Disney Genie is a complimentary service that can be found inside the My Disney Experience app and can help you plan your Walt Disney World vacation. Disney Genie offers guests a personalized itinerary to help them plan their day with a real-time tip board, including forecasted attraction wait times, show times, restaurant wait times, and more. Disney Genie will also provide recommendations based on your answers to the questions about what you and your family are most interested in seeing and doing at the parks, whether it be princesses or villains, etc. Disney Genie will allow guests to select up to ten experiences.
Disney Genie+ is a paid add-on ($15 per person per day, but it can vary depending on your visit date) that will give you access to Lightning Lanes (formerly FastPass and FastPass+) on select attractions throughout the theme parks. Lightning Lanes allow guests to skip the standby lines reducing their wait time standing in line. Guests who purchase Genie+ receive unlimited access to attractions that offer Lightning Lanes for the entire day, but you can only use Lightning Lane once per day, per attraction.
Think of Disney Genie+ like this; it’s essentially a GPS to help guide you through your Disney day. Its objective is to assist you in experiencing everything you and your party would like to see and do in the most efficient way possible. You might end up doing things in a somewhat different order than you’d originally thought or preferred, but it’s important that you’re flexible with it. Genie+ might offer suggestions throughout the day for alternate experiences because they might be less busy. Genie+ doesn’t work exactly as FastPass or FastPass+ used to, but it is similar as you can have several attractions booked at a time, provided there is availability.
As with most things, you are going to get more bang for your buck if you are diligent in booking your Lightning Lanes as early as possible and as close as you can to when your booking window opens. Genie+ may not work the way you want or expect it to, but it’s important to remember that the goal of the service is to try to help guests maximize their park time and to let Disney take over the planning.
Individual Lightning Lane (ILL) is for guests who wish to purchase Individual Lightning Lane access to specific attractions that are not offered through Disney Genie+. There is currently only one attraction per theme park with ILL available, but that is subject to change at any time. Guests can only purchase ILL entry for up to 2 experiences per day, one at a time. Guests may purchase this option with or without purchasing Disney Genie+.
Now that we’ve gone over the basics of Disney World’s system to plan for and ride attractions, there is one more planning piece we need to discuss – Virtual Queue.
Over the last couple of years, whenever a new attraction has opened at Walt Disney World, guests have been required to utilize a Virtual Queue in order to ride the attraction. Typically when a Virtual Queue is in use, the regular standby line is unavailable, which can make experiencing certain attractions difficult for folks who aren’t in the know about what’s currently going on in the Disney parks or who don’t want to be awake before 7:00 am during their Disney vacation.
Like Disney Genie and Genie+, the Virtual Queue is accessed through the My Disney Experience app and has daily distribution times, typically at 7:00 am and 1:00 pm – on the dot – so don’t delay. All guests have access to any available virtual queues provided they’ve got a Disney Park Pass reservation (with valid park tickets) for the park in which the attraction with the Virtual Queue is located.
If you still have questions on how the whole process works, head over to our DISboards discussion forums, specifically the thread entitled “Everything Genie, Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane” where you’ll find tons of helpful information from hundreds of Disney fans around the world, and it’s all organized in an easy-to-read format.
Senior Editor for the DIS and DCL Fan | Disney Vacation Club Member | Thrilled to have been a '13/'14 Disney Parks Moms Panelist (now planDisney) | Lover of all things Disney; the Magic of Disneyland, Walt Disney World, and Disney Cruise Line | ºoº
