Do You Need to Stay at a Disney World Hotel for the BEST Pay-Per-Ride Choices?

Today has already been pretty overwhelming as we welcome the arrival of the new Disney Genie system in Disney World!

©Disney

There’s the free Genie tip board in the My Disney Experience app, with suggestions for helping you plan out your day. If you want to really maximize your schedule, you can purchase the Disney Genie+ add-on to skip the standby lines for attractions and use the new Lightning Lanes. But if you want to use Lightning Lanes on some of Disney World’s most popular rides, you’ll need to purchase access individually — and Disney Resort guests get an advantage!

The following 8 rides (2 in each park) are on the list of pay-per-ride Individual Attraction Selections. For these, you can use the standby line (or the virtual queue for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure) OR you can pay the individual price to use the Lightning Lane. They are NOT included with your purchase of Disney Genie+:

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Magic Kingdom
Space Mountain in Magic Kingdom
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in EPCOT
Frozen Ever After in EPCOT
Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway in Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Rise of the Resistance in Disney’s Hollywood Studios
Expedition Everest in Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Flight of Passage in Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure

So how do you book these rides? Disney Resort guests can make their Individual Attraction Selection purchases at 7AM on the day of their visit, but other guests must wait until park opening time to book them. This gives resort guests a 1-4 hour advantage for booking. But do you need that advantage?

Lightning Lane sign at Frozen Ever After

Since it’s the launch day, quite a few guests are in the parks checking out the new system. However, even with this influx of people, we’re finding that the Individual Attraction Selections aren’t “selling out” until a little later in the morning. So far, only Rise of the Resistance Lightning Lane reservations are gone for the day, and that didn’t happen until about an hour after the park opened.

©Disney

At the time of publishing, Individual Lightning Lane options were still available for all 7 of the other rides, including the brand-new Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Some of them even still have windows open within the next 5, 10, or 30 minutes — you could ride right away!

©Disney

It’s also important to note that Disney Resort guests get Early Theme Park Entry, which allows you to enter any theme park 30 minutes before it opens to regular guests on any day of the week. If you arrive early enough to make use of this perk, you could save some cash by using that time to rope drop the Individual Attraction Selection rides (if they’re open) and avoid paying to use their Lightning Lanes later. This works especially well at Magic Kingdom, where Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Space Mountain are both available during Early Theme Park Entry.

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Basically, from what we’ve seen today, staying onsite will definitely allow you a little peace of mind in your planning (although it may crowd up your morning, there are quite a few things that drop at 7AM!). It may be more helpful to be a Resort guest on a particularly crowded day in the park — it is a Tuesday in October, after all — but it’s not necessarily a NECESSITY to be able to get the Individual Lightning Lane choices you want.

You could hop in line first thing in the morning!

Keep in mind, however, that it’s still the first day of this system and things are bound to change in the coming months, especially as the parks grow busier during the holidays. We’ll keep sharing updates throughout the season, so stay tuned to DFB!