Tips for “Stacking” Genie+ Ride Reservations
One of the most common questions we’ve received about Walt Disney World’s new Genie+ service is how it’s possible to “stack” multiple Lightning Lane ride reservations. This post explains how you can stockpile selections to great success, with afternoons and evenings of line skipping at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, or Epcot. (Updated February 2, 2022.)
Part of the confusion with using Genie+ to stack Lightning Lane reservations undoubtedly stems from Walt Disney World’s official verbiage that with Genie+ you can only “make one selection at a time, throughout the day” and that additional selections could be made once redeemed. As we’ve stressed from the beginning, that info was/is incomplete and misleading; the 120 minute rule also applies. (That post is a must-read if you’re unfamiliar with the 120 minute rule–this post assumes you already understand it.)
Additionally, see our “Speed Strategy” for Making Genie+ Lightning Lane Selections. Again, this is advanced knowledge that isn’t strictly necessary most days. However, if you’re visiting during peak season or any regular day and want a chance at doing Slinky Dog Dash–or the earliest possible time for any attraction, this approach is highly recommended. It might seem like overkill, but sadly, it is not.
Finally, 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.
The goal with that is to address the basics–the goal here is to take things to the next level with more advanced hacks and strategy…
In a nutshell, “stacking” Genie+ reservations is possible because of the 120 minute rule. If you prioritize grabbing Lightning Lane reservations for popular rides early in the day–my preferred approach and objectively better strategy for most people–you’re likely going to be holding multiple Lightning Lane reservations simultaneously so long as you continue making them whenever eligible. This is because your return times will be kicked out further into the future, and you’ll be able to make new selections prior to redeeming old ones.
This might be new territory for some Walt Disney World fans, but anyone who has experience with the legacy FastPass systems should be well-versed in stacking ride reservations. In fact, it was incredibly common and downright easy to be an “evening FastPass hoarder.” Same goes here. Really all you need to do is always make the most popular/higher priority Genie+ selections, and do so aggressively throughout the day. The basic premise is pretty simple–but it gets more complicated.
One of the big things with FastPass+ was that it didn’t allow conflicting ride reservations; like other recent Walt Disney World systems, it was “smart” and prevented guests from double-booking themselves.
Depending upon your perspective, Genie+ is a step backwards to a “dumb” system like paper FastPasses. It doesn’t care if you overlap ride reservations, and will let you know about a conflict but not prevent you from making conflicting plans. The one exception to this, thankfully, is when it comes to Park Hopping hours–Genie+ will automatically move selections to 2 pm if you start making them for a subsequent park and the return time clock otherwise hasn’t advanced.
This means the onus is on you to be mindful about not using Genie+ to make conflicting Lightning Lane selections. If you’re concerned about a time being too close to an existing Lightning Lane reservation, either choose a different attraction or wait 5-10 minutes for the return time clock to move forward and give you more of a buffer between them.
Despite the connotations, the “dumb” system is far better for savvy guests than the “smart” one. If I make Genie+ ride reservations for both Soarin’ Around the World and Spaceship Earth from 2 to 3 pm, plus Test Track at 2:15 to 3:15 pm, that is all very doable–even if I walk slowly between them. It’s far superior to spacing those out from 2 pm until 5 pm, as would’ve been required under FastPass+ rules. Overlapping plans benefits the diligent and makes it easier to book the next slew of ride reservations.
The following section exists for posterity’s sake. For anyone visiting Walt Disney World in 2022, what follows DOES NOT WORK ANYMORE!
Advanced Stacking Strategy (Obsolete)
The normal 120 minute rule still works. It’s an intentional feature of Genie+ that is there by design and was inherited from MaxPass and legacy FastPass. In other words, stacking can still be done in the intuitive, one-at-a-time sense. However, it’s no longer possible to leverage the advanced stacking strategy described in this section such a way that you can turn a single selection into multiple branches, and grow those exponentially.
Again, the *120 minute rule still works* and regular stacking is possible, just not the advanced hacks discussed in the following section. This makes complete sense and we can’t fault Disney for closing what was possibly an unintentional loophole. Definitely a bummer for those who like to hack, but that’s how it goes.
