Disney's Controversial Pirates of the Caribbean Change Implemented, Effective Immediately

Yo ho yo ho, a Disney Genie+ life for me!

If you are a Disneyland Resort guest, or you plan on vacationing in the happiest place on earth soon, listen up because charges are around the corner, matey.

If you have been to Walt Disney World Resort or Disneyland Resort in the past, then you likely know about the evolution that the FastPass has had over the years. Once upon a time, Disney attractions used to have machines where guests would run to each morning, put in all of their tickets for the day, and in return, get back that ticket and the same amount of FastPasses with a return time printed on that FastPass.

When your time was called, you could enter the ride through a secondary line with far fewer people in it, and this was free!

Then, FastPass+ was developed, which was similar, except now you could control everything from your phone on the Disneyland app or My Disney Experience. After the pandemic shut down the parks, Disney found new financial sources of revenue, with one of those being the creation of Disney Genie+ and Lightning Lane. Now, guests would have to pay per person to book the new Lightning Lane option, and for some rides, such as EPCOT’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, if you wanted to skip the line, you had to buy an individual Lightning Lane, meaning you might spend around $20 per person to skip the line and bypass the virtual queue. 

While the Walt Disney World parks (EPCOT, Magic Kingdom, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney’s Animal Kingdom) were constructed in a way that these secondary lines could fit, at Disneyland, things are a lot tighter, making it hard to implement a Lightning Lane queue on some attractions, like Pirates of the Caribbean.

That being said, as of today, Pirates will be available on Disney Genie+ for the first time ever, so get ready to skip that line and go see Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) steal all the treasure. 

At the moment, Disneyland is undergoing a lot of change, which has forced Disney to make Pirates of the Caribbean an option for guests who are paying for Genie+. Splash Mountain has been shut down for months, with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure undergoing preparation in Critter Country.

In New Orleans Square, Haunted Mansion is shutting down for an extended period of time as well, due to the new queue remodel. With two massive rides that would have typically been a Disney Genie+ selection entirely removed, Disney had to find a replacement and a way to entice guests to visit that side of the park, so that areas like Fantasyland were not getting overrun.

Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the original attractions Walt Disney himself worked on, and while the movie franchise has brought in millions to the house of Mouse, the attraction often boasts very long lines, proving to be one of the more popular attractions in the park.

Knowing this, if you are planning on visiting soon without using the Lightning Lane for the ride, be aware that now that another line will have boarding priority, the regular queue will suffer in its case. This is why the addition of Pirates of the Caribbean has not been the favored decision among locals, who do not purchase Genie+ on every visit, leaving it to be quite the controversial choice for Disneyland, who relies on local feedback and happiness. 

Below is a full list of all of the Disneyland attractions available for Lightning Lane: 

Disney Genie+ Lightning Lane Entrance
Attractions include:

• Autopia
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters
• Haunted Mansion
• Indiana Jones Adventure
• “it’s a small world”Matterhorn Bobsleds
• Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
• Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin
• Space Mountain
• Star Tours – The Adventures Continue

As you can see, attractions like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, Peter Pan’s Flight, and many of the other dark rides in Fantasyland do not have a Lighting Lane option, whereas attractions like that in Walt Disney World do, which is all due to the sizing issue that we stated originally.

Have you ever used Disney Genie+ before? Do you think adding Pirates of the Caribbean as an option is a good move?