What Changed?

Before we jump into how much we like this change, we wanted to (hopefully) clearly spell out what is changing…or rather, what is staying the same. On February 25, 2022, Disney demoted some Individual Lightning Lane attractions “down” to the Disney Genie+ offering. That meant that guests would no longer need to spend $11 to ride just Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, but could spend $15 and get Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure included in a list of roughly 40 attractions and experiences at a single, pay-once price. This added more high-demand attractions to the “buffet” instead of purchasing each “dish”. Here are the rides that were moved down to Genie+:

• Frozen Ever After
• Space Mountain
• Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway

Disney would later add Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Expedition Everest to the list, bringing the total number of affected attractions to five.

This change was announced in February and intended to last until August 7th when the attractions would be removed from the buffet of Genie+ and put back in the a la carte Individual Lightning Lane offering. With this change on the horizon, we penned an article insisting that Disney not make the change, but only on hope – not with any inside knowledge of what was to come. Today, Disney announced that they would not be reverting the five attractions as previously planned. So, why is this a good thing?

Less Spending

If you’re all-in on skipping the line, this update may mean that you end up spending less money. In a corporate climate focused on per capita guest spending, this is an unexpected move. With some of Disney World’s newest attractions no longer demanding that you pull out your wallet in a pay-per-ride scheme, you’ll spend less money to skip the line. Assuming that you were already going to purchase Genie+, this recent change means that you’ll have more of the high-demand attractions available in Genie+ and you won’t have to pay above and beyond Genie+ to skip the line at these attractions.

Also, this change technically means that you can skip the line at more headline attractions. Individual Lightning Lane purchases are limited to two attractions per day across all four Walt Disney World theme parks. That means that you could only skip the line at 25% of the previously available Individual Lightning Lane attractions – all at an additional cost. Now, in theory, you can access more than 50% of the previously Individual Lightning Lane inventory at no additional cost beyond the $15 Genie+ buy-in. Of course, in reality, you likely won’t be interested or able to do all five of the “permanently” demoted attractions in a single day, but the option at least exists.

More Value

At $15 per person, we often waver back and forth on the value of Disney Genie+ for an average guest. To some, the argument can be made that it’s just $15 and that you can’t even get a burger and fries for $15 at Disney World. In that case, there is a lot of value in just $15. That said, for a family of four across a weeklong vacation, that $15 per person really adds up. At some theme parks (we’re looking at you Animal Kingdom), Genie+ is simply not worth it. However, at EPCOT there is a case to be made. Yet, at parks like Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, Genie+ was so hyper-competitive that the value proposition almost swung completely past “worth it” and started to call into question how much time you wanted to have your nose in your phone during vacation.

With these recent changes, the question of value gets a bump at all four Walt Disney World theme parks, with EPCOT benefiting the most (by far!). We plan on exploring the question of value at all of the parks in the coming weeks, but more attractions to choose from, and popular attractions at that, means increased value.

(A Little) Less Stress

With attractions like Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway now in the general Genie+ pool, guests are provided with more options for their second, third, fourth, etc choices of the day. With an extra high-demand attraction available at each park (and two at EPCOT), guests are given more quality choices throughout their day. These extra attractions represent hundreds of riders per hour of capacity and availability within the Genie+ system. This translates to (a little) less stress when plotting your day with Genie+.

TRON Change$

While this is certainly good news and we’re big fans of the change, we’ll be facing another change likely before the end of the year thanks to TRON Lightcycle Run at Magic Kingdom. While Disney has not announced an opening date yet, sources indicate that Disney wants to have the ride open before the calendar turns to 2023. We’ll likely get more info at Disney D23 Expo in mid-September as it relates to an opening date. Hopefully, Disney will also provide information on how guests can ride TRON Lightcycle Run.

We anticipate the use of a Virtual Queue for standby, and we anticipate that TRON Lightcycle Run will also be offered as an a la carte Individual Lightning Lane option. Right now, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind is the most expensive Individual Lightning Lane, topping out at $17 on the weekends. We don’t expect that TRON will demand a higher price, but it will be interesting to see if the addition of TRON will result in a demoting of Seven Dwarfs Mine Train or if Magic Kingdom will be the only park with two Individual Lightning Lane rides by the time the dust settles. We could certainly see the case made for keeping Seven Dwarfs Mine Train as an a la carte option alongside TRON.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, we’re big fans of this change. From added value to a better availability experience for guests, Disney did the right thing by reversing its decision to revert the February 2022 change. As we’ve said before, Genie+ is not going away, but it doesn’t have to be broken or something that guests wrestle with. In fact, using it at Disneyland is a downright pleasant experience. With a product that has debuted to negative reactions from fans and updates that attempt to hide issues with the service, this change should be applauded.