When can you book your first lightning lane at Disneyland?

You can make your first Genie+ Lightning Lane booking once you enter the park and purchase Genie+. It doesn't matter if you're a guest of a Disney hotel or not, all guests can make their first booking once they've entered the park and purchased Genie+.



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For individual Lightning Lane purchases, guests of a Disney Resort hotel and other select hotels* may make their first purchase starting at 7:00 am on the day of their visit. All other Guests can make their first purchase during normal park opening hours.

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You may be out of luck for purchasing Individual Lightning Lanes for any attraction if you're staying offsite on high crowd days. Rise of the Resistance used to be the clear winner of the popularity contest here, and that doesn't hold true anymore either. At all crowd levels, Flight of Passage sells out first.

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To book your next Lightning Lane selection, you must either redeem your first selection, or wait two hours, whichever comes first. Keep an eye on your Tip Board in your My Disney Experience app, because it will show you when you can book another selection!

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The Genie 120-minute rule says that you can make a new reservation at most 2 hours from when you made the last one, and this countdown timer doesn't change if you modify the reservation. If you made it at, say, 11 a.m., then your two hours will be up at 1 p.m. even if you modify the reservation at noon.

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You can only book one Lightning Lane selection at a time. No matter what window you select for an attraction's Lightning Lane, you will be able to book another Lightning Lane selection after using the first or after the window expires, 2 hours after park open, or 2 hours after booking a selection.

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Can you have more than one Genie+ Lightning Lane reservation at a time? Yes. The Genie 120-minute rule says that you can always make a new reservation if two hours have passed since you made the last one, or two hours since park opening if you made the reservation before the park opened.

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How does the 2-hour rule work? If you select a Lightning Lane through the Disney Genie and the return time is more than 2 hours after the current time and after park open, then after 2 hours you can go in and select your next Lightning Lane even though you have not redeemed your first one.

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Can you have more than one Genie+ Lightning Lane reservation at a time? Yes. The Genie 120-minute rule says that you can always make a new reservation if two hours have passed since you made the last one, or two hours since park opening if you made the reservation before the park opened.

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You can buy two individual Lightning Lanes each day. You can only buy an individual Lightning Lane for each ride once per day. So each guest gets up to two distinct individual Lightning Lanes each day.

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They can't be modified, and you can buy up to two per day, but you can only buy each ride once per day. Generally, Individual Lightning Lanes don't sell out quickly at Disneyland, meaning you'll have some time to wait and see how your day goes before deciding whether or not to buy them.

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Tapping into a Lightning Lane is also a “last action” that triggers eligibility in Genie+ for a new Lightning Lane reservation. If you make another Genie+ selection after 120 minutes but before tapping into the previous selection, you can also make another once you've tapped into the Lightning Lane.

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You do not need to run the Castaway Cay 5K; you can absolutely walk it! I have done this course a couple of times, I have the medals to prove it, and I certainly walked more than I ran!

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Genie Plus is definitely worth it for Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, and if you don't like early starts, you might consider it for Epcot and Animal Kingdom. If you are park hopping, Genie+ is even better value as it maximises the number of rides you have access to.

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Genie+ allows guests to skip the line at the included attractions, once per ride per day. You can begin making your Genie+ reservations once you have entered the park for the day. You can make your selections across all of the theme parks if you have a Park Hopper ticket.

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Underneath that you'll see LL Disney Genie+ Not Currently Offered. This means that all of the available Lightning Lanes have been booked. Now, it is possible that a few will become available as guests' plans change and they cancel Lightning Lanes, but getting one of those takes a lot of luck and pixie dust.

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Let me describe the difference between Disney Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes. Disney Genie+ is a magical upgrade to your ticket that allows you to select Lightning Lane entrances at over 40 attractions throughout the theme parks. These Lightning Lane entrances allow you to skip the regular standby line.

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Ride Reservation Refills Aren't Guaranteed For some rides, Lightning Lane reservations are typically refilled multiple times throughout the day, while other attractions only rarely get a return window boost. It depends on guest demand, which can vary substantially depending on the season or even from day to day.

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With that said, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train tends to be the least popular Individual Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World. It still does sell out many days at Magic Kingdom, but usually lasts for at least a few hours after park opening. On slower days, there's availability well into the afternoon.

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Lightning Lane access isn't free. It comes as a perk when you purchase Genie+. And if you're wondering about Genie versus Lightning Lane, Disney Genie only provides tips to help you avoid lines. Lightning Lane grants you access to entirely separate queues.

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