) even though less LLs are given. So honestly I think DL is better than WDW whether you buy genie+ and/or fancy rides or not but either way I highly recommend buying as much as you reasonably can
This the best and most well thought out reply ever! You're awesome! Thank you!Wait times are a lot better at DL: standby lines are a lot more reasonable, genie+ is easier to navigate, and there are more single rider lines. I’ve been to DL 3 times since it reopened and WDW only once (a year ago) so I’m definitely more familiar with DL but I’ve observed different things from vlogs, app wait times, etc
I don’t know how familiar you are with genie+ but I’ll just explain all of it lol. They’re basically the same between WDW and DL but there are some minor differences.
So at WDW genie+ is $15 plus tax and includes almost every ride (it doesn’t include “fancy rides” which I’ll explain below and there’s also a few that don’t have it like PeopleMover and Astro Orbitor but most rides have it). You can purchase genie+ day of starting at midnight or you can buy it ahead of time with your park ticket but if you do that you have to buy it for every day. I would say most people would recommend just buying it day of each day based on if you feel like you need it. Especially if you have a 1 park per day pass cause MK and HS have a lot more genie+ value than Epcot or AK.
So here’s how genie+ works once you’ve bought it: starting at 7 AM you can book your first lightning lane (that’s the entrance you use to skip the standby line). You can’t book another LL until one of three things has happened (whichever happens first): you’ve used the LL you already have booked, your LL has expired (you get a one hour window), or 2 hours have passed since you first booked your LL (note that your 2 hours starts once the park has opened so if at 7 AM you book Slinky for 12 PM and the park opens at 9 AM you can’t book another LL until 11 AM. But if at 10 AM you book Slinky for 1 PM and the park has already opened you can book another LL at 12 PM). You can only book each ride once per day. The exception to that is if the ride goes down during your window. In that situation (I’m assuming it’s the same as at DL but I haven’t actually experienced this myself yet) your LL would convert to a multiple experience pass valid on many rides and the system will forget you booked that ride in the first place. Those multiple experience passes probably aren’t always valid on every genie+ ride (again I haven’t personally experienced it) but the more popular the ride that broke down the more rides will be included in the pass (for example if a not super popular ride like Alien Swirling Saucers goes down it’s probably not gonna be valid on Slinky which is very popular but if Slinky goes down it’s probably gonna be valid on any genie+ ride). From what I’ve seen the return times especially for the most popular rides are usually hours ahead (you just book the next available time, you can’t choose any time you want) but people can cancel their LLs and Disney can release more so if you don’t like the next available time or it’s sold out pull up on the tip board on the WDW app to refresh and keep doing that until you get something you like.
Ok so on to “fancy rides” at WDW. This is a term used to describe individual lightning lanes that aren’t included with genie+ and that you have to pay even more for. These are basically just the 2 most popular rides in each park: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Frozen, Ratatouille, Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest, Rise of the Resistance, and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. You can buy up to a total of 2 of these per day (unless one of them goes down during your return time, in that case it converts to an all day pass for that ride and if that happens the system forgets you booked that ride in the first place and you can buy one again). They cost $7-$15 plus tax depending on the day and ride and the more popular the ride the more it’ll cost. So like Everest is usually gonna be closer to $7 but Rise is always $15. If you’re a Disney resort guest you can start booking these at 7 AM but if you’re not you can start booking when the park opens. They sell out for Rise within minutes and before non-resort guests can buy them but it seems like they don’t sell out so fast for the other ones? Maybe Ratatouille also sells out really fast too, I haven’t looked enough. For these you can choose the time you want as long as it’s available. Unlike genie+ LLs, you can’t cancel these and they’re non-refundable so while Disney can release more times once they’re sold out, they usually don’t and so usually if any of these (cough cough Rise) are sold out they’re sold out. But you can keep checking
So that’s how it works at WDW. It works very similarly at DL with some little differences that actually make it more simple.
