Aug 1010 min read

Lightning Lane Multipass Experiences - two weeks post-launch

For those who missed the memo, Disney has changed how lightning lanes work as of late July. They have now rolled out Lightning Lane Multipass and Lightning Lane Singlepass. Singlepass is basically the same system and same rides that used to be called Individual Lightning Lanes, with the new exception that they can be booked in advance. Lightning Lane Multipass is the same rides that used to just be regular lightning lane rides using Genie+, with the exception that you can book three in advance.

The advance booking windows are 7 days in advance of your first day for Disney resort guests, and 3 days in advance of your first day for non-resort guests who have tickets. When booking in advance, you can book for all days on the length of your ticket up to 7 days.

This is why it's been important to use to wait to write this blog about how the system is going. The system has now been in place long enough for resort guests to experience that window of being able to select 3 rides 7 days in advance of their first day, and have now been able to book well into their vacation, so we can compare how first day advance bookings go with how bookings for days even later in your trip go.

Availability for Resort Guests

First things first, there are really no surprises here. Resort guests were able to mostly get what they wanted 7 days in advance for their first day, but saw availability open up even further as they worked into subsequent days of their trip (because they are essentially booking up to 14 days in advance). This is due to overlap of other resort guests who had a crack at your first day before you did, and is very similar to what we see with ADRs where getting that perfect time at that hard-to-get restaurant is going to go better when booking out to subsequent days of your trip, rather than trying to get it on your first day.

Availability for Non-Resort Guests

Non-resort guests who have advance tickets can still book 3 days in advance of their visit. Reports indicate there's been mediocre availability here. For example, Tiana has consistently been all booked up by this 3-day in advance window, and Slinky Dog has about a 50% chance of being booked up. Other ride return times may be in the late afternoon or evening.

Availability on the Day Of

Day-of availability impacts both those people who decided to visit spontaneously, and those who have already prebooked their first three lightning lane return times, and are now looking for more times after they've used their first and become eligible to book another. And we have a lot to say about this, because, of course, it's complicated.

You can assume from the pattern we've already indicated with advanced bookings that as times are taken, the pickings generally become slim. At the "day-of" stage of the game, those with advanced booking opportunities have been able to secure return times for up to 14 days already. You can imagine the pickings can be slim. Some of this can be overcome through a lot of effort (read that as "time on your phone, hitting refresh"). But let's say you aren't doing anything unusual and just casually checking.

First of all, don't expect to get on Tiana. It's gone. There's a good chance Slinky Dog Dash will also be gone, though you may find evening return times on some days, if you book right at the 7 AM booking time. Here are the impacts advanced booking had on day-of availability that were observed last week:

No times available for Tiana
No times on some days available for Slinky Dog Dash. If they were, they were evening
No morning time slots available for Haunted Mansion, Pirates
Limited morning time slots available for Remy, Frozen, Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania

Keep in mind that last week, Orlando experienced a tropical storm, which always skews crowd levels in a strange way. Crowds tend to be lower than predicted before and during the storm as people leave, and then surge to higher than predicted after the storm as people return and/or adjust their schedules.

Day-of Return Times After Using Your First Lightning Lane

Once you use a lightning lane, you can book another, so it's likely you're going to be searching for day-of bookings, regardless. Reports on this are mixed, but suffice it to say, right now, the options are dwindling earlier in the day than they did with Genie+. With Genie+, there seemed to be pretty good availability for Lightning Lane return times until about 4-5pm (by which time, I had my evening slots booked). Under the new system, some report this dwindles as early as 9:30 AM (after their first or second lightning lane has been redeemed) and others report this dwindles closer to noon-2PM. We think this is going to depend largely on the park, the crowd level, and the operation parameters that day (i.e. - How many cars are on the track).

What we fear is that the days of evening stacking are gone. It seems obvious that unless you want to sleep in, you'll want your first few lightning lanes to be in the morning so that you at least have the chance to get more.

Possible Exceptions to the Rule

Take all of this with a grain of salt. The new system is only two weeks old, and we can expect Disney to make tweaks. In fact, some speculate Disney has been "throttling" lightning lane availability to ensure the new system is actually working. So there's that hope that more will be available as Disney works out the kinks.

But even if they aren't throttling availability, there are a few things to be aware of:

Pop-up availability - Some data aggregators have shown that Disney tends to drop a bunch of availability for certain rides at set times during the day. Disney actually did this during Fastpass Plus era as well, like a way of throwing a bone to those guests who were completely clueless about the lightning lane system and had just shown up to discover long lines and then opted into the system. This is different from cancellations where one party may cancel a slot, thus making it available. This is a LOT of ride availability dropped at a certain time of day. These get swallowed up within seconds by eager guests, but there's a possibility you could happen upon a drop of pop-up availability.
Cancellations - Guests cancel as plans change. If a lightning lane is cancelled or modified, opening up a slot, it becomes available for another guest to grab.
Virtual queues - Tiana, Tron, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind offer a virtual queue in addition to availability on lightning lane (Tiana is a multi pass ride, Tron and Guardians are single pass rides). These rides do NOT offer a standby queue, so your options to ride are to get (Tiana) or purchase (Tron and Guardians) the Lightning Lane or to enter the lottery at set times of day to get a virtual queue slot. The virtual queue does not move fast, but it's not as bad as the worst standby lines (we're looking at you, Flight of Passage, with your multi-hour standby), and at least offer the opportunity to ride. These drop at 7 AM and 1 PM. Instead of getting a return time, you get a line position, and your app will notify you when your line position (called a boarding group) is called. So, if you didn't get the chance to get Tiana, you could always try for the virtual queue.
Modifying your Lightning Lane - We can't overstate how powerful it is to know you can modify a lightning lane. When modifying a lightning lane, you can still hold your slot, while browsing potential other time slots or even other rides that you could change your selection to. This is different than cancelling and then rebooking. If you cancel, you lose your lightning lane and while that opens you to theoretically be able to get another, there is no guarantee you can. When modifying, you do not lose your booking until you find and confirm a different slot. But be aware this is ALWAYS subject to availability. If you hold a Big Thunder Mountain Railroad return time and want to change it to Tiana on the day of, and the slots for Tiana are already taken, you won't find availability and won't be able to make that modification. Similarly, if you booked Remy for 9 AM but then decide you'd rather ride it at 3 PM, you'll only be able to get 3 PM if it's available, AND when it becomes the first available time because slots are still given in the order of return time. In other words, you don't get to just go in and choose 3 PM, even if 3 PM is available.

