In this post we discuss how we plan to use Genie+ successfully at Epcot in 2024, including our Epcot Genie+ priorities and the best rides for Genie+ at Epcot. We also discuss individual Lightning Lane access and how to make sense of virtual queues, Lightning Lanes, standby lines, single rider, and Genie+ at Epcot.
Related Posts
We also suggest reading our Walt Disney World Genie+ guide for a complete understanding of the Genie+ system. To hear more about specific rides, check out our Epcot rides guide. We also have a one-day Epcot itinerary.
We also recommend checking our most recent trip report to see if we’ve provided any updates and just to see how this strategy is holding up.
THE BASICS OF Epcot Genie+ and Lightning Lanes
Again, you'll want to check out our Walt Disney World Genie+ guide to make sure you really understand Genie+, but we want to give those of you who are just looking for the basics a quick intro. Click here to jump past the intro if you’ve read it before.
Genie+ Allows You To “Skip The Lines” At Walt Disney World
Genie+ is a paid (roughly $15 to $40 per person, plus tax, depending on the day) skip-the-line system at Walt Disney World. By purchasing Genie+ for the day of your visit to a Disney World park, you’ll be able to make bookings to access “Lightning Lanes” which are shorter lines than the regular “standby” lines that most rides have.
We’ve put “skip the lines” in quotes because you’ll usually still have some wait with Genie+, it’s just much shorter than the regular wait. A long wait with Genie+ might be a 20 minute wait for a ride that has standby waits of 100+ minutes.
Not all attractions are included in Genie+. Some attractions don’t have Lightning Lanes and some attractions with Lightning Lanes aren’t included in Genie+.
At Epcot, Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind has a Lightning Lane but is not part of Genie+. To access that individual Lightning Lane you’ll have to make a separate purchase. We discuss the included attractions at Epcot later in this post.
Within Genie+, you can hold one Lightning Lane reservation at a time—with one exception, which we discuss next. That means if you have a reservation for Living With The Land from 3PM to 4PM, you have to wait until you use that reservation (during that window) before you can book another one.
The exception is that if you book a Lightning Lane via Genie+ that starts more than two hours in the future, you can book another Lightning Lane via Genie+ after waiting two hours. If you make your first selection before the park opens, the two-hour clock starts running when the park opens.
Just to be clear (“clear”), a lot of times you’ll hear this told the other way—that the “rule” is 2 hours and the “exception” is if you can use the Lightning Lane sooner than that. It’s really the same way of saying the same thing, and which is the rule / exception on a given day will just depend on crowd levels and what rides you go on.
You can’t choose what time you book your Genie+ reservation for. You have to grab the time that is available when you’re booking, and these times will roll forward as the day goes on until they run out.
This means when you open Genie+ at 7AM for a 9AM park open, you’ll probably see you can book any ride for 9AM to 10AM. But when you check after using that reservation at, say, 9:30AM, you might seem some rides available from 10AM to 11AM, some rides available from 12:05PM to 1:05PM, and maybe even a ride might be sold out for the day.
There is some flexibility here, either due to Disney releasing more inventory or guests cancelling. You might refresh and see an available time jump back from 2PM to 12PM, but for the most part, you need to plan for these times to roll forward.
Finally it’s worth noting that right at 7AM—when Genie+ bookings open—the app doesn’t show specific return times. This is because they can change quite quickly (within seconds). This isn’t a huge problem, though, because you’ll decide what ride you’re grabbing at 7AM ahead of time.
Genie+ During Special Events
Genie+ is only available during regular park hours at Epcot. It is not be available for special events held before or after regular park hours, like After Hours events. It also isn’t available during Early Theme Park Entry of Extended Evening Hours.
Park Hopping With Genie+
Genie+ comes in two flavors—single park and Multiple Parks. If you buy it for a single park (you pick which park and they have different prices), you can only use it at that park. If you buy the Multiple Parks option, the service is good at all four parks once you purchase it for a given day (just remember you’ll need park hopping privileges to make bookings at multiple parks).
