Lightning Lane Zaps us Through Every Attraction at Magic Kingdom

October 19, 2021
|In Attractions
|By Tiffany Wallace

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Any avid Disney fan will tell you: they love going to the parks, but they hate actually spending time in the parks.

Today, to help solve the issue of too-much-time-spent-in-the-parks, Disney launched its new Genie+ system, allowing guests to pay $15 for Lightning Lane access to attractions that have short enough lines that you don’t need to skip them in the first place, or the ability to pay an additional-additional fee for attractions with actual, substantial lines that you’ll want to skip.

I was first on the scene with DisDumps this morning as the sun rose over Cinderella’s freshly painted castle to see how the new system worked (and just how quickly we could get the hell out of there).

Using Genie+, we were able to book Lightning Lane experiences on our mobile devices, coming back to the attraction for our return time and skipping the standby line – like some sort of pass that makes things move faster. Sounds pretty familiar, right? Well…not quite.

With Lightning Lane we not only had the ability to skip the standby lines, but for some attractions we gained special access to abbreviated or alternative experiences! For instance, our special Lightning Lane showing of The Country Bears was sped up by 7.5%, saving us 1.275 minutes in our day (and giving our beloved bears a more chipmunk-esque sound). Listen, I love Dumbo, but do we really need to do 18 full rotations? Lightning Lane allowed us to rotate a more reasonable 9 times, saving us literally half of our ride time. And you’ll definitely want to check out the new repair access lane Lightning Lane on It’s a Small World, which will sail you from the attraction’s second scene right through to its conclusion!

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By 12:30 pm, most guests had knocked out every ride and made way towards the exits (the exits did get a bit jammed up between 12-1pm, but don’t you worry – park insiders tell us they’re bringing a Lightning Lane experience to park exits later this year). Only a few poorer guests who did not opt to purchase the Genie+ add-on remained in the park to suffer a full day taking in the sights and sounds of the Magic Kingdom and enjoying a leisurely day riding the many attractions.

Perhaps most impressively, Lightning Lane allowed us to skip the entirety of The Carousel of Progress. We were able to just walk around the damn thing in a special bypass lane, ultimately saving us a record-breaking 21 minutes, getting us home early and out of this unbearable 79° Florida sun.

I can’t think of a more perfect day than racing through the Magic Kingdom and ignoring all of the fluff like characters, cast members and nighttime spectaculars. Disney Parks have once again outdone themselves and their commitment to the guest experience.

So what do you think, will you be trying out Genie+ on your next Disney visit?