Other ways day-of booking is different

When prebooking, the system does not allow you to book windows that overlap with other return times or ADRs. Which suuuuuuuucks. Especially since each return window is an hour of time, and we already know that the earlier you use a lightning lane, the more chance you have to choose from remaining availability and get another lightning lane. Let's say the park opens at 8 AM and you game the lightning lane prebooking system to the fullest. You will still have return times at 8 AM, 9 AM, and 10 AM. More likely, your return times will look more like 8:05-9:05, 9:15-10:15, and 10:55-11:55. While you get an opportunity to grab another lightning lane once you scan into that first ride between 8:05 and 9:05, your third won't be available to grab another until close to noon, when a lot of the better rides are going to be out. So, yes, even if you can game the system to its fullest, by the time you're booking your sixth lightning lane, you may be selecting Barnstormer or Magic Carpets of Aladdin as your sixth because that's what may be left.

But we digress. We mention this because the important difference of day of booking is that when booking on the day of, the system does not care whether your return windows overlap. And you should not either, as long as you can ride a ride and get to the other before the return window closes. Hello to booking Buzz Lightyear at 4:05 and Laugh Floor at 4:20.

The tier system is JUST for prebooking. When prebooking your lightning lane multipass selections, you will notice a tier system in 3 of the 4 parks (Animal Kingdom does not use it), which allows you to book only one tier 1 ride, and your other bookings must be from tier 2. Tier 1 rides are the ones you want. They are the most popular rides, so this is Disney's way of limiting rides on these most popular rides so all guests get a chance. Theoretically. For example, let's say you want to ride Remy, Frozen, and Soarin' over at EPCOT. These are all tier 1 rides, so for your prebooking, you can only choose one of them. Your other two rides are going to be things like Spaceship Earth and Livin' With the Land. That's right, you have to use one of your 3 coveted initial three bookings to ride Spaceship Earth.

However, once you're in the park on the day-of, the system no longer cares about tiers. This means you can use your Spaceship Earth lightning lane first thing in the morning, and then go see if a tier 1 ride like Remy, Frozen, or Soarin' is still available, and if so, grab it. You can hold two tier 1's at the same time on the day-of. In fact (and this is your reward for making it this far into the article), you don't even have to ride Spaceship Earth. At 7 AM on the day of your visit, just see if you can modify it to a tier 1 ride.

You're welcome.

(Though, I love Spaceship Earth and will totally be riding it.)

My Brain is Exploding. Just Tell Me What This All Means.

Thanks for making it this far. Here are the bullet points from what we've seen so far:

With people prebooking, availability is going faster. Resort guests have the most advantage and for days later in their stay. Non-resort guests using the 3-day window will have fewer things and times to select from. Spontaneous guests will have even fewer selections.
Expect the "good" rides to be showing later return times on the day-of.
Expect the "good" rides to be mostly gone by early afternoon.
Be aware of your options if stuck with limited selections, such as virtual queue or modifying.
Don't like what you got? Modify. Don't like what you see when modifying? Keep refreshing. People cancel and Disney drops pop-up availability.
- Yes, you'll be on your phone more because you'll be refreshing earlier in the day than you would've under Genie+.

As a bonus, I'll share my current strategy for a trip next month (will be staying on site):

For my pre-selections, I plan to make those as early in the day as possible. Knowing they all have to the same park and can't be overlapping times limits me somewhat since I will be park hopping, but early is the name of the game.
On the day of, I'll hop on at 7 AM just to see if I can modify some of the later morning return times to overlapping earlier return times.
I'm a midday break, park hopping person. Once I see the return times for rides I'm interested in are later in the day than I want to be in that park, I'll be switching my bookings on the day of my visit to fill the late afternoon/evening time slots at the park I'll be hopping to.

A lot of the YouTube videos and vloggers out there have tried to show that you can still get a lot of lightning lanes, even if limited to the 3-day prebooking window by gaming the system. I don't put a lot of faith in these videos mainly because what they are trying to do is get the most lightning lanes no matter what the ride is, rather than tour like they would want to tour. You can probably get a ton of lightning lanes if you want to spend your afternoon on Magic Carpets, Barnstormer, Teacups, and other things. But it is my opinion that Barnstormer is not equal to Haunted Mansion in that Barnstormer is a kiddie coaster and Haunted Mansion is a classic. To each their own, but be aware that just because some people can game the system, the quality of the game still matters. Therefore, "your mileage may vary".

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