Rather, the goal was to approximate an ambitious but otherwise average family day at Disney that included a park hop, a stop for lunch and an emphasis on some big-name rides with a few classics mixed in. This wasn’t a flat-out race to see who could do more rides. Related: How Disney is re-imagining Epcot to make it the hottest park Our goals that day and how we planned the test You can purchase up to two individual Lightning Lanes, which cost $7 to $15 per ride, per person, for every day you visit.
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Hollywood Studios: Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.Animal Kingdom: Avatar Flight of Passage and Expedition Everest.Epcot: Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.Magic Kingdom: Space Mountain and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.These individually sold Lightning Lanes not included in Genie+ are for the extra-popular rides, which include: You do not need to purchase Genie+ to be able to pay for access to the individual Lightning Lanes, though you can purchase both if you want. In each Disney World theme park, there are two attractions with special Lightning Lanes that cost extra to use. Related: These are the best hotels at Disney World Individual Lightning Lanes However, you can get more of these times to ride either as you use them or after two hours have passed since you last grabbed one, which is useful in case you are stacking them for an afternoon or evening park visit. The catch? You can only book one Lightning Lane at a time starting at 7 a.m. At Disney World, it costs $15 per day and gives you access to Lightning Lanes at a large number of attractions at each park.
This is essentially the new, paid FastPass. As a pretty experienced Disney guest, this part wasn’t the most useful for me and wasn’t part of this test.
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This is the new, free part of the MyDisney Experience app that helps optimize your day by making suggestions on what to do in which order, predicting future wait times and more. To help, we created a whole guide on Disney Genie+ that I recommend you read, but here’s a quick summary: Genie This new system is going to be confusing at first … and maybe for quite a while. Here’s what we learned during our visit and how it helps answer this question: Is Disney’s Genie+ worth it?įor more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. The difference? One person (me) lucked out and had access to the fee-based Genie+ service and individual Lightning Lanes (for an added cost), and the other … didn’t. We would start and end at the same time and work from the same list of must-do rides.
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Now that Genie+ and Lightning Lanes have rolled out, we did the only thing we know how to do when deciding if something is really worth it - we tested the heck out of it in a head-to-head competition.įor this Genie+ test, TPG sent two staffers (senior editor Nick Ewen and myself) down to Orlando with the goal of planning out roughly the same day at Disney World. To replace its former FastPass perk, Disney has unveiled paid services called Genie+ and Lightning Lanes that offer elements of the retired, free system but with some distinctly different features. But as the crowds built back up later in 2020 and into 2021, so did people’s desire for a way to skip the line without spending thousands of dollars on a private VIP tour. The truth is, FastPass wasn’t immediately needed after the reopening, as the crowds were so light in the initial months. When Disney World reopened in July 2020, it did so without FastPass.
But like most good fairy tales, that bliss was not to last. Once upon a time, in a reality far, far away (before the monthslong 2020 pandemic shutdown), there was a time when every family that entered Disney World had access to three magical FastPasses they could book in advance of their visit.Īfter using those planned cut-the-line passes, families could then book more free FastPasses, as they were available, throughout the day in the parks.