EPCOT Lightning Lane Rides- Ranking & Strategy 2025

Lightning Lane Multi Pass is a skip the line service at EPCOT that allows guests to access the shorter Lightning Lanes for rides at an additional cost. EPCOT Lightning Lanes are available for the most popular rides and experiences with these rides separated into tiers based on popularity.

Guests that purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass can pick from three different advance ride reservations per day for their trip. Disney has introduced different tiers of Lightning Lanes for rides at EPCOT to pick from for your three advance Lightning Lane selections. These tiers influence which rides you can select in advance and give us insight into the most popular rides at EPCOT.

Let's get into my best strategy for picking your preselection Lightning Lanes for rides at EPCOT including my ride rankings and best tips.

This article has been checked for accuracy for 2025 and updated with all currently available information.

What is Lightning Lane Multi Pass?

Lightning Lane Multi Pass went into effect at Walt Disney World and Disneyland on July 24. With these changes, the the name of Genie+ has changed to Lightning Lane Multi Pass and the Individual Lightning Lane service has been renamed Lightning Lane Single Pass.

Lightning Lane Multi Pass is the replacement for Genie+ that allows guests to pay for access to the shorter Lightning Lanes for popular rides. You can see our best Disney World Lightning Lane tips for how to use the service.

The main difference between Genie+ and Lightning Lane Multi Pass is that guests can purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass prior to their visit and book up to 3 Lightning Lane selections in advance for each day.

These three Lightning Lane selections are limited to the list provided for each theme park with some ride selections divided into two separate tiers. The most popular rides are put into the first tier with all other rides into the second tier. This means for parks that have these separate tiers, you will only be able to pick one of the most popular ride selections for each park for each day you purchase Lightning Lane.

Once you enter the theme parks and redeem at least one of your advance Lightning Lane selections then you will be able to reserve more. Each time you redeem your Lightning Lane selection you can then book your next one. This means you will likely always have at least one or more Lightning Lane selections to utilize throughout your park day.

There is a bit of strategy that should go into how you're picking your advance Lightning Lane rides for park to ensure you maximize your use of the service and ride the best rides with minimal waits.

You can also see our guides to Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane rides, Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane rides, and Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane rides for the best strategy for choosing your advance Lightning Lane experiences for each of these parks.

🌟Click HERE for the full guide to the NEW Lightning Lane Multi Pass!

When Can You Book EPCOT Lightning Lane Rides?

When you can book a Lightning Lane reservation will depend on if you are staying at a Walt Disney World Resort hotel or not! Guests staying on-site get an advantage of booking in advance compared to those staying off-site.

Walt Disney World hotel guests can book their Lightning Lane passes up to seven days in advance for their entire stay of up to 14 days. This benefit is offered to guests at all Disney Resort hotels, Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel, Walt Disney World Swan Hotel, Walt Disney World Swan Reserve, and Shades of Green Resort.

All other guests can book their Lightning Lane passes up to three days in advance. This is for guests with date-based theme park tickets, other ticket types, and annual passholders.

All guests can purchase Lightning Lane passes for days they have valid theme park admission starting at 7:00 AM Eastern Time on their first day of eligibility.

Pick Your Park Days Strategically for Lightning Lanes

If you are staying at a Walt Disney World resort hotel, you get the biggest advantage of being able to book up to 14 days in advance of your check in date.

Similar to the way dining reservations work, the more availability for rides will be at the furthest day out from your arrival day.

So if you plan on spending seven days at Walt Disney World, your seventh day in the parks will have the most ride availability as the furthest day out. This is a helpful tip to keep in mind if EPCOT Lightning Lane ride selections start running out. You may want to ensure EPCOT is your last park day to have a better chance of ride selection availability. But of course, weigh this option against the other popular rides at the other theme parks.

EPCOT Ride Lightning Lanes 

After you purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you’ll be prompted to choose up to 3 multi pass experiences and arrival windows.

EPCOT has split the most popular Lightning Lane rides into one top tier with the other selections available at a section tier.

