Hello there Michael,
Welcome to planDisney, and thank you for visiting with your question! It's so tempting to upgrade your Disney World theme park tickets to an annual pass. I was happy to dig in and find an answer for you on this, because I hope to do the same thing one day.
My family love uses
Lightning Lane passes to skip the stand by lines on some of our favorite attractions. It lets you pack so much more into your Disney Day!
A Lightning Lane pass just needs to be tied to a valid park ticket. The Cast Member I visited with confirmed that if you will be a guest at a Disney Resort, or your park ticket is for 3 days or less, you won't have any problem keeping your Lightning Lane Multi Pass purchases when upgrading to an Annual Pass.
With an Annual Pass, a guest can book Lightning Lanes three days in advance, for up to three days at a time. So if you are not staying at a Disney Resort, this 3 day window will be something you'll want to take into consideration. In this case, I recommend waiting to upgrade until there are just 3 remaining days of your trip. Then all three days of your Lightning Lanes will fall within your eligibility window.
For example, if you have a 5-day park ticket with Lightning Lane passes booked for each day, and are staying offsite... wait until day three to upgrade to an Annual Pass. This way you can keep all of your Lightning Lane reservations for the last 3 days of your trip.
If you see anything missing in My Disney Experience after upgrading your tickets, you can
call Disney Reservations. They can make sure your Lightning Lanes are reassigned to the updated Annual Pass.
I hope this makes sense, and helps with your plans! Please send me another
message at planDisney if you have any follow up questions. I'll be sending pixie dust your way and wishing for you to have an absolutely wonderful vacation at Walt Disney World!
The magic is calling,
Tami