Hey everyone, it's Jacqueline at Pixie Dust PhD. When we were in Disneyland in
January of 2022 we decided absolutely we were going to use Genie+ since we had no
idea when we would ever be back. In this video I'll show you the basics of how to
use Genie+ at Disneyland, what I was able to accomplish, and my opinion--stay tuned!
I'm so grateful that you're here at the channel! Don't forget to like the video
and subscribe--you can ring that bell icon to receive notifications whenever I upload new
videos. If you're hearing some background noise, it's peak moving season at my apartment complex;
there's really no time of any day when I can film in sheer silence. Thanks for your patience. Now,
let's get on with it and talk about Genie+. First just a basic overview. At Disneyland, and this is
different at Walt Disney World--so everything I'm about to say only applies to Disneyland,
Genie+ costs $20 per ticket per day. There is no discount for children, and everyone who wants to
participate is going to need to purchase it. Now, if there are people in your travel party
that don't want to buy Genie+ they don't have to. For example, if the grandparents have tagged along
on your vacation and don't want to go on any of the rides they do not need to buy Genie+. It's
totally fine. But for anyone who does want to take advantage of what Genie+ offers they will need to
purchase it. That $20 per ticket per day gets you access to all of your PhotoPass pictures,
audio tales, and use of the Lightning Lane entrance at various attractions throughout
the resort. Briefly, let's discuss Lightning Lane so we're all on the same page. The Lightning Lane
is the name for the physical line; it's where you will go to queue. This is the old FastPass+ Lane
if you are familiar with that system. And even though the Lightning Lane is a physical place,
you do book a Lightning Lane return time through Genie+. So the terminology can get a little bit
confusing here. Once you've purchased Genie+ and acquired a Lightning Lane return time,
then when it is your time to ride you will go through the Lightning Lane entrance to stand in
the Lightning Lane, which is effectively a shorter queue than the standby line. Not all attractions
are included in the Genie+ Lightning Lane program. At Disneyland Park you can get Lightning Lane
return times for Autopia, Big Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones,
It's a Small World, the Matterhorn, Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run, Roger Rabbit's Toon Spin,
Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and Star Tours. And Genie+ can park hop with you if you do have
park hopping tickets. So over at Disney California Adventure you can get Genie+ Lightning Lane return
times for Goofy’s Sky School, Grizzly River Run, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout,
the Incredicoaster, Monsters Inc.: Mike and Sully to the Rescue, Soarin’, and Toy Story Midway
Mania. Adding another layer of confusion into things, some rides are only eligible for what are
called Individual Lightning Lane purchases. Genie+ does not include these rides. So you buy Genie+
for $20 per day, you can get Lightning Lane return times for the attractions we've just talked about,
and there are a few other attractions that you can purchase access to but are not included with
Genie+. Currently as I'm filming this, and these are subject to change so please do check the
Disneyland website for the most up-to-date information, you can purchase Individual
Lightning Lane access to three rides in Disneyland Resort: that’s Star Wars Rise of the Resistance in
Disneyland Park, and over in Disney California Adventure it will be WEB Slingers and Radiator
Springs Racers. Once again, just for extra clarity, at this time these three rides are
not included with your purchase of Genie+. You would have to buy them separately or wait in the
standby line. Now that we've got those basics of Genie+ down, let's talk about actually purchasing
Genie+ and utilizing it. In order to purchase Genie+ guests must have already entered the park,
so you will have had to scan your ticket. Again, specifically that is for Disneyland--it is
different at Disney World. Also you will need the Disneyland app. Once you are in the park,
go ahead and open the app, then find this box that says get started with Disney Genie and click get
started now. You will be prompted to choose the day and choose the theme park, though if you're
doing this after you have already entered a theme park everything should basically be pre-selected
for you and be correct. Then you'll also be choosing your party. Next it will ask you for
your top picks. It’s trying to get a sense of your interests. You can fill this out as much
or as little as you want, and you can always edit your interest throughout the day so don't stress
about it too much. For Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane eligible attractions I would suggest you
only pick a couple of these as your top interests. That is because later in the process these will
get bumped up to the top of your list. It'll just make them easier to find if you aren't
clogged down with like 12 picks. After you've gone through your top picks, you'll be prompted about
Disney Genie+. Click get Disney Genie+ service, then you'll select your party. You can buy this
just for you, you can buy it for everyone in your party, you can buy it for a subset--it really
doesn't matter. Once you've determined who you are paying Genie+ for, then you simply purchase.
