Things have been…shall we say…interesting in Disney World this week.
Cinderella Castle
Genie+ has gone away forever (and we know a lot of folks cheering about that), but it was replaced with a new system called Lightning Lane Multi Pass. But this was WAY more than a name change. Nope, a lot of other changes happened with how you make Lightning Lane selections through Multi Pass. A LOT. We have tested out the system, and we’ve got to warn you: it’s now a lot harder to book Lightning Lane for some rides.
One of the biggest changes with Lightning Lane Multi Pass replacing Genie+ is that you can now make your Lightning Lane selections in advance of your Disney World trip: seven days in advance for Disney World hotel guests and three days in advance for everyone else. Rides are also divided into two tiers: you are only allowed to book one tier 1 ride in advance, along with two tier 2 rides or you can book three tier 2 rides.
Disney World Lightning Lanes have CHANGED
Tier 1 rides already tend to be the more popular rides, so it sorta’ makes sense that these rides are going to be the first to get booked up. We noticed this already happening yesterday when we tested out the new system. The following Tier 1 rides were already completely out of Lightning Lane times by 10:20AM (note that Disney’s Animal Kingdom does not have ride tiers):
- Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Jungle Cruise, and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- EPCOT: Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and Soarin’
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
At 12:30PM, the following Tier 1 rides were no longer available for Lightning Lane selections:
- Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain, Jungle Cruise, and Space Mountain
- EPCOT: Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Slinky Dog Dash
Slinky Dog Dash
Later in the day, at 5:45PM, the following Tier 1 rides did not have Lightning Lane selections available:
- Magic Kingdom: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Jungle Cruise, Space Mountain, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
- EPCOT: Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
- Disney’s Hollywood Studios: Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and Slinky Dog Dash
Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway
So a lot of those Tier 1 rides are disappearing quickly. We think this is going to really make staying at a Disney World hotel more worth it now because you’ll be able to book one of those each day seven days before everyone else. Otherwise, you can hope that Lightning Lane selections open up later (and they did for some rides, but then were gone quickly again).
We’re continuing to test everything about Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass in Disney World, so stay tuned to DFB for more.
In the meantime, we’ve put together some guides for you! Take a look:
- COMPLETE GUIDE to the New Line-Skipping Service at Disney World
- Book These Rides FIRST With Disney World’s New Lightning Lane Multi Pass System!
- The EASIEST Way To Use Disney World’s NEW Lightning Lane Multi Pass System
- Answering Your 12 BIGGEST Questions About Disney World’s Huge Genie+ CHANGES
Have you used Lightning Lane Multi Pass yet? Are you having trouble getting times for Tier 1 rides? Which ones? Let us know in the comments!
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Thanks for the testing, really appreciate what you guys do.
As UK resident coming to the parks in August (and therefore not able to use the 7-day advance booking until I land in the US) this is especially important and I have been doing my own scanning of the LL bookings as well.
I would add to your notes that for today (26th Jul) when checking before 07:00 EST (i.e. pre-booked) there were a lot of Tier 1 rides already sold out of Multi Pass. Also, all “Single Pass Experiences” (previously Individual Lightning Lanes) for Seven Dwarves, TRON, Guardians, SW Rise of the Resistance, Avatar Flight of Passage were completely sold out… and as usual the Virtual Queues for TRON and Tiana went within a minute at 07:00.
Looks like when we come we won’t be able to ride TRON until our second week unless we get lucky with the VQ.
Also looks like we will be spending a lot of time in Stand-By queues for Tier 1 rides even though we were fully prepared to spend additional $s for Multipass/Single Pass (made worse by the fact that the available return times were often well into the evening on advanced booking.. which is not great when you have young children in the party).
I shall continue monitoring and looking at all the testing you are doing too. Thanks again!
This is exactly what I expected to happen. If everyone can now hold 3 lighting lanes at a time, that has the effect of tripling the number of lighting lanes being held at any one time over the previous system. In other words it is like 3 times the number of people are using the system. The effect of this is the lighting lanes will sell out much quicker in the day and this will not improve as the system ages.
Also, instead of waiting 2 hours to book something lighting lanes going unused they are now all booked for the entire day which means that the lighting lane is at constant full capacity. This makes the standby que much much longer. I was at MK 10 days ago and the standby lane for Big Thunder was max 20 minutes until noon every day of the week. With this system it has been hovering around 50 minutes each morning.
Without a doubt this is the worst of all possible combinations Disney has come up with for fastpass and the value is the worst by far. Before taxes it would cost ~120 extra per day for a family of 4 and you still have to pay extra for the “fancy” rides like TRON. It is unbelievable what they think people will put up with! It won’t last!
What about the new lightning lanes for international guests staying at Disney hotels who want to book in advance, but who won’t be in Florida until the day they arrive and go to Disney. Can they book in advance, or are these customers being shut out of the new booking system…???
What I noticed about the new system is that individual LL are sold out at the 3 day mark. As an annual pass holder I used to be able to grab these for Tron and Guardians pretty easily on the day of my visit as long as I got them before 10:00. Now they are all gone even at the three day mark. Sooo that leaves me with virtual que aka 7:00 am my only option.😕 wonder if virtual will be easier with all the pre purchases.
I believe part of the experience of the parks is waiting in line. You get to talk and see the other guests. I have never had a bad experience waiting in line.