We are leaving this now-obsolete section here because it exploded in popularity among Walt Disney World vacation planners, and even though the loophole was closed back around Thanksgiving and it’s now February 2022, we’re still getting questions about it. Rather than pretending it wasn’t a thing, we want to address it here to point out it doesn’t work anymore. There’s really no point in reading any further in this post. Stop now unless you’re curious about this now-defunct loophole.
Prior to this loophole closing, eligibility for a new Genie+ reservation was triggered by your “last action,” for lack of a better term. This can either mean the 120 minute rule taking effect or tapping into a Lightning Lane…or both!
Stated differently, letting 120 minutes elapse is a “last action” that triggers eligibility for a new Lightning Lane reservation. Once those two hours have passed, you’re eligible. Tapping into a Lightning Lane is also a “last action” that triggers eligibility in Genie+ for a new Lightning Lane reservation.
If you make another Genie+ selection after 120 minutes but before tapping into the previous selection, you can also make another once you’ve tapped into the Lightning Lane. There are two “last actions” in that scenario, and the former does not obviate the latter.
This means you are able to score two Lightning Lane selections from a ride reservation that’s more than two hours into the future. Not only are you not penalized for choosing more popular attractions–you’re arguably receiving a windfall.
Where this gets more complicated is with Genie+ reservations that straddle the 120 minute rule, so to speak. Ones where you could tap in either before or after 120 minutes has elapsed. In the vast majority of cases, you will want to WAIT for those 120 minutes to pass before tapping into the Lightning Lane.
This is because the “last action” of tapping into the Lightning Lane eliminates the potential “last action” of 120 minutes elapsing, but not vice-versa. If you tap in at the 90 minute mark, for example, you never hit 120 minutes. As such, that “last action” never came to fruition. Conversely, you’re tapping in regardless–the 120 minute rule does not and cannot eliminate that.
Here’s a mnemonic device that might help, using an iconic Arnold Schwarzenegger film that’s beloved by all as inspiration: “Last Action Hero (1993) is longer than 120 minutes.” To be the last action hero of your Walt Disney World vacation, wait over 120 minutes before booking another Lightning Lane selection via Genie+ when possible.
Even if mnemonic devices aren’t your thing, at least we plugged one of the all-time cinematic classics. I think we all can agree that’s a huge victory.
Still confused? Here’s hoping a few examples clear things up…rather than make them worse!
During My Day Using Genie+ at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, my first Lightning Lane ride reservation was Slinky Dog Dash. As explained in that post, we strongly recommend booking this first—right at 7 am.
The screenshot above shows my Lightning Lane arrival window of 10:45 am to 11:45 am for Slinky Dog Dash. I tapped into this at 10:40 am, which I thought was a slick move because it gave me a 20 minute jumpstart over waiting until 11 am, when I could’ve made another Lightning Lane ride reservation pursuant to the 120 minute rule.
I was wrong. It was not-so-slick. Saving 20 minutes cost me an extra Lightning Lane reservation. Because the 120 minute rule was never reached, I was only able to make one Lightning Lane selection.
Had I waited until 11:00 am, I could’ve booked a new Lightning Lane pursuant to the 120 minute rule.
Then, I could’ve tapped into the Slinky Dog Dash Lightning Lane at 11:01 am. I could’ve immediately booked another Lightning Lane reservation via Genie+ because that was another “last action.” Get it? Two “last actions” for the price of one! (Huge props to Tristan who alerted me to this in the reader comments of a prior post!)
Here’s a more common example, and one you’ll invariably encounter at DHS. I tapped into my Tower of Terror ride reservation at 12:10 pm. After tapping in, I made my next Lightning Lane ride reservation—Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run for 5:40 to 6:40 pm.
The math whizzes out there will tell you that 5:40 pm is multiple 120 minute rules after 12:10 pm, making it impossible to *not* trigger both last actions. Be sure you make new Lightning Lane reservations at both points–first at the 120 minute mark and then again upon tapping into the Lightning Lane. This is how you’ll almost certainly end up with a stockpile of ride reservations in Genie+ later in the evening.