After your payment's gone through you'll get an order confirmation, and click continue.
Your screen should look a little bit different now because you're able to use Genie+. Navigate
over to your tip board. You can see now that you are able to book experiences through Genie+;
so select the one you're interested in, confirm your party, and book. Like I mentioned earlier,
your top picks are promoted on your tip board so they are at easy reach. And as you accomplish more and
more attractions you can change your top picks throughout the day. Checking your booked Lightning
Lanes can be a little bit confusing because it seems like it shows up both in your tip board
and your my day tab. Tip board will tell you that you have booked the experience, but it won't tell
you the exact return time--unless this has changed recently, the return time listed on the tip board,
even for that experience you have booked, that return time would be if you canceled your current
booking and then rebooked it. That would be your new return time. To check the return time of your
currently held booked experience you'll want to go over to the my day tab. Generally speaking, I
would say utilize the tip board portion to look at the available attractions and check out what the
possible return times are. But if you want to know where you should be going and at what time use the
my day tab. And similarly, to actually use your Genie+ booked experience you'll want to navigate
to my day. Here you can redeem or cancel. Let's talk about canceling first. From the my day view:
you will go ahead and click the selection, click cancel, and then confirm the cancellation. Notably
you are able to cancel something that you have booked, but you cannot modify it. In my case when
we had entered Disney California Adventure on our first day, we went and rope dropped WEB Slingers.
And while we were in that line I had booked Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout, but
I had no idea how long the WEB Slingers line would be. So I was constantly having to cancel the thing
I booked, because the return time was so soon, and push it back. I couldn't just modify it to a newly
pushed back time, which is a little inconvenient. Obviously, if you want to switch attractions you
do need to just straight up cancel and book the new attraction. But even if you simply want to
change times for the same attraction you still have to fully cancel it and then rebook it. But
instead of canceling your Genie+ experience, I hope mostly you're redeeming them. This again
is fairly simple: navigate to my day, click your experience, click redeem, and then you'll get a
barcode to scan. Hopefully once MagicBands debut at Disneyland you may not need the barcode--maybe
you'll be able to tap your MagicBand, but only time will tell. That was your overview of what
Disney Genie+ is, how you purchase it, and how you use it. Now let's move on to look at
my experience. We were in Disneyland on weekdays: it was the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday after
Martin Luther King Jr day. Our first day we started in Disney California Adventure and we
did eventually hop over to Disneyland. We bought Disney Genie+ first thing, and here's what we
were able to accomplish. We used the Lightning Lane return time to get on Mission: Breakout,
the Incredicoaster, Midway Mania, Monsters Inc., Buzz Lightyear, Small World, Big Thunder Mountain,
Matterhorn, Smugglers Run, Space Mountain, and Indiana Jones. In addition we did some
attractions that were not included with Genie+. This was WEB Slingers, Radiator Springs Racers,
Storybook Canal Boats, Pinocchio, and Pirates of the Caribbean. So for our first day we had
11 Genie+ rides and 16 total rides. Additionally, we probably could have done more, but we really
were enjoying our time in Disneyland. We took an extended lunch at Lamplight Lounge, had a quick
service dinner, and stopped around many times for snacks, drinks, and pictures. On our second day
we started in Disneyland and eventually parked hopped over to Disney California Adventure. For
rides included in Genie+, we were able to use the Lightning Lane entrance for Big Thunder Mountain,
and then our next one was actually Alice in Wonderland. It's worth noting that we had booked
a Lightning Lane return time for Matterhorn, but Matterhorn was down so we instead were given a
multiple experience pass. Alice In Wonderland is generally not available for Lightning Lane,
but it was eligible for the multiple experience pass so we used it for that. Matterhorn was
down for quite a long time this day, so we got several multiple experience passes. Moving forward
anything marked with an asterisk does mean that we used a multiple experience pass, not necessarily a
Genie+ Lightning Lane return time. After Alice in Wonderland we did finally get on the Matterhorn.
