Lightning Lane Multi-Pass & Premier Pass Return to Peak Prices at Disney World as Dates Sell Out
Walt Disney World’s top tier Lightning Lane Premier Pass has sold out for a 10-day stretch during the upcoming peak Ski Week. In addition to that, both it and Multi-Pass have returned to their all-time highest prices in March 2025. This post covers sold out dates and costs for Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, plus commentary about pricing.
Let’s start by distinguishing the various paid FastPass products at Walt Disney World. Lightning Lane Premier Pass (LLPP) is a top tier of line-skipping, intended for the top ~2% of spenders and priced according. By contrast, Lightning Lane Multi-Pass (LLMP) and Lightning Lane Single Pass (LLSP) are the mass-product products aimed at the majority guests and also priced accordingly.
There’s a lot more to know about Lightning Lane Premier Pass, Multi-Pass and Single Pass, all of which is beyond the scope of this post. If you don’t already know about these line-skipping services, we’d encourage you to read our Guide to Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World instead of this post.
If you’re wondering why Lightning Lane Premier Pass is suddenly selling out, one explanation is that Walt Disney World expanded eligibility for Lightning Lane Premier Pass to all guests, on-site and off-site, about one month ago.
This was a much more significant step than the previous one, when Disney expanded LLPP from Deluxe Resorts to all on-site resorts. As we explained back at the time, it was unlikely that many Value or Moderate Resort guests would be springing for the incredibly expensive top-tier line-skipping option. There were probably some exceptions, but not many.
By contrast, expanding Lightning Lane Premier Pass opened up the pool pretty significantly. This means some of the most expensive hotels in Central Florida are now eligible for Lightning Lane Premier Pass, including but not limited to the Four Seasons Orlando, JW Marriott Orlando Bonnet Creek, Waldorf Astoria Orlando, Conrad Orlando, and more. All of these have higher nightly rates than Value or Moderate Resorts at Walt Disney World, and offer amenities and service above Deluxe Resorts.
Critically, they also do not offer an on-site advantage with Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, so there would be a strong incentive for guests of the Four Seasons Orlando and these other hotels to upgrade to Lightning Lane Premier Pass. It’s not just these hotels, either. There are many massive mansions around Walt Disney World that are rented out as vacation homes; that’s another big demographic that might be in the market for Lightning Lane Premier Pass.
On top of that, this upcoming week (Presidents’ Day/Mid-Winter Break/Ski Week) is the busiest of the first two months of the year, and the first truly ‘peak week’ since Walt Disney World expanded the eligibility pool of Lightning Lane Premier Pass to all guests, not just on-site ones. See High Crowds & Wait Times Warning: Worst Week of Winter 2025 Is Coming to Walt Disney World! Given all of that, it’s really not surprise to see LLPP selling out with regularity.
To this point, Lightning Lane Premier Pass is now sold out at Magic Kingdom for a 10-day stretch from now through Friday, February 21, 2025 (the sellouts started a couple days ago, we just didn’t feel the need to cover the niche topic until there was more to the story).
We now have that bigger news, with all four parks being sold out of Lightning Lane Premier Pass for the first in 2025 on Saturday, February 15, 2025. In addition to that, LLPP is sold out at Disney’s Hollywood Studios from today through February 17 and it’s unavailable at EPCOT both days this weekend.
The longest stretch of sold out dates was previously the weeks of Christmas and New Year’s Eve, when Magic Kingdom sold out most dates–but never 10 consecutive days. Other parks similarly sold out sporadically during that peak week between the two holidays.
December 28, 2024 is the only other day for LLPP to ever sell out all 4 parks, and that ended up being the second-busiest day of the year, with 10/10 crowds. Mid-Winter Break will be busy, but not that busy. I wouldn’t be surprised if this weekend doesn’t exceed 8/10 crowd levels. There’s a very big difference in terms of wait time spread between an 8/10 day and a 10+/10 day like December 28. LLPP was “worth” far more on Dec. 28 than Feb. 15, despite identical peak pricing for both.
