Genie+ Sold Out for First Time at WDW
Genie+ is the paid service Disney offers guests. By optionally purchasing Genie+, guests get access to photo filters, and audio tips, but most importantly, access to Lightning Lane (skip the line) reservations for rides that use standard Lightning Lane.
In the Fall of last year, Disney announced that Genie+ would no longer be available for advanced purchase for the length of stay, and that guests wishing to use it would need to purchase it daily as early as 12AM (for Disney World), with the first opportunity to book a Lightning Lane at 7AM. With this change, Genie+ also moved to variable pricing based on crowd levels and demand. This variable pricing ranges from $15-$29 per guest per day. When it first rolled out, Genie+ cost $15 per guest per day at Walt Disney World, in comparison, whereas now $15 is the minimum price.
With these changes last fall, came some ominous wording: "Guests MAY be able to purchase Genie+ on the day of their visit". At least, the grammar police likely found that change of words interesting, "may" meaning "maybe so, maybe not", as opposed to "can" or "will". We speculated here as well that with this change, it implied that there may come a time that a guest found themselves unable to purchase Genie+.
And that time came last week. While February, in general, is smack in the middle of value season, there is one major crowd event right in the middle of February, and it's a suprising one for many: 3 President's Day. Consider that those who can make a short trip to Disney have a long weekend, usually both from work and school. Further, the weather in February tends to be more tolerable than the heat of summer, and the hurricane risk of Fall. Finally, rides may still be under refurbishment as Disney tends to start major refurbs right after the winter holidays of Christmas and New Years with intentions to have them done by either Spring Break (March and April) or Summer. This means less disbursement of the existing crowds.
On the Sunday before President's Day (Monday), Genie+ reached its maximum price of $29 per day per guest, and ultimately sold out by 1pm. On Monday, President's Day, Genie+ once again hit its maximum price before selling out by 2pm. In addition, on President's Day itself, Individual Lightning Lane purchases for Seven Dwarves Mine Train sold out before the park even opened, which basically means ALL Individual Lightning Lanes for Seven Dwarves were snapped up by resort guests before day guests even had a chance.
While this is the first time Genie+ has sold out at Walt Disney World, it's already happened for Disneyland when it sold out for two days consecutively on December 27th and 28th.
So, what is our take-away? Some of this came as no surprise to us as seasoned Disney-goers. Disney uses words carefully, and that "may" packed a punch when changes were made to the system. Here's what we think:
Skipping the line is never guaranteed. So this is not surprising.
Days Genie+ sells out are a good marker of what days are busy.
We're honestly surprised it took until 1pm or 2pm to sell out.
That it's not selling out before 7AM is a good thing. Otherwise, we'd find ourselves again trying to game yet another Disney system by purchasing at midnight and then waking again by 7AM to make our Lightning Lane reservations. Dear Disney, children of all ages NEED SOME SLEEP.
When you see Genie+ approaching its top price of $29 per person per day, it's time to purchase or consider that you may have forfeit your chance, if you're at all on the fence about purchasing.
We appreciate that it does sell out to at least maintain SOME integrity of the system. If everyone bought it, no one would really be skipping a line, would they? Instead, they would just be forming new lines.
We'll be interested to see some metrics, including how many Lightning Lanes the average guest was able to get on days the service sold out (and the quality of the Lightning Lanes). Disney promises an average of 2-3 provided your first Lightning Lane is early in the day. My experience was more like 5-6 quality Lightning Lanes during a time of moderate crowds. What we mean by quality is I'm not stuck getting Lightning Lanes only for rides I'm not interested in riding.
We'll also be interested to see what triggers the system to sell out. Is it limited by pure number of purchases? Is it limited by some other dynamic such as "all the good rides have all their Lightning Lane spots taken already for the day, so it's not worth purchasing anymore"? And what effect does that metric have on standby queues? Do Lightning Lane queues get longer while standby queues stay relatively the same? Or do standby queues get longer while Lightning Lanes stay relatively the same?
The moral of the story, though, is clear. Genie+ can, and now does, sell out. So if you are relying on it or depending on it, you best plan to purchase it early in the day, especially on predictable high crowd days such as holidays.
What do you think of the limitation on purchases of Genie+? Is it a good thing, or just another thing that makes it hard to plan a Disney vacation? Tell us by commenting on this post on our Facebook page, where you can follow us to see when a new article is posted each week. Until next time...
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