We have posts on two-day Disney World trips and three-day Disney World trips.
Purchasing Genie+ for Epcot
Before we get to strategy, let’s talk about how you get Genie+ (and Lightning Lanes) to begin with.
When can I purchase Genie+?
Genie+ is available for purchase at midnight the morning of your park visit, and you need to make sure you’ve purchased it by 7AM because that is when Genie+ selections will open for all guests.
How Much does Genie+ Cost?
The price of Genie+ varies by the day. It begins at $15 (plus tax, so about $16) per person per day, but prices have hit $39 and we expect $45 by the end of 2024. A typical day is priced around $20 to $25. Everyone in your group needs to have Genie+ if they plan to use the Lightning Lanes for the Genie+ attractions. If someone in your party isn’t going on the rides via Genie+, then of course they don’t need Genie+.
Now that there are single-park Genie+ options, you’ll see that each day basically has five prices—one for each of the parks and one for the Multiple Park option. Here’s the pricing for September 18, for example:
Multiple Parks: $23/person
Magic Kingdom: $23/person
Hollywood Studios: $21/person
EPCOT: $17/person
Animal Kingdom: $15/person
You can expect EPCOT to usually be the third most expensive of the four parks, when buying individually.
Is Genie+ at Epcot Worth It?
Our feelings on Genie+ at Epcot are maybe a bit surprising—we think it’s worth it if you have small children. Particularly, if Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure and Frozen Ever After are on your “must do” list, then we think Genie+ is worth it.
While Epcot isn’t known for being the best park for kids (the title undeniably goes to Magic Kingdom), it actually has a good ride lineup for the little ones. And if you’re looking forward to something else—like eating or drinking or shopping or just strolling around the world—you don’t want to spend time standing in line for rides.
Little kids don’t like to wait in line, either, and they might not want to be awake and at the park early for rope drop. Freeing up some time for them to enjoy the pavilions makes sense, too. Our kid loves browsing the stores, and Epcot offers a kid-centric Kidcot activity throughout the park.
Another factor to highlight here is extra hours access—Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Hours. If you have access to those perks (and will use them), you’re less likely to need Genie+. I’m willing to skip Genie+ at Epcot when I have Early Entry assuming I’m comfortable with either skipping or waiting over an hour for one of Frozen Ever After or Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure.
If you can stay for Extended Evening Hours at Epcot, you likely won’t need Genie+ or any individual paid Lightning Lanes.
Finally, because it is connected to Magic Kingdom by monorail and Hollywood Studios by boat, walking path, and Skyliner, EPCOT is a good park for park hopping. This means it might be best to buy the Multiple Parks version of Genie+ and use it for a park hopping day involving Epcot.
Individual Lightning Lane Purchases
Now, in case you forgot, there are some rides in the parks that are not a part of Genie+ and require you to buy access to their Lightning Lanes Individually. At Epcot, the only such ride right now is Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind, which also has a virtual queue.
If you decide to purchase individual Lightning Lane access at Epcot, you’ll make your purchases at:
7AM if you’re a guest of a Disney resort (select partner resorts maybe included, we don’t know yet) or
At the time the park opens if you’re not a guest of a Disney resort.
Is it worth it to buy a Lightning Lane for Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind?
We think it’s best to try for the virtual queue right at 7AM. This results in a worse Genie+ pick than if you’d started instead with that, but it also saves you the money of the individual Lightning Lane. The other downside of the virtual queue is that you don’t get to pick the time you ride.
If you don’t get into the 7AM virtual queue, or if you prefer to pick your time, we recommend buying the Individual Lightning Lane.
Some guests will miss out on the virtual queue at 7AM and decide they’d rather try at 1PM than buy the individual Lightning Lane right away. We get that, but given the quality of the ride, we think making the purchase is justified if you don’t get into the queue at 7AM.
