Disney World’s Lightning Lane system certainly isn’t perfect.
Lightning Lane at Expedition Everest
In fact, many people complain about the system for one reason or another, whether it be price, ease of use, or the booking process. Sadly, Disney World is likely not going to let us have Lightning Lanes for free again (ah, the days of FastPass+), so if we had to pick one change for them to make to the system, we’d probably want an update to the availability.
Based on our many experiences using Lightning Lane Multi Pass, the main change we’d want Disney to make is to give users more availability when booking. It can be incredibly frustrating when you’re willing to pay for a service to make your theme park day more enjoyable, but there aren’t enough options available to make it worth the cost.
Lightning Lane
So what does “more availability” look like? First of all, users want to be able to book Lightning Lanes even if it’s last minute. Sometimes your park plans change the day before, or Annual Passholders want to stop by without planning in advance. And what happens in many of these cases is that the “good” Lightning Lanes are all booked up.
©Disney
If you’re booking with fewer than 3 days to go until your visit, you might be stuck only with the least popular rides, or with times that don’t fall until 6PM or later in the evening. What are you supposed to do for the first 9 hours of your day if you don’t want to wait in line?
©Disney
Also, when booking last minute, many Lightning Lane users want guaranteed access to Tier 1 options. You see, at three out of four Disney World parks, the Lightning Lane attractions are split into Tier 1 and Tier 2. When booking before your visit, you can only make ONE Tier 1 reservation, while the other bookings must be made from Tier 2. This is because the Tier 1 attractions tend to be the most popular Lightning Lanes.
Lightning Lane at Peter Pan’s Flight
Tier 1 attractions include the following rides: Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan’s Flight, Space Mountain, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, Soarin’ Around the World, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, and Slinky Dog Dash.
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway Lightning Lane
If you’re booking your Lightning Lanes last minute, you may find that all the Tier 1 options for your chosen park are completely gone. That’s definitely disappointing if you were willing to pay for Lightning Lane Multi Pass just to ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure or Slinky Dog Dash without the wait.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure
One possible way to help with availability is to limit purchases of Lightning Lane Multi Pass just a bit more. Some people on our team have shared that they’d rather be guaranteed decent availability of Lightning Lanes and be possibly denied the chance to purchase Multi Pass than to purchase Multi Pass with bad availability.
Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival
Overall, people want to know that they’re getting value for their purchase. Thankfully, you can view availability before you make your purchase! So when you go to select your Lightning Lanes, you can decide if the cost is worth it before you confirm.
Dumbo Lightning Lane
To learn more hacks and tips for using Lightning Lane in Disney World, check out the YouTube video below!
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So people complained about having to book at 7am on the day of the visit. Now there is displeasure from moving the booking further in advance that last minute guests don’t have choices. It seems the public is impossible to satisfy. Someone booking at the last minute should realize there will be consequences and perhaps purchasing Lightning Lane isn’t worth it.
I’m with you Todd you can never please everyone. I have two suggestion One dump the LL all together so we just have the stand-by keeps moving. Dreaming of the days right after C-19 opening. Two you want top line LL last minute CHARGE THEM DOUBLE. They won’t want it then. Please Disney keep upping the LL price so only the very rich can get them. Less is more, happy for the rest of us.