Following up on our report this morning where guests were reportedly facing issues with the Disney Genie+ system as it relates to Park Hopping, we have an update from Disney on what’s going on, and how you can ensure you don’t run into unexpected problems.
First, a quick refresher on the reported issues that guests were running into. Guests were reporting issues making Genie+ Lightning Lane selections for any theme park that was not their primary park for the day. For example, if you had a Park Pass reservation to Magic Kingdom, the initial thought was that an app issue was preventing guests from making a selection at Hollywood Studios until 2pm. As it turns out, it’s not an app issue at all – it’s actually the app functioning as expected. Here’s what we learned.
For guests that are still required to make Disney Park Pass theme park reservations (Annual Passholders and non-dated tickets), there will be a restriction on when you can book Lightning Lane reservations for any theme park that is not the primary park you have a theme park reservation for. Put more simply, you can only make a Genie+ selection for an attraction within a theme park that you’re eligible to visit at the exact moment of the attempted Genie+ booking. As per the current rules, guests are only eligible for Park Hopping (and thus Genie+ selections at a second park) once they have tapped into their first theme park when a park pass is required for their ticket type:
Guests with a ticket with Park Hopper benefits or an Annual Pass will be able to visit another theme park at any time of day during park hours, after entering their first park (subject to capacity limitations).
What was happening this morning is that guests were trying to book Genie+ selections for a second park before tapping into their first park. Guests were not able to make Genie+ selections because they were not eligible for Park Hopping at that exact moment per the rules above.
Here’s how the Disney Genie+ system determines theme park eligibility for Lightning Lane selections:
- If your ticket type is not required to have a Disney Park Pass theme park reservation that day, you can book any attraction you’d like at any theme park at any time. That means that guests with date-specific tickets and Passholders on a “Good-to-Go” Day are eligible for all Genie+ selections at all theme parks at any time of day.
- If your ticket type requires a theme park reservation, you will have to physically tap into the theme park where you made a Disney Park Pass reservation to unlock Genie+ selections at theme parks other than your reserved theme park. This would apply to non-date-based tickets and Annual Passholders on non-“Good-to-Go” days.
It might be more helpful to understand this as an example of when you might face a problem (as the system works today). Let’s say that you’re an Annual Passholder and want to pop into Les Halles Boulangerie-Patisserie for breakfast before heading to Disney’s Hollywood Studios later that same morning. On this particular day, you are required to make a Disney Park Pass reservation. You make an EPCOT reservation because you’ll start your day there before hopping over to Hollywood Studios from the nearby Disney Skyliner at around 10am. With the new all-day Park Hopping, this is now possible. In this scenario (a day when your ticket type is required to make a park reservation), you will not be able to start making Disney Genie+ selections for Hollywood Studios until you physically tap into EPCOT. You will, however, be eligible to make Genie+ selections for EPCOT starting at 7am because EPCOT is the park that you are eligible for thanks to the Disney Park Pass reservation. Once you tap into EPCOT, all four theme parks then are eligible for Genie+ selections per the rule about park hopping listed earlier in this article.
Of course, if you have a date-based ticket or it’s a “Good-to-Go” Day for your Annual Pass, none of this applies because you’re eligible for all four Walt Disney World theme parks that day instead of just the declared theme park on a Park Pass day.
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!