How to Use Disney Genie and Lightning Lane
Disney Genie is the Disney's new free, automated itinerary planner for people visiting the Walt Disney World or Disneyland theme parks. It will be available through the official Disneyland app and the My Disney Experience app at Walt Disney World.
To use Disney Genie, just open the app and follow the prompts. You will need to create a Disney account and log in to the app, if you haven't already. To help create your custom itinerary, Disney Genie will check to see that everyone in your travel party has a Disney Park Pass reservation for the park and date you want, then help you do that if you need those reservations.
Once that is confirmed, Disney Genie will ask you to select which available attractions in the park are a "must do" for you...
Images courtesy Disney
...as well as to select what other priorities you have during your visit.
It will work around any existing dining reservations you have made and take into account both estimated wait times and how far you would need to walk from location to location.
If you are Park Hopping, Disney Genie will ask you when you want to go to the other park and take that into account when generating your itinerary for the day. If you don't like a suggestion that Disney Genie makes, you can click to swap that destination with something else, from a list of additional options that Disney Genie will provide. You also can let Disney Genie know if height restrictions or accessibility is an issue for your travel party, and it will adjust your plan to accommodate.
Disney Genie works like a navigation app on your phone, according to Disney, so if a suggested attraction goes down due to weather or some other factor, Disney Genie will "reroute" and adjust your plan for the day. Disney Genie accesses Disney's real-time attraction wait time and capacity information, as well as historic information on attraction load and guest ratings, plus your stated preferences, to generate your itinerary, using a genetic algorithm.
In addition to the custom itinerary, Disney Genie includes a real-time tip board with current and forecast wait times during the day, as well as a screen with all restaurants' mobile order wait times, if you want to use that information to build your own plan. You also can use Disney Genie to join the waitlist for available table service restaurants.
In addition to Disney Genie, Disney has introduced Lightning Lane - the new name for the old Fastpass queues. At two attractions in each Walt Disney World theme park, you can get into their Lightning Lane by purchasing direct access. The cost varies by attraction and date, from $7-15, and you can select a time and buy the access through Disney Genie, which will work that time into your itinerary for the day.
Eligible attractions for individual Lightning Lane use are:
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway at Disney's Hollywood Studios
- Flight of Passage and Expedition Everest at Disney's Animal Kingdom
- Remy's Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After at Epcot
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom.
At the Disneyland Resort, the eligible attractions are:
- Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland
- Radiator Springs Racers and Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure at Disney California Adventure
Again, there's a limit of two direct Lightning Lane access purchases per person per day at the Disneyland Resort.
To access Lightning Lane at other attractions, you will need to upgrade to the paid Disney Genie+ service, which costs $15 per person per day at Walt Disney World and $20 at Disneyland. Disney Genie+ works much like Disneyland's old MaxPass system. You pick one attraction at a time through the app for the next available Lightning Lane entrance. After that time, or two hours have passed - whichever comes first, you can pick another attraction to enter via the Lightning Lane. Here are the available Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane attractions at each park.
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant
- Haunted Mansion
- It's a Small World
- Jungle Cruise
- Mad Tea Party
- Magic Carpets of Aladdin
- Mickey's PhilharMagic
- Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor
- Peter Pan's Flight
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Splash Mountain
- The Barnstormer
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- Under the Sea - Journey of The Little Mermaid
- Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival
- Journey into Imagination with Figment
- Living with the Land
- Mission Space - Green & Orange
- Soarin' Around the World
- Spaceship Earth
- Test Track
- The Seas Nemo & Friends
- Turtle Talk with Crush
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
- Disney Jr. Play and Dance!
- Frozen Sing-Along Celebration
- Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular (opens Dec. 19)
- Millennium Falcon: Smuggler's Run
- Muppet*Vision 3D
- Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
- Slinky Dog Dash
- Star Tours - The Adventures Continue
- The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
- Toy Story Mania
- A Celebration of Festival of the Lion King
- Dinosaur
- It's Tough to be a Bug!
- Kali River Rapids
- Kilimanjaro Safaris
- Na'vi River Journey
- The Animation Experience
- Feathered Friends in Flight
- Autopia
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
- Haunted Mansion
- Indiana Jones Adventure
- It's a Small World
- Matterhorn Bobsleds
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
- Space Mountain
- Splash Mountain
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
- Goofy's Sky School
- Grizzly River Run
- Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout
- Incredicoaster
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue
- Soarin' Around the World
- Toy Story Midway Mania
Your selections will be factored into your custom itinerary.
Disney Genie, Disney Genie+, and Lightning Lane launch October 19 at the Walt Disney World Resort. The start date for Disneyland will be announced "very soon," according to Disney officials. We will update this post with information from Disneyland when it becomes available.
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Replies (6)
Wait: so old school fastpasses are now called "Genie+", and the one-shot pay-to-ride pass is called the "lightning lane"?
Also: that long list of rides have a Genie+ line? That is, the teacups, winnie the pooh, and Pirates have fastpass lines? Those rides didn't have fastpass lines at Disneyland. Strikes me that if you DON'T purchase Genie+ there are very few rides where you won't be waiting forever while the Genie+ people walk in front of you.
Bob Chapek is quickly sizing up as one of my least favorite people.
No thecolonel - Lightning Lane is virtually the same as Fastpass/MaxPass in California. If you purchase Genie+, you get access to the Lightning Lane on the noted attractions. If you want to access the Lightning Lane on the 8 most popular attractions at WDW (2 at each park), you have to pay a separate fee, which will be variable depending upon demand, and can only get you a maximum of 2 reservations per day with no re-rides.
If Genie+ ends up working like MaxPass at Disneyland/DCA, a savvy user should more than get their $15 worth, especially at DHS, where there are arguably 5 e-ticket level attractions that can be reserved through Genie+ (MFSR, SDD, RnRC, TSM, and ToT).
It will be interesting to see how many people pay for Genie+ each day and how expensive the individual Lightning Lane passes get, but ultimately, I think there will be little impact to the current standby lines, and if you can optimize Genie+ (and there are none of the limitations to it that I mentioned above), the upcharge will be a good value while still giving reasonable access to those that don't want to pay the extra $15 or the dynamic prices for the high demand Lightning Lane attractions.
FWIW, most of the attractions with Lightning Lane are the many of the same ones that had FP+ before the pandemic, and many of those did not have insufferable lines because of the queue avoidance system. Some did, but many of those are on the individual paid Lightning Lane now, which should keep the number of guests trying to avoid those lines pretty minimal, lessening the impact on the standby waits. Also, when guests can only hold one Lightning Lane reservation at a time, it should allow for the standby lines to move more steadily and efficiently.
My understanding based on press briefings from Disney is that Disney Genie+ works the same as MaxPass. There are no limits on the number of times you can access a Lightning Lane through Genie+, save for the availability of Lightning Lane times.
The only hard cap on Lightning Lane is for direct access - the pay-per-use of the designated eight attractions... which I shall now call the "L" tickets.
How does someone actually pay for Genie+ or the pay rides? I don't stay at Disney hotels. No credit card is linked to my Disney account. I have a WDW Gold AP that has monthly payments. Will Disney use that account to take my money?
@Tony Duda
No, you have to link your credit card to the app. It’s a similar method when doing the mobile food orders.
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If Disney is limiting paid Lightning Lane to 2 per day with no re-rides, will Genie+ also be limiting the number of Lightning Lane attractions guests can reserve or prevent re-rides?