Are you ready for a BIG DAY in Disney World?!

Today, October 30th, Disney is officially launching its new Lightning Lane Premier Pass service over in Disney World, and we’re here to try it out. Last week, it launched in Disneyland, and we checked it out, but now it’s time to find out if this new offering for skipping the long lines on the East Coast is worth the cost. Let’s go!

What IS Lightning Lane Premier Pass?

Before we dive into our experience today, let’s talk about the new service. Lightning Lane Premier Pass is a “luxury” style offering where you pay to access ALL the Lightning Lanes in one Disney World park for one day. With your purchase, you get access to each Lightning Lane one time, including every attraction on the Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass lists.

The big kicker is that Premier Pass costs from $130-$400 per person per park per day, and it is only available to those staying at a Deluxe Disney resort or select other resort. (Hence why we called it a “luxury” type offering.) The pricing will change each day the same way Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass do, with surge pricing.

Pricing for Disney World Lightning Lane Premier Pass

With Premier Pass, you’ll be able to skip the process of booking your Lightning Lanes throughout the day and scheduling return times. Instead, you just show up at the Lightning Lane entrance and scan in at whatever time is convenient for you.

So, let’s test it out!

It’s the first day of Lightning Lane Premier Pass in Disney World! We’re in ALL FOUR parks today to test out this new system, so stay tuned to see how it goes! pic.twitter.com/iEnbQH2zOx

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) October 30, 2024

Purchasing Lightning Lane Premier Pass

On its debut day, October 30th, the pricing for each park is listed as:

• Magic Kingdom — $329 plus tax
• EPCOT — $169 plus tax
• Hollywood Studios — $269 plus tax
• Animal Kingdom — $129 plus tax

Seven days before you check in, you will want to be in the My Disney Experience app at 7 AM ET. On debut day, the app said that Premier Pass would be coming soon, even though it was 7 AM.

We were able to dismiss this message and still purchase. By 7:35 AM, the message had changed to “Now Available.” We are sure this was just a glitch and will be fixed, but just know that you can dismiss this message and should still be able to purchase.

Depending on your My Disney Experience App, Lightning Lane Premier Pass may be an option for you to click on your home screen. If it does not show up, you can search for it in the app. Then choose your date, the park you want to purchase, everyone in your party you want to purchase it for, then continue to purchase the pass.

You can confirm your purchase on your home screen or you can view it under “My Day.”

We did notice that you can only purchase Premier Pass for one park per day per person. So once you’ve purchased a park for that day for someone, you can’t add another park later on in your day. If you plan on Park Hopping, you’ll need to purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass for your next park if you wish to use the Lightning Lanes.

Step-By-Step: How to Buy Lightning Lane Premier Pass on the Disney World App

Using Lightning Lane Premier Pass

Be forewarned that while Premier Pass is expensive, the actual process when you arrive at the attraction is the same. You’ll still redeem at the Lightning Lane entrance and join the same Lightning Lane queue that you would if you were using Lightning Lane Multi Pass or Lightning Lane Single Pass. There are no additional perks beyond the normal Lightning Lane usage. 

You’ll find a list of all the available rides for your day in the app, and as you ride each one it is removed from your list of available experiences.

Shows that are included in Lightning Lane Premier Pass show up with all the available times and instruct you to arrive at least 10 minutes early. Under your available experiences, there is a list of redeemed experiences. The app seems to keep track of your available and redeemed experiences very well, and when we tried to redeem a ride twice it indicated we had already ridden it accurately.

By 11:45AM, we had ridden every ride that has Lightning Lane in Animal Kingdom with the Premier Pass. However, we noticed that most rides in the morning were walk-on anyway, so the Premier Pass might not have been necessary at Animal Kingdom to ride everything this early in the day.

We rode everything in Animal Kingdom using Lightning Lane Premier Pass! The longest wait we experienced was 4 minutes. pic.twitter.com/m0FXmKakMH

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) October 30, 2024

How’re things going in Hollywood Studios? Well, the posted wait time for Toy Story Mania was 10 minutes and we waited 8.5 minutes in the Lightning Lane line!

Over in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, we’re testing out Lightning Lane Premier Pass! The standby wait was posted 10 minutes, and we waited 8 1/2 minutes in the Lightning Lane. pic.twitter.com/gE8CHovpqz

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) October 30, 2024

By 12:45 PM we had everything ridden in Hollywood Studios with the wait for Toy Story Mania being our longest of the day at 8.5 minutes.

And just like that, we’ve ridden everything in Disney’s Hollywood Studios using Lightning Lane Premier Pass! Our longest wait was Toy Story Mania at 8.5 minutes. pic.twitter.com/EzsS2VHMwQ

— Disney Food Blog (@DisneyFoodBlog) October 30, 2024

We came, we saw, we rode everything in EPCOT! The longest wait we had was 15 minutes on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, but that included pre-shows. It was a pretty successful trip to EPCOT (and a bit less walking, too!).

We’ll be testing it out all day, so stay tuned right here for live updates of the new Lightning Lane Premier Pass!

For more Disney news, keep following DFB!

2 MAJOR MISTAKES We Made with Lightning Lane Premier Pass – Watch Out For These in Disney World!

Need help navigating these changes?! Our friends at Small World Vacations, have decades of experience planning Disney vacations and help you put together an itinerary that is PERFECT for your family!