On November 3, 2021, I tested out how many rides could I do with Genie Plus and parking hopping to all four parks. In this post, I’m sharing if it’s worth it to get Genie Plus for the day if you’re going to park hop. If it’s easier for you to watch than read, check out this video.

First, let’s break down what the new things are. The My Disney Experience app got an update, you now have access to a new free planning tool called Genie. Using Genie, you select your top picks for attractions, dining, entertainment, and interests. Then Genie gives you suggestions for what to do next. It will show wait times, and suggest what’s the best thing to do now and suggestions for when to go to your picks.

The fast pass system was replaced by Lightning Lanes. From what I’ve experienced, it works exactly the same in terms of checking in to the ride and picking arrival times. You have to pay to play with Lightning Lanes. There are two options. The first is called Genie Plus. This is $15+tax per person for the day. Genie Plus gives you access to a number of Lightning Lanes in each park. (full list below) The other way to access Lightning Lanes is purchasing an Individual Lightning Lane (also listed below). These are for the big ticket rides in each park. Unfortunately, you can only buy two of these each day, in all four parks. For my day, I only purchased one individual LL for Remy’s ride in Epcot since it was brand spankin’ new and I really want to try it out.

There are a few changes from Fast Passes. You can only have one Lightning Lane at a time versus the three you could have before. But you can select another after you’ve used your pass and after 120 minutes after the park opens. The 120 minute rule is a little confusing, so let’s break it down. For the first two hours that the park is open, you can only have that first Lightning Lane. You can book another in the first two hours after you’ve used your booked Lightning Lane. But after the park has been open for two hours, you can select another after you’ve checked in to use your saved lane. AND you can select another LL every 120 minutes.

For example, Magic Kingdom opens at 9 am on the day you’re going. You get a Lightning Lane for Big Thunder Railroad at 9:30, you can’t select another LL until 11 am (120 minutes after the park opens). So even though your first LL was 90 minutes ago, the 120 rule for the morning is a whichever comes first type deal. After 11 am, you’re good to go with adding another LL. But again, you can only have the 1 LL until you use it and can book another or every 120 minutes, so 11 am, 1 pm, 3 pm, 5 pm, 7 pm, etc from park open to close.

Ok! Let’s breakdown all the rides at each park! Keep in mind, I broke up the experiences and rides, for the purposes of this challenge. Also, a few months after I did the challenge, this list changed. Check out the app and website for the most up to date information.

Animal Kingdom (7 rides overall/3 LL/2 Individual LL)
Avatar Flight of Passage – Individual LL
DINOSAUR – LL
Expedition Everest – Individual LL
Kali River Rapids – LL 
Kilimanjaro Safaris – LL
Na’vi River Journey – LL
TriceraTop Spin

Experiences we’re not including (4 experiences)
Celebration of the Festival of the Lion King – LL
Feathered Friends in Flight! – LL
It’s Tough to Be a Bug! – LL
The Animation Experience at Conservation Station – LL

Epcot (11 rides overall/8 LL/2 Individual LL)
Frozen Ever After – Individual LL
Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros
Journey Into Imagination With  Figment – LL
Living with the Land – LL
Mission: SPACE – Green – LL 
Mission: SPACE – Orange – LL
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – Individual LL
The Seas with Nemo & Friends – LL
Soarin’ Around the World – LL
Spaceship Earth – LL
Test Track – LL

Experiences we’re not including (2 experiences)
Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival – LL
Turtle Talk with Crush – LL

My rules for the day were this: 
– get LL’s that made sense for the park I was in, closest to when I wanted to ride. 
– do a standby line if the wait was under about 10/15 minutes. I was willing to stretch this if there were bigger rides with a lower wait, i.e. if Flight of Passage is a 30 minute wait. 
– only buying one Individual LL – Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. 
– not doing shows. I skipped shows since the times are set, the shows can be long and fill up the day quickly. 

So how did it go? It was a long one, that’s for sure! But I did learn a lot, check out what I did below and I’ll give my final thoughts at the end.

Timeline:
Arrived in the parking booth at 7:33
Arrived in my parking spot at 7:37
Arrived at the transportation hub at: 7:54
Scanned into Magic Kingdom at: 8:08
First in line for non-resort guests for rope drop: 8:12
Started my day at 9:00!

Any that are options for Lightning Lanes (LL), I’ve noted with Bold. I didn’t use LL for a lot of rides in Magic Kingdom because the waits were pretty low. Any Individual LL are underlined.

* Peter Pan’s Flight was posted at 35 min when I got in line and quickly jumped to 60 min. The LL stretched wayyyyy out to Mickey’s PhilharMagic

The big question, is it worth it? Absolutely! I especially think the Individual Lightning Lanes are worth it to take out the stress of “can I get on this ride?” I figured that I saved 201 minutes, so 3 hours and 21 minutes. I ended up going back to Epcot with a good friend and using the virtual queue for Remy’s and it took about 20 minutes. With that in mind, overall with Genie Plus and One Individual Lightning Lane, I saved 218 minutes, 3 hours and 38 minutes for grand total of $25.57.

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