Here’s another example. I booked a Na’vi River Journey Lightning Lane reservation for 8:55 to 9:55 am. Even though the end of this reservation is only 115 minutes after park opening, its official end time triggers eligibility for another Lightning Lane reservation (and remember, you can tap in up to 15 minutes after the end of a Genie+ ride reservation).
Accordingly, I waited for the window to close, then used Genie+ to book a Lightning Lane for Kilimanjaro Safaris. Immediately after that, I tapped into the first Navi River Journey Lightning Lane checkpoint and immediately booked a Lightning Lane for Dinosaur. Doubling my Lightning Lane numbers so early in the day set me up for a huge day, and that wouldn’t have been possible with any other attraction at Animal Kingdom due to more immediate return times. (If this helps, think of it like compound interest–starting earlier pays bigger dividends in the future, but in the currency of Lightning Lane reservations rather than dollars.)
Another piece of advice: try to book a new Lightning Lane reservation after performing any “last action” in the park–or whenever you’re unsure about whether you can make a new Genie+ selection.
At worst, you’ll get the ‘not eligible’ error message above (which is oddly the only way of seeing the time when you can make another selection). At best, you’ll have surprise success.
We recommend this because it’s incredibly difficult to keep track of Genie+ bookings, especially later in the day when they’ve multiplied like Gremlins.
Genie’s “My Day” feature in My Disney Experience is nice for those doing a single park, but its organization is abysmal once you start Park Hopping. Random recommendations, park hours, directions, and other unsolicited advice are scattered among Lightning Lane reservations–which are often displayed out of order and not grouped by park. In other words, you should just try to book new reservations whenever it seems like maybe you’ll be able to do so.
Due to the top-heavy nature of the Disney’s Hollywood Studios attraction lineup, you almost certainly will be using the 120 minute rule a lot there. This means ride reservations made in the morning won’t be redeemable until afternoon, and by the time evening rolls around, you’ll have spawned a half-dozen or so Lightning Lane selections.
If you’re good at this and diligent about booking, Park Hopping will be a must. The no re-ride rule means you’ll run out of worthwhile attractions in your first–and maybe second–park and will need to move on. Aside from the no re-ride rule, the biggest limiting factor on how much you can accomplish is operating hours.
Ultimately, this is how I’ve ended up with huge stacks of Lightning Lane ride reservations for the late afternoon and early evening when using Genie+ at Walt Disney World. Simply prioritizing popular attractions and using the “last action hero” trick produces results similar to Dr. Honeydew and Beaker’s experiments with the Inflate-o-Matic! Unlike Waldo, you’ll actually want a ton of Lightning Lane reservations.
Like so much with Genie+, the learning curve isn’t nearly as steep with stacking in practice as it is in writing. Once I wrapped my head around how the “last action” rules worked to trigger more Lightning Lane selections, I quickly mastered it. (Just wait until you read the recap of my 3-park day yesterday–it’s absolutely bonkers.) With that said, it’s possible that this is a bug rather than a feature, and Walt Disney World will quickly close this “loophole” if Genie+ power users leverage the system to their benefit by too great of a degree. There were similar strategies with FastPass+, and those loopholes were never closed, so I guess we shall see!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Did this help you understand “stacking” Lightning Lane ride reservations in the Genie+ system? Understand the “last actions” of the 120 minute rule and tapping into Lightning Lanes? Planning on being the “last action hero of your family’s Walt Disney World vacation? Thoughts on strategy for making Lightning Lane ride reservations in light of this rule and the ability to stack selections for later in the day? 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!