As we stressed recently, Don’t Fall for FOMO with Lightning Lane Premier Pass at Walt Disney World. We don’t recommend this to anyone on a tight budget, so if you’d need to splurge to buy LLPP, it’s probably not for you. There are use cases for it, but mostly among people for whom money is no object.
Walt Disney World’s official website still emphasizes that they are piloting the rollout of Lightning Lane Premier Pass with “very limited quantities.” When the new tier of line-skipping first went live, our biggest question was: just how limited is very limited?
That’s a fair question to ask, and we’ve heard from plenty of fans who are worried that Lightning Lane Premier Pass will make the guest experience worse for everyone else. Everything we’ve seen thus far strongly suggests that the caps for LLPP are pretty low, which is a good thing for everyone else.
As mentioned previously, the target audience for LLPP is exceedingly limited by virtue of its price. However, we wouldn’t be surprised if Walt Disney World raises the caps on Premier Pass in the weeks and months to come. Walt Disney World won’t officially announce this if they do it, so we won’t know with 100% certainty if it happens. One thing to watch for, though, would be fewer sell outs during Spring Break–Easter week being the most conclusive, as it is always busier than Presidents’ Day weekend and the week that follows.
Another obvious possibility, as always, is price increases. Maybe Magic Kingdom will hit $500 during Easter, with DHS breaking $400, EPCOT eclipsing $300, and Animal Kingdom above $200. That also wouldn’t surprise me if Walt Disney World wants to continue selling LLPP in the same quantities. But since they never told us how limited “very limited” is, my guess is that the caps are raised as opposed to prices.
At least for now, we’ve observed absolutely no impact on Lightning Lane utilization as a result of Premier Pass. In fact, quite the opposite.
Lightning Lanes are far less busy than at the same point one year ago, and standby lines are moving much more efficiently. Obviously, this is not due to Lightning Lane Premier Pass. It probably has a bit to do with the switch from Genie+ to Multi-Pass, but is mostly about the DAS changes.
We explained this recently in Here’s Why Standby Lines and Lightning Lanes Are Moving Faster at Walt Disney World. The bottom line is that Lightning Lanes and standby lines are generally moving efficiently, or at least much more so than the last couple of years. (Disneyland is a different matter–we’re still observing plenty of problems and logjams there.)
So nothing to worry about with Lightning Lane Premier Pass (for now), even on sold out days, except to the extent that LLPP is more likely to sell out when the parks are busier. There’s still a very, very small number of guests using LLPP–and most would be buying Lightning Lane Multi-Pass or VIP Tours otherwise, so it’s not like they’re adding much new strain or demand on the system.
Speaking of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, this line-skipping option has returned to its all-time high pricing in March 2025.
From March 2-4, 2025, the LLMP service hits its peak price of $39 at Magic Kingdom. The other parks are in their top tier pricing ballpark for a subset of those same dates, and all parks are at their highest levels on March 4, 2025. Unless I have a defective calendar, that’s a Tuesday. Granted, it’s Mardi Gras…but it’s still a Tuesday before Spring Break.
My best guess is that Walt Disney World’s pricing people are seeing high occupancy around these dates, especially the weekends before and after thanks to runDisney and ESPN Wide World of Sports events. They’re also probably looking at past data from Mardi Gras. But we’ve seen time and time again that Mardi Gras is only miserable when it coincides with the week of Presidents’ Day. Moreover, runDisney and ESPN WWoS events have a disproportionate impact on occupancy, but not as much on attendance and crowds.
This isn’t to say that weekend or the next one and the days in between will be uncrowded–they won’t. Still, this is before the heart of the Spring Break season, and it’s not normally that bad. To the contrary, some years are downright blissful (this won’t be one of them). On that Tuesday, I’d be surprised to see crowd levels (as measured by wait times) eclipse 7/10.
It’s possible Walt Disney World knows this, and isn’t expecting peak season crowds that weekend or week. Instead, this could be to prime planners for a price increase during the heart of Spring Break season. We expected that back around Christmas and New Year’s Eve, but costs ended up being unchanged year-over-year. We had been bracing ourselves for Lightning Lane Multi-Pass breaking the $50 barrier. Maybe now is when that finally happens? Or maybe there’s a half-step first, with Magic Kingdom hitting $44?
