Throughout its history, Walt Disney World has had a number of different “skip the line” schemes. First it was “FastPass”, where you had to retrieve a paper pass at the ride entrance to get a return time. Then, the next iteration was “FastPass Plus”, where you could reserve your return times in advance online. Now we have Genie+.
Each scheme brought with it its own strategies for maximizing their benefit. I still remember how people “rope dropped” the Toy Story Mania FastPass ticket machines at Hollywood Studios, since they ran out of return times so quickly. If you were to tell someone today that you rope dropped not a ride, but a ticket machine, they might think you were crazy!
Then when Disney switched over to FastPass Plus, the question became which Tier One ride should you reserve when your booking window opened. Do I book Soarin’? Or do I book Test Track? Because you can’t book both.
Genie+ is no different from the previous schemes. While the system is fairly straightforward, there are things that you can do in order to get the most out of it. In this article, I crunch the numbers to provide some good “rules of thumb” for how you should book your rides.
What is Genie+?
We at Buster and the Banshee have already done a few standalone articles on Genie+. If you want to really dive into the nuts and bolts, I suggest checking them out before continuing:
DISNEY 101: Virtual Queue vs Genie+ vs Individual Lightning Lanes: This gives a brief overview of the various line skipping methods that Disney uses.
Genie+ at WDW: An Introduction: A more detailed introduction to Genie+.. what it is… how it works
Genie+ and WDW: Strategies: Some tips and tricks for getting the most out of Genie+. This article is sort of an extension of that one.
But if you don’t have time to peruse those articles, here is a quick summary Genie+
- Genie+ is a paid service which gives you the ability to book a one hour return time for most (but not all) rides
- When it is your return time, you can access the ride through the “Lightning Lane”, which has priority access to the ride (in other words, you have a much shorter wait time than people in the regular standby line)
- You can book your first Genie+ ride reservation at 7am. After that, you can book your next ride two hours after you booked your previous ride or two hours after park opening whichever is later. In addition, once you use your previous Genie+ reservation, you can immediately book another one, even if it hasn’t been two hours.
- Buying Genie+ doesn’t guarantee that you will ride all the rides using Lightning Lanes. There are only a limited number of Lightning Lane reservations per ride.
- You can only ride something once per day through the Lightning Lane using Genie+
What is the Ideal Genie+ Strategy?
The Philosophical Foundations of Genie+ Usage
There are generally two schools of thought when it comes to how to use Genie+:
- Reserve rides that have the soonest return time. Because you can book another Lightning Lane after you check into a ride, this allows you to book another Lightning Lane without having to wait the full two hours.
- Reserve rides that generally have the longest lines. Because your return time may be later in the day, you may need to wait the full two hours before booking another one. However, this give you the most time savings per ride.
I believe that Strategy #2 is the best strategy. If you don’t take anything else from this article, at least remember this:
Genie+ isn’t about riding the most rides. It is about saving the most time.
Let’s say you can choose between either riding 10 using Genie+ that normally have a standby wait of 10 minutes, or riding 3 rides using Genie+ that normally have a wait time of an hour. I would choose the latter option every time. Why? Math…
- If you save 10 minutes on 10 rides, that saves you 100 minutes
- If you save 60 minutes on 3 rides, that saves you 180 minutes
I’d rather save 180 minutes than 100 minutes!
This means that you should prioritize reserving rides that have long wait times, even if this means that you now have to wait an additional two hours to reserve your next ride.
The only wrinkle in this strategy is that Lightning Lane availability is limited. Certain rides run out of availability by mid-morning or even sooner based upon the time of year. That means that you might get your first reservation at 7am. However, when your next window opens two hours after park opening, some rides might have nothing left.
Summary of the Ideal Strategy
What does this all mean in terms of Genie+ strategy? Here is what I believe to be the best order in which to book Lightning Lanes.
- First, prioritize rides with both long wait times AND limited Genie+ availability
- Next, prioritize rides with long wait times BUT have Genie+ availability
- Finally, choose whatever rides your heart desires
So Which Rides Have Long Wait Times AND Limited Genie+ Availability?
To answer the above question, all one has to do is look at the data. Fortunately, all the information that you need is available at thrill-data.com. This website collects and catalogs every piece of theme park data there is to collect, and they make it available to the public. However, the site itself isn’t very user friendly or efficient (long load times!!!). But don’t sweat it… we at Buster and the Banshee have done the heavy lifting for you. SPOILER ALERT: we boiled it down to a few simple to read graphs.
We looked at the average wait time data and the average Lightning Lane availability data for the month of December 2023. December is a good month to use because it consists of a relatively quiet period at WDW (early December) as well as one of the busiest times of the year (late December).
Now that we have two data points for each ride, we plotted that data on a chart. That way, you can visually see which rides have the highest wait times AND run out of Lightning Lanes the quickest. Rides in this part of the chart are the ones you want to target first.
