Genie + at Disneyland

 Hello All,

I hope that you have been doing well, and that you have had a wonderful holiday, with Christmas if you celebrate, or with New Years, or other Holidays.  I hope that it was great for you.  I wanted to share somethings that I was able to do over the break and hopefully help you understand a little bit more about getting around Disneyland.  My wife and I took off for California the day after Christmas and spent the 27th and 29th in Disneyland and California Adventure.  

I wanted to share in the blog post because honestly I had no idea how this whole Genie + thing was going to work and if it was going to be worth my time.  For those of you that don't know, Disney has gotten rid of their fast-pass system and instead has replaced it with what is called Genie +.  Now for the explanation.  They added Genie as kind of a guide to help customers through the parks to see things that they want to see, and maybe highlight different areas that they hadn't seen before.  That's all well and good but what Genie + does is it takes it a step further.  Genie + allows you to basically fast pass the lines, like I said it literally replaced the fast-pass system from years past.  What they do now is in order to get these Lightning Lanes or fast-passes you have to pay 20$ a day per person and with that you can sign up for the Lighting Lanes at specific times.  There are a few caveats that you have to be aware of with this.  You can only use one Lightning Lane per ride at a time, and you can only get a new Lightning Lane once you are in line for your last one, or it is 10 minutes from expiring I believe.  I also think that you might be able to cancel your Lightning Lane and sign up for another Lightning Lane with no problems there.  Now like I said it is 20$ a day a person, but in my opinion it is so worth it.  

My wife and I just got married last July and for our Honeymoon we went on a trip to Disney World, with Covid Disneyland was closed so Disney World was the place to go.  Much to my dismay though they didn't have fast-passes at all during this time, and Genie + was not implemented.  Now take this with a grain of salt because there were some days we just weren't feeling well and there were a lot of days that it was rainy and we just didn't want to have to deal with it, but in Animal Kingdom we went on 1 ride that we waited in line for for 3 hours.  In the Magic Kingdom we went on 2 rides, Jungle Cruise, and the Haunted Mansion.  We waited for hours at the Tower of Terror and Rocking Rollercoaster.  This was too much for my wife, she almost had sworn off Disney completely just because of the fact that her body could not take it.  Standing in line is just so hard on the feet and just on the body in general and standing in line for that long is just miserable.  

Well we decided that we didn't really have anywhere to be over Christmas and so we decided to go down to Disneyland since it had opened from the time that we went in July till now.  With hearing about Genie + and knowing that it would probably help we were more than willing to pay the 20$ per person per day but we did not realize how nice it would be.  I told you at Magic Kingdom we only did 2 rides.  Well at Disneyland we went on 10 or 15 rides no joke, with only having to wait in line for Rise of the Resistance for 1.5 hours which so much better then having to wait hours in lines at Disney World.  The other waits that we had were probably no longer that 30 minutes.  Such a breath of fresh air compared to Disney World.  Guys I kid you not it was so worth the investment.  If you value your time like I do, then you will see that even though it's 20$ a day it is well worth it.  Now do I wish they hadn't monetized it at all?  Yes.  Do I think that it is just a money printing machine? Absolutely.  Do I feel like it's just another way they are going to increase our Disney Tax a year yes indeed.  But worth it, if you are going to go and spend time in the park I think that it is the only way to go.  

Here is how I would utilize it if I were you going into the park.  This might be the part that you want to pay attention to if you are just skimming through like I do with a lot of articles.  So what I would do is get into the park at rope drop, make sure your pass is scanned and everything, and then head to your favorite ride first.  I would get on that ride, and while you are walking there I would look at you next favorite ride and grab a Lighting Lane for that as quick as you can, the reason you want to do this is because once you are out of line for your favorite ride.  I bet it wont take that long because you were there a rope drop and you are there 20 minutes before the rest of the lazies that can't get up that early.  Then you can head over to your next favorite ride, and since you got in the Lightning Lane for that so quickly then you will be able to jump in that line, and then get in the Lightning Lane for your next favorite right.  The problem that I could see arising at this point is there are a lot of people flooding into the park, and that Lighting Lane time is getting pushed back further and further.  Oh I guess that is something that I forgot.  For those of you that don't know how Fast-Passes worked you go and get a ticket for a time when you can come back and speed through the line.  As the day goes on more and more tickets get printed and so the time gets later and later in the day, well the same thing is true for Genie + the longer the days goes on the more and more people sign up for the Lightning Lane and the later and later you will get.  Back to what I was saying though what might happen at your second ride when you are signing up for your third ride is the return time might be late like 2 or 3 hours from that time.  What you could do is look for a couple of other rides that you would like to go on, and see if there are others that might be a little less popular, and see what times they are.  You just have to way out this risk for this though, the longer you wait for that 3rd ride the later the time will be that you can return to it, but I feel like going on more rides out weighs going on your favorites, and you will eventually get to go on it if it is a priority to you.  

After all of this I would rinse and repeat looking to see what rides you want to go on next and weighing that against the times for other rides that you would want to go on.  I will make a note that some rides are not so popular that they don't even have a Lightning Lane, or for some reason they just don't have one, those you will have to wait in line for, but one neat feature about Genie + is it can predict based on previous history what times will be super busy and which times wont be, so that can help you gauge when you should hit those rides.  

Finally we get to this little interesting bit.  This part is kind of funky I have to say.  There are some rides in Disneyland and California Adventure that do have a Lightning Lane but it is an additional 18-20$ price to get in on.  Those currently are Rise of the Resistance, the Cars Racers, and Web Slingers.  My wife and I did not pay for those, and we had to wait for those rides, though we didn't care much for the Cars Racers.  I have been on it before and it's fun but not work a 2 hour wait for.  We did wait for Rise of the Resistance but it was only 1.5 hours, and Web Slingers was about 2 hours, which was rough because it was raining on us in December which is never a fun time.  

Anyways I thought this might help future Disney goers.  Like I said Genie + is 20$ in Disneyland and I think its 15$ in Disney World so definitely check it out in both places.  If you decide that its not worth it to you and do the other route let me know how it goes.  I'm interested, I think when my wife and I went to Disney World it was just bad timing really.  If you like content like this let me know.  I really enjoy writing it.  

Thanks