In this post we discuss how to use Genie+ successfully at Hollywood Studios in 2024, including our Hollywood Studios Genie+ priorities and the best rides for Genie+ at Hollywood Studios. We also discuss individual Lightning Lane access and how to make sense of virtual queues, Lightning Lanes, standby lines, single rider, and Genie+ at Hollywood Studios.
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 Hollywood Studios rides guide. We’ve also applied this strategy to put together a one-day Hollywood Studios itinerary.
THE BASICS OF Hollywood Studios 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. If you’re looking for detailed information on how to use the Genie+ system, that is the better post. This post focuses specifically on strategy at Hollywood Studios.
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 Hollywood Studios, Rise of the Resistance has a Lightning Lane but is not a part of Genie+. To access those Lightning Lanes you’ll have to make a separate purchase. We discuss the included attractions at Hollywood Studios later in this post.
Within Genie+, you can hold one Lightning Lane reservation at a time—with one (large) exception, covered next. That means if you have a reservation for Toy Story Mania 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. Particularly at Hollywood Studios, this means you’ll often have more than one Lightning Lane booked for the late afternoons, as you might make bookings at 7AM, 10AM, noon, and 2PM all for evening times.
(Note: Just to be 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 if you open Genie+ at 7AM for a 9AM park open, you might be able to book any ride for 9AM to 10AM. But when you check after using that reservation at, say, 9:30AM, you might see some rides available from 10AM to 11AM, some rides available from 12:05PM to 1:05PM, and maybe even a ride is 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.(Refreshing works much of the time, but it’s time consuming, and battery consuming, and not something you can completely count on.)
Genie+ During Special Events
Genie+ is only available during regular park hours at Hollywood Studios. It is not available for special events held before or after regular park hours, like Hollywood Studios After Hours. It also isn’t available during Early Theme Park Entry or 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 Hollywood Studios
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+ will be 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+.
Since Disney is rolling out new single-park options, we’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
We expect Hollywood Studios to remain on the higher end of pricing for the near future.
Is Genie+ at Hollywood Studios Worth It?
Genie+ is worth it almost all days at Hollywood Studios. Particularly, we think Genie+ will be worth it if you want to put together a “complete” day—including all rides and shows—at Hollywood Studios.
Without Genie+, you could probably get on all the rides most days—with multiple long waits. Or you could do a good mix of some rides and some shows. But to do everything is almost always going to require Genie+ (and possibly a paid individual Lightning Lane). Even if you’re willing to miss some shows, to do every ride is usually going to require Genie+.
If you have Early Entry (a perk of Disney resort guests), on the average day you’ll be able to avoid buying the Individual Lightning Lane, but we’d still recommend Genie+.
If you have access to something like Extended Evening Hours or After Hours at Hollywood Studios, or if you have two days at Hollywood studios, you won’t need to worry about Genie+ or individual Lightning Lanes (provided you plan those events accordingly).
If you’re planning to hop to another park—EPCOT is the best option, typically—you’ll want to consider getting Genie+ for Multiple Parks, particularly if it isn’t much more expensive than the Hollywood Studios only option.
Individual Lightning Lane Purchases
Now, in case you forgot, some rides at each park that are not a part of Genie+ and that require you to buy access to their Lightning Lanes Individually. At Hollywood Studios, the only individual Lightning Lane is Rise of the Resistance. That ride has a traditional standby queue (no virtual queue anymore) if you don’t buy Lightning Lane access. It’s also a part of Early Entry.
If you decide to purchase individual Lightning Lane access at Hollywood Studios, 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 Rise of the Resistance?
Unless you can rope drop Rise of the Resistance as part of Early Entry or you plan to ride it at the end of the day (thus possibly missing the park’s nighttime show), we think Rise of the Resistance is usually worth the cost of the individual Lightning Lane…but we have more to say.
I write this paragraph on a Saturday afternoon with Rise of the Resistance sitting at a 70 minute standby wait. That’s very reasonable for that ride, and while I wouldn’t be upset to have spent more than $15 per person on a Lightning Lane today, I would have been good without one.
