It’s been one week since Walt Disney World rolled out the new Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and there have already been a lot of quiet changes. This post takes a look at LLMP availability for the most popular rides in recent days, same-day (and advance!) ride reservation refills, and more–with the goal of determining whether it’s now more or less difficult to score the best selections in Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom.
Once again, we want to warn you that all of this is subject to change. For one thing, Walt Disney World is not busy right now. It’s been a slow summer at Orlando’s theme parks, as we discuss at length in Summer (Still) Is NOT High Crowds Season at Walt Disney World. Since Lightning Lane Multi Pass (LLMP) launched, crowd levels have been 1/10 to 3/10 with WDW-wide average wait times of 26-34 minutes.
If you want to quibble with this–fine, whatever. Irrespective of current crowds, it’s going to get worse. On average, October through December will be busier than July and August. Same goes for most of January through March 2025. Right now through mid-September is the calm before the storm. (See our 2024-2025 Walt Disney World Crowd Calendars.)
I don’t want to entirely rehash our previous post about Lightning Lane availability, but this is a really important point–so skip ahead to the first app screenshot if you already understand the “why” of it mattering.
More people purchase Lightning Lanes when crowds are higher. This is something we’ve seen time and time again in the last two years. There’s a reason that demand for Lightning Lanes is higher when prices are higher–it’s because the date-based surcharge over the low or regular seasons is relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Intuitively, this makes complete sense. Worse wait times creates a higher incentive for bypassing lines, meaning higher uptake of Lightning Lanes even when it costs more. The rationale is simple–people are willing to pay more to skip lines when they’re worse. Even at a higher price, Lightning Lane Multi Pass offers greater utility and value for money on a 9/10 crowd level day than it does a 3/10 day.
Moreover, those visiting during peak weeks are already paying more for their vacations. The difference between $27 (current pricing for Magic Kingdom) and $39 (peak pricing) is relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and won’t cause many guests who are already choosing to book the most expensive days of the year to balk at pricing. Another few hundred dollars on top of a multi-thousand dollar trip will be “worth it” to a large percentage of guests if it offers a competitive advantage–and Lightning Lanes do!
We know all of this because we saw this play out the last time a new line-skipping service launched during the off-season. Genie+ debuted back on October 19, 2021 at Walt Disney World at a time that was shockingly uncrowded for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post.
Before the end of October, we had extensively tested Genie+ in every single park at Walt Disney World and aside from some bellyaching about paying $16 (ah, the good ole days) per park for what used to be free and the buggy nature of the app feature, our conclusion was that Genie+ was glorious. We were able to book every single Lightning Lane in every park with ease (well, minus the app glitches). Availability was plentiful, demand was low.
Crowd levels were also in the 1/10 to 2/10 range. Fast-forward about a month, and the paid FastPass replacement absolutely melted down in Thanksgiving crowds. So we tested and retested. Then Walt Disney World made a bunch of changes to fix problems and help with the supply vs. demand imbalance. More testing and retesting. Frankly, I feel like Bob Chapek should’ve given me a shoutout on the earnings calls for buying Genie+ so many times and helping pump up their numbers.
The moral of the story is that I easily tested Genie+ over a dozen times in 3 of the 4 parks (it quickly became clear that Animal Kingdom was a waste of time–even as the system changed, DAK demand dynamics did not) during its first year of existence. Field testing results from one month were often obsolete by the next.
History is repeating itself with the launch of Lightning Lane Multi Pass.
So much has already changed in the span of one week that on-the-ground reports from launch day at Magic Kingdom are already completely useless. The other parks are a different story. While they’ve all changed for the better, Magic Kingdom was uniquely bad for the first few days and is now much better.
In fairness, we warned you that this would happen! Here’s what we said in What We’ve Learned from Lightning Lane Multi Pass So Far at Walt Disney World, responding to concerns about exceedingly limited availability:
Almost every Lightning Lane Multi-Pass and Single Pass filled up faster today on launch day than on the last day of Genie+ 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.
Here’s a rundown of key takeaways as of week 2 of Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Walt Disney World…
Advance Availability – Even as of Saturday, we were still seeing limited availability for the following attractions starting 4 days in advance:
- Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- Haunted Mansion
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Jungle Cruise
- Slinky Dog Dash
- Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Frozen Ever After
- Tower of Terror
- Toy Story Mania
- Na’vi River Journey (limited morning time slots)
Thankfully, a lot has changed in the last few days. In looking right now for tomorrow (August 1, 2024), every single attraction is available except for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. That includes Slinky Dog Dash (albeit at night), Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Frozen Ever After, and everything else on the above list.
