Walt Disney World has rolled out the new Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, killing off the Genie+ service. This post answers a lot of frequently asked reader questions about the new pre-arrival ride reservation system based on our firsthand experiences in using the new app feature pretty much non-stop since 7 am.
There are a lot of questions about the whole Lightning Lane Multi Pass system, and we’ve already answered many of them in our Guide to Lightning Lane Multi Pass & Single Pass at Walt Disney World. This whole system is confusing and convoluted, especially for those who never used FastPass+. This post is best viewed as a supplement to that guide and FAQ.
In fact, that’s how it started. I was updating that FAQ based on questions we’ve received today when I realized I had already written 2,000 words and was adding them to a 5,000 word post. That didn’t seem like the best approach, especially for readers who already combed through that guide. It seemed like a waste of time (for you) and that this would be the better option for clarity, avoiding confusion, etc. So here this is as a separate standalone post with questions and answers that’ll be rolled into that. If you have more questions that this doesn’t answer, please post them in the comments!
Is refreshing and rebooking ride reservations possible with Lightning Lane Multi-Pass like it was with FastPass+ or Genie+?
Yes, and it’s easy thanks to the modify button. As before, you can play the ‘refresh game’ and get better or more convenient return times, and also search for availability at other attractions without losing your existing Lightning lane ride reservation.
You do not have to cancel and rebook. Between the modify button and the 5-minute cart, you can bounce between the “Modify Plan” button and the “Close” button to refresh and check for new times pretty easily without losing your existing selection–or committing to an inferior one.
Is more availability added to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass throughout the day?
Yes. This is no surprise whatsoever, as both FastPass+ and Genie+ had ride reservation refills, drops, or whatever you want to call them that occurred at consistent times. (See Ride Reservation Refill Rules at Walt Disney World.)
It’s still early, so it’s impossible to know the cadence of these under Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at this point, but I’ve already seen ride reservation refills for several attractions under LLMP. And I know they were refills and not cancellations, as a ton of times popped up–they had all of the hallmarks of a refill.
With the modify button, searching for ride reservation refills is easy. Combined, the two strategies can be leveraged to score several more Lightning Lane selections per day. Just be warned: it becomes addictive–just like a video game. Also like a game, it can mean losing a ton of ‘real world’ time as your face is glued to a screen.
Which Lightning Lane selections are the “best” ones from each tier?
We rank the best Lightning Lane Multi-Pass picks for each park based upon time saved and how quickly return times fill up and run out. This is incredibly helpful for choosing the order to book your ride reservations:
One word of warning: those are very, ahem, “optimistic” about how many Lightning Lanes you’ll be able to book per day versus the on-the-ground reality we’re seeing on day one of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. But it’s still very early and a lot could–and will–change.
Does Park Hopping cost extra?
With Lightning Lane Multi Pass, there is no additional charge for Park Hopping, and you do not need to pay for the Lightning Lane Multi-Pass a second time. There’s a lot of confusion about this due to inaccurate reporting and assumptions based on Disney’s history of nickel and diming, but they’re inaccurate.
However, you must use your first Lightning Lane before making subsequent selections in different parks. The reason for this is that upfront pricing does differ. Meaning without this ‘tap in’ requirement for the first Lightning Lane, I could purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass for Animal Kingdom at $16, make my selections there at 7:00 am, and then modify them all to Magic Kingdom at 7:01 am. It would be a loophole to save $9 per person, without much cost since availability is still pretty good at 7 am.
But you can’t do that. If you try to modify Lightning Lane Multi Pass selections from one park to another before using any of them, you will have to pay the difference. Thus closing that loophole. However, if you use your Lightning Lane first (let’s say for Na’vi River Journey at 8:30 am), then you can start making Magic Kingdom Lightning Lanes at that point without paying anything extra. Availability won’t be as good and you probably won’t get Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, but that’s the tradeoff!
