Welcome to planDisney, Kaylie! Your magical vacation is just around the river bend, and I'm sure you're getting excited to experience all the magic of spooky season at the Walt Disney World Resort! I'm excited to chat with you today about using
Lightning Lane Passes while you park hop to minimize your wait times and maximize the magic!
Kaylie, when your theme park ticket includes the
Park Hopper Option, you can choose to purchase your initial three Lightning Lane Passes for any of the four theme parks, so depending on your itinerary and your can't-miss attractions, I've got a few suggestions for how to pick!
If you're planning to take advantage of
Early Theme Park Entry or rope drop a park first thing in the morning, you'll typically find shorter wait times and might want to select popular attractions at your second park for a little later in the day. This is a good strategy if you're visiting a park with in-demand attractions that might not be available for same-day selection.
Another option is to purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass for the first park you will visit and choose arrival times as early in the day as possible; the benefit of this is that once you've redeemed your initial selections, you can choose additional
attractions and experiences (subject to availability) at your next destination at no additional cost. This means you'll be jumping in the Lightning Lane lines early and often throughout the day.
Kaylie, I've used both strategies, and it honestly just depends on what you hope to accomplish. I usually recommend starting your park-hopping day at
Animal Kingdom Theme Park since it opens earliest; if you choose to purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass here, as soon as you redeem your preselected attractions, be ready to grab attractions at your next park. I usually hop to Hollywood Studios from Animal Kingdom, but if
Slinky Dog Dash is high on my priority list for the day, I'll usually purchase Lightning Lane Multi Pass for that park instead, since the same-day availability is usually slim for this attraction.
No matter which park you choose to purchase Multi Pass for, remember that you can also purchase up to two Lightning Lane Single Passes for attractions at any of the four theme parks in addition to your Multi Pass! My best park-hopping day included Multi Pass for Animal Kingdom, where we later chose attractions at each of the other three theme parks throughout the day, combined with Single Passes for both Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and TRON Lightcycle/Run. We chased thrills all day from rope drop to fireworks and had the best time!
And one last tip, Kaylie, is to be sure to set your top attractions on your Tip Board in the
My Disney Experience mobile app so that they'll populate at the top of your list when you're ready to book additional experiences using Multi Pass. This saves a few seconds of scrolling to find them in the list, but those seconds might be the difference between scoring a Lightning Lane or missing out!
Kaylie, I hope this helps! No matter which park you choose to purchase for Multi Pass, I know you're going to have the best day ever, embracing the magic of Disney! Come see us again soon at
planDisney!
See you real soon,
Alison