Tier 2 Troubles – While headliners are the focus for obvious reasons, one of the big concerns around launch were the limited options for Group B/Tier 2. This problem was occurring with obvious candidates like Tower of Terror and Toy Story Mania, but also less popular rides. This was especially noticeable with Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, which were fully booking up in advance despite routinely having availability until evening under the Genie+ system.
The thinking was that, since everyone was selecting in advance and these were the obvious tier 2 priorities, they were simply filling up way faster. However, there’s no way that could explain it all. This was the biggest red flag for us that Walt Disney World was throttling Lightning Lane Multi Pass at launch. You don’t go from virtually “unlimited” Lightning Lane availability (meaning that Haunted Mansion and PotC would never be unavailable) to almost nothing.
This is also no longer an issue to the extent it was before. Some of the secondary attractions listed above are still running out mid-afternoon, and I suspect throttling is still at play for the reasons discussed above, but it’s no longer a major issue. I’d expect that this continues to get better, at least for the Magic Kingdom attractions. (Probably not Tower of Terror and Toy Story Mania.)
Ride Reservation Refill Cadence – One prediction we made prior to the launch of Lightning Lane Multi Pass was that ride reservation refills, drops, popup availability or whatever you want to call them would continue. (See Ride Reservation Refill Rules at Walt Disney World.) This actually wasn’t a bold prediction, as these were features–not bugs–of both FastPass+ and Genie+ services.
Our bolder prediction was that ride reservation refills would actually increase. Honestly, I don’t think this was that bold of a prediction, either. Between the system being monetized and more transparent, and international guests being blocked out (albeit not very well–it’s thankfully very easy to work around that problem!) this was pretty much a foregone conclusion. After all, Disney wants to sell LLMP in advance and same-day, and the only fix for that is regular refills of Lightning Lanes. Obvious as it should be, it didn’t appear to be the case early on–at least for Magic Kingdom.
Well, we’re happy to report that has changed and in a big way. Both our anecdotal observations and the data support this conclusion, and thanks to the increased transparency of Lightning Lane Multi Pass, it’s now much easier to spot a cancellation vs. a ride reservation refill (since there are multiple times from which to select with the latter).
To see this in action, we’d encourage you to play around with the Lightning Lane Multi Pass booking engine–and, specifically, the modify feature. Use that in tandem with the Lightning Lane popup releases feature on thrill-data. There’s more than meets the eye there–you really need to drill down to individual attraction graphs.
You can review the data, take my word for it, or test for yourself–but it’s fairly obvious at this point that same-day availability and ride reservation refills are at least as good with Genie+ and arguably much better. Just be warned if you’re testing for yourself: 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.
Throttling Tiana’s – Nowhere are the ride reservation refills more evident than with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Paradoxically, this is both the #1 toughest Lightning Lane to score in all of Walt Disney World right now and also the easiest same-day headliner. Let me explain.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is routinely gone before the 3-day mark and often prior to the 7-day mark. (I can currently search through August 7, 2024–and I see nothing for it on any day in the future.) This is not the case with any other attraction–not even Slinky Dog Dash!
However, same-day availability is (or can be) a totally different story. Look at that graph above. What it shows is a regular cadence of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure ride reservation refills that are occurring with almost-immediate return times. This is something we’d expect to see for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, not the newest headliner at Walt Disney World.
Above is just one (of many!) illustrations of this. I searched for Lightning Lane Multi Pass availability at 12:48 pm, right at the moment a refill occurred for the 1 pm and 4 pm hours. I could’ve had a return time 12 minutes later! That’s a refill, not a cancellation. And guess what? This is normal right now.
In fact, we are seeing this so much (and it’s in the data) that if I were a gambler, I might be inclined to book Jungle Cruise with my #1 advance pick and punt on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure until day-of. The reason for this is fairly simple: Tiana’s Bayou Adventure has more same-day drops than Jungle Cruise (although both have them).
In actuality, I would not do this most of the time and I definitely would not recommend this risky approach if you only have one day in Magic Kingdom. The one exception would be if Tiana’s Bayou Adventure only had return times late in the day when I was booking in advance. I’d rather roll the dice than lock myself into one of those…but I’m also not the average guest.
The reason this is happening in the first place is because Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is still incredibly unreliable. On bad days, it’s down for hours. Then there are good days, when downtime is about on par with Splash Mountain. Ride reservation refills for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure don’t serve the same function as those with other attractions. Instead, they’re about real time inventory management based on the state of the virtual queue and attraction’s uptime or downtime.
