Select Experience Lightning Lanes - How It Works
What happens if you have a Lightning Lane reservation for a ride through Genie +, but the ride goes down during your return window? In this post, we'll talk about how Disney handles this situation, and why we actually don't mind being in that situation at all.
Select Experience Lightning Lanes
When a ride goes down during your Lightning Lane window, Disney will change your regular Lightning Lane to a Select Experience Lightning Lane. This new lightning lane is offered in compensation for the fact that the ride you were originally going to ride is down, and is good for a list of other rides during the same return window. You do not have to indicate which of the other rides you want to use during that return window, just show up in the Lightning Lane at one of them, and scan in. The system will automatically recognize your Lightning Lane unless the ride is not on the list of rides it is good for.
Here's an example: On our last day at Walt Disney World one trip, we had a Lightning Lane return time for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which went down shortly before our return window. I got a notification from Genie+ that a ride I had a Lightning Lane for was no longer available, and saw the new Select Experience Lightning Lane for the same window in my plans. It listed several rides I could use it for instead.
We decided to use it on Haunted Mansion since we'd not yet had a chance to ride it, and were on that side of the park. This was a good choice since the standby line for Haunted Mansion was nearing an hour wait (It was near Halloween time and people must still have been in a spooky mood), and regular Lightning Lanes for that ride had return windows after we had to leave the park.
Our MyDisneyExperience screens once the Select Experience Lightning Lane was issued and we were able to redeem another Big Thunder Mountain Railroad return time. Note that the Select Experience Lightning Lane has no end to the window, which is another cool feature.
When clicking to see what rides the Select Experience Lightning Lane was good for, we got this information. As you can see, at the Magic Kingdom, it's a lot of rides!
But Wait, There's More
The Select Experience Lightning Lane doesn't actually count as a Lightning Lane you booked, and since the Lightning Lane you booked is no longer available, this opens up the opportunity for you to book another regular Lightning Lane (in addition to the Select Experience Lightning Lane Disney already gave you). Here's where the fun really begins.
Many rides that go down, come back online shortly, unless they are newer, more complicated rides, such as Rise of the Resistance, or Guardians Cosmic Rewind. Big Thunder Mountain isn't all that complicated and while it can experience long downtimes due to weather, that was not the case on this day, and we suspected it might be up shortly. Sure enough, 5 minutes into what would have been our Lightning Lane window for it, it came back up, Lightning Lanes became available again, and we booked another Lightning Lane (immediate return time) for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
I know, I know, we were lucky in that we got to ride both the compensation ride, and the ride we had originally wanted to ride, but even if Big Thunder Mountain Railroad had not come back up, we were eligible to book another Lightning Lane for any Lightning Lane eligible ride at the Magic Kingdom that worked for us.
The Moral of the Story
If a ride that you had a Lightning Lane for goes down at Disney, don't let it ruin your day. For us, it actually allowed us to experience more on our last short morning in the park than we otherwise would have.
A secondary moral of this story, but perhaps the most important for all things Lightning Lane, is KNOW HOW LIGHTNING LANE WORKS. If there is only one thing you research for an upcoming Disney vacation, it should be how this works. Knowing when your windows open to book another is extremely helpful. We've talked about it here in the past, and we'll talk about it again soon. Did you know you can use our categories and tags to find the content you want? For all things Lightning Lane, select the Planning category, then the Lightning Lane tag!
We hope you enjoyed this article. Have you had a ride go down you had a Lightning Lane for? Did Disney's solution feel like it compensated you appropriately? Come on over to our Facebook page and comment on this post to join the conversation. You can also follow us there to see when new articles drop each week. Until next time...
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