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On August 18th, 2021, Disney announced, “Disney Genie”, a new service and digital planner that was touted as a tool park guests could utilize to help get the most out of their trip to Disneyland and Disney World.

This announcement came on the heels of their previous one about the retirement of two popular services; FastPass and MaxPass. Disney Genie will be their official successor.

There are three tiers to this service, each with their own features and benefits - along with costs. All of this, and more, will be covered extensively in this article. While this service will be offered on both coasts, this guide will focus on how it will affect Disneyland, specifically.

While this new service has been live at Disney World for some weeks now, we have received confirmation that Genie will be in service at Disneyland beginning December 8th, 2021. In this article, we’ll delve into all the facts you’ll need to know.

The Three Tiers

As mentioned above, this new service is going to have three tiers to it with each having its own features and price. They are:

• Disney Genie - This is the free, in-app planning tool that will be featured heavily in the Disneyland app.

• Disney Genie+ - If you’ve used MaxPass before, this will sound familiar to you. This paid add-on gets you front-of-the-line access to many attractions at the Disneyland Resort.

• Lightning Lane - This will be the replacement for the physical FastPass queues. Lightning Lane is an additional option that enables you to pay, A la carte, for access to select, premium attractions not included in Genie+ (More of this later).

The list above is just a quick break down. Below, we’ll go over each in detail including individual price, inclusions, and more.

Disney Genie

Launching on December 8th, 2021, Disney Genie will be the free arm of this new service. With this planning tool, you’ll be able to utilize many helpful features, such as:

• Create an Itinerary: Customize your day-to-day itinerary tailored to and your families specific interests.

• View Wait Times: Currently, the Disneyland app does a great job showing the real-time wait times at the attractions. Genie will take it one step further by showing you the best times to ride a particular attraction.

• Personalization: Give Genie your three wishes and he’ll suggest attractions, experiences, dining, and more!

• Improved Dining Reservations: You can already do this in the app, but Genie will bring along a brand new, improved interface for reservations, check-in, and stand-by dining queues.

• Receive Tips: Let’s say you just got off Pirates and you’re not sure what to do next. Go to the tip board to find Genie’s top recommendations!

• Virtual Assistant: If any questions come up, utilize the virtual assistant tool to get your answers.

We have yet to see Genie’s effectiveness and accuracy but if these features work as intended, we can see this service being a huge asset to park guests. Especially ones who’ve either never been or haven’t in a while. Plus, it’s free. You can’t beat that.

Disney Genie +

To us Disneyland fans, Genie + is nothing new. It’s essentially a clone of the prior digital service, “MaxPass”. Many - including us - were huge fans of that service, so Genie + will undoubtedly be welcomed by most. With this paid add-on, you’ll get:

• PhotoPass Photos: Get all the photos you can get taken by Disney Photographers because they’ll be included in the price (For Disneyland guests only. Guests of Disney World do not receive this perk, unfortunately).

• Skip the Line: Using your smartphone, you can select one attraction at a time to skip the line. Once you’ve checked into said attraction, you are then able to select another, and so on. There is NO limit to how many attractions you can do this for, per day.

This upgrade will cost park guests:

• $20 per person, per day (ages 3 and up).

• For a family of four coming for three park days, this will mean $240 total. This is in ADDITION to your park tickets.

That’s what the cost of MaxPass was prior to the shutdown, so most Disney fans are already accustomed to that price-point. Disney World fans, though, are not used to paying for their “FastPass” system. They’ll pay $15 per ticket/per day (for now).

Attractions Included with Disney +

Disneyland Park

• Autopia

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

• Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters

• Haunted Mansion

• Indiana Jones Adventure

• “it’s a small world”

• Matterhorn Bobsleds

• Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run

• Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin

• Space Mountain

• Splash Mountain

• Star Tours - The Adventure Continues

Disney California Adventure

• Goofy’s Sky School

• Grizzly River Run

• Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT!

• Incredicoaster

• Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!

• WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure

• Soarin’ Around the World

• Toy Story Midway Mania

You will be able to purchase Genie +, in advance, when you purchase your park tickets or you can purchase them day of.

• If you purchase Disney + while buying your tickets, you’ll be charged for each day. So for a 3-day park ticket, it’ll be $60, per ticket.

• If you would rather purchase Genie + for just one or two days, you can do so by purchasing the day of your visit.

What Does Genie + Do?

Genie +, much like its predecessors MaxPass and FastPass, holds your place in line (virtually) while you go off and enjoy other attractions or dine.

While you’re not limited in how many reservations you can make throughout the day, you are limited in how many you can make at a time - which is one.

• Let’s say you want to ride Haunted Mansion first thing: You’ll open the app and search for available return times.

• You’ll be presented with one-hour return windows. Make your selection.

