Disney World – Planning – Lightning Lane
As we are preparing to leave for Disney World this weekend, last Sunday we continued our never boring and always worthwhile planning (see my previous posts if you are confused!) and booked our Lightning Lane for our entire trip and for our whole party! What is Lightning Lane? Lightning Lane is the timed entry to certain rides (it used to be called Genie Plus and before that there were Fast Passes) and is basically a paid skip-the line service. A lot of people dislike this pass system because it is more money on top of park tickets – but in truth it is a common concept in all of the big theme parks, not just Disney. It does add a layer of expense that can add up quickly depending on the size of your party and the number of days you are in the park. It’s not a requirement to purchase the passes – but I honestly don’t know how you would get to ride all the things you want. If the parks are busy – you could conceivably wait in line more than an hour for some of the “regular” rides and easily 90 minutes for the newest and most popular rides. Again, like with everything I talk about in these posts, it’s your choice. For us it’s the only way to go – my husband is worst than some kids when it comes to “line patience,” he might make it 45 minutes before he has a meltdown – and yes, he knows I said this.
So, you want to choose Lighting Lane for your trip, that’s great, now you have some other choices. Let’s walk through the different Lightning Lane passes, your choices and how they work in general. There are three levels of pass: Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, Lightning Lane Single Pass and Lightning Lane Premier Pass. Each is very different in use, cost and versatility.
First, the one that I would always recommend you book is the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. This pass is the best option to ride the rides you want and to fight the long lines. The Multi-Pass allows you to book your rides 7 days in advance of your actual trip (if you stay at a Disney World property) and 3 days if you are off property, based on the park you will start at and allow you typically to book one premium ride and 3 other rides in advance. Again, this is Disney planning that you have to think about. But it’s fun to sit together with your travel party and plan everyone’s favorite rides. You must buy the passes within your MyDisneyExperience app, and the price varies dramatically based on the day and the park that you are visiting (usually between $19 and $35 per guest per day). But with this pass, you can skip the “stand by” line and are able to ride each ride once per day per park.
In addition, if I switch from the Magic Kingdom to Epcot mid-day, I can continue to use Lightning Lane in Epcot after riding what I want in the Magic Kingdon. The other thing is that whatever you pre-book doesn’t limit you as your day goes on. Once you have ridden something that you booked or have met a certain time limit in the day (usually around 2 hours), you can continue to book other rides and in any of the parks. But unlike the Premier Pass below, you must book a time slot for your ride via your app. The time slots are in 1 hour increments which allows you some time to get from place to place. The app does give you some flexibility in changing times for your booked rides – but as the day progresses, those ride times get pushed out later in the day and sometimes disappear completely.
Next is the Lightning Lane Single Pass which is an additional cost for “special rides”. This is definitely the most controversial pass – because you are basically paying a fee above and beyond your park ticket to ride a single ride. There are a lot of newer attractions that this gets offered for. It works similarly to the Multi-Pass but is for a single attraction. We use it for things like Flight of Passage (Animal Kingdom), Tron Lightcycle/Run (Magic Kingdom), Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (Hollywood Studios) and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (EPCOT). With the single pass, you can ride multiple times…as long as you are willing to pay for each ride. The cost for this pass varies but as an example the Tron Lightcycle Run pass costs around $20. Again, that is per person per ride. And remember this is not a requirement – but as I write this the standby wait for that ride is 65 minutes.
And finally, the Lightning Lane Premier Pass as well. With the Premier Pass you can enjoy each attraction within the park that day and use the Lightning Lane line with no set arrival time. The cost of the Premier Pass is up there…usually anywhere between $179 and $419 per guest per day – per park!!! Yes, it only works in a single park on a single day. This is the ultimate, I must ride every ride pass since it works like the other two passes combined.
Yes, you can do all of the parks without any of these passes and a lot of people do. There are actually groups of people who “compete” in seeing who can do the most rides/parks in a day with and without these passes. I will pass (pun intended) on that – but I won’t pass on Lighting Lane for our visits.