At DL most rides actually don’t have a lightning lane entrance but most of the big ones do. The ones included in genie+ are Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Autopia, Star Tours, Matterhorn, Small World, Millennium Falcon, Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Roger Rabbit, Soarin’, Guardians, Grizzly River Run, Incredicoaster, Toy Story Mania, Goofy’s Sky School, and Monsters Inc. Genie+ is $20 with no tax at DL and instead of being able to buy it at midnight and book rides starting at 7 AM like at WDW, you can’t buy it or book any rides until you’ve been scanned into a park. The rules (only once per ride per day, when you can book another LL, etc) are the same at WDW except no matter what you can always book another LL 2 hours maximum after booking your previous LL even if the park hasn’t opened yet. So for example when I was there last week they actually started letting people into the park at about 8:15 even though the park officially opened at 9 (there’s a rope you wait at at each land until park opening) at which point I bought genie+ and bought a LL for Soarin’ which was technically available at 9 AM but the system changed it to 1 PM since park hopping doesn’t start until then. Since that was more than 2 hours away even though the park hasn’t officially opened yet I was able to book another LL 2 hours later at 10:15. But say I had booked Space at 9 AM and used that right when the park opened (bad idea lol but let’s say I did) then I could book another LL. Once you’ve used up your LL or it’s expired you can get another one, same as at WDW. Unlike WDW the return times are typically a lot sooner. They’re usually available immediately for most things except these: Space is usually 30-45 minutes away, Matterhorn is usually a couple hours away, Thunder is sometimes 30-60 minutes away but usually it’s immediately, Indy is usually a couple hours away, Soarin’ is usually at least 3 hours away, Guardians is sometimes 30-45 minutes away, and Toy Story is usually 90 minutes away. If a ride breaks down during your LL window you’re given a multiple experience pass to ride any ride in both parks (even those without an official LL entrance, for those I guess you just go through an exit or something) except these rides: Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, Rise, WEB Slingers, Racers, or Toy Story. However if the ride you have a LL for that breaks down is Space, Matterhorn, Indy, or Toy Story, the multiple experience pass is valid on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, or Racers. That’s probably a little confusing so I’ll give an example. If I book Incredicoaster and it goes down during my window the system automatically changes it to a pass I can use on any ride for the rest of the day except Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, Rise, WEB Slingers, Racers, and Toy Story. But if Space goes down during my window and I get a multiple experience pass, I can use it on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, or Racers because the ride that broke down (Space) is a higher tier genie+ ride. Again, if I get a multiple experience pass from a ride going down I can book that ride again because the system forgets I booked that ride in the first place. You can actually use this to your advantage because you can still book LL for a ride when it’s broken down, usually available within 30-45 minutes. If the ride is still down once your return time arrives the system will at some point give you a multiple experience pass. This was useful on my last trip to get extra rides on Guardians. I would book Goofy’s or Grizzly or whatever when they were down and then use my multiple experience pass on Guardians, which was awesome
So now for “fancy rides” at Disneyland. There’s only 3: Rise (always $20), WEB Slingers ($7-$18 depending on the day), and Racers (always the same price as WS). You can book 2 of these per day unless one goes down during your return time, then it concerns to an all day pass valid only on that ride and you can book another fancy ride or the same one if you want. For example each day I bought Rise and WEB Slingers. Commonly Rise would go down during my window and it would convert to an all day pass valid only on Rise and then I could either book Rise again or also book Racers. I always booked Rise again since Racers has an AMAZING single rider line (discussed below). WEB Slingers and Racers return times are usually very soon. They can be pretty far away for Rise but Disney does tend to release more throughout the day so you can keep refreshing for the time you want. Unlike at WDW where you can choose your time for these rides, at DL you have to choose the next available time. You can buy these once you’ve entered a park (so resort guests have no advantage at DL and it’s completely fair. Whoever gets there earlier and gets scanned in earlier has first priority).
So that’s genie+ and fancy rides/individual lightning lanes. It can be confusing so lmk if you have any questions. As far as standby lines go it definitely seems that they’re a lot more reasonable at DL but also it seems like they give out a lot more LLs at DL so standby goes a lot slower, especially for Space, Guardians, and Soarin’. But again WDW gets ridiculously long waits (like 3 hours for Rise and you can’t even get LL or rope drop if you aren’t a resort guest
At WDW resort guests can start going on rides 30 minutes before the park opens at every park every day so the lines for the biggest rides are already long by the time the rest of us can get to them. Ugh. Meanwhile at DL (for now) resort guests have no priority or extra hours or anything and everyone has the same chance of getting in. So basically if you’re the first to Hollywood Studios and rush to Rise but you’re not a resort guest you might still wait an hour. But at Disneyland if you’re the first there and rush to Rise and are very fast you can literally walk right on. But you do have to get there early and be fast cause everyone goes there first and the line gets very long very fast.
Ok now single rider lines. WDW has these single rider lines:
Test Track: usually very fast. Can get backed up but they’re very efficient
Rock n Roller Coaster: not the best single rider line but you’ll probably save some time
Millennium Falcon: very fast single rider line. Tip: take the left side, less people see that side (I’m assuming it’s the same layout as at Disneyland). You skip the amazing queue and Hondo and will probably be an engineer but you get on VERY fast
Expedition Everest: very fast single rider line. Basically do NOT pay for LL for this one lol
And here are the single rider lines at Disneyland:
Space Mountain: note this single rider line is gone for the time being. I really hope it comes back at some point. It was great a lot of the time. It could get kind of backed up sometimes though and it’s also the wheelchair entrance so single riders would get in the way of wheelchairs which I think is part of the reason they aren’t using SR anymore. Also CMs didn’t always fill all the empty seats, apparently sometimes for weight reasons. Usually this line would take a few minutes if it wasn’t too backed up and never more than a half hour. But for the time being standby and lightning lane are the only options
Star Tours: so technically this used to have a single rider line but it was never open and now it’s officially not a thing so…
Matterhorn: this single rider line is great. Sometimes it can get a little backed up but a lot of times you can get on within just a few minutes
Indiana Jones: like Space, they recently got rid of this single rider line. It wasn’t very good anyway so even if it does come back just do standby or LL
Millennium Falcon: just like at WDW it’s very fast. You skip the queue and Hondo and are usually an engineer but you get on very fast. Take the left staircase because less people see it.
