Disney is changing everything you know about planning your Disneyland and Walt Disney World visits. “Disney Genie” is a day-planning app that uses artificial intelligence to schedule your rides and dining and makes suggestions on the fly about where you should head next. It learns your likes and dislikes and theoretically makes park visits easier for visitors with any level of experience and familiarity with the parks. The service rolled out with a few hiccups at Walt Disney World on October 19th, 2021, and launched at Disneyland on December 8th the same year. The program replaces FastPass/MaxPass and a number of other services that guests have previously used.
Developers are constantly updating and tweaking the app, looking at what’s working and not, so things have changed since it was first introduced— including its pricing. The newest update to the service is set to launch in the near future and will help make things a bit easier.
We’ll walk you through what Disney Genie is, how it works, the up-charge options, and some early thoughts on how this will make the park experience better or worse for guests. We also encourage you to share your own thoughts on the service.
“Master, I don’t think you quite realize what you got here. So, why don’t you just ruminate while I illuminate the possibilities.” – Aladdin
What is Disney Genie?
In short, Disney Genie is a new mobile-based service that helps you plan your Disney day, from attractions, entertainment, and experiences to dining. There are some core complimentary features and some additional paid options.
Genie is designed to help you achieve what you most want to experience, in the most efficient way. Unlike previous FastPass+ and MaxPass options, Disney Genie can make the reservations for you and create a personalized itinerary for your day, based on your preferences. The app is constantly optimizing throughout your visit, displaying the most up-to-date information on attraction wait times, Lightning Lane return times (very similar to the old MaxPass or FastPass), attraction closures, dining times, mobile order pick-up windows, and more. If you make any advanced dining reservations, Disney Genie acknowledges this and automatically tries to work around your existing plans. Your suggested itinerary may change based on your location and updated preferences. This isn’t a rigid schedule of events. What you do and how you explore the park are flexible; and are completely up to you. You can choose as much or as little to do as you’d like.
Genie is much like a navigation app on your phone. As you’re driving along the highway and your Maps recommends alternate routes as obstacles arise, Genie offers navigational park suggestions based on optimum restaurant and attraction availability due to effects such as weather, park capacity, ride down time, and overall demand.
Disney Genie is for your day-of park experience. It integrates and adds to your pre-planning efforts (if any), with a best attempt to help you experience the rides, attractions, and dining that you’ve told Genie are most important to you. As the day goes on, Genie fills in the blanks with your customized preferences, letting you know when an attraction on your list closes, or if you need to alter your schedule due to a long wait or even reroute for a good opportunity. (At least in theory)
How Does Disney Genie Work?
This is where things get a bit more complicated to explain, but we’re hopeful that once you explore the app hands-on soon, it’ll help! There are three levels of services to Disney Genie:
1) Disney Genie: Core complimentary services
2) Disney Genie+: A paid add-on that includes all the services of regular Genie plus the new Lightning Lane service access (excluding select premium Individual Lightning Lane attractions), PhotoPass (at Disneyland) and AR Lenses (at WDW and Disneyland), and audio experiences.
3) Individual Lightning Lane Attraction Access: The ability to add up to 2 additional highly in-demand rides at an additional cost per ride. (Currently Rise of the Resistance and Radiator Springs Racers at the Disneyland Resort)
Disney Genie Complimentary Services
There are some active and passive features in Disney Genie. You can use it to look at attraction wait times (or forecasted waits throughout the day), place a mobile order, add yourself to a restaurant wait list, or have Genie suggest an itinerary for you.
Based on your preferences, Disney Genie will generate a Tip Board for you within the app. It suggests Experiences (e.g. attractions, meet & greets, parades) and Dining that would be a good option for you at various times. From these Tip Boards, you can see the current status (standby waits, availability, etc.) of your must-do rides, restaurants, and shows. It will display current & forecasted future wait times, helping you predict when you might experience quicker entry to attractions and experiences. Genie will always recommend the free option but will also give you the option to upgrade to an extra-cost service where available (such as paying for Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance).
The My Day tab acts as the main hub for your day-of park plans. From when you should enter the standby line for Big Thunder Mountain, or place a Mobile Order at Jolly Holiday, the recommended windows are catered to your individual park priorities.