7AM Priorities at Epcot
You may have noticed a single time came up a few times already—7AM. The following bookings open at 7AM:
Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind Virtual Queue (all guests)
Genie+ Booking (all guests with Genie+)
Cosmic Rewind individual Lightning Lane purchases (Disney resort guests only)
That’s generally the priority we assign these tasks, too, with a caveat. The Cosmic Rewind virtual queue has had good availability recently. The afternoon (1PM) drop often lasts more than a few minutes, and the 7AM drop even lasted more than an hour a few times (see recent data at Thrill Data). Given that, you could theoretically de-prioritize the virtual queue in favor of getting a better Genie+ time.
Personally, we continue to find Genie+ at Epcot is simple enough that we’d rather lock in our ride on Cosmic Rewind, checking that very major box, and then deal with whatever Genie+ throws at us.
If you’re not a Disney resort guest, your Cosmic Rewind Lightning Lane will be available for purchase (subject to availability) when the park opens.
Epcot Genie+ Priorities
This is a good time to remind you to check the height requirements at Disney World when booking Genie+ to make sure your strategy keeps in mind who can go on which rides. While you’re at it, read about visiting Epcot with a toddler if it applies to you.
Epcot Genie+ Attractions
There are eleven attractions that are a part of Genie+ at Epcot (alphabetical order):
Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival
Frozen Ever After
Journey Into Imagination With Figment
Living With The Land
Mission: SPACE (Orange and Green)
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
The Seas With Nemo & Friends
Soarin’
Spaceship Earth
Test Track
Turtle Talk With Crush
It’s expected that on or around June 10, 2024, the “Mickey and Friends” character greeting will debut at the new CommuniCore Hall and be including in Genie+.
Low Priorities for Genie+ at Epcot
Let’s start with some rides that are low priority most days. The Film Festival, Journey Into Imagination, Living With The Land, The Seas With Nemo & Friends, and Turtle Talk are low priority. That’s five of the eleven attractions.
Soarin’, Spaceship Earth, and Mission: SPACE are low priority most days, medium priority on busy days, which brings us up to eight rides that are definitely not high priority.
Once guests are done with the other three high-priority rides (Frozen, Remy’s, Test Track) they’re going to want to get some more value out of their Genie+ purchase. Their selections will be more or less scattered across the other eight rides.
But the fact is that it’s Remy’s, Test Track, and Frozen you’ll be keeping your eye on right away.
Best Rides to Genie+ At Epcot
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen and Test Track are the best rides to Genie+ at Epcot. That means I currently break down the eleven attractions as follows:
High Priority – Remy’s, Frozen, Test Track
Medium Priority — Soarin’, Mission: SPACE, Spaceship Earth
Low Priority – Film Festival, The Seas, Journey into Imagination, Living With The Land, Turtle Talk
With the priorities in our mind, let’s move onto how this might play out when you visit the park.
Epcot Genie+ Planning
Now that we’ve covered the Epcot Genie+ priorities, we need to talk about how to actually put together a day at the park.
What Genie+ Reservation should I grab first at Epcot?
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure is the most popular ride on Genie+ in the park and a good first Genie+ pick. Times can run out quickly, which means even if you’re fast with your fingers you might wind up with a late time and having to wait two hours (from park opening) to make your second pick, but we don’t think that’s a huge loss if you have a good rope drop strategy.
(As a reminder, if you do your Guardians virtual queue pick before your first Genie+ pick, you’re basically guaranteeing a late Genie+ time. Theoretically, Remy’s could even run out in the few seconds it takes you to get to making that pick. But on days when it does, the virtual queue for Guardians is also likely to run out immediately.).
If you don’t have Early Entry, you can’t rope drop at all, so Remy’s is a naturally fine first pick since it’s the most popular.
