Disney Genie+: If at First You Don’t Succeed, Wait 17 Minutes

    As we continue to report on Disney Genie+, we wanted to take a look at an interesting behavior within the Disney Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane mechanics that seem to actually favor waiting to make a selection for certain rides instead of booking right at 7am.

    As a quick reminder, there are two things that can happen beginning at 7am depending on your status as a Disney World guest:

    Disney Genie+ at 7am

    Starting at 7am, all Disney World guests can start to make their Disney Genie+ selections. This means that you should probably be up at 6:45am every morning (6:30am if you need some coffee) to make your first Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane selections of the day.

    Again, each and every person who purchased Disney Genie+ for the day can start to make selections starting at 7am for Disney Genie+ eligible attractions.

    Individual Lightning Lanes at 7am

    Here’s where things can get confusing. There are some attractions that are so popular that they aren’t included with Disney Genie+. Instead, the most popular attractions are part of an a la carte offering called Individual Lightning Lane. Currently, there are four Individual Lightning Lane attractions, but this list will likely change when Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind opens. Anyway, here are the four Individual Lightning Lane attractions:

    • Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
    • Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
    • Avatar Flight of Passage
    • Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure

    Each of these attractions requires a purchase for the individual attraction, whether you bought Disney Genie+ or not. To reiterate, you do not have to purchase Disney Genie+ to purchase Individual Lightning Lane.

    Also, not everyone can purchase Individual Lightning Lane attractions at 7am – ONLY RESORT GUESTS. That means that if you are not staying at a Walt Disney World Resort hotel or affiliated partner hotel, you will not be able to purchase an Individual Lightning Lane at 7am. Instead, you will have to wait until park open.

    7:17am Refill

    Ok, with that bit of knowledge out of the way, why might you consider waiting until 7:17am to book an Individual Lighting Lane?

    Touring plans used to consist of phrases like “the race to space” or “the dash to splash”, meaning how you might prioritize rope dropping an attraction like Space Mountain or Splash Mountain in the morning. Those days are gone. Now, we’re talking about cell towers and Wi-Fi strength. Essentially, the race is now digital as thousands of guests compete for a skip-the-line pass.

    So, if 7am comes around and you are presented with a 6:30pm return window for Star Wars: Rise fo the Resistance, should you take it or could there be some benefit in waiting? In our experience, there might actually be some benefit in waiting. 17 minutes, to be exact.

    For some reason, Disney has (rather consistently) refilled Individual Lightning Lane attractions at 7:17am. We’re really not sure if it boils down to guests backing out of a purchase, or Disney holding back a certain amount of inventory and releasing it after the initial wave of demand. Either way, we feel comfortable enough suggesting that you wait until closer to 7:17am to find a better Individual Lightning Lane return window than to settle for a “bad” time at 7am.

    In the screenshot below, you can see that Lightning Lane availability for Rise of the Resistance refreshed at 7:17am. Not only were new times available, but some pretty good times before noon were available within the first minute or so after 7:17am. Even if you’re a little late, you’ll find decent availability even until 7:20am with an early afternoon return window.

    Of course, one set of screenshots could be considered a one-off and not part of a larger trend. Thanks to data from thrill-data.com, we can see that this 7:17am refresh is, in fact, a reliable way to get an Individual Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance. In the chart below, we can see that Lightning Lane availability generally shows as unavailable between the 7am rush and 7:17am (represented as 7:15am in the chart below). Then, like clockwork, Disney refills or makes more Lightning Lane return windows available, and generally for “good” times earlier in the day as seen in our screenshots above.

    It’s not just Rise of the Resistance that has a 7:17am refresh either. Flight of Passage may or may not sell out before the 7:17am refresh, but there’s no doubt that better Lightning Lane return times can be found at 7:17am. Here’s what we observed with Flight of Passage, followed up by the data.

    Similar observations can be made for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, as seen in the charts below.

    Caveats and Tips

    There are some caveats that should be noted. First, as much of a sure thing as this looks to be, there’s always the possibility that you can still end up with a “bad” return window, or no return window at all. We think that, right now, the 7:17am drop time is something that is reliable enough to be considered an advanced touring plan technique that savvy guests can take advantage of, but there is some amount of risk, however small, that you won’t get what you want.

    Another caveat that we can convey is that the 7:17am drop is far more consistent for Individual Lightning Lane attractions than regular Genie+ attractions. Did we see some new drops for regular Genie+ attractions while refreshing for this article? Yes. Were the new drops consistent enough for us to recommend passing on a Slinky Dog Dash reservation at 7:00:15am in the hopes that you get a better time at 7:17am? Absolutely not.

    Finally, we wanted to leave you with a tip. If you find yourself up at 7am and bored in the days leading up to your vacation, simply do some refreshing in the app to get a feel for navigating and making a Disney Genie+ selection. You don’t have to purchase Disney Genie+ to see any of the screens that we showed above. In fact, we recommend trying to get used to the Genie integration into the My Disney Experience app anyways before your vacation.

    For more on Disney Genie, Disney Genie+, and Individual Lightning Lane attraction selections, check out our articles below!

    How to Enroll in the Disney Genie Service
    Walt Disney World news, photos, and reviews! We provide you with daily news from the Walt Disney World theme parks and beyond
    blogmickey.com
    Disney Genie Guide: How to Purchase Disney Genie+
    In this Disney Genie guide article, we’re going to cover how to purchase Disney Genie+ with step-by-step photos for Walt Disney World
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    How Much Does Disney Genie+ Cost at Walt Disney World? (2024)
    In this article, we’ll look at historical data to answer the question how much does Disney Genie+ cost at Walt Disney World
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    Genie FAQ: When Can You Make Disney Genie+ Attraction Selections?
    Walt Disney World news, photos, and reviews! We provide you with daily news from the Walt Disney World theme parks and beyond
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    How to Purchase Individual Lightning Lane Attractions with Disney Genie
    In this how-to guide for Disney Genie, we cover purchase Individual Lightning Lane selections for some of the most popular attractions
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    Disney: Don’t Purchase Genie+ Based On Our Posted Wait Times
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    Understanding Disney Lightning Lane: A Place, Not A Product
    We explain what a Lightning Lane is at Walt Disney World, and how you can pay to skip the line at your favorite attractions
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    No Re-Rides Allowed with Disney Genie+
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    Differences Between Disney Genie, Disney Genie+, and Lightning Lane Individual Attraction Selections
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    How to Get a Refund for Disney Genie Individual Lightning Purchases
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    Major Differences Between Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane at Disneyland, Walt Disney World
    Walt Disney World news, photos, and reviews! We provide you with daily news from the Walt Disney World theme parks and beyond
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    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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    5 COMMENTS

    1. This worked like a charm for my family on our trip in March. We got Rise of the Resistance, Flight of Passage and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in the 7:17 refill (there’s no way I’m paying for Seven Dwarfs). I think I said your exact headline as I was refreshing on the last day!

    2. If you buy a lightening lane for star wars at 7am and get a late return time can you switch to an early time slot if one becomes available at 7:17 am?

      Booked return time 6pm
      7:17am now shows 10 am return available.
      If you select that will it automatically switch the 6pm slot to the new time?

    Comments are closed.

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