Best Disney World Lightning Lane Tips From Frequent Visitor

We have all the most important Walt Disney World Lightning Lane Multi Pass tips for you to consider ahead of planning your trip. Walt Disney World’s Lightning Lane system allows guests to pay to skip the longer lines at the most popular attractions and experiences at the resort. The line-skipping systems have continued to evolve over the past five years at Walt Disney World. Lightning Lane Multi Pass is the most useful version of the pass since the original version of FastPass.

I have tested the Lightning Lane Multi Pass system across all the Walt Disney World parks numerous times including three of the Disney World parks in just one day. With all the changes to the line-skipping systems over the past few years, guests are understandably looking for the best Disney World Lightning Lane tips in order to navigate the parks.

In this article, I’ve combined all the most useful Disney World Lightning Lane tips including which rides you should book before you arrive, how to park hop using Lightning Lane, and the best way to use the app once you’re in the parks.

Disney World Lightning Lane Multi Pass Tips

Lightning Lane Multi Pass replaced Genie+ at Walt Disney World in 2024 and allows guests to book up to three ride reservations in advance for each park day. Most popular attractions at Walt Disney World have two separate lines: the regular standby line and the Lightning Lane. Everyone can access the regular standby line at no additional cost while guests utilizing the Lightning Lane need to pay for this access.

The average cost of Lightning Lane Multi Pass is around $25 per day but can go as high as $39 per person, per day. Guests staying on-site at a Walt Disney World hotel can purchase Lightning Lane a week before their check in date while all other guests can purchase three days before their visit.

Once you’re in the park, you can begin booking additional Lightning Lane selections once you redeem at least one of the selections you booked in advance. Each time you redeem one selection, you can book another, and so on. You should plan on putting in some thought to what Lightning Lane reservations you book in advance!

Book Your Lightning Lanes in Advance!

The best tip for using Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World is to be intentional about the rides you book in advance before your trip. Guests staying at the on-site hotels have the biggest advantage and can book their Lightning Lane reservations seven days in advance for the entire duration of their stay up to 14 days. For guests not staying on-site, you book your Lightning Lanes three days in advance of your trip.

To have the best selection of rides to book Lightning Lanes for, you need to be online right at the seven day mark if you are staying on-site and you can book this all through the Disney World My Experience App. Lighting Lane reservations go live at 7AM ET.

You will be able to select three rides to book in advance for only ONE park for each day. Once you’ve entered the park and redeemed at least one reservation then you can book more.

How to Park Hop Using Lightning Lane Multi Pass

If you purchase a Walt Disney World park hopping ticket, then you might be wondering how you park hop with Lightning Lane Multi Pass.

When you purchase your Lightning Lane Multi Pass in advance, you will need to commit to which park you will be beginning the day at and then you will book your three advance reservations for that park. This is the same for each park day of your visit.

Once you’re inside that park and redeem at least one of your ride reservations, you can begin booking reservations for the other park you plan on park hopping to.

Book At Least One Lightning Lane Early

Once you’ve picked which Lightning Lanes you will book in advance, more on this below, make sure at least one of your selections each day has an early redemption time. The earlier, the better!

This is because you can’t start booking new Lightning Lanes in the park until you redeem one of the three you booked in advance. You want to redeem at least one of these advance bookings as early in the day as possible so you can start booking additional rides throughout the day.

This is especially important if you plan on park hopping so you can start lining up Lightning Lanes for the park you plan on moving to next.

Book Your Hardest Rides To Get On Day One

When you prebook your Lightning Lane selections, you will do so one day a time. In order to secure the hardest to book Lightning Lane time, you should pick your trickiest Lightning Lanes first, not necessarily in chronological order of days.

Based on the data provided by Thrill Data, a site we often use to help inform our Walt Disney World crowd calendar, at the time of writing this article these are the five hardest to get Lightning Lane Multi Pass reservations out of all four theme parks:

1. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (Magic Kingdom)
2. Slinky Dog Dash (Hollywood Studios)
3. Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (EPCOT)
4. Toy Story Mania (Hollywood Studios)
5. Frozen Ever After (EPCOT)

Now when it comes to Lightning Lane Single Pass, the popularity of these rides are below:

1. Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (EPCOT)
2. Rise of the Resistance (Hollywood Studios)
3. Avatar Flight of Passage (Animal Kingdom)
4. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (Magic Kingdom)

With that in mind, let’s go over how to pick the right rides for your advance Lightning Lane booking times.

Pick the Right Rides for Advance Lightning Lane Selections

For Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Hollywood Studios the available rides are split into two categories with the most demand rides being grouped together. You can only pick one ride from this higher demand group and then you can pick two from the second group.

For Animal Kingdom, all the rides are in one group and you can make three advance selections.

What you book before you arrive is important for your park planning day especially if you have rides that your group wants to ride the most! Let’s get into the best advance booking selections for each theme park.

Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Selections

Magic Kingdom has the most attractions out of all the theme parks but it also is home to some of the most popular rides. You’ll see below that the most popular experiences are separated into one group with the rest in the second group.

You can only pick one attraction from the first group, this is the order I recommend prioritizing these selections based on popularity.

1. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
   • If you are lucky enough to snag one. If not, you can use the virtual queue to access this new attraction.
2. Peter Pan’s Flight
   • If you can’t snag Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, this should be your next choice.
3. Space Mountain
   • If Peter Pan’s Flight is not a priority, go for Space Mountain.
4. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad & Jungle Cruise
   • You can easily get on these in the morning with lower waits.
     • Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is currently down for a long refurbishment all of 2025 so this ride won’t be an option for awhile!

