Hey there, Matt! Thanks for swinging by planDisney with your questions. These are great questions and you’re smart to be planning ahead so you can understand the phenomenal cosmic power
Disney Genie+ can enable you with.
You are correct that you can make your first selection once you have entered through the turnstiles. You are also correct about making your second selection either 120 minutes after your first one, or after you have redeemed the first selection – whichever comes first. And, you can be holding more than one
Lightning Lane selection at a time.
There are 19 attractions with Lightning Lanes across the two parks, plus three attractions with Individual Lightning Lanes for a la carte purchase.
Here’s an example of the "magic carpet strategy" my family uses!
~ We entered the park at 8:30 a.m. and right away we booked a Lightning Lane for one of the attractions that tends to fill up faster (Space Mountain.) We got a return time of 11:00 a.m.. (Other Lightning Lane attractions at Disneyland Park that fill up more quickly are Indiana Jones™ Adventure, Splash Mountain and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.)
~ Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has
Individual Lightning Lanes for purchase. This attraction can fill up quickly (I have seen it sell out by noon.) Shortly after booking Space Mountain, we purchased the Individual Lightning Lane for 1:00 p.m.. So, at this point we were holding a Lightning Lane for Space Mountain and Individual Lightning Lane for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
~ We used the standby queue for Jungle Cruise and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad; those queues were less than 30 minutes that time of morning.
~ At 10:30 a.m., even though we had not redeemed our Space Mountain Lightning Lane yet, we booked an Indiana Jones™ Adventure Lightning Lane for 12:00 p.m., because it had been 120 minutes since we last booked a Lightning Lane. So, as this point were holding two Lightning Lane reservations and one Individual Lightning Lane reservation.
~ At 11:00 a.m. we used our Space Mountain Lightning Lane. We could not yet book another Lightning Lane since we had booked Indiana Jones™ Adventure at 10:30 a.m., so we would need to wait until we redeemed that or 12:30 p.m., whichever came first.
~ By late morning we started looking at Lightning Lanes at Disney California Adventure, as we knew we could park hop after 1:00 p.m.. Genie is smart enough to know you can’t hop until then, so it will show you valid Lightning Lane return times factoring that in.
Also, keep in mind the following:
~ You can only use one Lightning Lane per attraction per day, but you can still use the standby queue if you want to experience it again.
~ Though there are three attractions with Individual Lightning Lanes, you can only purchase two Individual Lightning Lanes in a day.
~ You can reserve a Lightning Lane for Disney California Park while physically in Disneyland Park and vice versa.
I hope this helps you with your planning, Matt. We are typically reserving Lightning Lanes well into the evening, and the maximum we have used in a day is 12, although I know others who have been able to use even more! It’s 100 percent worth every dime for our family to add Genie+ to our day.
Extra tip - Genie+ comes with complimentary access to
Disney PhotoPass, so stop and take those pictures and enjoy downloads of the attraction photos too!
Enjoy your magic carpet ride!
Kamini