Unfortunately you can only predict crowds so well in advance, and, more importantly, Rise of the Resistance individual Lightning Lanes often sell out quickly. This means roughly by park open you have to have made up your mind as to whether or not you buy the Lightning Lane. (Thrill Data tracks Individual Lightning Lane availability, if you want to look at recent days.)
All that said, we think that if you buy Genie+, you can have a good day even if you have to wait up to 90 minutes for Rise of the Resistance, and most days that will be an option. Generally, we think the full Genie+ portfolio is worth more than just Rise, so if the price of Rise is higher than that of Genie+ on a given day, we think Genie+ is the easy pick.
7AM Priorities at Hollywood Studios
With Rise of the Resistance no longer using a virtual queue, you now only have two things to worry about at 7AM when visiting Hollywood Studios:
Genie+ Booking (all guests with Genie+)
Rise of the Resistance Lightning Lane purchase (Disney resort guests only)
And that above list is also the priority we assign them, too. If you’re the only one in your party capable of making bookings at 7AM, or you’re solo, then you’ll need to pick the order in which you approach these items. If someone else in your party can help on their phone, then you can each tackle one.
While individual Lightning Lane times have been selling out, they usually aren’t selling out until close to the time the park opens. Within a few minutes of 7AM, resort guests should have little trouble booking a workable time most days. And, really, you can work with most any individual Lightning Lane time. (If you don’t get an individual Lightning Lane right at 7AM, keep refreshing until at least 7:15AM. Chances are good you’ll get one.)
By contrast, your first Genie+ Lightning Lane booking is more time-sensitive. You (more or less, keep reading) want to it be as early as possible, and those slots will book very quickly at 7AM. Missing out on an early slot for your first choice won’t ruin your day, but it will be something you have to work around.
Hollywood Studios Genie+ Priorities
This is a good time to remind you to check the height requirements at Disney World when booking Genie+, as Runaway Railway and Toy Story Mania are the only rides without a height requirement. While you’re at it, read about visiting Hollywood Studios with a toddler if it applies to you.
Hollywood Studios Genie+ Attractions
There are fourteen attractions on Genie+ at Hollywood Studios (alphabetical order):
Alien Swirling Saucers
Beauty & The Beast Live on Stage (show)
Disney Junior Play and Dance! (show)
Frozen Sing-Along (show)
Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular (show)
Meet Olaf at Celebrity Spotlight (character)
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Muppet*Vision 3D (show)
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Slinky Dog Dash
Star Tours
Toy Story Mania!
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
Low Priorities for Genie+ at Hollywood Studios
Right off the bat, this post isn’t going to focus on Lightning Lanes for the shows—Muppet*Vision 3D, Beauty & The Beast Live on Stage, Disney Jr. Dance Party, Frozen Sing-Along, Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular.
You can grab those if they make sense, but they basically just guarantee you entry to a particular showtime (Muppet*Vision runs continuously, though), and it won’t generally make sense to plan much around these Lightning Lanes. Same with the character greetings—not a focus here, and the sort of thing you can fit in whenever.
That leaves us with the eight rides. The lowest priorities are Alien Swirling Saucers and Star Tours. These won’t require much of your attention on Genie+. Might you use Genie+ to get on them? Sure! If the timing works out and you can use Genie+ to skip even a 15 minute wait, do it! But this will probably be later in the day after you’ve addressed higher priority rides.
Toy Story Mania is sort of in between low priority and medium priority. It’s almost never as low priority at Star Tours and Alien Swirling Saucers. On busy days it’s going to run out of slots alongside the medium priority rides, but most days it still hangs around a few hours after them. Since it has no height requirement, if you have a small child you might even bump it into the high priority group.
Best Rides to Genie+ At Hollywood Studios
That leaves five rides—Slinky Dog Dash, Smugglers Run, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Tower of Terror, and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster.
Slinky Dog Dash is the most in-demand Genie+ reservation at Hollywood Studios. If you can’t be at the park for rope drop, or if you have alternative rope drop plans (usually Rise of the Resistance), then you’ll probably want your first Genie+ pick to be Slinky Dog Dash. More on this in the next section, though.
