my first reservations? I don’t know if any current patterns will change dramatically when the event shows return. Thanks a lot. Also , as a result of monitoring, wondering if ILL for rise at Disneyland acts differently in that you could end up with earlier times than you wanted and thought you were getting
Under the prior MaxPass system, the nighttime spectaculars were included BUT didn’t count against your ride reservations–meaning the clock didn’t run on them. However, everything with Genie+ has been consistent between the two coasts, so I’d expect that to change.
I’d expect your initial instinct to be mostly correct, but we’ll have to keep monitoring over spring break and summer seasons as the demographics at Disneyland shift. Since debut, it’s been mostly locals at Disneyland–people who are less likely to pay for the upcharge. That may not be the case over spring break and throughout summer.
Are others noticing blatant guest violating Genie+ and LL.
Not sure, but I am always observant of those around me and always see things happening that my family miss. Our last trip going to Disneyland and first using Genie+, I noticed many people taken advantage of either cast members not paying enough attention at the Genie+ scanners because they were helping others or simply lax. Once a family of 3 in front of us at the machines only scan one through Genie+ for them all and walked past the cast members. First time seeing this, and I looked at the cast member at the machines – I didn’t say anything because i doubt what i just saw but motioned to the cast member to do something, nothing was done. Then i saw it happening again and again. It happened throughout our 4 day trip to Disneyland. My wife and son wasn’t aware at first and then noticed it numerous times once i pointed out to them how lax cast members were at the Genie+ scanners. We found cast members at the scanners were too busy helping other guest and others would slip in without scanning. Many times the cast members at the machines didn’t care or were talking amongst themselves and not paying attention to those guest scanning.
Other issue is the LL queue are not monitored for line jumpers. Happened to my family as I mentioned in another of your blog topics. Group of kids and young adults jumped the LL from the single rider line behind us for the paid LL Racers at California Park. Got my money back on that one after some work through there app, email and going to City Hall. Not sure it is manly a Disneyland issue because of the locals in on the know or not. It bothers me when paying for a service and Disney isn’t doing enough – I felt why pay when it was apparent others are using the service and not paying.
I’ve noticed stuff like this a few times over the years, but not very often. For one thing, so long as the second touchpoints are in use, it’s usually not possible.
When it does happen, there’s not really a great solution. As a guest, I’m certainly not going to confront someone else over it, and Cast Members are often trained not to confront guests in a lot of situations.
That’s the problem at Racers @ California Park they took out the second touchpoint. I know I shouldn’t let a few bad apples bother me, but we saw many guests take advantage of the situation and by the end of the trip I was fuming that I paid for Genie+ when it was apparent to me that Disney could do more to prevent what was happening. When a group from the single rider line jump into the paid LL and Disney seemed to brush it off – that was it and I went through the trouble to get my money back for at least that LL.