Meaning Walt Disney World is conservative with advance bookings (Lightning Lanes or even virtual queue–since it’s occurring hours ahead of time and it’s impossible to know whether it’ll end up going down for hours or have a winning streak), and then using the Lightning Lane drops to backfill capacity on a near-term basis. This is absolutely fantastic for tech savvy Lightning Lane Multi Pass users, especially those with a higher risk tolerance–but it’s bad for pretty much everyone else.
It also has a couple of additional implications. The first is that, if Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is having a bad day, you won’t see this same-day availability! These ride reservation refills will not happen if the ride is down a lot and there’s a backlog of virtual queue or advance Lightning Lane guests to process. That’s why it’s such a risky strategy in the first place!
The second is that this definitely will change once Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is more reliable. We have no clue when that’ll be (my hope was by now…but also had hoped it wouldn’t open broken!), but suffice to say, if you’re planning a visit in January 2025, you absolutely should not be formulating a strategy for TBA right now.
Frankly, you shouldn’t be formulating one at all. This is all going to keep changing, evolving, whatevering. You also shouldn’t get worked up or overly excited based on what you see today. The sky isn’t falling nor is Lightning Lane Multi Pass going to be perfect for everyone. It’s neither awesome nor awful–just different. And as with every past incarnation of line-skipping services at Walt Disney World, we have zero doubts whatsoever that power users will find ways to come out ahead. Same as they ever have.
It’ll be interesting (to me, at least!) to follow the evolving dynamics of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Walt Disney World in the coming weeks and–more so–once fall break in October and the holiday season rolls around. Once again, I don’t think we’re going to learn any lessons between now and mid-September 2024 that are relevant to those planning 2025 Walt Disney World vacations.
Between the lower crowds and likelihood of adjustments, how the next few weeks play out has little value to anyone visiting for the Christmas season or next year. There’s no practical point in you continuing to read posts like this one, except “for fun.” It’s still interesting (again, to me!) to watch this all play out in real-time.
After a rocky rollout from an availability perspective, things are starting to improve. One likely change is that Magic Kingdom will continue to get “easier” whereas Disney’s Hollywood Studios should get “harder.” (The former a byproduct of increased supply; the latter a byproduct of increased demand.)
It’ll also be fascinating to find “hacks” and other ways to exploit the system, just like we did with Genie. (Anyone remember the original stacking circa late 2021 that allowed you to create multiple ‘threads’ of Lightning Lanes by combining the 120 rule with the tap-in rule? Ah, the good ole days!)
Other changes I’d expect to see are more clarity in the overlap policies (what I’m seeing is all over the place) and–if inventory is really limited during the holiday season, moving away from the “rolling 3 rule.” Frankly, I’m not sure any of that is necessary. I really think what we saw at launch and are still seeing today is a system that’s slowly being rolled out with a conservative approach–and Lightning Lane availability throttled as a result.
Walt Disney World laid the groundwork for Lightning Lane Multi Pass by freeing up ride capacity in other ways, which should mean an expansion of ride reservation inventory under Lightning Lane Multi-Pass as compared to the Genie+ system. Even if not immediately apparent, the fruits of that should be evident in Lightning Lane Multi-Pass availability over time. The more open question is whether advance booking plus the higher ‘stakes’ of this costing money means more or less availability than FastPass+ during the busy holiday season.
We’ll continue monitoring Lightning Lane availability and all other changes in the coming weeks. As for more on-the-ground testing of Lightning Lane Multi Pass, that’ll also be coming relatively soon, but I’m less inclined to make the same mistake as October 2021 when I spent several consecutive weeks in the parks…only to have all of those efforts be rendered totally pointless by Thanksgiving. Between a new baby, new wisdom and the weather, the bulk of my field testing this time won’t come until Christmas-time.
If you have questions about the basics of using–or not using–the paid FastPass service, see our Guide to Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Walt Disney World for all of the foundational need-to-know info. This whole system is confusing and convoluted, so you might have a question or two-dozen. That answers all of the most common ones we’ve been receiving from readers.
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
If you’ve been booking Lightning Lane Multi-Pass for your upcoming Walt Disney World vacation, what’s been your experience thus far with availability? (I’m particularly interested in those of you who have booked for August 2024 dates.) Have you noticed any discernible differences versus the Genie+ service? Any success or failures making multiple high-priority Lightning Lane selections? Would you recommend LLMP to others, or just advise sticking to standby? Other problems or thoughts to share? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? 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!
