Genie+ vs. Universal Express: Which Theme Park Upcharge Is Worth Its Price to “Plus” Your Trip?

If we told you two years ago that FastPass would be a thing of the past, you probably wouldn’t have believed us. But here we stand, at the precipice of the Year of the Genie. Disney’s new paid-for priority boarding system is the talk of the town, both for ways its serves as a return to the tried-and-true rules of the past and how it requires a PhD level dissertation to understand. It’s probably a good time to examine how Disney’s line-skipping system works today… and to compare it to its nearest neighbor, Universal’s Express Pass.

Today, we’re diving deep to dissect both Genie+ and Universal Express to see how these two systems approach priority boarding very, very differently. We’ll dig into the pros and cons of each, examine how each one works, and ask you for your input – do you prefer Genie+’s low-cost system dictated by rules, reservations, technology, and microtransactions, or Universal’s high-cost, all-in, VIP solution for guests willing to spend big to get stuff done?

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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The ’71 Club: Opening Year Landmarks of the “Vacation Kingdom of the World,” 50 Years Later

On October 1, 2021, the Walt Disney World Resort officially launched its “Most Magical Celebration on Earth,” commemorating 50 years since its 1971 opening. Plenty has been said about the 18-month celebration – including how the occasion has largely been marked by slashed guest perks & new upcharges, a focus on animation over attractions, and the company seemingly forgetting to celebrate Walt Disney World history during their celebration of Walt Disney World history

But for just a moment, put all that aside. Behind the glimmer of “Beacons of Magic;” the frustrations of Disney Genie+; the McDonald’s Happy Meal tie-ins, and the “EARidescent” sparkle that gilds it all, 2021 also serves as the 50th Anniversary of something a whole lot simpler: the “Vacation Kingdom of the World.”

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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FAR, FAR AWAY: 7 Concepts Cut From Disney’s STAR WARS Lands That Could Come to Be…

You can usually tell if you’ve stumbled on the home of a Disney animation fan just by what’s sitting on the coffee table. For years, Disney’s The Art Of… book series has beautifully opened the archives of Disney and Pixar animated films, revealing concept art, character development, scenic design, and more in stunning odes to the artists who make these worlds real.

This summer, Abrams Books, Disney, and Lucasfilm have finally done the same for a very different kind of work of art. Written by Nerdist’s Amy Ratcliffe with a foreword by Walt Disney Imagineering’s Portfolio Creative Executive Scott Trowbridge (who lead the design of the land), The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is a dream come true for fans of both themed entertainment design and Star Wars. The 250-page book features over 300 pieces of artwork, delving into the design (and redesign) of every attraction, show, snack, shop, and secret spot on Batuu… including some that never made it into the parks at all…

Image: Abrams Books

Today, we’ll take a look at 6 of our favorite concepts that were cut or cancelled from Disney’s Star Wars lands, but referenced in Ratcliffe’s new book. As in any The Art Of book, what didn’t come to be isn’t meant to be an indictment on designers or executives. Rather, it’s a reflection of the deep and wide process that’s used to conceive of these massive projects, and then to pare them down to the restrictions of reality, where operations, marketing, and finance teams have to make difficult edits.

So don’t imagine this list as one of grievances, but of processes and possibilities. Which do you think would’ve made Galaxy’s Edge better? Which are best left on the cutting room floor? What else did you see in The Art of Galaxy’s Edge that left you daydreaming?

Continue reading “FAR, FAR AWAY: 7 Concepts Cut From Disney’s STAR WARS Lands That Could Come to Be…”

“A Genie By Any Other Name” – The Nonsense Naming of Disney Genie+… And An Idea to Fix It

Shakespeare’s Juliet once mused, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet!” She was right, of course… But had Juliet been responsible for explaining how to grow one to a family from Brazil, she might wish she had concise, clear, and intuitive language to use.

That’s the reality faced by Cast Members responsible for helping guests at Disney Parks to understand why they’re several steps away from being able to access the sold-out Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance Individual Lightning Lane they’re blocking the entrance to.

Stand-by. Virtual Queue. Lightning Lane. Individual Ride Reservations. Boarding Groups… The language of waiting in line at a Disney Park in the 2020s is enough to leave even the most ardent theme park aficionados puzzled. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Let’s take a glance at the Disney Genie Glossary and propose a quick fix that would sure help clear things up…

Continue reading ““A Genie By Any Other Name” – The Nonsense Naming of Disney Genie+… And An Idea to Fix It”

Disney+ Parks: Thoughts on the Increasingly Interchangeable Identities and Diminishing Themes of the Disney Parks

theme [theem], n., a unifying idea; the deeper meaning; the thing that a story is about.

Once upon what feels like a very long time ago, each of Walt Disney World’s four theme parks was imbued with its own theme; a concise identity; a clear vision of what, exactly, it was about. Make no mistake, when Imagineers discuss “theme,” they don’t mean decoration, or props, or intellectual property; they mean an underlying, unifying idea; even a message. Theme with a capital-T, if you will.

