Walt Disney World’s recently-launched Lightning Lane Premier Pass has sold out for several dates during the peak holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. More interestingly, Multi-Pass has not. This post covers sold out dates and costs for Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom for dates between now and early 2025, plus commentary about both that and Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. It’s a feel-good Festivus Miracle!
For starters, we want to reiterate once again that Lightning Lane Premier Pass is not Walt Disney World’s core line-skipping product offering. Rather, Lightning Lane Premier Pass (LLPP) is a third tier of line-skipping in addition to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass (LLMP) and Lightning Lane Single Pass (LLSP). LLMP is pretty much paid FastPass+, but minus the marquee attraction in each park (or 2 in Magic Kingdom), which has line-skipping access sold a la carte via LLSP. That’s it in the simplest terms possible. For more, see our Guide to Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World.
About one month ago, Walt Disney World expanded eligibility for Lightning Lane Premier Pass to all on-site guests. This could explain the increased sell outs, but we doubt it. Guests of Deluxe Resorts are far and away the demographic most likely to purchase Lightning Lane Premier Pass. Although there are other use cases for downgrading accommodations to splurge on LLPP, those are likely outliers rather than core customers.
The much more realistic explanation is simply that Lightning Lane Premier Pass is selling out during the busiest week of the year because that’s when it’s most useful and there’s the largest pool of potential purchases (e.g. higher occupancy and attendance). This is precisely why Genie+ used to sell out on the dates when it was most expensive. It’s not that guests only want to pay more for line-skipping, it’s that they’re rational actors and the most expensive days are that way for a reason.
To this point, Lightning Lane Premier Pass is now sold out at Magic Kingdom for 6 of 7 days in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Christmas Day plus December 27-31, 2024 are all sold out–only December 26 remains available, and that could change at any moment as prospective purchasers switch up their plans to visit Magic Kingdom on the lone date during that chaotic week when Lightning Lane Premier Pass is available.
In terms of pricing, Lightning Lane Premier Pass is also at its peak price of $449 plus tax for all of those dates. The next date it’s available is January 1, 2025, on which date it drops to the bargain basement cost of $429 (still plus tax). Prices gradually decrease in the two weeks after that, with a low of $329 on January 6 and most winter days through January 13, 2025 costing $359 or $379.
Lightning Lane Premier Pass has also started selling out at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, with no availability from December 27 to 31, 2024. Similarly, LLPP is priced at its peak rate of $349 on all of those dates (and for the rest of this year). Prices likewise drop at DHS on January 1, 2025 to $339 (so not by much), but reach $269 by mid-January.
The final sell out is at EPCOT on New Year’s Eve, where Lightning Lane Premier Pass is priced at $249 on that date and through the remainder of 2024. There have been no sell outs (now or ever) at Animal Kingdom, which is the “cheapest” park for LLPP, with peak prices of “only” $199.
None of this is all that remarkable. This is pretty much when and where Lightning Lane Premier Pass should be selling out based on crowd expectations. (See our latest Walt Disney World crowd forecast, encompassing Christmas week through Winter 2025.) If anything, I’m slightly surprised that today, December 23, 2024, hasn’t sold out anywhere. The Monday before Christmas is usually a very busy day at Magic Kingdom and DHS.
Walt Disney World’s official website still emphasizes that they are piloting the rollout of Lightning Lane Premier Pass with “very limited quantities.” When the new tier of line-skipping first went live, our biggest question was: just how limited is very limited?
That’s a fair question to ask, and we’ve heard from plenty of fans who are worried that Lightning Lane Premier Pass will make the guest experience worse for everyone else. Everything we’ve seen thus far strongly suggests that the caps for LLPP are pretty low–and that’s a good thing for everyone else!
As mentioned previously, the target audience for LLPP is exceedingly limited–it’s my understanding that fewer than 1% of guests have been purchasing from the day after launch through present. Even as that changes between Christmas and New Year’s Eve with higher crowds and organic demand, but it’s still unlikely to eclipse 2% of all guests. The caps and demand for this are pretty low.
For our part, we’ve observed absolutely no impact whatsoever on Lightning Lane utilization as a result of Premier Pass. I’ve done extensive testing of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and standby lines this holiday season, including Veterans Day Weekend and Jersey Week. There were no issues even on busier days. In fact, quite the opposite.
My biggest observation is that Lightning Lanes are less busy than at the same point one year ago, and standby lines are moving much more efficiently. Obviously, this is not due to Lightning Lane Premier Pass–and probably also has nothing to do with the switch from Genie+ to Multi-Pass. But it’s what we found to be the case pretty consistently over the course of the last several months.