I am with Josh and Ryan. I am still not completely clear on what regular stacking means and how the 120 minute rule works in tandem with tapping into LL selections. Let’s say at 7 AM I book a ride for 12-1. With a park opening of 9 AM, the 120 minute rule kicks in at 11 AM and I can make another selection. I’m clear on that part. What’s not clear is what comes next. Let’s say at 11 AM, I book a ride for 3-4. If I tap into my 12-1 booking before 1 PM, do I get an immediate selection or do I have to wait for the 120 minute rule from my 11 AM pick to kick in at 1 PM? If I do get to make a new selection after tapping in, do I still get to make a selection at 1 PM since that is 120 minutes after my 11 AM selection or does the 120 minute rule re-set to be 120 minutes after I tap in?
When you say that “regular stacking” is still available, to what are you specifically referencing?
Under the revised stacking rules, can I make my 1st selection for late in the day, and then 2 hours later start going for attractions with a return time soon, and then keep going for “soon” ones after checking in to each of those rides? Or am I completely limited to every 2 hours only until the late in the day one is used?
Tom,
Thanks for updating this as per my e-mail request. I appreciate it.
All we want to ride is two Lightning Lane rides this next week, Rise of the Resistance and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway! My husband can’t physically stand for hours on end, so we are staying at a Disney Resort so we can get an early start next Tuesday on doing this. How can we schedule them? At the same time @ 9:00 am? Please help me understand, Thanks so much!
Looking forward to the $7.50 I will make a couple of years from now when Disney settles the class action lawsuit for false product advertisement of Genie+ (the other $7.50 will go to the brilliant lawyers who manage to file the suit first).
@Mike and @Dylan,
My experience was that I could not get a new LL for both the LL window ending and the 2 hour rule since booking it. It seemed to be either one or the other. And then either way, I could book a new one after tapping into the lightning lane for the ride.
I saw some blog post (not sure what site, but it wasn’t this one) that Disney “fixed” the loophole, but that post didn’t even give me the impression the author really understood the loopholes, so I don’t know if it’s true.
In any case, I think Tom has the right advice: If you think you might be able to book another LL, try it. There’s no harm in trying!
We covered the loophole closing in this post a few days ago: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/genie-plus-problems-thanksgiving-crowds-disney-world/
It was a long post, so understandable if people missed that portion of it (or the post entirely). I think other sites reported on the closure based on that, since most never wrote about the loophole itself. 🙂
I haven’t updated this yet because I’m still hoping there’s an outside chance the loophole ‘reopens’ tomorrow once holiday crowds let up. We’ll have an update to this post very soon, one way or the other.
hi. we went nov 23. tried to stack. booked at 7, park opened at 8, booking window was until 9:45. waited to go on ride at 10 on the dot, to start the 2 hours after park opened at 8, with the 15 min late grace period. was only able to get 1 booking, not 2. anyway, i did pick the next ride immediately after clocking into the ride, 30 seconds maybe, and the soonest possible next ride. then clocked into all rides 5 min early. was able to get probably 6 throughout the day, for each of our party. it was pretty awesome. best disney experience thus far.
Here today it isn’t letting me stack them for some reason. Just got off Peter Pan have ones booked for jungle and thunder later but it wouldn’t let me book one even though we used our Peter Pan. Maybe they caught on?
The thing that winds me up the most about Genie Rollout is the fact that they’ve intentionally nerfed the “Future Plans” page. That familiar UI briefly shows today’s plans as well, before hiding them and telling you to go to My Genie Day.
I also suspect they are polluting the Aladdin/Genie IP with this association, and I’m surprised there wasn’t a product owner who told them to forget it.
Can you book both a paid lightening lane (like Rise of the Resistance) and a genie+ lightening lane (like slinky dog) right at 7am? Does the 120 min rule apply, or are they separate since you’re basically paying for two separate services?
Is it true that Disney ended the stacking capabilities today?
Does this stacking system mean that in theory, if you book a fastpass at 1:00 and the return window is 2:30-3:30, you can get three fastpasses instead of one by waiting to ride until 3:40 (during the 15-minute late grace period) by booking another at 3:00 (because of the 120-minute rule), another at 3:30 (when your fastpass window officially closes), and another at 3:40 (after you actually scan into the ride)?
So, I’m still trying to understand this… do you y’all get in standby lines in between your LL reserved times ? Or how do you fill up some of those holes in you day – especially if there are rides you want to do more than once.
