ORLANDO, Fla. – Disney World has let the Genie out of the lamp, so to speak.


What You Need To Know

  •  Disney Genie debuted at Disney World on Tuesday

  •  The new service includes planning tools and other features

  • Genie+ also launched and is paid option to skipping the lines

Disney Genie, a new service designed to make planning a trip to the theme parks easier, launched Tuesday.

The free service, along with the paid skip-the-line option Genie+, can be accessed in the recently updated My Disney Experience mobile app.

For those who like planning ahead, Genie offers a number of tools including a personalized itinerary, forecasted wait times, as well as dining and attraction suggestions. With Genie+, visitors can skip the standby line and use the Lightning Lane (formerly FastPass+ lines) at select attractions across all four parks for $15 per person per day.

And then there's the Individual Lightning Lane purchase option in which visitors can pay extra to skip the standby line at some of Disney World's most popular attractions.

With so many different features and options, Genie can sound confusing. And with the new layout in the My Disney Experience, it can also be hard to navigate at first.

After testing the new services in the parks Tuesday, here are a few takeaways from the experience.

Navigating Disney Genie

Probably one of the biggest challenges of using Genie is navigating the new layout. The home screen of the My Disney Experience app looks the same, but once you launch Genie, you're faced with a different look.

The two most noticeable changes are the addition of the Tip Board and My Day tabs. From the Tip Board, users can find wait times for attractions at the park they have selected. By tapping on the View Details option on the attraction, users will also be able to see forecasted wait times for the day. The Tip Board will also show the next available Lightning Lane time that can be booked with Genie+, availability at dining locations and mobile order times.

The My Day tab includes your plans for the day such as any Genie+ Lightning Lane reservations you have, Individual Lightning Lane purchases, dining reservations, etc. This tab will also list recommendations for attractions, dining and entertainment.

If you've used My Disney Experience in the past, you might notice the absence of the My Plans feature from the menu in Genie. The feature listed all upcoming park and dining reservation. It's still accessible, but you have to search for it. In the app, hit the magnifying glass icon and type "My Plans."

Booking a Lightning Lane Reservation

If you decide to purchase Genie+ for the day, you can make Lightning Lane selections for select attractions. Gone are the days when you could book FastPass+ selections months in advance. With Genie+ selections are made the day of, starting at 7 a.m. You can technically only hold one Genie+ Lightning Lane selection (there's an exception) and when you make your selection you'll be shown the next available window.

To book a Lightning Lane selection with Genie+ go to the Tip Board. The attractions listed will show whether Lightning Lane is available and what time. If available, just tap Book Experience to make a reservation. You can make your next reservation after redeeming the first or two hours after booking one. If you book a Lightning Lane with Genie+ before the park opens, then it's two hours from when the park opens.

Genie+ Lightning Lane selections can be canceled and replaced with a new reservation. To do that, you'll need to navigate to the My Day tab and tap the three dots in the upper right corner of the reservation. From there, select Manage Details.

Genie+ works across all four Disney World theme parks. So if you're spending the first part of your day in Hollywood Studios and plan to hop over to Epcot in the evening, you can book a Lightning Lane for an attraction at Epcot. Just remember park hopping starts at 2 p.m.

Individual Lightning Lane Purchases

There are a number of popular attractions that are not included with Genie+ such as Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance at Hollywood Studios and Avatar Flight of Passage at Animal Kingdom. To access the Lightning Lanes at those attractions, visitors will need to make a separate purchase.

The prices vary by day, attraction and park. For example, on Tuesday the price to purchase an Individual Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance was $15 per person. For Remy's Ratatouille Adventure at Epcot, the price was $9 per person. Just like Genie+ Lightning Lane, Individual Lightning Lane availability and pricing can be found under the Tip Board tab.

You don't need to purchase Genie+ to make Individual Lightning Lane purchases since they are separate.

Disney has said that Individual Lightning Lane purchases are final and that no refunds will be given. On Tuesday, Rise of the Resistance, one of the most popular attractions available through Individual Lightning Lane option, was down throughout the day. Visitors who were impacted had their Lightning Lane window extended so they could experience the attraction once it was back up and running.

Standby Still Exists

For the causal park-goer or those who don't feel like planning so much of their day, Genie, Genie+ and everything in between might seem a bit much. Thankfully, visitors can still use the basic parts of My Disney Experience like park hours, wait times and mobile ordering. And the standby lines are still available at no additional charge.

Minor Glitches with Genie

Using Genie Tuesday, there were a few instances when the My Disney Experience app would crash or experience glitches. The issues were mostly minor and more of an inconvenience than anything. The easiest fix to the problem was closing the app and restarting it. If you encounter any issues, try that.

Bring a Charger for Your Phone

Using Disney Genie during your day at Disney World means spending more time on your phone. The increase usage will likely drain your phone's battery. It would be a good idea to bring a charger with you, especially if you plan to spend your entire day in the parks.

Disney Genie will soon launch on the West Coast at Disneyland Resort in California. So far, Disney hasn't shared a date for when the new service will arrive there.

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