Should I book the default return times that Lightning Lane Multi-Pass spits back after selecting my rides?
Oddly and surprisingly: yes. Yes, you should most of the time.
The Lightning Lane Multi-Pass system is “smart” and will book the first available return time for each attraction, with a sufficient buffer between them so that you’re not double-booked. This is the ‘best practice’ because you typically should be making as early of arrival times as possible (for at least one attraction) in order to “unlock” that 4th ride faster.
In fact, you should consider changing your Group B selections in order to prioritize for a mixture of return time and ride priority. Don’t book Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, if both have return times in the afternoon. Opt for the next highest priority with an early return to unlock that 4th pick.
What’s the best order of parks for making advance Lightning Lane Multi-Pass reservations?
From what we’re seeing in terms of availability (or lack thereof), you should book parks in the following priority:
- Magic Kingdom (Tiana’s Bayou Adventure)
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios (Slinky Dog Dash)
- EPCOT (Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure)
- Animal Kingdom (Na’vi River Journey, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Kali River Rapids or Expedition Everest)
For the best attraction and return time options, you’ll want to backload your bookings with Magic Kingdom furthest out, then DHS, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom. This matters less if you have a longer trip and more for a shorter one.
For example, if I were visiting the parks August 12-15, I’d book in the following order:
- Magic Kingdom: August 15
- DHS: August 14
- EPCOT: August 13
- DAK: August 12
This will probably change once Tiana’s Bayou Adventure becomes more reliable. Its capacity will improve and thus so too will its Lightning Lane availability. I’d hope that this will occur in the next month or so, but failing that, TBA’s popularity should drop slightly once winter arrives.
In the long term, I have a hard time seeing Slinky Dog Dash dethroned from its #1 spot. On the other hand, Magic Kingdom is going to have rotating refurbishments/reimaginings from Group A through 2025 and DHS does have a strong lineup in top tier. Not only that, but Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean were the fastest-booking Group B options of anything from any park. (Somewhat surprisingly.)
Are any attractions booking up beyond the 3-day window?
Yes. I only have access through July 31, but here are attractions with no Lightning Lane availability during the on-site booking window:
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (no time slots or dates available)
- Haunted Mansion (no morning time slots)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (no morning time slots)
- Jungle Cruise (limited morning time slots)
- Slinky Dog Dash (some dates unavailable; limited time slots on available dates)
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (limited morning time slots)
- Frozen Ever After (limited morning time slots)
- Tower of Terror (limited morning time slots)
- Toy Story Mania (limited morning time slots)
Frankly, I wouldn’t put much stock in any of this outside of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Slinky Dog Dash, and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Those will remain difficult to book at or inside the 3-day window. Everything else is probably going to change as inventory is adjusted.
Is it possible to see available attractions and return times before buying?
Yes. In fact, this is the only way to do it.
You select your first three attractions and return times with Lightning Lane Multi Pass before you pay–that’s the last step of the process. Once you make your selections, you’ll have a set amount of time during which your ‘cart’ is reserved in order to complete the transaction.
Why is availability so limited?
Almost every Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and Single Pass filled up faster today than yesterday despite comparable crowds. That second part is particularly relevant because nothing changed about Single Pass aside from the name. With regard to Multi-Pass, pretty much the only rides that didn’t fill up hours faster than normal are those that normally book quickly.
Magic Kingdom was especially bad, with Group B attractions that don’t normally run out of availability until the evening (e.g. Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Tomorrowland Speedway–really, the speedway?!) being gone by early afternoon.
Part of it is probably that there are a lot of vloggers, bloggers, influencers, and Floridians who need to be “first” all in the parks and “clogging up” the Lightning Lanes. However, that’s only a minor contributing factor. My people are loud and obnoxious, making us seem higher in number than we are in actuality.
The more likely explanation is that it’s the first day of a new product offering. Walt Disney World has done a lot to lay the groundwork for improved Lightning Lane availability, but the reality remains that they’re going from 1 ride reservation prior to arrival to 3–tripling demand right out of the gate.