Then we did Toy Story Midway Mania, and we used a multiple experience pass to do Pixar Pal-A-Round.
One of the primary reasons we bought Genie+ for this day was to do Soarin’ through the Lightning
Lane, and we were able to accomplish that. Then we did Mission: Breakout, Toy Story Midway Mania
and the Pixar Pal-A-Round again. This day we did far more rides that were not included in Disney
Genie+. We rope dropped Jungle Cruise, we rode the Winnie the Pooh ride, we went on Snow White's and
Mr. Toad's. And while we did not actually use the multiple experience pass for these, I wish we had. This
was definitely a mistake on my part in executing our day. They were eligible for the multiple
experience pass, but the wait time said it was only 15 to 20 minutes. They ended up being more
like 25 or 30 minutes, and yes, in retrospect we probably should have used our multiple experience
passes on these instead of doing Toy Story Midway Mania again and Pixar Pal-A-Round again
for example. But anyway, back to rides we didn't use the Lightning Lane for: we also went on the
monorail, we did Luigi's Roadsters, we did Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, we went on Jesse's Critter
Carousel, we did the Ariel ride, and we did single rider for Radiator Springs Racers. On our second
day in Disneyland Resort in total we did nine rides through Genie+ and 19 rides overall. We
grabbed Quick Service breakfast and lunch, we sat in the hub for a while to just take it all in,
and we did have a table service dinner as well. Even though I think 19 rides is pretty great
for one day, and I certainly value just meandering around the park, we definitely could have fit more
in if we had spent less time sort of just doing nothing and taking in the vibes. Overall, for two
days of Genie+ we got on 20 Genie+ rides, so that is two dollars per ride. And we also utilize the
unlimited PhotoPass feature. Generally speaking, I think it really boosted our efficiency. These
were shorter park days; they were only open from 9 a.m. till 8 p.m., so I didn't really imagine
we would get in more than 15 rides or so ever. In fact, we got so much done these first two
days that we didn't even end up buying Genie+ for our third day because we'd really done the
attractions that we wanted to. I will say that the act of actually purchasing Genie+ in the app
was a little bit clunky. The fact that they make you go through the general Genie before you can
just buy Genie+ I find annoying. I really think there should just be a button that says purchase
Genie+ and just do that. Also, the first day my partner and purchase Genie+ for all three of us,
everybody in our party, and our credit card was charged sixty dollars--so for all three of us.
Now, Genie+ showed up for my partner and myself, but it didn't show up for my best friend. So we
did have to go to guest relations and get that worked out. Of course the cast members
were helpful and it did get resolved, but this was pretty frustrating. Because they make you wait to
buy Genie+ until you enter the park you really can't troubleshoot it right when you arrive.
We got there about a half hour early to rope drop WEB Slingers, and we were buying Genie+ as we were
walking to the area we wanted to be that would be closest to Avengers Campus so we could rope
drop the ride. We were pretty close to the front of the pack, but then even with resetting the app,
signing out, signing in, all those things, we figured out there really was a big error so we
had to go back to guest relations, get it fixed, and then go back to rope drop. All in all, it wasted
about 20 minutes of morning time, and we were way further back in the pack to rope drop WEB
Slingers than we previously were. Like all things with Disney technology, there are some challenges,
so just be braced for that. I also really dislike that you can't modify your selections. You just
have to cancel and re-book. And of course, worth noting, the biggest attractions are
not included. But even with all those downsides, I would say that it worked out really well for
us. And because it's the rides plus PhotoPass I do think the value is there. I definitely would
buy it again in the Disneyland Resort. I would suggest other people buy it. To me, not waiting
in line for more than about 10 or 15 minutes is totally worth it. When utilizing Genie+ I
think the longest we waited in line before we were assigned our ride vehicle was 14 minutes, so it
does save an incredible amount of time. I hope you found this helpful. If you have any questions
about Genie+ in Disneyland leave a comment down below and I'll do my best to get you a useful
answer. I know an extra $20 per person per day can really add up if you have a large travel party,
but it really comes down to how much do you value not waiting in line? To me, that's pretty
valuable. I hope the rest of your day is magical, and we'll see you real soon at Pixie Dust PhD!