Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Rides- Ranking & Strategy 2025

Lightning Lane Multi Pass is a skip the line service at Magic Kingdom that allows guests to access the shorter Lightning Lanes for rides at an additional cost. Magic Kingdom 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 Magic Kingdom 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 Magic Kingdom.

Let's get into my best strategy for picking your preselection Lightning Lanes for rides at Magic Kingdom 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 recently went into effect at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. 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 guide to Disney World Lightning Lane tips for guidance on how to make the most of 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 see our guides to Animal Kingdom Lightning Lane rides, Hollywood Studios Lightning Lane rides, and EPCOT Lightning Lane rides for lists of the rides that offer this at each park and the best strategy for choosing which experiences to preselect in advance of your visit.

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

When Can You Book Magic Kingdom 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 Magic Kingdom, 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 Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane ride selections start running out. If you are determined on reserving one for Tiana's Bayou Adventure for example, one of the most popular rides since its reopening, you may want to ensure Magic Kingdom is your last park day to have a better chance of ride selection availability.

Magic Kingdom 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.

Magic Kingdom 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:

• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Jungle Cruise
• Peter Pan’s Flight
• Space Mountain
• Tiana’s Bayou Adventure

These are the Magic Kingdom 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.

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

• 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

On the list, the ride with the highest wait times on average is the Haunted Mansion. The rest of the experiences here can get long waits, especially during the afternoons, but most will start to taper down in the evening.

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

Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Rides Strategy

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

Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Top Tier Rides Ranking

Let's take a look at the first tier of Magic Kingdom 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. Tiana's Bayou Adventure

The newest ride on this list is the newly reimagining of Splash Mountain, Tiana's Bayou Adventure, which also has a virtual queue option.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure throws a bit of a hitch in the strategizing since this is such a new and popular offering. Most advance ride selections for this attraction will run out which is why it might be best to opt for the virtual queue especially if you feel confident on how fast you can work the Disney app! If this ride is a priority for you, then you should at least try to snag that advance selection. If they run out then your plan B is to opt for the virtual queue once in the parks.

🐸Read how to use Tiana's Bayou Adventure virtual queue here!

2. & 3. Peter Pan's Flight & Space Mountain

Aside from Tiana's Bayou Adventure, the second most in demand rides from the top tier list is Space Mountain and Peter Pan's Flight. These two rides have consistent long waits from park opening to close and should be prioritized for your Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane ride selection.

If you are doing two days at Magic Kingdom, you could opt for Peter Pan's Flight one day and Space Mountain the other day to spread out your advance reservations in this top tier.

But above all, the top three you need to prioritize for advance ride selections from this tier list are Tiana's Bayou Adventure, Peter Pan's Flight and Space Mountain.

4. Jungle Cruise

Jungle Cruise is reasonably popular at Magic Kingdom and carries a pretty consistent wait time throughout the entire day. You will see wait times drop for Jungle Cruise later in the evening especially if you stay at Magic Kingdom after the fireworks end. This ride will also likely have an easier time securing Lightning Lane passes for in the park than the other rides ranked higher on this list.

5. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a popular ride but its main advantage is its far location across Magic Kingdom park making it one of the furthest rides to walk to from the entrance. This means it is reasonably easy to rope drop plus the wait time will slow down quite a bit in the evening after the fireworks. This ride will also likely have an easier time securing Lightning Lane passes for in the park than the other rides ranked higher on this list.

Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Second Tier Ride Ranking

Let's take a look at the second tier of Magic Kingdom 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. Haunted Mansion
2. Pirates of the Caribbean
3. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
4. Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid
5. “it’s a small world”
6. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
7. Tomorrowland Speedway
8. The Barnstormer
9. Dumbo the Flying Elephant
10. Mad Tea Party
11. The Magic Carpets of Aladdin
12. Mickey’s PhilharMagic
13. Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor

The top four rides on this list are the most important to book in advance while the rest are pretty reasonably similar when it comes to average wait times.

Haunted Mansion is easily the most popular ride on this list and while wait times can dwindle for it in the late evening, they tend to stay more consistent throughout the day than the other rides.

Outside of the top four, the rest of the rides likely will have more limited Lightning Lane passes once you're in Magic Kingdom. Once you redeem at least one of your advance Lightning Lane reservations you can start booking more reservations in the park.

What Time to Pick Your Magic Kingdom Lightning Lane Rides?

When booking your three advance Lightning Lane ride selections for Magic Kingdom 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 Magic Kingdom

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 two attractions in Magic Kingdom: TRON Lightcycle / Run and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.

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

These Lightning Lane passes for Magic Kingdom are also able to be booked in advance along with your Multi Pass bookings. I recommend booking these in advance if you are interested, especially for TRON, as there is no guarantee how many will be available the day of. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train will likely be more available the day of your visit.

Overall, knowing the most popular Magic Kingdom 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.

Plan Your Disney Vacation Today!

For the best resource and helpful information for planning your Disney vacation, make sure to subscribe to our FREE Deals newsletter​. We’ll provide you with the most helpful planning information, breaking news, exclusive deals, and access to the best prices on tickets out there.