If have Early Entry and you’re arriving via the International Gateway entrance (i.e. via Skyliner or from the Boardwalk hotels), you could rope drop Remy’s and instead use your first Genie+ for Frozen, giving you a slightly better chance of getting to make your second pick earlier in the day. Personally, I’d take the less stressful rope drop (Frozen) and the possibly late Genie+ time for Remy’s.
If you have Early Entry and you’re entering via the main entrance (all other guests), then you won’t be able to rope drop Remy’s. Instead, you’ll have to use your first Genie+ pick for Remy’s and rope drop either Frozen or Test Track.
What Genie+ reservation should I grab second, third, etc. at Epcot?
If you booked one of Remy’s, Frozen, and Test Track with your first pick and you rope dropped another, then whichever you have left will hopefully still be available on Genie+ and be a good second pick. This means you’ll probably be waiting another two hours before you can make another Genie+ pick, but this gives you time for lunch / World Showcase / entertainment etc.
If you weren’t able to rope drop because you didn’t have Early Entry, then you’ll probably only be able to grab one more of Remy’s, Frozen, and Test Track and you’ll have to wait in line (or not ride) the third.
When it’s time to make a Genie+ pick, here are some factors to consider. Check current waits—if one ride is way more popular today, it might be a better Genie+ pick. Test Track has a height requirement—if your party is going to use rider swap or skip it altogether, it might not be the best use of Genie+. Conversely, if you have thrill seekers, it will probably be a must-do. Test Track also has a single rider line, which can be a good way to get a short wait if your party is willing to be separated.
Beyond that, I just try and book things that make sense geographically, because Epcot is a large park with rides clustered together.
Living with the Land is in the same building as Soarin’ (The Land pavilion), so it makes sense to try and ride those close together. The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Journey Into Imagination are in that same area (different buildings, opposite directions from The Land, but neither too far).
Spaceship Earth is located near the front of the park, so if you’re leaving early, or not watching the nighttime show, or the park is open after the nighttime show, it’s easiest to stop there on your way out (assuming you’d using that exit and not the World Showcase exit). Alternatively, Spaceship Earth is relatively close to The Seas pavilion.
Mission: SPACE is located near Test Track, which isn’t too far—relative to everything else—from Frozen Ever After.
Example Day at Epcot with Genie+
Here’s an example of a day we spent at Epcot with Genie+ (Lightning Lane activity bolded):
6:30AM Purchase Genie+
7AM Book 10AM Remy Lightning Lane
8:18 At Epcot
8:30 Early Entry Begins
8:39 Board Frozen Ever After
8:53 Gran Fiesta Tour (walk on)
9AM Park Opens
9:38 Meet Donald Duck
10:30 Grab Soarin’ LL (10:35AM)
10:37 Remy (posted 80, 7 via LL)
11:25 Soarin’ (posted 70, 20 via LL)
11:30 Grab Test Track LL (8:20PM)
Club Cool / Creations Shop / Lunch
1PM Get spot in Guardians Virtual Queue
1:45 Grab Living with the Land LL (1:50PM)
1:52 Living With The Land (posted 10, 1 via LL)
Relax in Seas Pavilion
3:12 Grab The Seas LL (3:20-4:20)
3:24 The Seas w/ Nemo (posted 5, 2 via LL)
3:25 Grab Journey Into Imagination LL (3:30-4:30)
3:36 Journey into Imagination (posted 5, 3 via LL)
World Showcase
5PM Grab Spaceship Earth LL (5:40-6:40)
5:48 Spaceship Earth (posted 5, 1 via LL)
6:44 Guardians of the Galaxy (22 min in virtual queue)
7PM Dinner
8:01 Mission: SPACE (posted 20, actual 16)
8:35 Test Track (posted 45, 15 via LL)
You can see most of our Lightning Lane bookings were shortly before their return windows, which isn’t uncommon at Epcot.
How To Spend One Full Day At Epcot
We have a full post dedicated to our one-day Epcot itinerary.
All Your Other Disney World Planning Questions Answered
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