Genie+ Is Being Put Back In The Lamp

Genie+ is being retired Disney have announced today. This surprising reveal comes just days before the official park opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Signalling a new direction for Disney in ride planning and riding we look at what this new system means for Brits heading to the parks.

Replacing with new system

On July 24^th a new way of riding and planning will begin in Walt Disney World Resort, Florida and DisneyLand, Anaheim. Genie+ is being retired to the lamp and Lightning Lane will take over for paid ride services. Is anyone else seeing Lightning McQueen and Genie eeking it out for planning control here? No. Just us. Moving on then.

The free part of Genie remains, where he helps to plan your day in the app. The paid part where you use Genie+ to buy both individual and full day lightning lanes for rides is what is changing in both name and function.

The new system is meant to help guests with planning before they enter the park so they can gain more enjoyment from their day. The idea is that you can be sitting at home planning your Disney days rather than trying to do it on the day before heading to the park. It isn’t a bad idea from the thinkers and innovators at Disney. Many people will welcome easier options for planning to make time in the parks more relaxing, but that isn’t what has been achieved for UK guests. More on that later.

New names

The way to pay for quicker access to rides will now be called ‘Lightning Lane’ across both parks in the USA. Lightning Lane will be the service covering both the single ride and whole park options. The name for a whole park pass for the day will now be ‘Lightning Lane: Multi Pass’. The name for single ride lightning lanes is going to be ‘Lightning Lane: Single Pass’.

Lightning Lane Multi Pass

Bringing in a new era of Disney planning abilities for guests paying to use this queue service. Lightning Lane Multi Pass is a system that will offer guests more control over the times they ride.

Let’s take a look at what Lightning Lane Multi Pass is going to offer:

You purchase a Lightning Lane Multi Pass and then plan for use in 1 theme park. If you have park hopper, you can park hop after you have checked into your first park and had you first experience.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass will allow you to book 3 available experiences at the time of purchase. You will be able to choose the times of your experiences in the app before you head to the park.
When you are at the park and you have enjoyed your first experience, you can go back into the My Disney Experience App and check availability to make another choice. This can be done after each experience.
There are two tiers of attraction for rides at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Hollywood Studios. How this will work yet is unclear, but you will make ride choices from the tiers.
Animal Kingdom will not have ride tiers.
Guests will be able to purchase this service and book rides 3 days in advance of their day in the parks.
For people staying in a Disney resort hotel will be able to purchase Lightning Lanes 7 days before. They will be able to plan using Lightning Lane Multi Passes for their entire stay up to a duration of 14 nights.
For people who are staying offsite and have park tickets, they will be able to purchase Lightning Lanes 3 days before the date on their park ticket.
Planning park days will begin at different times for different guests. At this time US-based guests staying in a Disney hotel will have the most options available to them.

The benefits of Lightning Lane Multi Pass

Currently Genie+ Lightning Lane bookings can be made from 7am on the day you visit the park. You can only hold one lightning lane at a time and Genie+ allocates you the time of your experience. If you make your selections early enough Genie+ suggests you can get 2 -3 lightning lanes in during your day.

Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Lane is set to bring guests better options:

You can now hold 3 lightning lanes in a day before entering the park instead of 1. This means less anxiety trying to get the lightning lanes sorted on the fly around the park. Your designated planner has more time to relax.
You can choose your times. Booking lightning lanes around the experiences for dining you have already arranged will create a smoother and more relaxing park day.
Being able to plan before you go so you don’t need to be up at 7am if you don’t want to be to get your lightning lane choices made.
It should make your day in the park less stressful as it takes the urgency out of planning as you go.

The benefits are, in theory, good for Lightning Lane Multi Pass. The individual purchase option of a faster queue line for rides is also changing.

Single Pass

This option is not going to be too dissimilar to what Disney currently offer with individual Lightning Lane purchases through the Disney Genie+ app. The main differences are:

ADVANCED PURCHASE: Instead of purchasing your lightning lane on the day, you can now purchase in advance.
NEW NAME: It has a new name: Single Pass.
PLAN: You can now plan you day around a single purchase and in conjunction with other pre-booked experiences in the park.