Splash Mountain: this one is kind of hit and miss. You’ll probably always save some time but not always that much. Also this one really depends on the weather. It was open the first couple days of my recent trip (it’s closed for a couple months now and then at some point they’ll close it for a while to change it to Princess and the Frog) and since it was kinda cold there was never even any standby line. But in the summer the standby line gets very long and single rider gets kind of backed up. If it’s completely filling the staircase you’ll probably wait half an hour. It depends on the CMs assigning seats. Some are better than others at filling in empty seats and/or arranging riders so there are empty seats for single riders.
Radiator Springs Racers: by far the best single rider line in all of Disney. It gets really backed up but it actually goes so fast. They use single riders in almost every car (2 rows with 3 seats in each row) and they move through each car very fast. I’ve never waited more than like 30 minutes in this SR line but usually even when it’s backed up it’s only like 15-20 minutes. And if you go in the morning you can basically walk on with SR. Sometimes the SR line does close in the evening. But basically paying extra for LL for this one is a huge waste of money unless you really want to ride with your group or have small children (you have to be 7 or older to use SR lines).
Grizzly River Run: even if the standby line is super long (which only happens when it’s hot) this SR line is very fast. Just ask a CM at the entrance for a SR pass and then go through the exit and basically walk right on.
Incredicoaster: I do NOT recommend this single rider line!!!! If it’s pretty much empty it’s great but honestly it’s usually gonna take you LONGER than standby! Basically you go through the wheelchair entrance and wait until a certain point where a CM will give you a single rider pass and then you take a couple elevators to get over to the ride and then you wait for a couple minutes in the limited space there. It honestly gets really cramped sometimes and doesn’t even save you time unless there’s barely anyone in it. Meanwhile standby goes VERY fast! The ride has a big capacity so you’re not usually gonna wait more than 20-25 minutes in standby despite what the posted time is. I recommend definitely getting a LL for this one since you can and then buying a num num cookie and eating it in the standby line and ride again. Definitely look to see if single rider looks empty but 9 times out of 10 standby is actually a better bet!
Goofy’s Sky School: I hate this ride so I can’t really help you that much here LOL. I did get a LL since I could and it was immediate last week to see if the ride was as painful as I thought. First of all, it was. I 10/10 do NOT recommend this ride at all LOL. But second, it looked like there were no single riders so that actually probably would’ve been even faster than LL.
Ok hopefully this really helps a lot cause it took a long time to type up LOL. Lmk if you want me to clarify anything or give more tips cause I MASTERED genie+ at Disneyland and I plan to do the same at WDW next month when I move there for the Disney College Program
Wait times are a lot better at DL: standby lines are a lot more reasonable, genie+ is easier to navigate, and there are more single rider lines. I’ve been to DL 3 times since it reopened and WDW only once (a year ago) so I’m definitely more familiar with DL but I’ve observed different things from vlogs, app wait times, etc
I don’t know how familiar you are with genie+ but I’ll just explain all of it lol. They’re basically the same between WDW and DL but there are some minor differences.
So at WDW genie+ is $15 plus tax and includes almost every ride (it doesn’t include “fancy rides” which I’ll explain below and there’s also a few that don’t have it like PeopleMover and Astro Orbitor but most rides have it). You can purchase genie+ day of starting at midnight or you can buy it ahead of time with your park ticket but if you do that you have to buy it for every day. I would say most people would recommend just buying it day of each day based on if you feel like you need it. Especially if you have a 1 park per day pass cause MK and HS have a lot more genie+ value than Epcot or AK.
So here’s how genie+ works once you’ve bought it: starting at 7 AM you can book your first lightning lane (that’s the entrance you use to skip the standby line). You can’t book another LL until one of three things has happened (whichever happens first): you’ve used the LL you already have booked, your LL has expired (you get a one hour window), or 2 hours have passed since you first booked your LL (note that your 2 hours starts once the park has opened so if at 7 AM you book Slinky for 12 PM and the park opens at 9 AM you can’t book another LL until 11 AM. But if at 10 AM you book Slinky for 1 PM and the park has already opened you can book another LL at 12 PM). You can only book each ride once per day. The exception to that is if the ride goes down during your window. In that situation (I’m assuming it’s the same as at DL but I haven’t actually experienced this myself yet) your LL would convert to a multiple experience pass valid on many rides and the system will forget you booked that ride in the first place. Those multiple experience passes probably aren’t always valid on every genie+ ride (again I haven’t personally experienced it) but the more popular the ride that broke down the more rides will be included in the pass (for example if a not super popular ride like Alien Swirling Saucers goes down it’s probably not gonna be valid on Slinky which is very popular but if Slinky goes down it’s probably gonna be valid on any genie+ ride). From what I’ve seen the return times especially for the most popular rides are usually hours ahead (you just book the next available time, you can’t choose any time you want) but people can cancel their LLs and Disney can release more so if you don’t like the next available time or it’s sold out pull up on the tip board on the WDW app to refresh and keep doing that until you get something you like.
