One thing we have always found helpful is looking at the park maps before we go even though we have been quite a few times it’s still worth it! You can work out the rides you are most eager to do and the ones that you are happy to miss out on. This saves a lot of time especially when you come to s ort out the Genie plus lightning lanes and it starts the excitement of the trip!
I have included the Disney maps for you to browse through, check the ride heights, tip 3 from our Top 5 Tip post on Surviving the Parks Facebook post. There is one thing to start the tears for everyone when you get to the ride and someone isn’t big enough to get on.
I have some friends traveling to Disney in the summer and a hot topic of conversation was that they were confused over the Genie plus and the Lightning Lanes. Are they the same things? Are they the same as fast passes? So, this is what I know!
Genie plus was first released in Oct 2021. It came with a new fancy app update and lots of new features. The planner part of Genie is free to use. The Genie app allows you to see wait times and gives you options to plan your day by ticking things you want to do and it will help plan your day.
What we called Fast Passes are now called Lightning Lanes (LLs) and are only available in the Genie Plus section of the app which you have to pay for. Genie plus gives you the option to reserve entrance times (LLs) to certain rides which will cut down your wait time. The Lightning Lanes are the new queuing system so where you use to enter the fast pass queue at the ride entrance, it is now called Lightning Lanes. They have kept the ride tire system and some of the top rides aren’t covered by this Lightening Lane as part of Genie Plus, but at an additional cost of $12-$17/ride/person/day, you can have what they now called Individual Lightning Lane.
To make things more complicated just as everyone was getting used to the new system, Disney go ahead and change it. The process of using is the same but the way the tickets are purchased has changed but only for Disneyworld Orlando.
As of 8th June 2022, you can no longer buy the Genie plus in advance with your tickets. You can now only buy from midnight the night before your booked park day for $15/person/day and they are saying there is a limit to how many they will sell.
So here is a quick rundown on how to get started with the Genie app.
➡️ Purchase the Park Tickets.
➡️ Download app – My Disney Experience.
➡️ Link tickets, Friends, and Family to the app.
➡️ Booked your park days – you won’t be allowed entrance to the parks without doing this. You can park hop after 2pm. You don’t need to book a day for the water park so I would book a park day just in case the weather isn’t great.
➡️ Pack and off to Florida!
➡️ From midnight the night before your first day you can purchase the Genie plus pass for that day. Cost $15 per person. You do this via the Genie app.
➡️ You can then click the rides you most want to book for your LLs and they will pop up first when you can book.
➡️ From 7am the next morning you can book your first Lightning Lanes.
So, this is what I know I hope it was helpful. We used the Genie Plus on our last visit back in March this year and to be honest, it worked well for Magic Kingdom we never queued we managed to stack rides but at Hollywood studio, it didn’t help much, Animal Kingdom and Epcot were ok. When we go again, I don’t think we will bother maybe save our money and do the odd Individual Lightning Lane instead.
For more information check out my next blog explaining in a bit more detail how to use the Genie app to book the LLs.
We would love to introduce ourselves, We are a husband and wife team who in 2012 visiting Florida and even though we had been when we were younger this was the first time as a couple and we fell in love with Orlando.
A few weeks after we got home we were watching Place in Sun on the TV and we decided what would be the harm in getting some tickets, travelling to London and having a quick look at some villas. Well it all snowball from there!!!
In August 2013 we visit London, Place in the Sun, October we were on a plane to Florida, 5 days later we had our very own Orlando villa. Since starting renting in November 2013 we have built an amazing customer base and have many repeating rentals. We had our baby girl in 2015, she over took our lives but now our little darling is at school and we can get back to focusing on our passion which is Florida.
Some of you reading this might know us as Floridavilla814 but we have spoken for years about starting up a website to promote villas so others can enjoy the Florida life as much as us. We have rebranding as FL814 and offering more choices, same service to help find an amazing villa to make your holiday to Florida a trip of a life time!