The next four shuffle around a lot. Roughly speaking, Tower of Terror and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster tend to be more popular than Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.
Tower of Terror is a legendary ride and one you cannot miss. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is the most popular ride for small children in the park, so families with little ones might want to prioritize it.
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is arguably the best roller coaster in the park, but it also offers single rider. While it’s one of the slower single rider lines, this is still good reason to usually put it as a lower Genie+ priority than Runaway Railway and Tower of Terror.
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run has been easier to get Genie+ reservations for recently and has a reliably quick (in my experience) single rider line (before you go up the stairs for single rider, notice there are actually two sets of stairs—use the left / U-turn stairs).
That means I currently break down the eight attractions as follows:
High Priority – Slinky Dog Dash
Medium Priority – Tower of Terror, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Low Priority – Toy Story Mania, Alien Swirling Saucers, Star Tours
With the priorities in our mind, let’s move onto how this might play out when you visit the park.
Hollywood Studios Genie+ Planning
Now that we’ve covered the Hollywood Studios 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 Hollywood Studios?
Slinky Dog Dash is the obvious pick, but it comes with a caveat. If you have Early Theme Park Entry and don’t have to rope drop Rise of the Resistance (because you’re buying that individual Lightning Lane), then it might make sense to rope drop Slinky Dog Dash and book something else (usually Tower of Terror or Runaway Railway) with your first Genie+ pick.
The reasoning here is that Slinky Dog Dash times can run out so quickly you might get a late time slot even with perfect strategy. A later time slot means you’ll be making your second pick later, which is bad for your overall strategy. If you can get an early time slot for any of the top five rides and use that Lightning Lane right around the time the park opens, then you’ll be making your second pick earlier and have better options.
If you don’t have Early Entry, or if you have Early Entry but have to rope drop Rise of the Resistance (because you aren’t buying its Lightning Lane), then you’ll want to pick Slinky Dog Dash first.
What Genie+ reservation should I grab second, third, etc. at Hollywood Studios?
At Hollywood Studios your goal is generally going to be to book the rides in order of popularity. This is distinct from Magic Kingdom, where it can make sense to grab a few less popular rides in a row so you can ride them one after another, or Epcot where popularity is most important but geography still matters a lot.
There are three good approaches to your second Genie+ pick. First, Tower of Terror is a good second pick because it’s always relatively popular and becomes incredibly popular when it’s operating at reduced capacity. Second, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway has recently been quite popular and is one of two rides at the park without a height requirement.
Third, you can just look at the return times for Tower, Runaway Railway, Smugglers Run, and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and pick the one that’s latest, reasoning that it will run out first today. (Of course, you do have to have some sense here. If you open the app at 11AM and see 11:30 for Tower of Terror and 3PM for Smugglers Run, just grab Tower of Terror.)
The key thing to know is that if you’re making your second pick 2 hours after the park opens then you should decide in advance which to pick. Besides 7AM, the moment 2 hours after the park opens is the most intense moment for making a Genie+ pick because everyone who got later Genie+ times at 7AM will be making their second pick then. Pick a ride in advance and grab it as soon as the clock strike “2 hours after the park opened” in that case.
The other thing you might consider is that Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run has a single rider line. This means if you can’t fit it into your day easily, and if your group is willing to split up and ride separately, you can bypass the bulk of the wait that way even without Genie+.
The low priority rides are going to be your last resort. Now that Genie+ has a modify option, you can always grab a lower priority ride and then spend some time trying to modify to a higher priority ride.
