If you are headed to Disney World soon, you’ve probably heard of Disney Genie+.
Lightning Lane signs
Genie+ is a paid service that allows you to book Lightning Lanes — windows when you can skip the line to ride certain attractions. Now, we’re seeing a small change to Disney Genie+ that could make a big difference in your Disney Parks day!
One of the more complex parts of using Genie+ is the “120-minute rule.” Here’s how it works: Let’s say you book a Lightning Lane for a ride at 9 a.m., and your return window for that ride is at 3 p.m. Even though your return window is a long way off, you can’t book another Lightning Lane for 120 minutes, or until 11 a.m. in our example.
Disney World Lightning Lanes
Here’s where it gets a bit confusing: The rule is 120 minutes or until you have used the Lightning Lane you booked. So, if at 9 a.m., you booked a 9:45 a.m. Lightning Lane, you would immediately be able to book your next Lightning Lane once you scanned in at the 9:45 a.m. attraction. Got it?
©Disney
OK, here comes the Disney Genie+ CHANGE we discovered and tested for you! At 7:08 a.m., we booked a Lightning Lane for Test Track at 6:15 p.m. Because the park doesn’t open until 9 a.m., our next window to book a Lightning Lane was set for 11 a.m. (120 minutes after the park opened).
We can’t book another Lightning Lane until 11 a.m., so let’s modify the one we have.
But then, at 9:39 a.m., we changed our minds about that 6:15 p.m. Test Track. We decided to book a Lightning Lane for Soarin’ Around the World at 1:15 p.m. We didn’t want to wait until 11 a.m. and possibly lose the chance to ride Soarin’ earlier in the day. When this happens to you, there are TWO options — you can CANCEL your Test Track Lightning Lane, freeing you up to book another reservation, or you can MODIFY your experience. When we chose to modify our experience, the app offered us the choice to select a new time for Test Track, or select a new experience.
MODIFY is the key!
We are here to tell you to MODIFY, and here’s why: Now, when you modify, your 2-hour window to wait to book another Lightning Lane remains the same. If you cancel, it updates. We know that’s confusing. Let’s go back to our test yesterday. We chose to book the Soarin’ Lightning Lane — here’s the screen we got, explaining that we were replacing our Test Track Lightning Lane with the Soarin’s one:
Here’s where we are confirming our Lightning Lane change.
At 9:43 a.m., our reservation went through, and our next window to book a reservation still started at 11 a.m. (2 hours after we booked that Test Track Lightning Lane, remember?)
NEW Lightning Lane, confirmed
If we had CANCELED that reservation and then booked Soarin’, our window to book a new reservation would have updated to 11:43 a.m. BUT, we chose to MODIFY our plan and select the Soarin’ Lightining Lane instead of the later Test Track one. Our window to book a new reservation remained the same — 11 a.m. So, we got the same Lightning Lane reservation, but we saved ourselves from having to wait an additional 44 minutes to book the next one.
See? Still 11 a.m.
We confirmed with EPCOT cast members and guest services that this change recently became live, and it is working correctly. So, try to modify your experience when you can — you may be able to book a few more Lightning Lanes during our day by saving that time!
Whew. We know that planning a Disney World trip is A LOT. And this Genie+ thing can be so confusing – which is why we bring you posts like this so often But we’ve also put together a complete guide in ebook format that gives you all of the info you need, all in one place! Use code WDW2023 for 25% off our DFB Guide to Dining at Walt Disney World.
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Click here for everything you need to know about Disney Genie+!
All About Disney Genie, Genie+, and Individual Attraction Selection
BIG Genie+ Changes Being Planned For Disney World
FULL List of Rides Included With Genie+ in Disney World
3 Tips to OUTSMART Genie+ in Disney World Right Now
Please Stop Skipping These Genie+ Hacks in Disney World (They Really Work!)
Genie+ Tips for the Most Crowded Days in Disney World and Disneyland
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Do you think this is a good change to Disney Genie+? Tell us in the comments!