The key differences are clearly geared towards guests being able to plan before entering the park. Let’s explore how Single Pass will work in full when it begins operations in the park this month.

How Single Pass works

Single Pass is going to work in the following way:

You can purchase up to 2 Single Passes for each park day you have booked in advance of your visit. This includes the most popular attractions like Tron and Guardians of the Galaxy.
You can choose the times of your ride ahead of your visit when you purchase Single Pass.
Guests will be able to purchase this service in advance of their day in the parks. It is offered with the same booking windows as Lightning Lane Multi Pass.
Guests staying in a Disney Resort hotel can purchase Single Pass 7 days before the date on their park ticket. They will be able to plan using Single Passes for their entire stay, up to 14 nights.
Guests who are staying offsite and have park tickets will be able to purchase Single Pass 3 days before the date on their park ticket. At this time, they can begin planning their park days.

The benefits of this change to Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass are the same for people choosing to purchase them. The cost of each type of faster queue experience is the main difference.

The cost

Disney have not released the cost to use either of the new services. What we do know is that the price is going to vary based on day and season. The current cost for using the Genie+ service for one park for a day varies but can be about $25, which is about £20. We do not expect that the cost will go down when the rebranded and reimagined service begins this month.

Guests will be able to purchase both Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass at the same time to enhance their park days. Booking both types of queue pass the potential cost for a family of four is $100 or £80 a day for the Lightning Lane Multi Pass and $15 or £12 a day for a Single Pass for a family of four, costs of a Disney Park day have the potential to escalate rapidly.

For UK guests heading out to Walt Disney World, or DisneyLand, in July this new system is flawed for UK guests. Irrespective of cost, the benefits it brings are not fully accessible to guests outside the US.

UK guests can’t plan in advance

For UK guests the planning capability of this new service is limited. The app only works in the US. UK guests can’t sit down with a cup of tea to plan their day with Lightning Lanes until they land in the US. The main concern around this is the availability of ‘hot’ rides to book will be non existent. This is because US guests will have been able to purchase their Lightning Lanes up to a week before. It’s a valid concern.

For rides like Guardians of the Galaxy, Tron, and the newly released Tiana’s Bayou Adventure the question of availability looms. The validity of this concern will be unknown until the system has been running a couple of weeks. Right now, it’s not looking good for UK guests.

The ability to plan with this purchase is not there for UK guests. Purchasing this service for the planning benefit is not a benefit at all to UK visitors. It’s more of annoyance for most Disney guests in the UK right now. But again, only time will tell how much of annoyance.

Using a VPN to access planning features

The option to pay for a VPN is something UK guests could consider doing, but the cost of buying a Lightning Lane is increasing for UK guests. There is also no guarantee that the VPN will work to give you access. For many people this will be a lot of hassle with no guarantee of success. If you can find a VPN that works, this will give you access to the same planning benefits as US guests. We do not however recommend this option at this time.

The question of availability

The news of the new Lightning Lane system has left many UK guests feeling undervalued. With questions of how the change is going to benefit their park experience. The question of whether it is even worth buying a Lightning Lane is one that we can’t yet answer. This system clearly has many benefits for US guests. It however leaves a huge question regarding Lightning Lane availability for guests visiting from outside the US.

Eric Scott, Senior Manager in Communications said:

“We deeply value the trust families place in Disney to create lasting memories and that is why we are dedicated to making updates that improve and simplify their experience.”

We agree that this new system has the potential to do this, and we like the planning component. What we don’t like is the fact that UK guests do not seem to be able to use this benefit.

Conclusion

July 24^th will mark an interesting new journey for guests in navigating the queues at Walt Disney World Resort. We won’t know the impact on UK guests until we try the system out and report back. For now, UK guests heading out for holidays during this time do not have access to the planning system. This has been confirmed by Disney.

Keep an out for more updates as we get them. We will continue to bring you news on how these new developments will impact your Disney holiday from the UK.