Image: Disney, via D23.com

Consider the Theme underlying each of Disney’s parks at the time of its opening. Magic Kingdom was fantasy made real; EPCOT was reality made fantastic; The Disney-MGM Studios was about the romance and reality of Hollywood; Animal Kingdom, an embodiment of the supreme and untradeable value of nature. In the design and development of each park, each had an identity – one distinct from the others and wholly its own – that not only informed the attractions and environments within, but set a bar for, protected against, and served as stalwart gatekeeper to would-be interlopers.

It’s clear today that Walt Disney World’s four theme parks are four very different places built at four different times and with four different visions. (Few would stand in EPCOT believing they were in Animal Kingdom.) But beyond the decoration, are they really about four different things? Does each sum up to have something uniquely big – or for that matter, anything at all – to say? Or have Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars created an era of interchangeable “Disney+ Parks” differentiated only by their decoration?

Continue reading “Disney+ Parks: Thoughts on the Increasingly Interchangeable Identities and Diminishing Themes of the Disney Parks”

Rides of the Multiverse: A Glimpse Into Disney Parks Classics As They ALMOST Were…

It only takes two words to tear open the multiverse of Imagineering: “What if…?” After all, the archives of WDI are overflowing with concepts that almost came to be. Here at Park Lore, our Possibilityland collection is filled with in-depth stories detailing never-built, could-be classics from the Western River Expedition to the Enchanted Snow Palace; WESTCOT to Muppet Studios; Tomorrowland 2055 to Beastly Kingdom, and even full walkthroughs of alternate-reality versions of Walt Disney World parks…

But not every unbuilt idea is scrapped. Sometimes, concepts merely evolve. So as we glimpse through the veil into the multiverse of possibilities, imagine if these nine Disney “classics” had looked a whole lot different. How might each have changed the parks forever? We’ll leave you to decide…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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What If Disney World’s 50 Golden Statues Honored RIDES Instead of Movies? Here Are Our Picks…

If we’re being honest, it’s pretty understandable that Disney World’s “Golden Anniversary” is lacking some of shine fans had hoped for. Still mired in a tourism downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the timing just couldn’t have been much worse for the resort to launch a global marketing campaign around the 50th Anniversary. Stalled construction and pared-down budgets have left Disney World woefully short on the major projects once envisioned for 2021, leaving specialty food and souvenirs, two nighttime “same”-tacularsrising prices, and a lot of new upcharges to make headlines instead…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


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Ticket to Paradise: Disney Parks Prices from 1955 to 2024

Our world moves in cycles; predictable patterns of ebbs and flows, beginnings and endings, life and death… like the phases of the moon, some things can just be counted upon as tried, true, and sure. And so it is with annual price hikes at Disney’s two resorts in the United States. Truly a tale as old as time, you can bet your bottom dollar that come hell, highwater, war, recession, or pandemic, somehow and some way, the cost of a day at Disneyland or Walt Disney World will rise.

Continue reading “Ticket to Paradise: Disney Parks Prices from 1955 to 2024”

WHAT IF… Disney’s Legendary, Terrifying Alien Encounter Was Reborn in Universal Orlando’s Jurassic Park?

Every day, themed entertainment designers ask themselves and each other the same question: “What if?” In the so-called “Blue Sky” phase of design, there’s no limit; no capacity; no technology; no budget. The idea is to dream big and let reality hem in the project’s scope later. In this new Theme Park Tourist mini-series, we invite you to “Blue Sky” with us, and to reimagine a ride that could use a refresh. 

As part of Park Lore’s Member-exclusive Extra Features collection, we launched into a new “WHAT IF…” miniseries when we pitched a retheme of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, turning this Sunset Blvd. E-Ticket into a 1930s head trip into The Twilight Zone. Today, we’re wondering what it would be like if Disney’s ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter was reborn at Universal Orlando, and merged into the Jurassic World mythos… 

Think this hybridized concept is crazy enough to work? Here’s our pitch…

Continue reading “WHAT IF… Disney’s Legendary, Terrifying Alien Encounter Was Reborn in Universal Orlando’s Jurassic Park?”

The Multiverse Effect: How the Avengers Campus Method Could Reset the Rules of “Living Lands”

The multiverse has unfolded before us, and out has arisen AVENGERS CAMPUS – Imagineering’s newest entry in the ongoing “IP Wars” and the latest of Disney and Universal’s “Living Lands.” A training compound built to assemble and mobilize the next generation of heroes (that’s us), this superhero Silicon Valley wedged between California Adventure’s Cars Land and Hollywood Land is… well… surprisingly low-key. Some fans have been quick to note a relative lack of ambition in the land’s scale and attraction lineup, especially compared to Pandora or Galaxy’s Edge.

… But make no mistake: Avengers Campus is a revolution if only in the way it could rewrite the rules of “immersive” theme park attractions from here on out. For all the lore that underscores the Marvel Cinematic Universe it’s based on, Avengers Campus doesn’t care much about canon. It’s a storytelling playground; a sandbox in which Imagineers can at last let loose and have fun with the comic book heroes they acquired over a decade ago.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.



This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.


Log In or Join Now