There has been a lot of controversy over the Genie+ system as of late, and to be honest, I can understand why. With all of the different screens to navigate, rides not being available until much later in the day, and having to be on your phone constantly, I can see the frustrations for sure. However, at specific times, the Genie+ system can still be very beneficial to you and your trip, depending on your specific trip needs.
Recently my husband and I took a quick two and a half day trip to Walt Disney World, and only had one day of parks, hopping between three out of four of them. We chose to use the Genie+ system since we would only be in the parks for one day and wanted to make the best use of our time. I am here to tell you all about our experience with this, and if, in the end, it was worth having the Genie+ for 1-day of park hopping, or not.
THE POSITIVE
The first key point I want to make is that myself, my husband and our family are not locals, however we frequent Disney World often. So being that we travel from out of state, just in general, the Genie+ makes sense to have. Add on to that the fact that my husband and I were only in the parks for one day, I knew I was going to invest in the service.
Purchasing the Genie+ is so easy. You can either choose to pay for it in your Disney vacation package price, or purchase it on specific days each morning, depending on what park you are going to that day. You just log onto your My Disney Experience app, click the Genie, and it will take you right to it to buy for the day.
You can use the Genie+ at any of the parks once purchased, no matter where you at that moment. For example, if you are at Magic Kingdom, but plan to hop to Disney’s Hollywood Studios within a couple of hours and want to book a time for Tower of Terror, you can do so while still at Magic Kingdom, as long as you have an available slot at that time. This is SO nice when you are park hopping, especially to three or more parks.
Another great thing I love about the Genie+ system is the option to save top choice rides for easier access to getting a time later. So if you go into your tip board and click on a must do attraction, lets say Rise of the Resistance, you can actually save that so when you go back to check it later, it moves to the top of your tip board! This feature is so great, especially when you are park hopping between 3 or more parks. It saved me so much scrolling time, and convenience is key when you’re rushing around different modes of transportation to get to your next park.
Now, I want to talk about Individual Light Lane for a moment. We used one for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway for our 1-day park hopper experience that morning, and I was lucky enough to get the time frame I wanted, because Disney’s Hollywood Studios was going to be our second park for the day. So in our case, it worked out for us on this trip. I definitely recommend at least trying this feature if there is a must do ride you want to try to get. However, there are some downsides to this that we experienced as well, and I will talk more about that in a moment.
Lastly, flexibility. The one thing both my husband and I really loved about having the Genie+ for our 1-day park hopping adventure was the flexibility. I talked about how you can save your favorite rides in your tip board, and this is so when you refresh for new times, it continues to stay at the top. When you are doing 3 or more parks in one day, you’re really thinking, “what can we get done while at this park?”, rather than, “I want to do this or that, regardless of wait times”.
Genie+ was really great in this way, that, every time I refreshed to see what rides had what wait times, there may have been a chance to ride a specific ride we weren’t able to do earlier. Now this could also work to your disadvantage too, depending on how you look at it, but let’s just focus on the PLUS side for the sake of this portion of the article. For example, say you really wanted to ride Haunted Mansion at 10:30 AM, but the earliest they had to book was 1:30 PM. You find another attraction with a sooner time, book that, and once you get into that rides’ line, you refresh the tip board, and now, Haunted Mansion has an 11:45 AM time, so you grab it. Or, you can also see the standby times for all of the attractions as well, and maybe at park opening the wait was 45 minutes, and now its only 20 minutes. This feature is my favorite by far, especially when you are park hopping or on a short trip, or both, in our case. Honestly, I feel like this made Genie+ worth it alone.
Okay, so now for the negative side…
THE NEGATIVE
Ok, now that we talked about all of the ways having Genie+ is great for a short park hopping trip, let’s now move on to why it isn’t.
My biggest gripe with the Genie+ system is that you are ALWAYS on your phone. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating this is, especially when you are there for a very quick trip, sharing it with your spouse, or maybe you are having a special mother daughter or father son trip, and your head is constantly buried in your phone rather than in the magic. Let’s not even add the fact that I am also a social media content creator on top of this, so if your are like me, and taking photos and videos for your social media accounts, you might as well just go solo at this point.
I found myself, at times throughout the day, wanting to just give up and go completely “with the flow”, because I was just sick of being on my phone. I truly wish that Disney comes up with a better system for this in the future. Maybe a walk up type system where you scan your phone or magic band at each ride for a return time later, and then it links to the Genie+? It doesn’t have to replace the current system, just add it as an additional way to use it, that’s all.
Now let’s get back to talking about the Individual Lightning Lane. Even though it worked out for us this time, I don’t think I would do it again for a 1-day park hopping experience. We were really crunched for time, just because we were trying to squeeze in as much as we could at three parks in one day, during an Epcot Festival.
For the two of us, it cost us $18 to book Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, and because it was at a specific time, we had to keep track of the time at another experience, so we wouldn’t be late. Then, once we got in and got on the ride, we weren’t really able to experience any other rides after that, because a lot of the wait times were higher and we also missed out on some food we wanted to try as well, so that we could make it to the next park. Hollywood Studios was our in between park too, so we only had a quick window of time here.
Now this is also all about perspective. If you are ok with riding only one ride at a park, then leaving, then go for it. However, if you want to walk around, take pictures, shop, eat some food, I would not do this. You really have to plan your entire day geared around that one specific Lightning Lane, and for the cost, I just don’t think its really worth it for a quick trip like this. Let’s not even talk about how much it would cost a family of 4, or 6 like mine, to do this.
Finally, the last point I want to make on the not so great side of things with this service is the inconsistencies. I just don’t understand with all of the technology Disney has, how they couldn’t figure out a way to set this app up to be organized by park sections. Magic Kingdom is huge, and there are six different areas, if you include Main St., and bouncing from one side of the entire park to the other, all day long, just to get to your next ride time can be so counterproductive.
For example, say you had booked a 12:30 PM time to ride Space Mountain, and then your next time scheduled is for 2:00 PM on Big Thunder Mountain. You not only have to spend that whole time walking all the way to the other end of Magic Kingdom after riding Space Mountain, but you also don’t really have enough time to wait in a ride with a shorter wait because you will miss your next opening. Yes, you can always find another time later, but this is not only confusing and hard to keep track of, but exhausting. My head is already in my phone enough, now I’m bouncing all over the place too. I’m not Tigger, Disney World!”
So, is it worth it to purchase Genie+ when you are challenging yourself with a 1-Day Walt Disney World Park Hopper? Yes. However, I would opt out of the Individual Lightning Lane purchases. This system can be very daunting and frustrating at times, but given the very short window you have at the parks, and the fact that you are better having some kind of plan in place while at Disney, than not, I say do it.
You can also practice and play with the free version of Genie+ before your trip to get a feel for the app itself, making it a little easier to navigate come the day of your trip. At the end of the day, the positives outweighed the negatives in my opinion, even if only by a hair. So if you can put aside the fact that you may be getting extra steps in that day, and your phone may be your best friend more than the person you’re sharing the trip with, Genie+ can really help you navigate and plan as best as possible for a 1-day Park Hopping Experience.