Given this, it’s likely that Walt Disney World is throttling Lightning Lane availability because it’s brand new and they themselves aren’t sure of what to expect. I’d imagine they’ll slowly open the valve, so to speak, after a few days and deeper into August. We should start seeing more upfront availability and ride reservation refills as the months go on. Of course, crowds are also going to be worse for much of October through December, so there’s that, too.
The bottom line is that I’d caution anyone against extrapolating trends based on the first day or week. As we saw firsthand with Genie, things changed frequently and repeatedly in the first 18 months after launch. Lightning Lane Multi-Pass already appears more stable (it’s certainly not as half-baked), but it’ll still evolve over time.
How much time are your choices locked in?
You have 5 minutes from the time you place Lightning Lanes in your “cart” to complete checkout.
This can mean there’s still a shifting of times right at the 7:00:00 am mad dash, but once you make the selections, they’re locked into place. (Error messages will occur before that, if at all.) This is a massive improvement from Genie+ when times were ‘blind’ for the first 30 minutes due to the massive shifting possible.
This also means you probably want to keep playing the ‘refresh game’ until around 7:30 am when booking your Lightning Lanes via Multi-Pass, as carts will expire and other guests will keep swapping around Lightning Lanes and “trading up” times as availability allows.
Do tiers apply same-day?
If you’re just booking ‘cold’ or for the first time, the Grouping A and B distinctions do apply with your first same-day Lightning Lane Multi-Pass selections.
Once you’ve entered a park and tapped into your first Lightning Lane, tiers no longer apply for subsequent selections.
What about tiers to modifications?
In our experience, tiers do not apply to modifications so long as you’ve already redeemed a Lightning Lane. Meaning that you could redeem a Lightning Lane for Pirates of the Caribbean at 9:05 am, and then modify pre-booked Lightning Lane from Haunted Mansion to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while still also holding a Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Lightning Lane.
The question I cannot answer is whether you could tap into the park and then modify all of these Lightning Lanes to Group A selections before tapping into any of them.
Can Lightning Lane ride reservations overlap with one another?
Not completely. In the screenshot above, you can see that we have a Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Lightning Lane for 11:45 am to 12:45 pm and Haunted Mansion from 12:35 to 1:35 pm–an overlap of 10 minutes.
In doing a variety of testing, we were able to book partially overlapping Lightning Lanes by as much as 25 minutes. In other cases, we couldn’t do more than 20 minutes. It’s difficult to tell whether this was due to availability or a rule setting the buffer.
By default, it seems like there isn’t overlapping. It also appears that if you modify to create an overlap, the system will attempt to shift your other existing selections to reduce or eliminate the overlap. But you can still modify to create greater overlaps–at least, in some scenarios, and at certain attractions.
This is unlike the Genie+ system, which was “dumb” and thus didn’t check for conflicts with existing reservations. It is similar to the FastPass+ system, which prevented overlap. (To the best of my recollection, no overlap whatsoever was allowed.)
Can Lightning Lane ride reservations overlap with Advance Dining Reservations?
Again, not completely. Meaning that if you have an Advance Dining Reservation (ADR) at Cinderella’s Royal Table starting at 2:05 pm, you cannot have a Lightning Lane also starting at 2:05 pm. This is also unlike Genie+.
Weirdly, it does seem that you can have a Lightning Lane starting at 1:55 pm even if you have an ADR at 2:05 pm. It’s unclear how much buffer is necessary or if this is a glitch and will change–but it’s what we’re seeing so far.
Were Lightning Lanes removed from meet & greets and entertainment?
Yes. Walt Disney World made clear that this was happening in advance, but then oddly used the old attractions list from Genie+ in My Disney Experience, giving some hope that maybe characters were back.
As to the “why” of this and whether it could change…we’ll have a longer post in the coming days. But for now until probably at least early 2025, character meet & greets no longer offer Lightning Lanes, nor do parades and other entertainment.