• From this point, you won’t be able to make another reservation until one of three things happens -

  • 1) You scan in at the attraction during your arrival window

  • 2) Two hours pass. So if you made your reservation at 8:02am, you can make another one (without using your existing one) at 10:02am.

  • 3) You cancel your existing reservation or the ride goes down.

If you select a return window of 9:05am - 10:05am, you MUST arrive at the attraction within that window. While it is possible the Cast Members will accommodate late arrivals, it isn’t guaranteed.

Lightning Lane Premiums

Up until now, everything has sounded like it’s just going to be another iteration of MaxPass and to a certain extent, it is. However, unlike before, not all attractions are going to be available to Genie +.

A few premium attractions are going to be A la carte. In other words, you’ll only have two options for these rides - either wait in the stand-by or pay a premium to skip the line.

At launch, prices to utilize Lighting Lane will range from $7 - $20 and will depend on ride, demand, time of year, etc. Some other things to know are:

• You will only be able to purchase a maximum of two per day.

• Prices will be per person/per ride.

• Prices will fluctuate based on demand.

• You will not be able to purchase individual Lightning Lanes until you have entered the park.

The premium attractions that have been confirmed for Lightning Lane (and their typical prices) are:

• Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway ($15 - $20 per person)

• Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance ($25 per person)

• Radiator Springs Racers ($10 - $15 per person)

So far, these are the only three. However, it’ll probably be safe to assume that most new attractions will be added to this list as well (lookin’ at you Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway).

*Side Note: Disney did, in fact, make runaway railway a premium lighting lane option at its opening on January 27th. There’s currently no traditional stand-by. You’re only two options are purchasing a Lighting Lane or by getting a boarding group through the virtual queue system.

Lightning Lane Purchases

As mentioned above, you are limited to just two Lightning Lane purchases per day. There are also some rules that pertain to when you can purchase them.

• ALL Park Guests - You can begin making Lightning Lane purchases when you are physically in the park. This is true for regular Genie + line reservations as well.

Additional Facts

• You will NOT have to buy Genie + in order to purchase Lightning Lane. Each tier compliments one another, but they’re each their own entity. You can use the free Genie service without ever buying anything. Likewise, you can purchase Lightning Lane premiums without buying Genie + (and vice versa).

• You will NOT be able to use Genie + or Lightning Lane Premiums during early morning entry or during special events. Regular stand-by will apply here. This includes early morning entry, Oogie Boogie Bash, Merriest Nites, and other events.

• You can still ride attractions without purchasing anything. We’ve already covered this but it bears repeating - you will NOT have to purchase anything other than a park ticket to ride any attractions.

Magic Key Add-On

There’s been no word from Disney as-of-yet about whether or not Magic Keyholders will have an add-on option for Genie + or receive any discounts on Lightning Lane premiums.

In the past, MaxPass was available to AP Holders as an add-on for an additional $119 or so per year/per pass. We can only assume Genie + will offer something similar.

We’ll keep our ears open for that news and will update this as soon as we know more.

*Note: As of August 2022, Magic Key holders now receive a discount of 20% off when purchasing Genie Plus.

What Do We Think About Disney Genie?

We usually keep our opinions to ourselves and stay mutual but we’ve been asked a few times so we’ve decided to add this in. We’re all for Genie +. The individual Lightning Lane premiums? Not so much.

We were big fans of MaxPass. We didn’t mind paying the upcharge because instead of having to go to each attraction to attain a return window, we were able to do it on our phones while line for another ride. It was a huge time saver.

While that aspect is still present with Genie +, we’re not-too-happy about the fact that we’ll have to pay even more for the more popular attractions.

We get it, Disney is a business and they have to make money. They also need to keep their stock holders happy and making more money is the best way to do that.

Despite that, we can’t help but feel like Disney is overdoing it with the premiums. If you’re a family of five, visiting in the summer, and want to ride Rise of the Resistance - you’ll be shelling out a cool $100 to ride…..once. Or wait in an hours long stand-by.

To some, it’s worth the money. To others, who are coming just for one day and had to save up for that one day, it could mean not being able to ride it at all.

Time will tell how receptive Disneyland fans will be to it. We’re sure it’ll be successful as Lightning Lane premiums have sold out multiple times for Rise at Disney World.

Unlike Disney World, though, Disneyland is largely made up of locals. Many being Magic Key holders. One could argue that they can come at anytime so why pay for the ride when you can just wait until the next visit.

One caveat to that is Magic Key holders don’t get to go whenever they want. They have to make park reservations as well. So depending on how difficult it is to get a reservation, they may be willing to shell out the money to guarantee a seat.

We’ll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Conclusion

What are your opinions on this new service being offered? Do you plan on using any of them? How do you feel about Disney wanting to charge on a per ride basis with Lightning Lane? Let us know in the comments below!

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Thanks for reading and safe travels!