Disney Executive Reveals HOW Genie Controls What You Do

Love it or hate it, Genie+ has replaced the FastPass+ system in Disney World and Disneyland.

We’ve gone over the good and the bad of Genie, and we’ve kept you up to date on all of its changes (some of which have been good, others which have been very confusing). But now we’ve gotten some insight into just how Disney is using Genie+ to control guest activity in the park and we just had to share the details with you.

In case you’re unfamiliar with it, Genie+ is the paid system that replaced FastPass+ (as we mentioned above). It is available for an additional fee at both Disneyland and Disney World.

Those who pay the fee get to select a return time for a ride they want to go on. Once their selected return time arrives, they can go on the ride without having to wait in the regular standby line. Guests can continue to make 1 Genie+ selection at a time throughout the day.

Click here for our ULTIMATE guide to Genie+

In addition to the paid Genie+ service, there is also a FREE Genie service which is meant to act like a guest’s personal assistant.

The free service can show guests the ride wait times, anticipated future wait times, and recommendations for what rides to go on. It can also create a flexible itinerary for guests to follow throughout the day.

Disney executives have often discussed Park Pass reservations and how much control the Park Pass system has helped them have over park attendance, but you may not realize just how much Disney is actually using Genie+ to control guest flow and activity as well.

According to the Wall Street Journal, each Disney park has an operation center with a “heat map.” That map tracks where Genie+ users are located in the park (by using GPS technology). Considering that (as of the latest updates) close to 50% of park guests are purchasing Genie+, that’s a lot of data they’ve got to work with.

Upon looking at the “heat map,” those handling park operations can “direct traffic using the app by notifying visitors where the shortest lines are and offering food and merchandise promotions to cajole them to other areas.”

Josh D’Amaro, the Chairman of the Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products Division shared, “If I’m seeing too much activity on the west side, I’m able to spread where I direct people to the east side…Our attractions will be load-balanced better, and lines will be shorter, and what that means is the experience will be better.”

In other words, Disney is utilizing Genie to spread guest flow better throughout the parks, alerting guests to shorter lines or restaurants in areas of the park that might be less crowded in an attempt to spread the crowds out a bit better. As the Wall Street Journal puts it, Genie can help “the parks’ operators direct traffic and spread people around the parks more evenly, to reduce waiting times overall, and upsell visitors by offering them promotions on food, merchandise and ride-reservation fees.”

So if you’ve ever been standing near a busy Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and gotten a Genie suggestion to head over to Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room to get on an attraction with a lower wait, you’ve seen this all in action.

We’ve tested Genie in MANY ways, including testing out just the free system’s recommendations. There are some things that some may really like and enjoy about the system, but there are some parts of the system that might not always work well or give you the recommendations you’d need to really make the most of your day.

In other words, take all of the Genie recommendations, particularly those from the Free Genie service, with a grain of salt. You’ll want to make sure you’re checking wait times on your own to see if there aren’t better options with short wait times in the parks.

To see how to get the MOST out of the free version of Disney Genie, click here.

To learn more about how many rides Disney claims you can expect to ride per day (and why they’re WRONG) click here. To read about the Genie+ app in general, click here, and to check out some Genie tips you’ve probably NEVER heard, click here.

We’ll continue to keep an eye out for more news about Genie+ and we’ll let you know what we find.

Are you a fan of Genie+? Tell us in the comments!