Yeah, standby lines, stage shows, dining, etc.
I’m interested in the possibility of an early morning triple stack – can anyone verify if something like this is possible?
AK – book any LL reservation at opening for a ride with a window that expires shortly after 10 AM (e.g. 9:15-10:15)
At 10 AM, book another LL because of the 120 min rule
At 10:16 AM, book another LL because of the “expired” LL window
At 10:17 AM, tap in to your ride and book another LL due to the “tap in rule” – able to do this because of the 15 min late grace period
In theory, you would now have 3 booking threads early in the morning, with the next 120 min rule set to expire at 12:17 PM. Does that make sense?
Tom, my wife and are are huge fans and read most of your blog posts. We are here at Disney now and I could not get Genie Plus to allow us to stack rides on our first MK day on Sunday. What I have learned, and I hope this will be helpful to your other readers, the 120 minute or last action rule begins when the park opens. This was not 100% clear in your post, and we started trying at 9:00 since we booked our first Genie Plus ride at 7:00 that morning. Since MK opened at 9, we could have booked another Genie Plus at 11. Again huge fans and we actually have been on the lookout for you and Sarah while we have been here. Y’all are like Disney celebrities to my wife and I! We have two more days to go, who knows, we might bump into you!
Following up: 2 days later it did work to reserve after the window expired. It seemed the difference the first time was that the 2 hour window was already up (the LL was reserved for later in the day). It seems you cannot reserve one 2 hours after reserving a LL and then ALSO reserve one when that same LL window ends. But you CAN reserve a 2nd LL after tapping in to use the first LL.
Specific examples:
Reserved slinky dog at 7am for 11:30am
Reserved Rock-n-Rollercoaster at 11am (2 hours after park opened) for 2:30pm
At 12:30pm, could not reserve another LL.
Tapped into Slinky Dog at 12:35pm, and then could reserve Millennium Falcon LL. Now have 2 stacked.
Reserved Navi River journey at 7am for 8:10am
At 9:10am, could reserve Jungle Cruise at MK for 2pm (and did).
Tapped into Navi at 9:15am and was able to reserve Kilimanjaro Safari for 10am.
Tapped into Safari at 10:05am and reserved Dinosaur for 10:15am.
At 11:10am – 2 hours after making Jungle Cruise reservation, we could not make another reservation.
At 11:15am when Dinosaur expired, we could make another reservation (chose Splash Mountain for 2:30pm).
I can’t figure out the exact rule, but my best guess is there is a separation between (1) “Expirations” which includes windows expiring and the 2 hour elapsed time since a reservation and (2) “using/tapping in”. It seems like once you’ve used an expiration to book another LL, you can’t use another expiration for an existing LL reservation. The “clock” kind of starts over on expirations. However, it doesn’t affect being able to make a reservation after using a LL — you can still always do that.
That was my experience anyway. I was still able to successfully stack LLs, I just couldn’t always do it when I thought I’d be able to and sometimes waiting for the 1-hr window of a LL to end didn’t pay off.
I think I understand this…maybe, doing it makes more sense than reading it. I get the 120 minute rule….and the last action thing. But, how is stacking possible when Genie+ provides the return window times per attraction. Sorry, just call me confused….
Some people have said letting your pass expire also triggers a last action. So if you had a reservation for 9-10 you let it expire can you get one for letting it expire then get in your line and then after scanning get another one? The way your example reads is that you used the 120 minute rule and not an expiration rule. Or do you have to really let it expire as in past the extra 15 min. If so obviously that’s a waste but if you could wait it out get a LL quick then get in line before 25 min are up and still book another after scanning in that would be very valuable to stacking.
I’ve done more testing, and letting the LL reservation expire *also* triggers a last action (separate from the 120 minute one). This is actually the BEST option for a few reasons, one of which is a glitch that I assume will be fixed soon–if not, I’ll cover here at some point. You can still use the expired reservation within 15 minutes of expiration.
We were unable to book after the window expired this morning. Have they fixed that?