I tried out Genie+ for the first time on two different days and have gathered my thoughts on it and if it is in fact worth it.

For my first try with Genie+, I went with a friend on a Sunday at Disneyland. We began our day at Disneyland around 2 pm for reference, and it looked like a very busy day at the parks. I purchased Genie+, which is $20 for Inspire Key Holders (20% off the price, which is $25).

It was fairly easy to create a party on my Disneyland app, so myself and my friend could be together on rides with Genie+. One thing I noticed was sometimes it would only have one person booked for a ride not both, so it took a few times to make sure it always said party of two for the rides I book.

The biggest lesson I learned is to book experiences (rides) that are the ones with the longest lines first: Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Indiana Jones in Disneyland and Incredicoaster, Guardians of the Galaxy and Web Slingers. You can book experiences every two hours or after you complete the experience.

On Sunday, I made the mistake of waiting to book these popular rides first, because toward the evening, they said they were not available to book. We had to stand in line for those popular rides in the evening. It was a very busy day at the parks so perhaps it was due to that they did not allow guests to use Genie+ for the popular rides.

If a ride broke down, which it did for us (Thunder Mountain), it gives you lightning lane for certain attractions to use instead during that time period. The problem is its for less busy rides so you can’t use it for the high volume ones. We ended up using ours on Star Tours, which was empty anyways. It did not allow us to use it on any of the popular rides listed above. We were only able to use Genie+ for one ride, since I waited too long to book the popular rides and they were no longer available to book in the evening, or because the ride broke down and canceled my booking.

You have to pay an extra $25 to book Rise of The Resistance, in addition to the initial cost of Genie+. Because of that, we decided to do the standby line instead.

For day two of Genie+, it went a little more smoothly. I arrived with my group around 1pm and immediately purchased my Genie+ and added theirs into mine. You have to just scan their ticket and their Genie+ is included in that, so that I could book all our rides together on my app.

I immediately booked Haunted mansion for our first ride since it was the most popular ride during the holiday season. It gave me a time at 4:50 to 5:50 to head to the Genie+ line. I then booked Indiana Jones two hours later when I was allowed too. The next ride I booked was Space Mountain.

We walked through Haunted Mansion with Genie+ – it took about 10 minutes to get through, while the normal line was out of the gates. Unfortunately the booking for Indiana Jones canceled itself because the ride was broken. I always make sure when I book it was for our party of three but for some reason it only gave two of us the free multi experiences pass for the broken Indiana Jones ride. It appeared to be a glitch in the system.

We headed to Space Mountain for our next ride during our window and I used my new MagicBand+ to swipe us in. I heard the ding for one person when I did it, but when I used my band for the other two in my party it did not work. A cast member came over to help and had me use my phone for them to redeem the passes for them but gave us a hard time because she did not hear the first ding when it went through for me. That was my second lesson – don’t try to use your MagicBand+ for everyone, just use your phone to swipe in. It appears to malfunction if you are swiping in more than just yourself.

We ended up using Genie+ for Thunder Mountain, Matterhorn and Haunted Mansion. We did standby line for Indiana Jones since the line was shorter than booking it again, as well as for Incredicoaster. both were just 25 minute standby lines.

Overall Monday’s experience with Genie+ was way better than Sunday’s and I was happy to have purchased it. I checked in the evening and the popular rides were available but overall the parks were not as busy, so I was still happy I did those ones earlier.

Some takeaways:

Have one person be the designated person to book experiences on their app for the entire party (you have to add everyone into the Genie+ to do that)

-Choose the popular rides first to book the experiences (Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones, Incredicoaster, Guardians, Web Slingers, Space Mountain)

-Have your timer on to remind you when to book next (every two hours)

-Double check your entire party is included in each booking for rides

-Use the phone to check in to lightning lane not your Magic Band+ because it tends to malfunction

-It is more advantageous to rope drop (arrive at opening at 8 am) to use Genie+ versus staying until midnight, as some rides are no longer available towards closing due to crowds