Choose up to one experience from this group:

• Frozen Ever After
• Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
• Soarin' Around the World

These are the EPCOT rides with the highest demand for Lightning Lanes. These rides will run out of available Lightning Lane selections quickly both in advance and inside the park on the day you arrive. Once Test Track reopens after its new retheme, I expect it will join these other rides in the top tier.

Choose your other 2 experiences—or all 3—from this group:

• 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

Once you redeem a selection on the day of your park visit, you can choose another available multi pass experience from either group.

EPCOT Lightning Lane Rides Strategy

For the best EPCOT Lightning Lane rides strategy, you should consider in advance what rides you want to preselect before you arrive at the theme parks.

EPCOT Lightning Lane Top Tier Rides Ranking

Let's take a look at the first tier of EPCOT Lightning Lane rides which are all the most popular. You can only pick one option from this list for one out of your three advance reservations so I am going to rank them in order of most popular to least to help you plan your day.

1.Frozen Ever After

Frozen Ever After is one of the most popular rides in EPCOT but the wait times for this ride are pretty consistently similar to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The wait times for these two rides are some of the longest you'll see in the park with the exception of Test Track which is currently under refurbishment for a new ride design.

2. Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure

Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure follows Frozen Ever After as one of the most popular rides in EPCOT. This ride breaks down a bit more often than Frozen which can cause long Lightning Lane delays throughout the day. I recommend rope dropping this ride, rather than using it as a Lightning Lane preselect, in order to ensure you get on it right away.

3. Soarin' Around the World

Soarin' Around the World will likely have an easier time securing Lightning Lane passes for in the park than the other rides ranked higher on this list which is why I ranked it below both Frozen and Remy's. This ride often drops to a walk on during the last hour of park opening as well so this should be a lower priority when booking EPCOT Lightning Lane ride reservations.

EPCOT Lightning Lane Second Tier Ride Ranking

Let's take a look at the second tier of EPCOT Lightning Lane rides. You can pick all three of your options from this list but I recommend just picking two and selecting at least one advance reservation from tier one. I ranked these in order of popularity from top to last.

1. Mission: SPACE
2. Spaceship Earth
3. Living with the Land
4. Journey into Imagination with Figment
5. The Seas with Nemo & Friends
6. Turtle Talk with Crush
7. Disney and Pixar Short Film Festival

In all honesty, the only ride on this list you will see long wait times for is Mission: SPACE (especially for the more thrilling Orange mission) while the rest can easily be ridden throughout the day. The one exception can be Living with the Land during the holiday season when Walt Disney World decks this ride out in holiday lights and themes.

What Time to Pick Your EPCOT Lightning Lane Rides?

When booking your three advance Lightning Lane ride selections for EPCOT you should at least book one for in the morning and then stagger the other two for the afternoon.

This way you can follow an effective rope drop strategy in the morning when lines are more reasonable and utilize most of your Lightning Lane passes in the afternoon and evening when wait times begin to climb.

Book at least one of your Lightning Lane passes for the morning so you can be free to begin booking more as soon as possible. Remember you get to begin booking other Lightning Lane reservations as soon as you redeem at least one of your existing ones! So don't book all your Lightning Lane passes for too late in the day, at least book one early.

Lightning Lane Single Pass EPCOT

There are two different types of Lightning Lanes. The Lightning Lanes that are included with a Lightning Lanes Multi Pass purchase and the ones that are purchased separately called Lightning Lanes Single Pass. Lightning Lanes Single Pass is separate from the Lightning Lanes that are included with your Walt Disney World Multi Pass purchase.

Lightning Lane Single Pass is available for one attraction: Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind. This is one of the best rides in Walt Disney World and one you absolutely cannot miss. Guardians of the Galaxy also offers a virtual queue which is fairly reasonable to access so you can also opt for this option rather than purchasing Lightning Lane Single Pass.

🚀Read more about how to secure a Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind virtual queue here!

You can reserve up to two Lightning Lane Single Passes per day but you cannot repeat the same attraction in one day.

This Lightning Lane passes for EPCOT are also able to be booked in advance along with your Multi Pass bookings. I recommend booking it in advance if you are interested as there is no guarantee how many will be available the day of.

Overall, knowing the most popular EPCOT Lightning Lane rides can help you maximize your use of this skip the line service. We will keep this strategy and ranking updated as park trends change.

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