Ok so on to “fancy rides” at WDW. This is a term used to describe individual lightning lanes that aren’t included with genie+ and that you have to pay even more for. These are basically just the 2 most popular rides in each park: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Frozen, Ratatouille, Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest, Rise of the Resistance, and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. You can buy up to a total of 2 of these per day (unless one of them goes down during your return time, in that case it converts to an all day pass for that ride and if that happens the system forgets you booked that ride in the first place and you can buy one again). They cost $7-$15 plus tax depending on the day and ride and the more popular the ride the more it’ll cost. So like Everest is usually gonna be closer to $7 but Rise is always $15. If you’re a Disney resort guest you can start booking these at 7 AM but if you’re not you can start booking when the park opens. They sell out for Rise within minutes and before non-resort guests can buy them but it seems like they don’t sell out so fast for the other ones? Maybe Ratatouille also sells out really fast too, I haven’t looked enough. For these you can choose the time you want as long as it’s available. Unlike genie+ LLs, you can’t cancel these and they’re non-refundable so while Disney can release more times once they’re sold out, they usually don’t and so usually if any of these (cough cough Rise) are sold out they’re sold out. But you can keep checking
So that’s how it works at WDW. It works very similarly at DL with some little differences that actually make it more simple.
At DL most rides actually don’t have a lightning lane entrance but most of the big ones do. The ones included in genie+ are Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Autopia, Star Tours, Matterhorn, Small World, Millennium Falcon, Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Roger Rabbit, Soarin’, Guardians, Grizzly River Run, Incredicoaster, Toy Story Mania, Goofy’s Sky School, and Monsters Inc. Genie+ is $20 with no tax at DL and instead of being able to buy it at midnight and book rides starting at 7 AM like at WDW, you can’t buy it or book any rides until you’ve been scanned into a park. The rules (only once per ride per day, when you can book another LL, etc) are the same at WDW except no matter what you can always book another LL 2 hours maximum after booking your previous LL even if the park hasn’t opened yet. So for example when I was there last week they actually started letting people into the park at about 8:15 even though the park officially opened at 9 (there’s a rope you wait at at each land until park opening) at which point I bought genie+ and bought a LL for Soarin’ which was technically available at 9 AM but the system changed it to 1 PM since park hopping doesn’t start until then. Since that was more than 2 hours away even though the park hasn’t officially opened yet I was able to book another LL 2 hours later at 10:15. But say I had booked Space at 9 AM and used that right when the park opened (bad idea lol but let’s say I did) then I could book another LL. Once you’ve used up your LL or it’s expired you can get another one, same as at WDW. Unlike WDW the return times are typically a lot sooner. They’re usually available immediately for most things except these: Space is usually 30-45 minutes away, Matterhorn is usually a couple hours away, Thunder is sometimes 30-60 minutes away but usually it’s immediately, Indy is usually a couple hours away, Soarin’ is usually at least 3 hours away, Guardians is sometimes 30-45 minutes away, and Toy Story is usually 90 minutes away. If a ride breaks down during your LL window you’re given a multiple experience pass to ride any ride in both parks (even those without an official LL entrance, for those I guess you just go through an exit or something) except these rides: Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, Rise, WEB Slingers, Racers, or Toy Story. However if the ride you have a LL for that breaks down is Space, Matterhorn, Indy, or Toy Story, the multiple experience pass is valid on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, or Racers. That’s probably a little confusing so I’ll give an example. If I book Incredicoaster and it goes down during my window the system automatically changes it to a pass I can use on any ride for the rest of the day except Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, Rise, WEB Slingers, Racers, and Toy Story. But if Space goes down during my window and I get a multiple experience pass, I can use it on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, or Racers because the ride that broke down (Space) is a higher tier genie+ ride. Again, if I get a multiple experience pass from a ride going down I can book that ride again because the system forgets I booked that ride in the first place. You can actually use this to your advantage because you can still book LL for a ride when it’s broken down, usually available within 30-45 minutes. If the ride is still down once your return time arrives the system will at some point give you a multiple experience pass. This was useful on my last trip to get extra rides on Guardians. I would book Goofy’s or Grizzly or whatever when they were down and then use my multiple experience pass on Guardians, which was awesome
So now for “fancy rides” at Disneyland. There’s only 3: Rise (always $20), WEB Slingers ($7-$18 depending on the day), and Racers (always the same price as WS). You can book 2 of these per day unless one goes down during your return time, then it concerns to an all day pass valid only on that ride and you can book another fancy ride or the same one if you want. For example each day I bought Rise and WEB Slingers. Commonly Rise would go down during my window and it would convert to an all day pass valid only on Rise and then I could either book Rise again or also book Racers. I always booked Rise again since Racers has an AMAZING single rider line (discussed below). WEB Slingers and Racers return times are usually very soon. They can be pretty far away for Rise but Disney does tend to release more throughout the day so you can keep refreshing for the time you want. Unlike at WDW where you can choose your time for these rides, at DL you have to choose the next available time. You can buy these once you’ve entered a park (so resort guests have no advantage at DL and it’s completely fair. Whoever gets there earlier and gets scanned in earlier has first priority).
