RIP Genie+
This past week, Disney announced their long awaited overhaul of their “skip the line” system. Replacing Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes will be Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass! The new system is scheduled to go into effect on July 24th 2024. After that day, you can pretty much ignore everything that we had previously written about Genie+. This article’s goal is to introduce the new system, how it works. As always, Buster will offer his well-researched opinions on the new system. Is it better than the old system? Or is it a step backwards? Read on to find out.
Note that this article specifically addresses the new system at Walt Disney World. Disneyland is also undergoing a rebranding of their skip the line system, but it is fundamentally different. So nothing in this article applies to Disney’s West Coast park.
Quick Overview of Lines at Walt Disney World
Most attractions at WDW offer two different lines:
- The Standby Line
- The Lightning Lane
The Standby Line is your basic line that is opened to everyone. You get in line; you wait; you get on the ride. There are a handful of rides where you have to join a “Virtual Queue”, which is a virtual standby line. When you join the Virtual Queue, you are assigned to a “Boarding Group”. When your Boarding Group is called, you can then join the actual Standby Line for the ride.
The Lightning Lane is a separate priority access line. Generally, once you join the Lightning Lane line, you will get onto the ride without much waiting. You are able to access the ride faster through the LL for two reasons.
- First, Disney limits the number of people who can use the LL. They do this by having people pre-book a limited supply of return times. Once bookings fill up, that’s it.
- Second, Disney prioritizes LL guests over Standby Line guests. Cast Members will generally let in four to ten people from the LL for every person they let in from the Standby Line. Talk about VIP access!
Over the years, Disney has introduced a number of different reservations systems to allow guests to book their Lightning Lane return times: FastPass, FastPass+, Genie+… and now Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass!
Lightning Lane Multi Pass
Lightning Lane Multi Pass allows guests to pre book up to three one-hour Lightning Lane return time windows days in advance of their park day. Here are its key characteristics:
- Guests can pre book up to three LL one hour return time windows for rides that support Lightning Lane Multi Pass (which is most rides except those that require a Single Pass purchase – see below for more details on that)
- All your pre bookings for a particular day must be for the same park
- Of the three pre bookings, only one can be for a “top tier” ride
- On your actual day of visit, after you have redeemed a Lightning Lane booking, you immediately can book another return time for any ride at any park, based upon availability
- You can only use a LL once per ride per day
For those who remember FastPass+, this should sound very familiar.
“Top Tier” Rides
In order to give everyone a fair chance to get a LL for at least one of the most popular rides, you can only pre book one “top tier” ride per day. Here are the rides that Disney has put into this premium tier:
- Magic Kingdom
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Jungle Cruise
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Space Mountain
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- EPCOT
- Frozen Ever After
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Soarin’
- Hollywood Studios
- Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway
- Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run
- Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
- Slink Dog Dash
Animal Kingdom has no “top tier” rides, so you can book any eligible Multi Pass ride here without restriction.
Lightning Lane Single Pass
There are certain rides that are so popular that you cannot book them using the Multi Pass. Instead, you have to separately purchase a Lightning Lane Single Pass to book a Lightning Lane for these ride.
Other than the fact you can pre book a Single Pass in advance of your park day, it is pretty much works the same as the existing Individual Lightning Lane system.
- You can book a return time for any particular ride once per day
- You can book a return time for up to two different rides per day
Lightning Lane Single Pass Rides
The following rides require you to separately purchase a Single Pass in order to reserve a Lightning Lane return time.
- Seven Dwarves Mine Train (MK)
- Tron LightCycle Run (MK)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind (EP)
- Avatar Flight of Passage (AK)
- Rise of the Resistance (HS)
How Far In Advance Can You Book?
The biggest change is that you can book Lightning Lanes before your park day. But how far in advance can you book? The answer depends on whether you are staying on property and whether you have a “date based” ticket.
On Property Guests
Guests staying at a Disney-owned resort, the Swan & Dolphin, or Shades of Green can book LL’s starting seven days before the start of their trip. Once their booking window opens, they can reserve times for the entire length of their stay, up to 14 days.
Off Property Guests with Date Based Tickets
Guests staying off property with date based tickets (i.e tickets that are good for a specific range of dates) can book LL’s starting three days before the first day of their ticket. Similar to On Property guests, once their window opens, they can reserve times for the entire duration that their ticket is valid.
Other Off Property Guests
Guests staying off property with non-date based tickets (ex: Annual Passholders, military tickets, other special ticket types are aren’t date specific) can book LL”s starting three days before each park day.
As you can see, On Property guests get a HUGE booking advantage, as they can start booking up to four days before anyone else. Meanwhile, AP holders are at a disadvantage since they cannot book for the length of their stay.
Buying Your Lightning Lane Passes
Similar to Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes, you need to pay for the privilege. The cost will vary based upon the day using the “surge pricing” model. Lightning Lanes will cost more on busier days and less when the park is less crowded.
However, there is one big improvement.
When you are pre booking Lightning Lanes, you won’t be prompted to pay until AFTER you have made your selections. That way, if you don’t find attractions and times that you like, you don’t have to pay. This is different from Genie+ where you generally have to buy Genie+ before you start booking.
It also looks like you can select and purchase Single Pass and Multi Pass Lightning Lanes all in one transaction.
We will have to wait until later in July to see how this all works in practice, but it sounds like the process is going to be much more streamlined.
Is This an Improvement?
Overall, I think the new Single Pass and Multi Pass system is a huge improvement over the Genie+ / ILL system, at least on paper. It addresses most of the complaints that people had about the old system.
- Because you can pre book, it makes it easier to plan out your park day. No more waiting until 7am on the day of your visit to find our when (and even if) you’ll get the return times you want.
- Under the new system, you can choose your specific one hour return time, based upon availability. Under the old system, you were automatically assigned the earliest available return time. If you wanted a different one, you had to constantly be checking your phone to modify your time to something more ideal. Personally, I’d rather pick my time than rely upon the luck of the draw.
- You don’t have to do the mental gymnastics to figure out when your next booking time is. Once you check into your LL, you can immediately book another one. That’s it!
- You don’t have to purchase your Multi Pass until you know for sure that you’ll be able to get the rides and return times you want. No more buying Genie+ at midnight only to miss out on the rides you were targeting.
Overall the system benefits the people who like to plan ahead, and who of course, are staying On Property.
Of course, there are some people who are losing out with the new system.
- Off property guests (particularly those with non-date based tickets). With the old system, off property guests were on equal footing with On Property guests with respect to Genie+. Now On Property guests have a huge advantage. It will be interesting to see how this advantage manifests itself in practice. Will Disney release LL reservation times all at once, so that On Property guests are going to snatch up all of the desirable rides? Or will they be released incrementally, giving off property guests a fighting chance to get something decent.
- Those who show up without doing any pre-planning. There will always be the spontaneous guests who just go where the wind takes them on a particular day. Those people are likely going to be shut out from getting LL return times for the most popular rides because all of the pre-planners would have already reserved them days ago!
And of course, Lightning Lanes are still not free. Same as before. Disappointing but not shocking.
Wrap Up
I put together an updated “cheat sheet” for all of the different line skipping systems. You can find it at the top of this article. Hopefully you’ll find it to be a useful summary of all of these changes!
What do you think? Is the new system better? Worse? Same? Let us know in the comments what you think!
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