Disney Genie takeaways, first impressions, and early strategies from the first day of operation at Walt Disney World

Oct 20, 2021 in "Disney Genie"

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First Lightning Lane guests at Magic Kingdom October 19 2021

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Posted: Wednesday October 20, 2021 8:54am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

After spending the first day with Disney Genie at Walt Disney World, we have some early takeaways and strategies to help prepare you for using Disney's new trip planning and ride reservation system.

Guests using the Lightning Lane at it's a small world

Short waits in Lightning Lanes, at Least for Now

Guests entering the Lightning Lane at Pirates of the Caribbean

Lightning Lane wait times are short. There are currently only a limited number of guests using Genie+ and Individual Attraction purchases, so the Lightning Lane moves you to the front of the line in a matter of minutes, significantly quicker than the old FastPass+ queues. With attractions like Millennium Falcon Smugglers run where you may see a 60 minute standby wait time, you are likely able to cut that to just a couple of minutes with the Genie+ Lightning Lane. As with FastPass+, we expect to see these waits increase as awareness of Genie+ increases and more guests use the Lightning Lane.

Early Strategies to Maximize Genie+

Slinky Dog Dash at Disney's Hollywood Studios has so far been the most in-demand Genie+ selection, and soon after the 7am opening of reservations, availability shifted to the afternoon.

An emerging strategy would appear to be to make a Slinky Dog Dash Genie+ reservation at 7am, and to then make a second selection at the earliest opportunity, 2 hours after a 9am park opening at 11am. Learn more about making subsequent Genie+ reservations.

In most cases, Genie+ selections have been available within a couple of hours, and availability remained into the evening hours.

The only Individual Attraction purchase to sell-out has been Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Most Individual Attraction purchases not included with Genie+ were available for almost immediate rides.

Smooth Roll Out of Disney Genie

So far, there have been no significant issues with the My Disney Experience app, and the rollout of Disney Genie appears to have gone according to plan. The app itself is fairly robust. We encountered a couple of random crashes and there are a few bugs, particularly when planning for multiple parks in a hopper scenario. But on the whole, My Disney Experience is holding together and not getting in the way of using the system.

The only significant hitch that we are aware of was an extended downtime of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which led to guests asking for refunds for their Individual Attraction purchase. Disney Genie terms and conditions of use say no refunds will be given, but guests were able to obtain a refund of sorts in the form of a Disney gift card. With the frequent breakdowns at Rise of the Resistance, this may become a common scenario, so we will have to wait and see how Disney plans to manage that scenario.

Star Wars Rise of the Resistance experienced a lengthy downtime leading to guests asking for a refund of their $15 Individual Attraction purchase

Phone Use Goes Up, and Battery Life Takes a Hit

With Disney Genie, you will spend more time on your phone and may find high levels of battery drain as you spend more time using My Disney Experience than ever before. We went through 60% of an iPhone 13 Pro during our testing in 4 hours at Magic Kingdom. A full charge in the morning is essential, and you will likely need a charger to top up the battery along the way. Losing contact with My Disney Experience would be a major roadblock to your day of using Disney Genie.

Good News for Guests Not Using Genie+

Currently, the vast majority of guests are using standby lines only. So far, we have not seen any significant impacts to standby wait times due to the opening of Lightning Lanes.

Use of Lightning Lane at Space Mountain has been minimal - good news for guests not wishing to pay to ride

Still too Early to Draw Any Conclusions

A common site on day 1, with low guest awareness of Genie, Lightning Lanes often sat empty

Any conclusions about wait times, standby lines, or Lightning Lanes need to wait until more guests are aware of Disney Genie+ and during busier days in the parks. The upcoming holiday period around Thanksgiving will be a good indicator of the true impact of Lightning Lanes - parks will be busy, and many more guests will be aware of Genie+ and strategies.

Learn More about Disney Genie, Genie+ and Lightning Lanes

Learn more about Disney Genie from our recent articles, including a Disney Genie FAQ, and Genie discussion on the WDWMAGIC Forums.

Discuss on the Forums

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peter114354 days 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.

Purduevian4 days 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

Disstevefan14 days 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?

lentesta4 days 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.

Disstevefan14 days 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.

lentesta4 days ago

That's my understanding.

Purduevian4 days 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?

lentesta4 days 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.

RSoxNo14 days 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?

MisterPenguin5 days 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.

Chi845 days 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'r5 days 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.

JMcMahonEsq5 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.

Disstevefan15 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.