Maximizing Your Genie+
Disney Genie and Genie+ have been out for a little while now, and preliminary reports are in, providing insight on how to best use this service to get the most out of it. In this article, we have two major tips: One for basic Genie and one especially if you are using Lightning Lane with Genie+. Are you ready to unleash the genie?
Basic Genie Tip: Recommendations
With the unpaid version of Disney Genie, you still get the advantage of a feature that tries to plan your park day. Disney claims this feature even takes your preferences into account, and will suggest when to ride things based on having lower weight times or when to eat at your favorite restaurants. They key phrase here is it "tries to" plan your park day.
Countless reviews say the attempt, while valiant, is not entirely effective, even after they put in preferences. Here's what the app actually does: It suggests the most droll, not even B-list, rides and experiences to you, continually. These rides have low wait times because they aren't that popular to begin with, and are usually a 5-10 minute wait all day long. However, the app will keep suggesting them because, well, you can ride them right now.
So if you don't want to have Prince Charming's Regal Carousel or the Hall of Presidents suggested over and over, and the app is not cooperating with you even when you tell it not to suggest that ride again, use a different free feature: The tip board!
We're giving Prince Charming's Regal Carousel a bad rap here, but truly, it's... well... charming.
Those of us who've been around the Disney block a few times remember the good old days of tip boards that were literally physical blackboards throughout the park. A cast member's job was to update it with wait times. It was basically a listing of all the rides in the park and their current waits. Now, we get the tip board right in the palm of our hands with Genie.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this isn't a big deal because we had it all along in the MyDisneyExperience app and, yeah, we sort of did. We certainly had wait times.... on a map. And when multiple rides were next to each other, we'd have to zoom wayyyyy in to change that little indicator in the bubble from "3" rides to "30" minutes for the ride we want to see. Nope, we vastly prefer the list. This way, I don't need to know exactly what part of the map to zoom into to see if there is a long wait for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I just need to know the name of my ride, and I can compare it quickly to the other waits around the park in case something else jumps out at me with a shorter wait.
Bottom line: Genie's suggestions aren't quite that smart just yet. The tip board, however, is a cool feature!
Genie+ tip: Know the 120 minute rule
Say you have upgraded to Genie+ and are using Lightning Lane to skip some lines. The basic rules seem pretty straight forward. You can select your first Lightning Lane pass at 7 AM. You don't get to choose a time... you'll be taking the next available time the app suggests. Then, after you scan in past not one, but two checkpoints in the ride queue (one at the queue entrance, and another at the merge point of the line), you can immediately grab another Lightning Lane, again, for the next available time for the ride you are selecting.
But what if the Lightning Lane you grab next already has a return time late in the day? Does it mean you have to wait now until mid-afternoon or evening to scan into that ride and book your next ride?
Not necessarily.... because of the 120 minute rule. Although there is fine print when you select a Lightning Lane pass that tells you when you can select another, many guests don't read it and aren't aware of the 120 minute rule. Basically, the 120 minute rule states that you can select another Lightning Lane experience EITHER upon scanning into the selected ride OR after 120 minutes pass. The 120 minute clock starts ticking at the park opening time, and then 120 minutes after each Lightning Lane selection you make thereafter.
Frozen Ever After is, sadly, an Individual Lightning Lane ride, which means you pay a la cart for this one. But you can squeeze it in amongst normal Lightning Lanes however you care to!
For example: Let's say at 7AM the morning you will start your day in EPCOT, you select your first Lightning Lane for Soarin'. You get a return time of 9:20 AM.
On this day, we'll say EPCOT opens at 9 AM, and this is when the click starts ticking on the 120 minute rule (NOT from 7 AM). This means that in return for your Soarin' Lightning Lane pass, you can either redeem another at 11 AM or upon scanning into Soarin.
Since your pass for Soarin' is at 9:20 AM, it's a better bet to select another pass upon scanning in. So let's say upon scanning in, you select another pass for Test Track at 10:10AM.
At 10:10 you ride Test Track, and begin thinking about plans for the afternoon when you visit Disney Hollywood Studios (with a park hopper). You want the very popular Slinky Dog Dash, so you get a Lightning Lane for that at 10:15, and the return time isn't until 7 PM.
In this case, rather than wait until after 7 PM to get another pass, if there even are any at that point, employ the 120 minute rule! This means at 12:15 PM, you can select another Lightning Lane. Perhaps Turtle Talk with Crush has a return time in just a half hour at 12:45, so you might choose that. Or perhaps you want to "stack" more for the evening at Disney Hollywood Studios, so you might select another like Toy Story Mania for a return time of 8:15 PM.
Let's say you went the latter route, and at 12:15 selected a Lightning Lane pass for Toy Story Mania at 8:15 PM. At 2:15, you can select another Lightning Lane (remember, 120 minute rule). You grab another for Rockin' Roller Coaster for 3:30 PM.
At 3:30 PM, you scan into Rockin' Roller Coaster. In this case, because 3:30 PM is earlier than 4:15 (120 minutes from 2:15), you want to select another Lightning Lane now. You get Star Tours for 5:30.
As you can see, you can keep stacking, but at this point, you will have had the following Lightning Lanes lined up:
9:20 AM - Soarin
10:10 AM - Test Track
3:30 PM - Rockin' Roller Coaster
5:30 PM - Star Tours
7 PM - Slinky Dog Dash
8:15 PM - Toy Story Mania
That's a nice little stack!
Stacking pro tip: Be mindful of which rides are popular. Notice how Slinky Dog Dash in our example was giving a return time very late in the day (at 10:15 AM, you got a return time of 7 PM), even though you were looking for it earlier in the morning than Rockin' Roller Coaster (for which you were looking at 2:15 PM and got a return time of 3:30 PM) . This is because the more popular rides will lose their Lightning Lane return times faster as the day wears on. So if you are stacking for the evening, get your more popular rides taken care of earlier in the day for those late return times, and then fill the gaps with the slightly less popular rides that are giving return times earlier in the day, even when you book them later in the day.
Peter Pan, at the Magic Kingdom, is unbelievably popular for no discernable reason.
It's also important to note the return times in our example are purely theoretical. The whims of the crowd will change on any given day, and on any given coast as we learned. In California, Soarin' is not something you need to worry about getting a Lightning Lane for. But in Florida, it's another story. So even if you have a sense of what's popular, it pays to check out a few return times before committing.
Here's a rule of thumb to remember as well: Each Lightning Lane selection will only trigger ONE new selection event when the time comes. This is why we couldn't both select a new Lightning Lane pass upon scanning into Rockin' Roller Coaster at 3:30 and ALSO select one at 4:15 PM (120 minutes after 2:15, when we selected Rockin' Roller Coaster).
If this all feels like complicated calculations to you, just remember the bottom Line: Keep track of your Lightning Lane return times AND the 120 minute rule and select which redemption event to choose strategically when the best time is to book your next Lightning Lane.
Those are our Genie+ tips for now! Have you stacked Lightning Lane return times and want to share your successes with us? Join the conversation over 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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