It’s a BIG DAY for Disney World fans!! 🎉
Cinderella Castle in Magic Kingdom
LOTS of things are changing in Disney World today! The Disney Dining Plan is BACK. Park Pass reservation requirements are GONE for most guests. AND you can now park hop ALL DAY long — no more waiting until 2PM! Of course we’re in the parks all day today covering all the changes; and well, first thing this morning the way Genie+ was working with our annual pass surprised us!
IMPORTANT UPDATE: We have an update for Annual Passholders since this post was initially published. There has been a change to this process, and you can find more info on the current status of Annual Passholder usage of Disney Genie+ here!
As you probably assume since we’re at Disney World 365 days a year, the DFB Team are mostly annual passholders. And while that does mean we still have to make park pass reservations even after the rule changes today — we do get to take advantage of all-day park hopping!
Disney World Annual Passholder Magnet
We bought Disney Genie+ — Disney World’s paid “skip-the-line” service — early this morning, and when 7AM came, we were ready to book a Lightning Lane. Our reporter was about to start the day in Animal Kingdom with Early Theme Park Entry at 7:30AM, and they planned to hop over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios right when it opens at 9AM to ride Slinky Dog Dash as early as possible!
Slinky Dog Dash
But at 7AM, when guests who’ve purchased Disney Genie+ can make their first Lightning Lane selection, we were not able to book a Lightning Lane in a different park than the one on our reservation until AFTER 2PM.
My Disney Experience app
Next. we tried to book an Individual Lightning Lane (where you pay extra to ride at a certain time) for Rise of the Resistance. And…the same thing happened. Even though the new rules allow us to park hop anytime, we couldn’t choose an Individual Lightning Lane time until after 2PM.
We decided to have another reporter try and got the same result — no Lightning Lanes could be booked until after 2PM. We checked for an app update, but none was available; and we uninstalled and re-installed the app on our phones — just to be sure.
Rise of the Resistance
It turns out, this is the way Genie+ is designed to work now for annual passholders on days when they have a park pass reservation. Until we were signed into our first park of the day, we couldn’t make those reservations before 2PM. Disney’s system doesn’t consider us “eligible” to park hop until we have used that initial park pass reservation and scanned into our first park of the day. Once we entered Animal Kingdom, we were able to book Lightning Lanes for earlier times in other parks.
At first, we thought this was just a holdover from when we couldn’t park hop until 2, but that’s not the case. Passholders CAN enter any Disney World park after 2PM without a park pass reservation (except for Saturdays and Sundays at Magic Kingdom), and that’s what the Genie+ system was considering when offering us those later Lightning Lanes. Basically, since we hadn’t scanned into a park yet, we weren’t eligible to make Genie+ selections or buy Lightning Lanes until 2PM.
©Disney
This does put annual passholders at a disadvantage if you’re planning to park hop early and want to book that first Lightning Lane in a different park than you plan to scan into, so keep this in mind and adjust your plans!
In theory, passholders should be able to book any Lightning Lane in any park on “Good to Go Days” — days when Disney World is allowing passholders in without a reservation. This is because on those days, passholders won’t have a reservation that needs to be used by scanning into a park. Good to Go Days start on January 11th, so we’ll be testing this then for you!
But, for now, passholders — make sure you get into that first park ASAP so that you can get the most out of your Genie+ purchase. If you don’t, you might find that Lightning Lanes for popular rides, or Individual Lightning Lanes for the MOST popular rides, are gone for those pre-2PM times before you even get to scan in.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: We have an update for Annual Passholders since this post was initially published. There has been a change to this process, and you can find more info on the current status of Annual Passholder usage of Disney Genie+ here!
Learn more about Good to Go Days here!
We’re at Disney World all day today checking out all the new rules, and we’ll keep you posted. Keep following us for much more!
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What do you think would happen if the person booking the lighting lane wasn’t a pass holder, but were booking for themselves and a pass holder?
Well maybe Disney is considering the tourists that spend a small fortune and can’t get on rides because annual passholders are using up a lot of the fast tracks to rides and leaving the people who paid a small fortune to wait hoursin line. Good on Disney for finally acknowledging tourists who keep the parks going, verses those that live close by and can go to Disney almost anytime.
As an Annual Passholder, I will never purchase Genie+. Disney already gets enough of my money. If there’s a particular ride or attraction my family wants to do, we watch wait times; that usually sets our agenda. In my opinion, one of the perks of being an AP is that there is no need to do everything every time I visit.