Why Did Disney Remove Attractions from Individual Lightning Lane?

    Earlier this evening, Disney announced that they would be removing select attractions from the Individual Lightning Lane offering at Walt Disney World. The move is temporary, taking place from February 25 through August 7, 2022. In this article, we’ll explore the reasoning for moving some of the a la carte options to the general Disney Genie+ bucket.

    Before we jump into the specifics, let’s take a look at the difference between Individual Lightning Lane and Disney Genie+. These two offerings are completely different and independent of one another, but they accomplish the same task – skipping the line.

    Disney Genie+ is basically a paid version of FastPass+. There are dozens of attractions to choose from and a single price to access the bucket that contains these attractions. For $15 (currently), guests can purchase access to a bucket of attractions. From there, guests can book a return time to skip the line at one attraction, based on availability. Guests can continue to book one attraction at a time throughout the day until the parks close or until the Disney Genie+ bucket runs out of options. More on that in a bit.

    The Individual Lightning Lane offering no longer is purchasing access to a bucket of attraction options, but purchasing access to a single, specific attraction. The price for an Individual Lightning Lane changes based on demand and there is usually a lot of demand.

    Now that we have a bit more background, here’s why Disney said that they moved Frozen Ever After, Space Mountain, and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway from a paid a la carte offering to their “buffet” offering called Disney Genie+:

    [Moving these attractions to Genie+] will help to give Guests more options as we prepare for a busy spring and summer season.
    Disney World

    With higher crowds comes more demand on both of Disney’s skip-the-line offerings. As a matter of fact, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said that more than 50% of Walt Disney World guests used Individual Lightning Lane, Disney Genie+, or both offerings during the Christmas season.

    With such high demand for Disney World’s skip-the-line offerings, the availability of the most popular attractions can be abysmal. In order to counter the demand on the existing Disney Genie+ bucket of attractions, Disney will move select Individual Lightning Lane attractions down into the Genie+ bucket to increase guest satisfaction of their Genie+ purchase and increase the usefulness of the system.

    Today’s announcement shouldn’t come as much of a surprise for Disney World guests. Back in December 2021, Disney did the exact same thing – downgrading one attraction at each theme park to bolster the Disney Genie+ offering.

    Disney World Dowgrading Multiple Individual Lightning Lane Attractions to Regular Genie+ Lineup for Limited Time
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    What might be surprising is the length of the window that was announced. Five months is a massive timeframe for this change to cover and might preempt a price hike for the Disney Genie+ service. It’s hard to imagine that Disney keeps the price for Disney Genie+ at the $15 introductory rate with 3 of their “premium” attractions part of the service for months on end.

    Disney has not announced a price increase for the Disney Genie+ service at this time.

    As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!

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