Is This Disney World Game Plan SABOTAGING Your Magic Kingdom Park Day?

There’s a NEW system for skipping the lines in Disney World!

Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway Lightning Lane sign

Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass premiered in Disney World in July 2024, replacing the old Genie+ offering. This new system is a paid offering, with prices varying depending on the park and the day, so you may have to budget differently depending on where you’re headed. But it’s exactly that varied pricing structure that may be causing people to make BAD plans!

For Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you pay per person, per park each day. Prices can be seen in the My Disney Experience app a few weeks ahead of time, which is helpful for budgeting, but if you’ve checked out the prices, you’ll likely notice that some parks are more expensive than others. For instance, Magic Kingdom is typically the most pricey, while Animal Kingdom is often the cheapest.

Lightning Lane

How does this affect you? Well, with the new Lightning Lane system, you only have to pay the Multi Pass cost for the park that you’re starting in. If you decide to park hop, you can book Lightning Lanes for a different park later on in the day without paying any extra. So if you start at Animal Kingdom and then hop to Magic Kingdom, you’d be saving money by paying the cheaper cost for the Animal Kingdom service instead of the more expensive cost for Magic Kingdom.

Lightning Lane has changed

Because of this, some people have been opting to pay for Animal Kingdom’s Lightning Lane Multi Pass and book their initial three attractions there. They then use those Lightning Lanes and book their subsequent selections for Magic Kingdom. But is that actually a good hack?

Winnie the Pooh Lightning Lane

Well, here’s the BIG problem with trying to save a few bucks with this method. With Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you can make your selections 7 days before your trip if you’re staying at a Disney Resort, and you can make them 3 days before your trip if you’re staying off-site. This means that by the time the day of your visit rolls around, you may find that several popular rides are already booked up.

Lightning Lane

And if those popular rides aren’t booked up yet, they certainly CAN get booked up quickly in the first few hours of the day. By the time you’ve used your Lightning Lanes at Animal Kingdom and booked new ones at Magic Kingdom, you’ll likely be down to slim pickings or only return times that are late in the day.

Expedition Everest

So even if you manage to save a few bucks, you’ll definitely be sacrificing on quality of Lightning Lanes when you get to your second park! If you can’t book Lightning Lanes that will actually save you time in the park, is it worth it to spend the money at all?

We’ll make sure to keep you updated with more Lightning Lane tips and tricks, so stay tuned to DFB.

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Have you used the new Lightning Lane system in Disney World? Tell us in the comments!