Hi Connie!
Welcome back to planDisney! Let me give you a quick rundown, so you’re a pro at this whole Lightning Lane thing in no time!
Everything you’ll need for purchasing and booking your Lightning Lanes will be found in your
My Disney Experience app. And you can click into that page of your app at any time leading up to your trip, so you can get an idea of how it all looks.
On the homepage of your app, you’ll see two sections right at the top titled Lightning Lane Multi Pass/Single Pass and Lightning Lane Premier Pass. If you click “Purchase” under either of those sections, you can select a date and park to see the current prices and eligible experiences.
Your Lightning Lane booking window will open for your entire trip at 7 AM Eastern, 7 days prior to your resort check-in date if you’re staying at a Disney World resort or select good neighbor hotel. If you’ll be staying off property, your booking window will open at 7 AM Eastern, 3 days prior to the start date of your ticket for date-based tickets.
On the morning your Lightning Lane booking window opens, you will be able to work your way through the prompts for each day of your trip to select your Lightning Lane services and return times. Each park day will be a separate transaction. If you choose to purchase
Lightning Lane Premier Pass, you will not need to select any return times since you can visit the attractions whenever you’d like throughout your park day with that pass!
It’s good to note that when purchasing
Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you will get to book 3 Lightning Lane pre-selections. When choosing which attractions you want to book, you’ll be able to choose 1 tier one attraction and 2 tier two attractions OR 3 tier two attractions. The attractions at Animal Kingdom are not grouped into tiers, so all attractions will be up for grabs, pending availability. You can see a full breakdown of
which attractions are in which tiers at this link.
On your park day, every single time you scan into a Lightning Lane using Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you can book any other available Lightning Lane, no matter what tier it was in during pre-selections. If you have a
park hopper ticket, that next booked attraction can also be in a different park if you’d like. Because of that, I like to book my first Lightning Lane of the day as early as possible so I open up the ability to book another one right away.
I’ll leave you with one last tip! When purchasing and booking Lightning Lane Multi Pass for each park day, I tend to book the park days that are later in my trip first. That way, I have a better chance at snagging some of the hard-to-get Lightning Lanes. Of course, if you don’t get a Lightning Lane return time you were hoping for, you can always modify your selections leading up to your trip and on your park day, pending availability.
I hope that gives you a good head start! If you have more questions about Lightning Lanes (or anything else, for that matter!), we’re always happy to help!
Jenn J.