Disney recently announced two temporary changes to Genie+ / Lightning Lanes and Early Theme Park Entry. This post discusses those changes (without going into too much detail on the offerings themselves—see “Related Posts” for that).
Related Posts
This post supplements our core Lightning Lane and Early Entry content. If you’re completely new to these systems this post won’t make sense to you until you read some other posts. Here’s our core Genie+ content:
And Early Entry content:
Lightning Lane Changes
Here are the first set of changes. These are changes to Lightning Lanes, including Genie+ and individual Lightning Lanes. These changes are temporary—from December 19 through January 3.
Select Rides Switch from Individual Lightning Lanes to Genie+
At each of the four Disney World parks, one of the two rides that is usually an individual Lightning Lane purchase is switching to Genie+ for a limited time (December 19 through January 3). These rides are:
Frozen Ever After (at Epcot)
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway (at Hollywood Studios)
Expedition Everest (at Animal Kingdom)
Space Mountain (at Magic Kingdom)
This leaves one individual Lightning Lane available for purchase at each park (Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Rise of the Resistance, Flight of Passage, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train). All other Lightning Lanes are packaged in Genie+ for this limited time.
An Early Look At Priority
Here were the Genie+ return times for some rides as of 9AM Easter on December 19, the first day of this change. I’ve put the new additions first. Keep in mind that not all guests know these rides have moved to Genie+, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see these change a little over the next few days.
At Epcot…
Frozen Ever After — 3:25PM
Test Track — 9:05PM
At Hollywood Studios…
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway — 1:25PM
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run — 7:05PM
Slinky Dog Dash — Sold Out
At Magic Kingdom…
Space Mountain — 11:25AM
Peter Pan’s Flight — 2:15PM
Jungle Cruise — 6:15PM
At Animal Kingdom…
Expedition Everest — 2:05PM
Kilimanjaro Safaris — 12:50PM
Na’vi River Journey — 3:05PM
At Which Parks is Genie+ Worth It?
There’s two things going on here. First, the changes—Genie+ is getting an additional ride at each park. Second, the holiday season—crowds are going to be really high.
By themselves, the changes would move Epcot Genie+ from “probably don’t buy” to “probably buy.” I think the other three general recommendations remain unchanged—buy at Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom, don’t buy at Animal Kingdom.
But we’re not talking generally. We’re talking about this high crowd timeframe. In theory, it’s easy to say “high crowds = buy Genie+ at every park” and, spoiler, that’s what we’re going to recommend. I still want to talk through what’s going on here, though.
Over Thanksgiving, and even a bit before then, Genie+ struggled to be useful in crowds. Notable commentators said the system was “collapsing” under the weight of the crowds. Adding a ride does two things.
Adding a ride means guests should theoretically get more value out of Genie+. Not every user gets to use Genie+ on every ride—that’s just not how the system works. But adding a top ride should relieve a bit of pressure, allowing people a better shot at more good rides.
Including an additional ride also will bring more demand to the system. Since Genie+ can’t sell out (even though individual rides in it can), this extra demand could match or even outweigh the value added by the new rides.
So, how to think about Genie+ heading into the holiday weeks? I don’t expect these changes to be enough to totally save the system from the pressure of high crowds. It’s still going to be tough going.
If you have Early Entry (more on this below), you can probably do relatively well without Genie+, particularly if you buy the sole remaining individual Lightning Lane at each park and if you accept you’re going to endure a few long waits. Even so, I still think you might opt for the service.
If you don’t have Early Entry, rope drop is going to be less useful—you’ve got an hour of crowds ahead of you. If you don’t have Early Entry, the individual Lightning Lane at each park might sell out by the time you can purchase it (at park open). With those two points in mind, it’s hard to recommend you pass on Genie+.
I’m expecting you’ll be able to get at least two good Genie+ picks in each park if you have a good strategy (that includes knowing to pull to refresh at 6:59:59, understanding to refresh a few times when making your subsequent picks, and so on). That’s not a huge number, but for me it would be enough to justify the purchase when we’re talking about the busiest weeks of the year.
Heading into the last weeks of the year, my ranking for which parks to get Genie+ at looks like:
Hollywood Studios (always buy)
Magic Kingdom (always buy)
Epcot (buy most days of this temporary change)
Animal Kingdom (buy on the busiest days of the year)
Early Entry Change
And here’s the change to Early Entry…
During this limited time (December 19 - January 3), Early Entry for Disney resort guests will begin an hour before the park opens, up from the usual 30 minutes.
Immediately we all know part of what this means—the day starts even earlier for these guests. But there’s another aspect to this…
An hour—the same length Extra Magic Hours usually was—is much more time than 30 minutes. The 30 minute length, combined with the fact that most rides on most days weren’t operating until right at the official start of Early Entry, meant you were realistically trying to get one or maybe two rides in before other guests arrived.
With a full hour, you should be able to complete 2-3 rides, if not more (depending on what you select). At Hollywood Studios, it could be possible to get Rise of the Resistance and Slinky Dog Dash done in this extra hour (I know a few people have done this in the 30-minute Early Entry, but it’s tough and requires luck). Same with Frozen and Test Track at Epcot, and Flight of Passage and Na’vi River Journey at Animal Kingdom.
This matters most—and requires the most care—at Magic Kingdom. Usually (and I don’t expect this to change, but keep your eyes open), only Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are open during Early Entry. This means guests with Early Entry get two rope drops—one for those two lands, and one for the other side of the park when it opens.
It now should be pretty easy to ride both Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Peter Pan’s Flight and then still make it to rope drop for Jungle Cruise. You might even fit Space Mountain in there. If you’re off Mine train with, say, 45 minutes left in the morning, I’d probably try Space Mountain before Peter Pan’s Flight, depending on what the wait times look like.