Welcome to planDisney, Stuart! I'm so glad to be able to answer your question today about
Lightning Lane: my favorite way to save time at Walt Disney World Resort.
You've got some really great questions about the finer details of Lightning Lane today and I'm happy to clarify it all for you! Let's start with your second question. If you intend to park hop and use Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you still only need to make the purchase for one park, preferably the park that you're starting with. You can still make selections at multiple theme parks (I'll get to that part next!) but you only need to make the purchase one time. At this time, you cannot make multiple Lightning Lane Multi Pass purchases and make three advanced selections at more than one park.
The ability to make selections at a different theme park is unlocked when you use your first Lightning Lane Multi Pass selection of the day. Let's say you're starting at
Magic Kingdom and you've booked return times for
Space Mountain,
Haunted Mansion, and
Pirates of the Caribbean, with plans to hop over to
EPCOT later in the day. Once you've used your Space Mountain return time, you can choose to either book another Lightning Lane at Magic Kingdom, or you can start making choices for EPCOT later in the day. You can always hold three Lightning Lane return times at any given time, so I definitely recommend updating your choices as soon as you've ridden something so you can maximize the amount of attractions you're able to ride in the day!
I hope this answers your question, Stuart, and please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help you plan your magical vacation.
Jessica