So that’s genie+ and fancy rides/individual lightning lanes. It can be confusing so lmk if you have any questions. As far as standby lines go it definitely seems that they’re a lot more reasonable at DL but also it seems like they give out a lot more LLs at DL so standby goes a lot slower, especially for Space, Guardians, and Soarin’. But again WDW gets ridiculously long waits (like 3 hours for Rise and you can’t even get LL or rope drop if you aren’t a resort guest
At WDW resort guests can start going on rides 30 minutes before the park opens at every park every day so the lines for the biggest rides are already long by the time the rest of us can get to them. Ugh. Meanwhile at DL (for now) resort guests have no priority or extra hours or anything and everyone has the same chance of getting in. So basically if you’re the first to Hollywood Studios and rush to Rise but you’re not a resort guest you might still wait an hour. But at Disneyland if you’re the first there and rush to Rise and are very fast you can literally walk right on. But you do have to get there early and be fast cause everyone goes there first and the line gets very long very fast.
Ok now single rider lines. WDW has these single rider lines:
Test Track: usually very fast. Can get backed up but they’re very efficient
Rock n Roller Coaster: not the best single rider line but you’ll probably save some time
Millennium Falcon: very fast single rider line. Tip: take the left side, less people see that side (I’m assuming it’s the same layout as at Disneyland). You skip the amazing queue and Hondo and will probably be an engineer but you get on VERY fast
Expedition Everest: very fast single rider line. Basically do NOT pay for LL for this one lol
And here are the single rider lines at Disneyland:
Space Mountain: note this single rider line is gone for the time being. I really hope it comes back at some point. It was great a lot of the time. It could get kind of backed up sometimes though and it’s also the wheelchair entrance so single riders would get in the way of wheelchairs which I think is part of the reason they aren’t using SR anymore. Also CMs didn’t always fill all the empty seats, apparently sometimes for weight reasons. Usually this line would take a few minutes if it wasn’t too backed up and never more than a half hour. But for the time being standby and lightning lane are the only options
Star Tours: so technically this used to have a single rider line but it was never open and now it’s officially not a thing so…
Matterhorn: this single rider line is great. Sometimes it can get a little backed up but a lot of times you can get on within just a few minutes
Indiana Jones: like Space, they recently got rid of this single rider line. It wasn’t very good anyway so even if it does come back just do standby or LL
Millennium Falcon: just like at WDW it’s very fast. You skip the queue and Hondo and are usually an engineer but you get on very fast. Take the left staircase because less people see it.
Splash Mountain: this one is kind of hit and miss. You’ll probably always save some time but not always that much. Also this one really depends on the weather. It was open the first couple days of my recent trip (it’s closed for a couple months now and then at some point they’ll close it for a while to change it to Princess and the Frog) and since it was kinda cold there was never even any standby line. But in the summer the standby line gets very long and single rider gets kind of backed up. If it’s completely filling the staircase you’ll probably wait half an hour. It depends on the CMs assigning seats. Some are better than others at filling in empty seats and/or arranging riders so there are empty seats for single riders.
Radiator Springs Racers: by far the best single rider line in all of Disney. It gets really backed up but it actually goes so fast. They use single riders in almost every car (2 rows with 3 seats in each row) and they move through each car very fast. I’ve never waited more than like 30 minutes in this SR line but usually even when it’s backed up it’s only like 15-20 minutes. And if you go in the morning you can basically walk on with SR. Sometimes the SR line does close in the evening. But basically paying extra for LL for this one is a huge waste of money unless you really want to ride with your group or have small children (you have to be 7 or older to use SR lines).
Grizzly River Run: even if the standby line is super long (which only happens when it’s hot) this SR line is very fast. Just ask a CM at the entrance for a SR pass and then go through the exit and basically walk right on.
Incredicoaster: I do NOT recommend this single rider line!!!! If it’s pretty much empty it’s great but honestly it’s usually gonna take you LONGER than standby! Basically you go through the wheelchair entrance and wait until a certain point where a CM will give you a single rider pass and then you take a couple elevators to get over to the ride and then you wait for a couple minutes in the limited space there. It honestly gets really cramped sometimes and doesn’t even save you time unless there’s barely anyone in it. Meanwhile standby goes VERY fast! The ride has a big capacity so you’re not usually gonna wait more than 20-25 minutes in standby despite what the posted time is. I recommend definitely getting a LL for this one since you can and then buying a num num cookie and eating it in the standby line and ride again. Definitely look to see if single rider looks empty but 9 times out of 10 standby is actually a better bet!
