My Disney Experience, the official app for Walt Disney World, continues to become more critical each year. This free planning app is essential to planning a successful Walt Disney World vacation. Although we appreciate it all, it can help us throughout our vacation, navigating it can be challenging.
To help you prepare for your Walt Disney World vacation, we have the ultimate guide to My Disney Experience. This guide will help you learn the key features that will help make your Walt Disney World vacation magical.
Maps of the Walt Disney World Resort
The map feature is the first part of My Disney Experience that you will find helpful. It doesn’t matter where you are throughout Walt Disney World. You can find a map of the area.
Maps are found by choosing the location button on the main bar of the app. It will pull up your location in Walt Disney World or default to Magic Kingdom if you are at home checking it out.
We like seeing these from home as we figure out where everything is for our vacation, but navigating a Disney Park or a Disney Resort becomes beneficial.
The significant part about the map feature is you can choose from a variety of selections from a drop-down menu to choose what is highlighted on your map.
The default selection is wait times, but you can also choose options such as bathrooms (don’t laugh, this can be extremely helpful), entertainment, dining, and a few other options.
Take time before heading to Walt Disney World to look at some maps. Get familiar with the map layouts and your Walt Disney World Resort layout. This will help you find your way around easier when you arrive.
Wait times
A prominent feature you will want to use throughout your tip is the wait times. Disney currently provides wait times in the app giving Guests up-to-date estimated wait times. This is extremely helpful throughout your day in the Parks.
Knowing the wait times before you move around the Park, you can make more precise decisions. Like with the maps, wait times are found by choosing the location button. It will typically default to the Park you are in, but you can navigate between Parks.
You are also able to change from the map view to a list. This option is located in the upper right corner. This is a quick way to see which rides have the lowest wait times, as Disney puts them in order.
Don’t randomly walk around the Parks without first knowing the wait times. Use the app to help you create a plan.
Mobile Ordering
Throughout the Walt Disney World Parks and Resorts, Guests can use mobile order at quick service locations. This is a fantastic way to avoid long lines during mealtime.
Mobile ordering allows Guests to go into MDE, select a dining location of choice, such as Woody’s Lunch Box in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, choose an available time slot and then place their food order.
Once it is their selected time, Guests can choose “Prepare My Order” in the app, and their food will be ready shortly.
Mobile Ordering is found in multiple locations, which you can see within the app. The plus sign and the three lines on the app’s right give you access to the Mobile Order option.
The great thing about Mobile Ordering is that you can practice before arriving at Walt Disney World, allowing you to get the hang of it before you have a food meltdown in the middle of Magic Kingdom.
Disney Genie, Genie+, and Individual Lightning Lanes
Disney Genie is a free planning tool in the My Disney Experience app. Guests can set up their favorite interests and priorities before their visit. Then Disney Genie provides the best suggestions for Disney day.
Disney Genie allows Guests to provide information such as whether the group prefers thrill rides if they want to see princesses, height restrictions, and any disability access information you might have.
By putting this information into the system, Disney Genie will create a personalized itinerary in the “My Day” tab.
As part of Disney Genie, Guests can add Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lanes. These are paid features that are found within My Disney Experience. Genie+ currently starts at $15 per day per person and can see peak pricing of up to $30 per person per day.
By purchasing Genie+, Guests can use the Lightning Lanes for our 40 attractions throughout the four Disney Parks, giving them lower wait times. Keep in mind that Genie+ is the next available booking. Although you can modify your selections now, you can’t choose your return times.
Individual Lightning Lanes work similarly to Genie+ but are for specific rides. There are four rides currently not included with Genie+. Those rides are Avatar Flight of Passage, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Guests can purchase these rides al-a-carte and use the Lightning Lane for their ride experience. The big difference between these rides is that Guests can choose their return window.
You will find some main features within the My Disney Experience app. This guide will help you navigate this app more successfully during your next Walt Disney World vacation. There are a lot of features within the app that can be extremely helpful during a Disney trip. Take time to look the app over before arriving at Walt Disney World so you can successfully use My Disney Experience each day.