You can also view everything in park map mode, under “View My Map”. From there, you can see your location along with nearby low forecasted standby wait times and Lightning Lane availability. (We’re basing some of our coverage on the earlier rollout at Walt Disney World as the Disneyland experience is nearly identical)
It sounds easy enough so far (for those who enjoy using a smartphone while in the parks). You can either use Genie or not, standby options remain available for all attractions. But note that standby lines are longer than ever due to all the other guests skipping the line with Genie.
Paid Disney Genie+ Services
Then there’s Disney Genie+. These are additional paid features (starting at $25 at Disneyland). The service is dynamically priced if purchased in the Disneyland app and currently just $25 per day per person if purchased in advance with your tickets. It adds “Lightning Lane” which is sort of an express wait like FastPass, various PhotoPass options (which vary between Disneyland and Disney World), and some in-park audio experiences that further tell select attraction stories.
Disneyland users of Genie+ have the advantage of getting PhotoPass included at no extra charge, Disney World users have to pay extra for PhotoPass but get some digital photo filters instead.
Choose the next available time to arrive at a variety of attractions and experiences using the new Lightning Lane entrances. You can make just one selection at a time throughout the day from a list of available attractions (unless one of your selections is reserved several hours in advance, in which case you will be able to reserve one that’s sooner while you wait for the later one).
There is an update expected within the next few days for both WDW and Disneyland for users to modify their Lightning Lane selection without canceling their original booking. This update will allow guests to search and choose from other attractions or arrival windows without needing to cancel their scheduled Lightning Lane (as long as its kept within the same theme park). The update will be live when the “Modify Plan” call-to-action appears for Lightning Lane selections from the Disneyland and My Disney Experience apps.
Genie+ is almost exactly the same idea as Disneyland’s previous MaxPass service. At Disney World you can make that first selection at 7am if you are staying at a hotel on property, at Disneyland and non-Disney World hotel guests will need to wait until they are inside the park.
Cost of Genie+ starts at $25 at Disneyland and $15 at Walt Disney World. But prices are dynamic and can cost any amount on the day of your visit. Busier days will cost more, potentially much more.
So, for an additional fee, Genie can schedule you to avoid the standby lines at 15+ attractions at Disneyland and approximately 40 attractions at Walt Disney World. Lightning Lane attractions mimic the old FastPass attractions pretty closely with perhaps new ones added over time.
Lightning Lane Paid Express Line (Individual Attraction Selections)
In addition to the attractions included with Disney Genie+, Guests can pay to skip the line for up to 2 additional highly in-demand attractions for a separate fee (they should really label this Lightning Lane + or something different so guests understand the difference between the Lightning Lane included with Genie+ and the Lightning Lane which is above and beyond Genie+). At Disneyland Resort, those rides will be Radiator Springs Racers at Disney California Adventure Park (Spider-Man was a Lightning Lane extra selection but is now included with regular Genie+), and Rise of the Resistance at Disneyland. Pricing will vary, depending on demand, weekday vs. weekends, and time of year (regular or peak times). But the range of prices will vary (You can expect Rise of the Resistance to be close to $20 most days). Prices are per person, valid for one attraction experience. So, taking a family of 4 on Rise of the Resistance would cost you around $80 on top of whatever else you paid to get into the park. (You do not need to pay for Genie+ to purchase an individual attraction selection for the rides that offer it)
All versions of FastPass and MaxPass are now gone, but the new “Lightning Lane,” is a very similar paid version.
Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane Attractions at Disneyland:
- Autopia
- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
- Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
- Haunted Mansion
- Indiana JonesTM Adventure
- “it’s a small world”
- Matterhorn Bobsleds
- Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
- Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
- Space Mountain
- Splash Mountain
- Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane Attractions at Disney California Adventure:Goofy’s
- Sky School
- Grizzly River Run
- Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
- Incredicoaster
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!
- Soarin’ Over California
- Toy Story Midway Mania!
- WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure
Before anyone panics, all attractions will continue to offer a traditional standby queue (and/or virtual queue).
Disney Genie Pros and Cons
To get the most out of your Disney day and compete with other guests using Genie, you’ll want to use Genie too.
If you don’t want to wait in long lines, you’ll need to pay for Genie+ as free FastPass is no longer available. If you want to ride certain high-demand rides (such as Rise of the Resistance, Radiator Springs Racers or Seven Dwarfs Mine Train) without a very long wait, you’ll need to pay extra on top of what’s included with Genie+. That’s all on top of whatever you are already paying for your admission into the parks.