Goofy’s Sky School: I hate this ride so I can’t really help you that much here LOL. I did get a LL since I could and it was immediate last week to see if the ride was as painful as I thought. First of all, it was. I 10/10 do NOT recommend this ride at all LOL. But second, it looked like there were no single riders so that actually probably would’ve been even faster than LL.
Ok hopefully this really helps a lot cause it took a long time to type up LOL. Lmk if you want me to clarify anything or give more tips cause I MASTERED genie+ at Disneyland and I plan to do the same at WDW next month when I move there for the Disney College Program
Wait times are a lot better at DL: standby lines are a lot more reasonable, genie+ is easier to navigate, and there are more single rider lines. I’ve been to DL 3 times since it reopened and WDW only once (a year ago) so I’m definitely more familiar with DL but I’ve observed different things from vlogs, app wait times, etc
I don’t know how familiar you are with genie+ but I’ll just explain all of it lol. They’re basically the same between WDW and DL but there are some minor differences.
So at WDW genie+ is $15 plus tax and includes almost every ride (it doesn’t include “fancy rides” which I’ll explain below and there’s also a few that don’t have it like PeopleMover and Astro Orbitor but most rides have it). You can purchase genie+ day of starting at midnight or you can buy it ahead of time with your park ticket but if you do that you have to buy it for every day. I would say most people would recommend just buying it day of each day based on if you feel like you need it. Especially if you have a 1 park per day pass cause MK and HS have a lot more genie+ value than Epcot or AK.
So here’s how genie+ works once you’ve bought it: starting at 7 AM you can book your first lightning lane (that’s the entrance you use to skip the standby line). You can’t book another LL until one of three things has happened (whichever happens first): you’ve used the LL you already have booked, your LL has expired (you get a one hour window), or 2 hours have passed since you first booked your LL (note that your 2 hours starts once the park has opened so if at 7 AM you book Slinky for 12 PM and the park opens at 9 AM you can’t book another LL until 11 AM. But if at 10 AM you book Slinky for 1 PM and the park has already opened you can book another LL at 12 PM). You can only book each ride once per day. The exception to that is if the ride goes down during your window. In that situation (I’m assuming it’s the same as at DL but I haven’t actually experienced this myself yet) your LL would convert to a multiple experience pass valid on many rides and the system will forget you booked that ride in the first place. Those multiple experience passes probably aren’t always valid on every genie+ ride (again I haven’t personally experienced it) but the more popular the ride that broke down the more rides will be included in the pass (for example if a not super popular ride like Alien Swirling Saucers goes down it’s probably not gonna be valid on Slinky which is very popular but if Slinky goes down it’s probably gonna be valid on any genie+ ride). From what I’ve seen the return times especially for the most popular rides are usually hours ahead (you just book the next available time, you can’t choose any time you want) but people can cancel their LLs and Disney can release more so if you don’t like the next available time or it’s sold out pull up on the tip board on the WDW app to refresh and keep doing that until you get something you like.
Ok so on to “fancy rides” at WDW. This is a term used to describe individual lightning lanes that aren’t included with genie+ and that you have to pay even more for. These are basically just the 2 most popular rides in each park: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Space Mountain, Frozen, Ratatouille, Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest, Rise of the Resistance, and Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. You can buy up to a total of 2 of these per day (unless one of them goes down during your return time, in that case it converts to an all day pass for that ride and if that happens the system forgets you booked that ride in the first place and you can buy one again). They cost $7-$15 plus tax depending on the day and ride and the more popular the ride the more it’ll cost. So like Everest is usually gonna be closer to $7 but Rise is always $15. If you’re a Disney resort guest you can start booking these at 7 AM but if you’re not you can start booking when the park opens. They sell out for Rise within minutes and before non-resort guests can buy them but it seems like they don’t sell out so fast for the other ones? Maybe Ratatouille also sells out really fast too, I haven’t looked enough. For these you can choose the time you want as long as it’s available. Unlike genie+ LLs, you can’t cancel these and they’re non-refundable so while Disney can release more times once they’re sold out, they usually don’t and so usually if any of these (cough cough Rise) are sold out they’re sold out. But you can keep checking
So that’s how it works at WDW. It works very similarly at DL with some little differences that actually make it more simple.