Stacking At Hollywood Studios
For reasons covered above, Hollywood Studios is the park where you’re most likely to wind up with a “stack” of late Lightning Lanes. Stacking is the practice of holding multiple Lightning Lanes at the same time. Specifically, you’ll usually book the most popular ride first, but have a really late return time. You’ll wait two hours and book the second most popular ride next, again getting a late return time. And so on until your afternoon gets busier. Here’s an example of a day when I stacked at Hollywood Studios (only including relevant details):
6:45AM — Purchase Genie+ for the day
7AM — Book Slinky Dog Dash (9:10AM - 10:10AM)
9:30AM — Slinky Dog Dash
9:30AM — Book Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (4:55PM - 5:55PM)
11:33AM — Book Tower of Terror (4:25PM - 5:25PM)
1:30PM — Book Toy Story Mania (6:20PM - 7:20PM)
3:30PM — Book Star Tours (4:30PM - 5:30PM)
So as of 3:30PM I had four Lightning Lanes booked for the afternoon. This won’t necessarily be the stack you want—on this particular day I’d already ridden Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and I opted not to book Alien Swirling Saucers—but in any case when stacking you’re sort of at the whims of what’s available.
I had to refresh the Genie Tip Board for about 3 minutes to get that Tower of Terror time—the ride was actually showing no availability by the time I was able to book it. I was close to having to wait in line later for Tower of Terror. Would that have been the worst thing? No.
But I’d also point out that Smugglers Run has a single rider line. Because I wanted to stack, I booked that ride second, instead of Tower of Terror. That ran the risk I’d have to wait in the standby line for Tower (which doesn’t have a single rider line). Had I booked Tower second, I definitely wouldn’t have gotten a Smugglers Run Lightning Lane, but if my family was willing to split up, the single rider line is a good alternative to waiting in the regular standby line.
On this particular day, crowds were so heavy and I wound up stuck in line for a broken Rise of the Resistance all morning. That meant I didn’t have a chance for a short morning wait on either Smugglers Run or Tower. But if you can grab a short wait as part of good rope drop strategy, that’s always preferable to planning to stack. You simply don’t know how lucky you’ll be stacking.
Example Day Using Genie+ at Hollywood Studios
Here’s an example itinerary from a day I spent at Hollywood Studios using Genie+ (Lightning Lane activity in bold):
6:30AM Buy Genie+
7AM Grab Slinky LL (9:50-10:50)
8:29 Arrive
9AM Park Opens
9AM Buy Rise Individual LL (not a Disney resort guest today)
9:05 In Park
9:17 Tower of Terror (Posted 13, Actual 9)
9:46 Rock n Roller Coaster (Posted 15, Actual 22)
10:01 Slinky (LL 4 vs 60 standby)
10:01 Grab Alien Swirling Saucers LL (10:50-11:50)
10:17 Ronto Roasters snack
10:41 Star Tours (Posted 15, Actual 10)
11:03 Alien Swirling Saucers (LL 7 vs 35 standby)
11:03 Grab Smugglers Run LL (4:20-5:20)
11:15 MuppetVision 3D (walk on)
11:45 Mickey Shorts Film (walk on)
12:20 Rise (LL 19 vs 90 standby)
1PM Lunch at PizzeRizzo
1:05 Grab Toy Story Mania LL (1:20-2:20)
2:20 Toy Story Mania (LL 8 vs 50 standby)
2:20 Grab Beauty and the Beast LL (3:30-3:50)
2:41 Smugglers Run (6 Single Rider vs 45 standby)
2:50 Disney Jr Dance Party (walk on)
3:30 Shopping (but could have watched Lightning McQueen)
4PM Beauty and the Beast (LL)
4:17 Grab Tower of Terror LL (4:25-4:35)
4:36 Tower or Terror (LL 10 vs 30 standby)
5:09 Smugglers Run (LL 13 vs 45 standby)
5:30 Frozen Sing Along
6:43 Runaway Railway (posted 50 actual 41)
7PM Dinner at Commissary
7:30 Watch Beacon of Magic
7:45 Oga’s
8:43 Smugglers Run (posted 15, actual 9)
9PM Wonderful World of Animation
Two interesting things happened this day. First, I felt comfortable with where the return times for Smugglers Run were in the morning, which I why I grabbed that Alien Swirling Saucers early just to get it out of the way.
Second, I got very lucky at 4:17PM grabbing a 4:25PM return for Tower of Terror. You should never count on that happening, and of course I’d already ridden the ride as part of rope drop.
How To Spend One Full Day At Hollywood Studios
We have a full post dedicated to our one-day Hollywood Studios itinerary.
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