In regards to planning out your park-hopping, or park-resort-park hopping… Disney Genie is optimized to accommodate your preferred park-hopping plans. However, information on resort hotel (and Downtown Disney/Disney Springs) dining locations are not included in the app’s preferences just yet – only in-park dining. We hope this is something we’ll see in the future.
On a previous call with Chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences & Products, Josh D’Amaro, about the service and he said that guests can either choose to use Genie or not. Standby lines remain an option and guests don’t have to use Genie at all, although he believes they’ll have a great experience if they do.
We appreciate that level of confidence. But we also know that as Genie users take advantage of the service (which alerts users to rides and restaurants with the most availability and shortest waits), they’ll fill up lines at times of days when certain attractions had lower waits in the past, guests with the means will pay for skip-the-line options, and Genie guests will snap up any available walk-up availability at restaurants. That does put a non-genie user at a disadvantage. So, like it or not, we recommend that tourists and infrequent visitors pay for the Genie+ service so you can experience the maximum number of attractions.
And we aren’t sure why Disney has chosen to throw out all the previous terms that guests have finally come to understand (such as FastPass, MaxPass, and FastPass+) as many of the new features are VERY similar, but the new names (Lightning Lane, Disney Genie, Disney Genie+) have just created additional confusion for many. Sure, Disney’s passholders will figure it all out quickly, but what about the infrequent day visitor?
Although the descriptions above SOUND very confusing, after a little bit of use, Disney Genie is fairly intuitive. From our use at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, the app is pretty easy to use for most skill levels, though we have seen plenty of complaints online (particularly from non smart phone users). We do recommend that anyone who doesn’t have a smart phone, or is not comfortable with one, speak with any guest relations cast member in any park to get assistance.
As amazing (or horrible depending on your point of view) this new technology is, we still miss the long-gone days when you could just walk into a theme park and explore. But with the growth of FastPass, then MaxPass, and all the new Disney Mobile options and ordering, it was probably too late to put the proverbial Genie back in the bottle (so to speak), so it’s apropos that the new service is called “Genie.” Magical to some, and a curse to others. We suspect that younger and frequent users who already live on their phones will have no problem with the service and will love it. Many older guests (and anyone without a smartphone) will likely have trouble figuring it all out. We are curious where you stand.
We do like that the service is flexible and everything you need is integrated into the current Disneyland (or Disney World) app. You can see wait times, forecasted wait times, check into a reservation, add your name to a walk-up list at a restaurant, schedule a “Lightning Lane” experience at an attraction (think of it as a paid FastPass), and buy additional front-of-line for highly in-demand rides.
That’s a lot of stuff with more likely on the way. And if you aren’t a Disney expert and don’t know exactly what you want, Disney Genie can make a plan for you based upon your likes (it can ask you things like do you enjoy thrill rides, meeting princesses, family-friendly experiences, etc.) and craft a schedule just for you.
“Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck” – Aladdin
But Genie isn’t perfect, far from it. The system often sends too many guests to an attraction, causing waits to swell. Lines overflow into pathways due to Lightning Lane guests causing longer waits for standby. And, you’ll have to spend much of your day on your smartphone to follow Genie’s plan.
Of course, there’s also the cost. If you take a family of 4 to Disneyland and buy Genie+, that’s at least $100 (variable) on top of your ticket price (and another $35 for parking). Then, if you want to add Rise of the Resistance, that’s another $80 (variable). That’s an expensive day.
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Let’s Hear From You
Well, folks, that was a lot to chew on. The Disney Parks experience has changed so much in recent years. Now both Disneyland and Walt Disney World will be brought closer in line with how guests schedule rides, shows, and restaurants, and available options (with very minor differences). Will Genie work for you or be an unnecessary complication? Do you miss the meandering days of old or enjoy the new planning and scheduling of your park visits? Does having all that planning in one single app make it more attractive to use, or will you just continue to use standby and skip Genie entirely? Different visitors will want different things and we are so curious to hear your thoughts (whether they are pro, con, or somewhere in-between).
Is Disney Genie good for the way you visit the parks? Let us know if it’s a Good Genie, Bad Genie, or you just aren’t sure…
- Original article written by Dusty Sage on August 18th, 2021.
- Updated by Chloé Ferriera and Dusty Sage on October 8th, 2021.
- Updated by Dusty Sage again on December 6th with new information about the Disneyland rollout.
- Updated on November 16th, 2022 with new pricing details for Disneyland and Walt Disney World
*Genie+ services change rapidly. Always check your park app for current details on pricing and which attractions are currently included with the paid services.