At DL most rides actually don’t have a lightning lane entrance but most of the big ones do. The ones included in genie+ are Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Autopia, Star Tours, Matterhorn, Small World, Millennium Falcon, Thunder Mountain Railroad, Indiana Jones, Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Roger Rabbit, Soarin’, Guardians, Grizzly River Run, Incredicoaster, Toy Story Mania, Goofy’s Sky School, and Monsters Inc. Genie+ is $20 with no tax at DL and instead of being able to buy it at midnight and book rides starting at 7 AM like at WDW, you can’t buy it or book any rides until you’ve been scanned into a park. The rules (only once per ride per day, when you can book another LL, etc) are the same at WDW except no matter what you can always book another LL 2 hours maximum after booking your previous LL even if the park hasn’t opened yet. So for example when I was there last week they actually started letting people into the park at about 8:15 even though the park officially opened at 9 (there’s a rope you wait at at each land until park opening) at which point I bought genie+ and bought a LL for Soarin’ which was technically available at 9 AM but the system changed it to 1 PM since park hopping doesn’t start until then. Since that was more than 2 hours away even though the park hasn’t officially opened yet I was able to book another LL 2 hours later at 10:15. But say I had booked Space at 9 AM and used that right when the park opened (bad idea lol but let’s say I did) then I could book another LL. Once you’ve used up your LL or it’s expired you can get another one, same as at WDW. Unlike WDW the return times are typically a lot sooner. They’re usually available immediately for most things except these: Space is usually 30-45 minutes away, Matterhorn is usually a couple hours away, Thunder is sometimes 30-60 minutes away but usually it’s immediately, Indy is usually a couple hours away, Soarin’ is usually at least 3 hours away, Guardians is sometimes 30-45 minutes away, and Toy Story is usually 90 minutes away. If a ride breaks down during your LL window you’re given a multiple experience pass to ride any ride in both parks (even those without an official LL entrance, for those I guess you just go through an exit or something) except these rides: Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, Rise, WEB Slingers, Racers, or Toy Story. However if the ride you have a LL for that breaks down is Space, Matterhorn, Indy, or Toy Story, the multiple experience pass is valid on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, or Racers. That’s probably a little confusing so I’ll give an example. If I book Incredicoaster and it goes down during my window the system automatically changes it to a pass I can use on any ride for the rest of the day except Space, Matterhorn, Indy, Peter Pan, Rise, WEB Slingers, Racers, and Toy Story. But if Space goes down during my window and I get a multiple experience pass, I can use it on any ride except Rise, Peter Pan, WEB Slingers, or Racers because the ride that broke down (Space) is a higher tier genie+ ride. Again, if I get a multiple experience pass from a ride going down I can book that ride again because the system forgets I booked that ride in the first place. You can actually use this to your advantage because you can still book LL for a ride when it’s broken down, usually available within 30-45 minutes. If the ride is still down once your return time arrives the system will at some point give you a multiple experience pass. This was useful on my last trip to get extra rides on Guardians. I would book Goofy’s or Grizzly or whatever when they were down and then use my multiple experience pass on Guardians, which was awesome
So now for “fancy rides” at Disneyland. There’s only 3: Rise (always $20), WEB Slingers ($7-$18 depending on the day), and Racers (always the same price as WS). You can book 2 of these per day unless one goes down during your return time, then it concerns to an all day pass valid only on that ride and you can book another fancy ride or the same one if you want. For example each day I bought Rise and WEB Slingers. Commonly Rise would go down during my window and it would convert to an all day pass valid only on Rise and then I could either book Rise again or also book Racers. I always booked Rise again since Racers has an AMAZING single rider line (discussed below). WEB Slingers and Racers return times are usually very soon. They can be pretty far away for Rise but Disney does tend to release more throughout the day so you can keep refreshing for the time you want. Unlike at WDW where you can choose your time for these rides, at DL you have to choose the next available time. You can buy these once you’ve entered a park (so resort guests have no advantage at DL and it’s completely fair. Whoever gets there earlier and gets scanned in earlier has first priority).
So that’s genie+ and fancy rides/individual lightning lanes. It can be confusing so lmk if you have any questions. As far as standby lines go it definitely seems that they’re a lot more reasonable at DL but also it seems like they give out a lot more LLs at DL so standby goes a lot slower, especially for Space, Guardians, and Soarin’. But again WDW gets ridiculously long waits (like 3 hours for Rise and you can’t even get LL or rope drop if you aren’t a resort guest
At WDW resort guests can start going on rides 30 minutes before the park opens at every park every day so the lines for the biggest rides are already long by the time the rest of us can get to them. Ugh. Meanwhile at DL (for now) resort guests have no priority or extra hours or anything and everyone has the same chance of getting in. So basically if you’re the first to Hollywood Studios and rush to Rise but you’re not a resort guest you might still wait an hour. But at Disneyland if you’re the first there and rush to Rise and are very fast you can literally walk right on. But you do have to get there early and be fast cause everyone goes there first and the line gets very long very fast.
Ok now single rider lines. WDW has these single rider lines:
Test Track: usually very fast. Can get backed up but they’re very efficient
Rock n Roller Coaster: not the best single rider line but you’ll probably save some time
Millennium Falcon: very fast single rider line. Tip: take the left side, less people see that side (I’m assuming it’s the same layout as at Disneyland). You skip the amazing queue and Hondo and will probably be an engineer but you get on VERY fast
Expedition Everest: very fast single rider line. Basically do NOT pay for LL for this one lol
And here are the single rider lines at Disneyland:
Space Mountain: note this single rider line is gone for the time being. I really hope it comes back at some point. It was great a lot of the time. It could get kind of backed up sometimes though and it’s also the wheelchair entrance so single riders would get in the way of wheelchairs which I think is part of the reason they aren’t using SR anymore. Also CMs didn’t always fill all the empty seats, apparently sometimes for weight reasons. Usually this line would take a few minutes if it wasn’t too backed up and never more than a half hour. But for the time being standby and lightning lane are the only options
Star Tours: so technically this used to have a single rider line but it was never open and now it’s officially not a thing so…
Matterhorn: this single rider line is great. Sometimes it can get a little backed up but a lot of times you can get on within just a few minutes
Indiana Jones: like Space, they recently got rid of this single rider line. It wasn’t very good anyway so even if it does come back just do standby or LL
Millennium Falcon: just like at WDW it’s very fast. You skip the queue and Hondo and are usually an engineer but you get on very fast. Take the left staircase because less people see it.
