Answers to when you can make a second Genie Lightning Lane selection at Walt Disney World theme parks

Oct 19, 2021 in "Disney Genie"

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First Lightning Lane guests at Magic Kingdom October 19 2021

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Posted: Tuesday October 19, 2021 11:16am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

One of the most frequently asked questions in the run-up to the launch of Disney Genie has been when exactly can you make subsequent Lightning Lane selections using Disney Genie+.

Lightning Lane in use at Pirates of the Caribbean

Now that Disney Genie+ is live we can answer the question after testing in the park today.

Before we get onto secondary selections, your first Disney Genie+ Lighting Lane selection can be made at 7am, regardless of whether you are staying at Walt Disney World Resort hotel or offsite.

That is the easy part, but things can then get a little complicated when it comes to second selections. Suppose your first Lightning Lane selection is further out than 2 hours from park opening, for example, 2pm. In that case, you can make a second Lightning Lane selection 120 minutes following the official park opening time.

Example. At 7am, you book a Lightning Lane selection for Haunted Mansion at 2pm in Magic Kingdom. The park opens at 9am, so you are then eligible to make another Lightning Lane selection for a ride time from 11am. This means at 11am you will have two Genie+ Lightning Lane reservations.

Thankfully the above scenario is one of the more complicated, and typical usage of Genie+ Lightning Lane is more straightforward.

In most cases, you are eligible for another Genie+ Lightning Lane selection as soon as you tap into the Lightning Lane entrance at the chosen attraction. If you do not tap into the attraction, you are eligible for another Lightning Lane selection at the end of the arrival window for the current selection or 2 hours after your prior election was made.

In short, assuming the park opens at 9am, your latest booking times will be:

7am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, 9pm.

Using the above booking times, and assuming that your first reservation is for later in the day, it may be possible to stack three or more Genie+ Lightning Lane reservations at one time.

Lightning Lane at Splash Mountain

Most Lighting Lane selections have a 1-hour ride window and accept admission a couple of minutes ahead of the start time during a grace period.

View our Disney Genie, Genie+, and Lightning Lane FAQ for Walt Disney World for more answers.

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peter1143521 hours ago

There are automated ways to record exactly how long guests waited for attractions. This can’t be used to post estimated wait times but is used to verify their accuracy.

Purduevian1 day ago

AI seems like overkill to actually make the wait time 1) number of people that have entered the line 2) number of people that have left the line 3) average throughput of the line over the past X minutes 4) add in whatever fluff calculations to artificially inflate based on time of day 5) add hysteresis so the number isn't constantly jumping However, I could see face tracking/ person recognition cameras being trained with AI to make the actual counts for 1,2, and 3

Disstevefan11 day ago

Well it could be old and no longer used and they just didn't remove it, or only used when the automation is down. When will they use AI to calculate wait times?

lentesta1 day ago

I think it's reasonable to do this. My meds haven't kicked in yet this morning, so I'm wondering if this guide means there's not an automated way to estimate waits yet.

Disstevefan11 day ago

If they made accurate measurements to populate the numbers in the chart, besides when there are breakdowns, this seems to be a reasonable way to estimate wait times to me. When we as guests consider getting into standby what’s the first thing we do? Look at the queue.

lentesta1 day ago

That's my understanding.

Purduevian1 day ago

Can you explain the top matrix? I'm assume there are markers in the line that cast members use to see how long the wait is from a certain point and based on LL usage? For instance if standby reaches point 4 on a light LL usage day then the wait is approximately 15 mins However if standby reaches point 6 on a heavy day the wait is approximately 35 mins?

lentesta1 day ago

1) Take a look at the doc below, from IASW. The lower left seems to indicate the percent of ride capacity allocated to LL under different crowd levels. 2) AFAIK no - just the return ratios. 3) I definitely think this gave them room to do that.

RSoxNo11 day ago

Was there any confirmation about the actual distribution percentages of Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Premier Pass? Were those numbers dropped? Is this an effect of the reduced DAS usage?

MisterPenguin1 day ago

You wouldn't see Disney saying "80% of LLs were DAS users and a majority of them didn't need it or were just scamming the system. And now that we changed how DAS was distributed, we have a lot more room for LLs to sell while at the same time, tinkering with how much people can pay to skip the line." But, from our sources... that seems to be the case.

Chi841 day ago

How much would the change in DAS affect it though? It’s likely most of the former DAS people are now paying to access the LLs. I believe the issue was that on some of the more popular rides, 3 out of 4 people in the LLs weren’t paying for them. It wasn’t necessarily too many people, but Disney didn’t have control over who was accessing them and when.

MickeyLuv'r1 day ago

I didn't see anything in the information that mentioned the change in DAS, and how that factored into the old FP/LL and newest LL ratios. We were previously told that DAS was a big % of LL usage, so if DAS usage went down, that would be part of any change between LL usage then and LL now.

JMcMahonEsq2 days ago

I think regular folks use social media, i just don't think the type of lightening rumors that people here are exposed to, because they are following 10+ Disney related pages or bloggers, is going to get out there to your average guest. Just from quick looks at the "official" WDW Instagram and x pages they don't seem to do those types of posts (admittedly this as a quick scan only.) You might get some travel agents who would give you a generic "they could sell out" but in general, and i think this is a problem way beyond just WDW, people have a tendency to over estimate how wide spread niche information is disseminated, because our news/information/web based content now is so curated/user interest generated. People who like WDW are in these types of forums, follow bloggers who talk about WDW, follow their twitter feeds ect. We get bombarded with multiple sources from multiple parties and think that the information is widespread, since we are seeing it coming from every source we follow. But to the general public, its just not out there. Its the reason people on boards like this complain about WDW specials on ABC that talk about "new" rides or upcoming additions to parks, and say, come on we have been hearing about this for months. Sure the niche market has, but its really not until you start getting true mainstream advertising/announcements, that the majority of the market gets the news.

Disstevefan12 days ago

Fair point. The regular folks working through travel agents, I presume the agent will tell them. Regular folks use social media too, if/when LL are selling out, the word will get out quick especially if regular folks have a bad experience at the parks because LL are sold out. After thinking about it, I think Disney would not purposely lower the inventory to force demand, I think they just want to sell as many LLs as they can right now.