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😤 We had trouble with it all day, every day, at every park. It would only let me book part of our group, it would tell me I had to pay again for myself or other members of my party. I was extremely frustrated. We visited guest relations repeatedly at every park & they were very friendly but no one could make a permanent fix 😤
I have been going to WDW for around 40 years, 1x and sometimes 2x a year. I was at WDW last year and I doubt I ever return until the Genie+ is gone and the fastness is back!
Aww, come on guys you can make it more complicated than that.
Too confusing. Frustrating also!
It is still way more convoluted and complicated compared to how simple and easy FastPass was. I love modern technology, but sometimes it make simple things so much worse. Just bing back FastPass and make it simple for everyone. If they want to stay with modern technology, just add FastPass to the park app instead of a Kiosk.
What a rip off Disney. Just go back to the FASTPASS system. It wears easy – uncomplicated and it WORKED !!!!!! What’s the problem ! Hmmmmmm. Could it be greed f to take more of your money like they don’t get enough now !!!! Disney Please !!!!!!!
I’m hearing that DVC members are staying at WDW but rather than go to the too expensive parks with their genie+ , members are cost saving by heading off to alternative Orlando attractions .
Disney needs to wake up.
The whole process is insipid. Turned out recent trip into an un-navigable week of expensive anxiety.
Hate Genie+. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Used it once and seemed like we spent the entire day looking at our phones and killing time between rides. It was horrible and we completely missed the “magic” that was all around us. Time to kill it off, Disney but it’s another big money grab so we are probably stuck with it.
We are DVC members. We recently visited Universal and purchased annual passes. Much cheaper. Easier to use. Since then we have stayed with DVC but visited Universal. I wish Universal had a vacation club. Or maybe Disney could get ride of genie and go back to the free and user friendly fast pass service.
My struggle is that I’m not a rope drop person. I don’t mind paying for genie plus, but I’m also not up and in the parks first thing. When I bought it on my last trip, I struggled to find any open times so it was a bit of a waste. Maybe I just need to play around with it a bit more. I did much prefer fastpass – which I’d be happy to pay for. That said, it is what it is and I have zero energy for shouting into the wind, so I’ll just try and figure out how to make genie+ work for me. What I really hope is that they go back to allowing more than one lightning lane booking per day. I get limiting it for the most popular rides or new rides, but some rides I don’t go on and others I’d rather re-ride.
Let’s make things even easy and more customer friendly: go back
to “ The Fast Passes “ and stop 🛑 charging any fees! Those days were truly “Magical “!
I agree with All of the dislike Genie+ people. Next trip I will stay at Shades and go to Universal. I am not doing Disney Parks until Fast Pass is back and that looks doubtful.
I think it’s ridiculous that you basically need to take a class in how to get to ride rides that you already paid an exorbitant amount of money to be able to ride in the first place. Disney should be pure entertainment and fun, not a tedious and stressful day full of trying to figure out technology. It just makes me sad.
Hate it and way to complicated. My husband and I were there for a week earlier in the month and didn’t ride one ride! I’m not getting up at 7:0 0 am to book a ride. Charge a flat fee for 3 rides and forget it or better yet, sell a max pass like Universal. We’re DVC, annual passholders , etc and we’re not in any hurry to return.
It is very easy to use and navigate Genie+. I can’t believe all these comments saying it’s so difficult.
We just went to Disney World over Memorial Day Weekend and into the next week and honestly the Genie+ is just aweful.. I was constantly trying to make arrangements for Lightening Lanes, there were bugs with the payment system and I had to call into customer relations every single morning to get my Individual Lanes paid for; Had to visit Guest relations every day. Just terrible.
Our family has visited Disney almost yearly for a while and we made the decision to skip it entirely until all of this is fixed.
I don’t mind paying extra for a Lightening Lane or “fast pass” system, I just don’t want to be spending my entire trip looking at the time and dealing with issues.