Splash Mountain: this one is kind of hit and miss. You’ll probably always save some time but not always that much. Also this one really depends on the weather. It was open the first couple days of my recent trip (it’s closed for a couple months now and then at some point they’ll close it for a while to change it to Princess and the Frog) and since it was kinda cold there was never even any standby line. But in the summer the standby line gets very long and single rider gets kind of backed up. If it’s completely filling the staircase you’ll probably wait half an hour. It depends on the CMs assigning seats. Some are better than others at filling in empty seats and/or arranging riders so there are empty seats for single riders.
Radiator Springs Racers: by far the best single rider line in all of Disney. It gets really backed up but it actually goes so fast. They use single riders in almost every car (2 rows with 3 seats in each row) and they move through each car very fast. I’ve never waited more than like 30 minutes in this SR line but usually even when it’s backed up it’s only like 15-20 minutes. And if you go in the morning you can basically walk on with SR. Sometimes the SR line does close in the evening. But basically paying extra for LL for this one is a huge waste of money unless you really want to ride with your group or have small children (you have to be 7 or older to use SR lines).
Grizzly River Run: even if the standby line is super long (which only happens when it’s hot) this SR line is very fast. Just ask a CM at the entrance for a SR pass and then go through the exit and basically walk right on.
Incredicoaster: I do NOT recommend this single rider line!!!! If it’s pretty much empty it’s great but honestly it’s usually gonna take you LONGER than standby! Basically you go through the wheelchair entrance and wait until a certain point where a CM will give you a single rider pass and then you take a couple elevators to get over to the ride and then you wait for a couple minutes in the limited space there. It honestly gets really cramped sometimes and doesn’t even save you time unless there’s barely anyone in it. Meanwhile standby goes VERY fast! The ride has a big capacity so you’re not usually gonna wait more than 20-25 minutes in standby despite what the posted time is. I recommend definitely getting a LL for this one since you can and then buying a num num cookie and eating it in the standby line and ride again. Definitely look to see if single rider looks empty but 9 times out of 10 standby is actually a better bet!
Goofy’s Sky School: I hate this ride so I can’t really help you that much here LOL. I did get a LL since I could and it was immediate last week to see if the ride was as painful as I thought. First of all, it was. I 10/10 do NOT recommend this ride at all LOL. But second, it looked like there were no single riders so that actually probably would’ve been even faster than LL.
Ok hopefully this really helps a lot cause it took a long time to type up LOL. Lmk if you want me to clarify anything or give more tips cause I MASTERED genie+ at Disneyland and I plan to do the same at WDW next month when I move there for the Disney College Program
If the ride is down the LL is most likely not going to be right away because they’re usually pushed back when a ride goes down. It depends on the ride but Indy would be pretty far away I think. Other less popular rides like Monsters or Goofy’s are usually about a half hour away when they’re down (occasionally they’re immediately if you catch them right when the ride goes down). As far as when you get the ME pass it’s different every time. Sometimes you get it 20 minutes before your return time starts, sometimes a few minutes before it starts, sometimes 20 minutes after it starts, sometimes 40 minutes after, etc. I think it’s a great strategy to take advantage of those ride breakdowns and hope for a ME pass but if you don’t want to wait for it you can always cancel your LL and reserve one for that ride later and then book something else. Remember rides like Indy aren’t rides you’re specifically purchasing for. Once you’ve bought genie+ you have access to LL for all genie+ rides and you can book and cancel all you want for each ride until you’ve officially used a LL for that ride. The only rides you’re specifically purchasing for and can’t cancel once you’ve booked them are Rise, WEB Slingers, and Racers which are completely separate from genie+. Does that make sense?
Yes this makes perfect sense. So I don’t actually have to show up to the ride if it’s down and scan my ticket to get the ME? It will automatically give it to me at some point if the ride is down? I guess I thought you could be rewarded with an ME if you happen to show up during your window time and the ride was closed but that’s not the case.
Yeah it just automatically gives you a ME pass for the inconvenience. While you’re waiting for that to happen you can pass the time by eating, doing standby lines, etc. Note that sometimes when your LL hasn’t converted to a ME pass yet and the ride comes back up you’re not going to get a ME pass
Awesome, thanks!
Congratulations and enjoy...and thanks for the detailed post!
Not yet, but they say they're coming.
