5 Reasons We Chose to Buy Genie + and Lightning Lane for our 2022 Walt Disney World Vacation
Walt Disney World is home to 4 theme parks. Each of these theme parks hosts attractions, entertainment, restaurants, and character experiences. If hitting up the attractions are a main focus of your Walt Disney World vacation, then you should consider Genie + and Lightning Lanes for your Walt Disney World vacation. Genie + is a free and complimentary planning tool available to any guest using the My Disney Experience app. Genie + will give guests suggestions on where to eat and what to experience. Guests can upgrade their Genie + by purchasing a daily Genie + which gains you access to Lightning Lanes. With Lightning Lane reservations, guests can bypass the stand by line and get on attractions faster. Lightning Lanes are available for all attractions. There is one Lightning Lane at each park that is not included in this Genie + purchase. These Lightning Lanes can be purchased individually, this applies to guests who have and have not purchase Genie +.
The base price of Genie + is 15 dollars per ticket, it fluctuates through the year. For our vacation, that was 5 tickets because we were 5 guests. We chose to purchase Genie + for this Walt Disney World vacation. Here are the 5 reasons we opted to buy Genie + for this Walt Disney World vacation.
- Curiosity
This is the first time we have visited Walt Disney World since Lightning Lane was developed. We were curious how it was going to compare to the previous, free, FastPass + system. Before embarking on our vacation we had decided we would purchase Genie + for our first day and go from there.
2. We Didn’t Want to Wait in Lines
It had been 2 1/2 years since we had made it to Walt Disney World, due to the pandemic. We wanted to experience all of the attractions, we did not want to spend the majority of our day waiting for the experiences. We saw value in the time we were saving by purchasing Genie +. It allowed us to ride more attractions, which is what we wanted to experience during our Walt Disney World vacation.
3. We Only Did Three Park Days
We had purchased a minimal theme park ticket package. We only purchased three park day passes, no park hopper and no water park and more option. We did base line tickets. We felt this warranted some wiggle room. Because we spent less on park passes, we granted ourselves money to spend on Lightning Lanes.
4. Our First Park Day Was Very Busy
Our first park day was at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We arrived at 7:45 am for a 8:30 am early entry. We spent the first 30 minutes of our morning using the restrooms, grabbing coffee and taking photos. We made our way over to the rope drop area at 8:15 am. The area was already very full. When the rope dropped at 8:30am guests powered to Seven Dwarf’s Mine Train. We did the same. The rest of the day was the same. The crowds were large, wait times were long. Purchasing Lightning Lane allowed us to enjoy way more of the park than we would have otherwise been able to do. Because of this, we decided to purchase it for our other two park days.
5. It Worked
Using Lightning Lane allowed us to get right on the rides. Back in the days of FastPass+ we could be waiting for 15 minutes to get on rides. But with Lightning Lane we simply had to walk along the pathway and then directly on to the ride. It was fantastic. We literally went from ride to ride. We hadn’t rode so many ride since our Honeymoon in 2010.
We would absolutely purchase Genie + again. It worked for our family and was worth the cost. Would you like help planning your Walt Disney World vacation? As a licensed travel agent specializing in Disney Destinations, I can book your dining, park tickets, accommodations and more. Send me an email at [email protected] or visit my travel site here and we’ll get the process started. It’s never too early to start planning.