The second grouping lists most of the other rides in Magic Kingdom with the most popular attraction from the list easily being Haunted Mansion. You pick two from this group, I bolded the selections from this list you should prioritize.

• The Barnstormer
• Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant
• Haunted Mansion
• “it’s a small world”
• Mad Tea Party
• The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
• Mickey’s PhilharMagic
• Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Tomorrowland Speedway
• Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid

EPCOT Lightning Lane Selections

EPCOT’s advance lightning lane selections uses a similar process with the most popular experiences separated into one group with the rest in the second group.

You can only pick one attraction from the first group, this is the order I recommend prioritizing these selections based on popularity.

1. Frozen Ever After
2. Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
3. Soarin’ Around the World

The rest of the attractions in EPCOT are easy enough to get Lightning Lane attractions for so you will want to prioritize the above three once you enter the park and scan your first Lightning Lane selection. For this grouping, you will get to pick two choices, I bolded the selections you should prioritize.

• Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival
• Journey into Imagination with Figment
• Living with the Land
• Mission: SPACE
• The Seas with Nemo & Friends
• Spaceship Earth
• Turtle Talk with Crush

Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane Selections

Hollywood Studios may be the most challenging because it has so many different popular attractions, many of which are in the first category.

You can only pick one attraction from the first group, this is the order I recommend prioritizing these selections based on popularity.

1. Slinky Dog Dash
2. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
3. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
4. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run

The second grouping lists most of the other rides in Hollywood Studios with the most popular attractions from the list easily being Toy Story Midway Mania and Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. I bolded the selections from this grouping that you should prioritize as you pick your two advance selections.

• Alien Swirling Saucers
• Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage
• Disney Junior Play & Dance!
• For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
• Muppet*Vision 3D
• Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
• Toy Story Mania!

Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane Selections

Animal Kingdom is the only park that does not separate Lightning Lane selections and they have them all grouped together into one group. Below, you will find them ranked in order of priority due to their popularity.

1. Naʻvi River Journey
2. Kilimanjaro Safaris
3. Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain
4. DINOSAUR
5. Festival of the Lion King
6. Finding Nemo: The Big Blue… and Beyond!
7. Kali River Rapids
8. Feathered Friends in Flight!

The trickiest Lightning Lane to get from this list is Na’vi River Journey and Kilimanjaro Safaris. The rest are fairly easy to come by so these two are the ones you should prioritize!

Should I Book Lightning Lane Single Pass?

READ MORE- Lightning Lane Single Pass at Walt Disney World

For the attractions that offer Lightning Lane Single Pass, all of them have a regular standby line except for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind which has a virtual queue option. Here is the breakdown of all the rides that offer Lightning Lane Single Pass, you can pick two of these per day so you can book these in advance as well!

• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – Magic Kingdom
• Rise of the Resistance – Hollywood Studios
• Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind – EPCOT
• Pandora- Flight of Passage – Animal Kingdom

This comes down to a matter of preference, if you do not want to deal with the mad rush to these rides at park opening, then purchasing Single Pass is a good idea. All of these are fairly easy to get, even on the day of your park visit, so there’s not a real big pressure to booking in advance unless you’re visiting during a peak travel time of year like the holidays or spring break.

What is the Hardest Lightning Lane to Get?

Out of all of these selections, hands down the hardest Lightning Lane to get in advance is Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. This ride is still extremely popular since it just opened with the new theme in summer 2024 and will likely continue to be high in demand for some time.

Refresh The Disney World App For Better Times

You can continue to keep modifying your Lightning Lane advance reservations right up until the day before you scan into the parks so if you change your mind after booking your reservations you can simply change them! I recommend doing this right away because you can then book your Lightning Lane times to overlap a bit which can be convenient if you want to knock out a few of them first thing in the day.

This is also something you can do while in the parks which is a trick we use often at Disneyland. I do this again and again throughout the day in order to get earlier return times for all our Lightning Lane times. You open the app, click on the experience you want, click modify, and then just keep dragging the screen down to refresh. Do this continuously and you will eventually see other times pop up! Remember: you can’t modify a Lightning Lane in the park until you redeem at least one of the three you booked in advance. More on this below!

When I’ve used this trick in the parks, it did not take much time out of my day. Most of the time I would be doing this when we were in line for another ride or walking to the next attraction. While it’s not ideal to be staring at your phone this much, it paid off to get the best return times and ride everything we wanted with low waits. This is one of the best Disney World Lightning Lane tips that you need to know.

Is Lightning Lane at Disney World Worth It?

There has been some general resentment towards the changes Walt Disney World has enacted since we lost the free system of FastPass+ in 2020. But the changes that Disney has made from Genie+ to Lightning Lane Multi Pass system in 2024 are extremely positive.

I have found the service incredibly easy to use from the moment I pick my advance Lightning Lane reservations to modifying my selections in the park. If you are committed to messing around with your return times to get better selections, you can effectively end up with return times for popular rides stacked back to back for most of your day.

This service essentially guarantees you will always have three return times in hand and whether you choose to do a faster pace or take it easy with those three lined up, you know you will at least get three rides done. Most guests might be happy knowing they have the three lined up while others can maximize it use by utilizing the Disney World Lightning Lane tips I’ve provided in this article to ride more!

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