Lightning Lane Priority By Park
Magic Kingdom
TOP PRIORITIES
- Jungle Cruise
SECONDARY PRIORITIES
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Haunted Mansion
- Big Thunder Mountain Railway
- Space Mountain
As you can see, we plotted each ride based upon its wait time score and its Genie+ availability score on a scale of 1 to 10. We marked in red rides to prioritize first, as these have a score of 5 or above in both categories. These are the rides you should try to book first.
In the next category are rides in orange. There are rides with a wait time score of 5 or higher, but an availability score of below 5. This means that these rides are more likely to have Lightning Lanes on your second or third booking. This is your next priority to book.
Finally, the rides in black generally have shorter lines and good availability. This is your last category to choose from.
Clearly, the ride to prioritize at the Magic Kingdom is Jungle Cruise, as it is the one ride with the perfect storm of long lines and limited availability.
In the next group you have Peter Pan’s Flight, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Space Mountain. This isn’t that surprising since these are all headliners that have decent sized wait times. Of this group, Peter Pan’s Flight is probably the one to reserve next after Jungle Cruise, as it has the longest line and least availability of the remaining rides.
One other item to note: many of the character meets also appear to have limited Genie+ availability… particularly Meet Ariel and Enhanced Tales with Belle. However, because they don’t have quite as high a wait time as the ones in orange, I didn’t prioritize them. They can be done through the standby line. That said, if these attractions are more of a priority than the ones in purple, feel free to bump them up YOUR priority list.
Finally, MK overall is probably the best park for Genie+. As you can see, there are so many attractions to choose from!
EPCOT
TOP PRIORITIES
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Frozen Ever After
- Test Track
SECONDARY PRIORITIES
- Soarin’
Epcot has a very interesting pattern. There are three rides that stand out in terms of both long wait times and limited availability: Remy, Frozen, and Test Track. If you get Genie+ for this park, you will definitely want to book one of these three at 7am. This also means that by the time you get to your second booking window, there is a good chance that the other two might already be gone! Therefore, you should plan to “rope drop” the ones you don’t get a reservation for. That way, you can ride them with the shortest standby wait.
Pretty much everything else is available through most of the day. If one of the big three isn’t available when your second booking window opens, the next logical ride to choose would be Soarin’. While it does tend to have longer wait times than the other remaining rides, Genie+ availability isn’t quite as bad as the big three listed above.
Animal Kingdom
TOP PRIORITIES
- Meet Favorite Disney Pals at Adventurer’s Outpost
- Kilimanjaro Sarafis
- Na’vi River Journey
SECONDARY PRIORITIES
- Kali River Rapids (when the weather is hot)
Animal Kingdom is the park where Genie+ is probably the least useful, as it can be toured using the standby line by riding the headliners either first thing in the morning or at the end of the day. However, the clear winners in the Genie+ prioritization game are Adventurer’s Outpost, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and Na’vi River Journey. Even then, Adventurer’s Outpost was barely a 5 on the wait time scale, the Safari was barely a 5 in both categories, and Na’vi River Journey wasn’t even a 5 on the availability scale. I made an exception for it and turned it red because it had such a higher wait time compared to everything else. Therefore, you can save a lot of time by using the Lightning Lane, even though availability isn’t quite as bad as the other two.
Note that this data was collected from December, when Kali River Rapids isn’t a popular choice for obvious reasons. I will have to revisit this once I have data for summer 2024, but I expect that this ride might be at least a secondary priority when the weather is hot.
Hollywood Studios
TOP PRIORITIES
- Slinky Dog Dash
SECONDARY PRIORITIES
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
- Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
- Toy Story Mania
- Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run
The clear top priority at Hollywood Studios is Slinky Dog Dash. Not only does it have the longest lines, its Lightning Lane reservations routinely run out very quickly. This is one where you will need to book right at 7am to have any shot of getting a return time.
In the next group are Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Runaway Railway, Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, and Smuggler’s Run. All of these rides have long lines but decent availability, so you can probably snag some of these with your subsequent reservations.
Summary
So there you have it: Buster’s analysis of Genie+ Lightning Lane selections. The key point isn’t to memorize the data. Just know the handful of rides for which you will get the biggest “bang for the buck” when using Genie+. And know which of these rides generally run out of reservations soonest. If you can do this, you will be a Genie+ Jedi Master!
Do you have any tips for using Genie+ that you’d like to share? If so, feel free to leave us a comment. We’d love to learn what strategies work for you!
AD: We hope you enjoyed this post. If you are coming to Central Florida and need a place to stay, please consider the Encore Magic Villa. It sleeps up to 12 and features a game room, theater room, themed bedrooms, and private pool… located within a short drive of the Magic!
If you enjoy this site and want to support us, please consider shopping on Amazon using our affiliate link. There is no additional cost to you, and it helps defray the cost of running this site.
If you really like us, please consider supporting us on Patreon for only $2/month. As a supporter, you get access to our growing library of trip planning infographics!
