Oh, Disney, what would my life be without you? A company that was started by a man and a mouse has changed so many lives (and vacations) for the better! As you may have seen from previous posts, work brought me to Southern California for a couple of weeks, and rather fly home for the weekend only to return to LAX on Monday, I decided to stay through the weekend with Aaron meeting me out there. When we saw my travel schedule for these two weeks we knew it was the perfect opportunity to finally visit Disney on the opposite coast than we were used to. We had been wanting to experience Walt Disney’s original park for a long time, but Disney World in Orlando, FL always won out.
As some of you may know, Disney recently changed their FastPass system at both parks in the United States and changed over to a new system called Genie+. While FastPasses used to be free, Genie+ is now $20/day per person. This is an additional cost on top of your park admission ticket. We truly went back and forth about our decision to add on this new system. There are so many differences and seemed to be of lower value than the free system, but I’ll explain that in a little bit. We ultimately decided to give in and purchased knowing it may help us experience more of the parks in the two days we had tickets for. This post is my own review and opinion, and I have received nothing in return from Disney or any other entity for the thoughts in the post.
Okay, now that we’ve have that out of the way, let’s dive-in!
Rope Drop
I will always recommend Rope Drop when visiting any amusement park, but especially at Disney. Aaron and I spent a couple of hours before our trip researching the best way to rope drop at Disneyland. The first step to any successful rope drop is picking the ride you want to get to first, and then mapping out the most efficient path to get there. In our case, we chose the most popular ride at Disneyland — The Rise of the Resistance. This is an 18 minute Star Wars experience and trackless dark ride. We arrived at the gates of Disneyland around 6:15AM and stood in the cold for what seemed like forever, but it payed off because we ended up at the FRONT of the rope drop with a great view of Sleeping Beauty’s castle.
We did not purchase the Individual Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance, but instead planned on getting our one ride on it before the rest of the crowds arrived. We were successful and only waited around 20 minutes to get on the ride once we were there. The best rope drop path is through Frontierland as you wind around into Galaxy’s Edge. Be prepared to speed walk, but please don’t run and respect others around you!
After a successful rope drop we were able too hit up other popular rides before the park hit peak crowds, such as Millennium Falcon and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. While the rides in Galaxy’s Edge are identical to what you would find at Walt Disney World in Florida, many of the other duplicate rides have distinct differences between the two coasts. We enjoyed comparing the differences and determining which was are favorite between the comparisons.
Using Genie+
Around 11AM we made the decision to book our first Lightning Lane. Keep in mind that you can boom your first as early as 7AM, but you must be scanned into the park. Since this new system only allows you one Lightning Lane per ride, per day we decided to hold off until the crowds got a little heavier. We booked the first one for Indiana Jones and were quite surprised to still have a bit of a wait before boarding the ride. At this point I was really curious to see if this would be a common theme throughout our two days using this system.
Once you use your existing Lightning Lane, you can then book a new one. At this point, we were unable to get another until close to 2PM so we figured this was a great time to break for lunch. We placed a mobile order at Galactic Grill on the other side of the park. On the way over we stopped by a PhotoPass photographer to have some pictures taken in front of the castle while we waited for our pick-up time. One benefit go Genie+ in Disneyland is that it includes PhotoPass. Anytime you see a photo spot and a photographer you can have you app scanned and download the pictures for later. Please note that this is only included at Disneyland, but is a separate cost at Disney World.
We ate a quick lunch at Galactic Grill before continuing our use of Lightning Lanes and waiting Stand-by for the rides that were not included in Genie+. We were able to complete every ride and attraction on our list of must-do’s despite the park being sold out that day. Personally, I don’t think we would have been able to do that without the use of the Lightning Lane system. I will be writing up a full How-To and Pros/Cons post about the use of Genie+ at Disneyland.
I’m still unhappy about the loss of the old FastPass system, but this wasn’t;t terrible. The cost of it does add up quick for a family, especially when you factor in all the other costs of visiting a Disney park, so you definitely have to determine if it would be worth it to you,
We had a busy day, walked close to 10 miles, and were able to catch some fireworks on our way out of the park. I am so thrilled I got Disneyland checked off my bucket list, and I can’t wait to share our experience at Disney California Adventure with you tomorrow!
Question of the Day?
What do you think of the new Genie+?
Traveling by Nature 