Lightning Lane Premier Pass Now Available to All Resort Guests
We've already written about the new and expensive Lightning Lane Premier Pass. And as of January 21st, this option is now available to all guests staying at a Walt Disney World Resort.
What is the Lightning Lane Premier Pass?
To understand the Lightning Lane Premier Pass, we first need to remember all the ways a guest can wait in line (aka, queue) for an attraction or show:
Standby - This is walking up to the attraction or show and waiting in the normal line. Any guests with park admission can ride standby on any attraction that allows it.
Virtual Queue - Very few attractions, but usually those that are new or technologically advanced, offer a virtual queue. Guests use their MyDisneyExperience app to join the virtual queue at set times during the day (usually there are drops at 7 AM and 1 PM). It's a lottery system. Sometimes you get a "boarding pass" and sometimes you don't. The boarding pass serves as your spot in line. These are worked through in order, so at some point during the day, your boarding pass will be called, and that's when you make your way to the attraction and join the queue.
Lightning Lane - A lightning lane is a faster line that is an alternative to a standby line on rides that offer it. Generally, several lightning lane guests are let onto the attraction for every one standby guest, so this line moves faster. Access to lightning lanes are purchased in one of 3 ways:
Single Pass - Some very popular rides require guests to purchase lightning lane access individually for one ride on that one attraction. The cost of single pass has ranged anywhere from $11 to $26 in our experience.
Multi-Pass - This replaced the previous Genie+ system, and prior to that the FastPass Plus system. Guests pay one amount for multi-pass access and then can book return times on a list of rides that use this system. Guests can hold 3 return times at a time, and when your window opens, you use the lightning lane. You can use this once per ride on the list. The cost of Multi-pass varies by park and by date, but we've seen things generally in the range of $23-$30.
Premier Pass - What we're about to describe!
Lightning Lane Premier Pass can easily be considered the "highest class" of lightning lane access. Guests who purchase this get one ride per ride that uses lightning lane. This includes those popular rides that use single pass, and all the rides on the multi-pass system.
There is one major pro to the Premier Pass that sets it apart from other lightning lane systems, and that is that you can ride whenever you want. There are no return windows that you have to stick to, and no requirement to book a return time. You just make your way around the park and ride what you feel like riding when you feel like riding it, using the lightning lane.
And there are two major cons to the Premier Pass. One is that you can only purchase Premier Pass for one park each day, which negates the point of park hopping. This means you will be committed to one park all day.
The other, more important in our mind, major con is the price. The Premier Pass will set you back anywhere from $120-$329 per person, on top of your park admission. The Magic Kingdom is the park that comes in most expensive at $329. Animal Kingdom comes in least expensive at a comparatively reasonable $129-$199 depending on the date. But it's also completely unnecessary at the Animal Kingdom, in our opinion.
Ethics of the Premier Pass Improving
When the Premier Pass was first piloted in October of 2024, it was only made available to guests staying at a Deluxe Disney Resort, and this, frankly, rubbed us the wrong way. We had concerns that for a guest to be able to take advantage of this they would not only be shelling out a lot more for their room, but also park admission, and then the premier pass on top of that. Not only that, but we worried that the deluxe guests using this system would make the multi-pass system less functional by creating more scarcity in lightning lane availability.
But there's good news. First of all, from what we can tell, guests didn't note any significant changes to the availability of their Multi-pass Lightning Lanes, which means our concerns about scarcity may have been unjustified. After all, the premier pass is and always was offered in limited quantities, and even then, at the price point, the chances of it being sold out may be more narrow than we thought.
Secondly, the Premier Pass is now available to any guest staying at any Walt Disney World resort. This gives guests the additional flexibility to chose where they want to spend their money. Room at the Grand Floridian for a night? Or room at All-Star Sports with a Premier Pass? Possibly the same price point but allows for a variety of priorities.
But Is it Worth It?
Whether the very expensive Premier Pass is worth it remains questionable. I think it varies depending on the park and how often you go. For someone like me who goes to Disney somewhat routinely, I probably won't need what it offers and would find it overpriced. My heart is not broken if I don't get a chance to ride certain rides. In fact, nearly every trip, I miss some rides intentionally because it's frankly impossible to do it all.
The Magic Kingdom is the most expensive park to get a Premier Pass at, and rightly so, because this is where it's worth more. The Magic Kingdom has far more attractions than any other Disney park, and the pass is a good value, especially if you're going with the intention to do everything. It could make for a very magical day indeed. On the other hand, Animal Kingdom has the fewest attractions and the lowest cost for the Premier Pass, but even that cost is not that low ($120-$199) and seems completely unnecessary. I have been able to do every attraction at Animal Kingdom without needing the Premier Pass in a day, easily. The value here may come only from not having to criss-cross the park to get to your return times and instead being able to tour at your own leisure.
The one experience that allows some line skipping that remains more expensive than the Lightning Lane Premier Pass is a VIP Tour, which at Walt Disney World is still quite expensive, but becomes a better deal the larger your party is, whereas the Premier Pass becomes a worse deal the larger your party is (It's $329 per person regardless your party size, which can get really expensive really fast for larger families).
We're obviously still having difficulty justifying the cost. But we know there are some guests out there who will easily justify it. It's the same guests who will likely book a fireworks dessert party for $129. We just can't see it yet. And that is probably why it will continue to work. Disney has mastered the mathematics of supply and demand and have found the price point at which some of us, even those of us who continue to pay the raising ticket price and for Multi-pass with a smile, won't buy the next thing.
What do you think of the Lightning Lane Premier Pass and its availability to all guests staying at resorts now? Would you buy it? Have you bought it? How did it go? Come join the conversation by following us on Facebook. Until next time...
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