We explained this recently in Here’s Why Standby Lines and Lightning Lanes Are Moving Faster at Walt Disney World. The bottom line is that Lightning Lanes and standby lines are generally moving efficiently, or at least much more so than the last couple of years. (Disneyland is a different matter–we’re still observing plenty of problems and logjams there.)
So nothing to worry about with Lightning Lane Premier Pass, even on sold out days. It’s still a very, very small number of guests using it–and most would be buying Lightning Lane Multi-Pass or VIP Tours otherwise, so it’s not like they’re adding much new strain or demand on the system.
Speaking of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, this is a “no news is good news” scenario.
As we previously reported, Lightning Lane Multi-Pass returned to the all-time high Genie+ prices for the week of Christmas (reached last year during the same dates and again this Easter). That wasn’t the least bit surprising. What was surprising is that there weren’t price increases, bucking a trend from the last two years. Remember, from 2021 to 2023, peak prices shot up from $15 to $39 plus tax.
Given that, we had been bracing ourselves for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass breaking the $50 barrier. In fact, that’s precisely what we predicted last Christmas based on just how many dates and parks sold out. It seemed inevitable. And we fully expected it to continue selling out at $50!
Price increases on LLMP did not happen during the week leading up to Christmas 2024, and although this is belated “news” (since prices have been available for a bit), we also now know that they haven’t gone up for the busier week between Christmas and New Year’s. The old peak of $39 remains the high water mark, and that drops off a cliff in early 2025.
You could even conceivably argue that this is a price decrease in terms of value offered. Last year, the cost of the Park Hopping option was $39–the same as Magic Kingdom. This year, the Park Hopping option is included, meaning whichever park you visit first is the cost of Park Hopping. It could be $29 (a $10 theoretical drop!) if you start at Animal Kingdom. And starting at Animal Kingdom isn’t a bad idea, since it opens earliest.
I would also argue that the average on-site guest is going to do better with Lightning Lane Multi-Pass this year than they did last year on the same dates, thanks to a mix of the on-site advantage and improved LLMP inventory. That’s the bigger win for perceived value, especially since not everyone has Park Hopper tickets.
The other “news” is that Lightning Lane Multi-Pass has not sold out at any park for any dates between now and New Year’s Eve. Or ever, for that matter. Obviously, that could still change–but Genie+ had already sold out by this point in the lead-up to Christmas last year, and we’re assuming that many, if not most, guests have already bought and booked Lightning Lane Multi-Pass for December 25 and beyond.
To be sure, there’s limited or no availability for most headliners in the next few days. But there is still availability for worthwhile Tier 1 ride reservations. If you were taking a trip to Walt Disney World between Christmas and New Year’s Eve–the week when LLMP is most useful–you could still make strong selections. With a bit of effort refreshing, you could probably do much better than what I’m seeing just in glancing at the app.
This is interesting and somewhat surprising, and there’s probably not just one reason to explain it. As noted above, utilization of the physical Lightning Lanes is down, which provides more bandwidth for Multi-Pass (or Single Pass and Premier Pass!) sales before Disney feels the “need” to pull the parks and mark LLMP as unavailable. It could also be that crowds are down year-over-year, which wouldn’t be surprising given that last year was the busiest Christmas to NYE since 2019. My guess is that it’s a combination of these two factors, among a few other less-significant ones.
Regardless of the reasons, this is all good to see. That Walt Disney World didn’t raise prices of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass despite demand clearly indicating they had pricing power. That Lightning Lane Premier Pass has been a non-factor for the flow of lines and guest experience for everyone else. That the value offered by Lightning Lane Multi-Pass has improved with the inclusion of Park Hopping and upfront certainty (we can quibble about advance booking vs. same day and which is better on balance, but for the next 3 weeks, the certainty is unquestionably better). That there’s still ride reservation availability in the near future.
To be sure, these are mostly small victories and not the type of “big” positive news you might like to hear. But we’ll take the wins where we can get them, and this type of thing is critically important in aggregate. That’s especially the case when Genie+ buckling or breaking under the weight of peak season crowds was a huge (negative) news story at this time for each of the last 3 years. For the opposite, essentially, to be true with Lightning Lane Multi-Pass (etc.) this year is more than just a small victory for the guest experience, in my view.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about Lightning Lane Premier Pass? Surprised that it’s selling out between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, or did you expect that? What about the lack of sold out dates and parks for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass? Thoughts on LLMP availability or the lack of a price increase? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or concerns? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