What is the booking window for Annual Passholders who are staying on-site?
When it comes to the booking windows, staying on-site always takes precedence. Meaning that it doesn’t matter what your ticket type is if you have an on-site resort reservation that entitles you to the 7-day booking window takes priority. Or at least, it should.
There’s always the possibility of issues when it comes to Disney IT and systems determining which “status” to prioritize, but the official policy is that staying on-site supersedes ticket type. This means that all guests with their MDX profiles linked to an on-site resort reservation should be able to purchase and make Lightning Lane reservations pursuant to the 7-day on-site advantage booking window, for their entire stay (up to 14 days).
What about split stays?
Officially, resort split stays that are continuous (back-to-back bookings with no gaps between hotels) may purchase and book Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass selections for the entire length of their visit up to a maximum of 14 days. This should work, in theory, regardless of how many reservations you have. I could do single night stays for two weeks, and it should still work. (I wouldn’t want to, but I should be able to do so.)
In practice, we’re hearing this is more hit or miss and can require an override from Disney IT. That’s not completely surprising, as FastPass+ had similar issues from time to time. We don’t have any firsthand experience with this and LLMP yet, but it’s something to be aware of if you’re doing a split stay.
Does advance booking of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass work for international guests?
I have received 3 firsthand reports of guests in Canada having success booking/buying Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and Single Pass. I’ve seen several more indirect reports of this working. I’ve also received one report from a Canadian guest who could not complete the process, and read another. My advice would be updating to version 8.01 of the My Disney Experience app, but beyond that, I can’t offer any troubleshooting advice since I’m based in the U.S. Sorry!
I have not heard any reports from the United Kingdom, Europe, or beyond–but am very curious as to whether a combination of VPNs, GPS spoofers, and other technology to side-step the rule. So please share your experiences if you’re an international guest who has had success or failures in using Lightning Lane Multi-Pass!
Is Lightning Lane Multi Pass worse than Genie+?
Say the line, Bart: queueing is a zero-sum game that creates winners and losers in equal parts.
That this means is that attraction capacity is fixed and finite. There is no more or less capacity than there was yesterday when Genie+ existed than there is today under Lightning Lane Multi Pass. Moreover, if someone receives an advantage, that means someone else is disadvantaged. There is no magical system where everyone gets to wait in shorter lines.
Line-skipping systems do not change capacity. No approach to lines changes the underlying capacity. It doesn’t matter if it’s all standby, paper FastPass, FastPass+ vs. Genie vs. Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. The only meaningful way to actually alter the equation is by actually increasing capacity. The best way that’s done, in the long term, is building more attractions.
Other ways to increase capacity in the short or medium term are adding entertainment, extending operating hours, or just giving guests other things to do that either pull them away from rides or dilute the distribution of guests throughout the day. Everything else is a matter of rearranging the deck chairs, and having different guests or demographics come out ahead or behind.
From what I’ve heard over the course of the last year or so, Walt Disney World’s aim with its suite of queueing changes is better balance. Policies and systems that feel fairer to the majority of guests and don’t advantage or disadvantage anyone too much. From what we’ve heard, they’ve been trying to thread the needle with all of these changes. It’s an unenviable task and no-win proposition, but that’s the intent.
In other words, this is really a matter of asking better or worse for whom? It’s still very early, but current signs point to significantly less Lightning Lane availability under the Multi Pass and Single Pass systems. Whether that was intentional or not remains to be seen. Let’s assume it was, in which case this new paradigm will be worse for its buyers than the Genie+ service. But guess what? Queueing is ultimately a zero-sum game that creates winners and losers in equal parts. This means that the big winner of Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Single Pass would…guests not paying anything extra to use the standby line!
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
Have any questions we didn’t answer with the above FAQ? Still confused by how Lightning Lane MultiPass or Single Pass will work? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? 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!