This all comes as reports have emerged that even Walt Disney World is Worried About Its High Prices.
Some fans are going to see Lightning Lanes return to all-time record high prices, along with the possibility of further increases, and have an understandable reaction: “I guess Disney is not really that worried about prices!”
The whole subtext of the reports from within the Walt Disney Company that leaders have “serious concerns” about the rising cost of visiting the parks is that this is an ongoing internal debate. You cannot have a debate if there is consensus. Meaning that not everyone at Disney is worried about this and, judging by the trajectory of pricing, those sounding the alarms internally have been losing the argument.
In fact, the Wall Street Journal’s reporting specifically said that these issues had been raised with Disney CEO Bob Iger, but “parks were still booming.” The article omits his response, but it can be inferred from context that he didn’t do anything. That Parks & Resorts had become the company’s primary profit engine and Disney “needed” Walt Disney World to overperform to compensate for other segments being laggards. (Tale as old as time.)
This is precisely why we’ve referenced Bob Iger being “alarmed” by price increases at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and was concerned that Chapek was “killing the soul” of Disney back when he returned in late 2022. He quickly made moves to address this in early 2023 and price increases did decelerate after that, but not much has been done sense to address guest goodwill, satisfaction, or other key metrics. The present circumstances parallel those, and Iger and Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro need to do something again.
This is precisely how and why leaks like this week’s occur. When people on the ground at Walt Disney World and Disneyland have concerns and want to make changes to improve the trajectory of various metrics, but are overridden at a higher level. From the outside looking in, it’s impossible to say who is making that decision, but as always, the buck stops with Iger and D’Amaro.
Our expectation and hope is that, as before, this is too big to ignore. That the Walt Disney Company will need to respond with action, making another round of guest-friendly changes, instead of just releasing a hollow press release to “explain” why the parks are actually a good value and guests are happy with their experiences. How that manifests itself–or even whether it happens at all–is still very much up in the air, but we certainly would not expect it to come by lowering Lightning Lane Premier Pass prices. That would be the equivalent of offering a middle class tax break by offering rebates on Porsche purchases.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about Lightning Lane Premier Pass? Surprised that it’s selling out during Ski Week, or did you expect that? What about Lightning Lane Multi-Pass hitting its peak prices for Mardi Gras? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Other thoughts or concerns? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
The bosses@ Disney need to get their act together as ?? to vacationers as to what is really available$$$
WE did not return this yr due to the confusion.. We went for a 3yrs and stayed a Disney Resort I think Walt Disney would very dismayed about the $$$ conflicts. Where has the magic gone???
Well a sentence with Walt Disney and ‘peak prices’ or ‘price increases’ is not a surprise. Sadly, its not even a surprise when the phrase ‘price increases’ falls just behind an article that indicates maybe, just maybe, disney has priced its customers out. The good news is its not ALL disney customers, just a subset. Sure. Disney’s business model has been long on take and short on give IMHO. My wife and I spent a weekend at Pop Century recently. We had not been back to WDW since 2019. We spent one day in Epcot doing the food and wine festival which is, sadly, a shadow of its former self. I would say the food and wine festival is a poster child for disney’s relationship with its customers.
“Record prices” is proof that Disney is not worried about their prices pushing guests away.
Perhaps I misunderstand some of it, but it seems to me that offering LLPP to everyone would undermine some of the more distinct on-site advantages. That is, the 7-day pre-booking advantage becomes meaningless if one can access all LLs regardless. Early entry also is less of an advantage when I can just roll in late-ish but then cycle through Lightning Lanes non-stop. Seems odd that one of those benefits was just added but then watered down just a few months in. What am I missing?
Based on recent trends, if Disney resorts all end up looking like Holiday Inns and hardly offer any competitive advantage, it might get tough to maintain the robust price premiums.
“What am I missing?”
The cost, I guess?
LLPP doesn’t undermine on-site advantages just as VIP tours don’t, as both are prohibitively expensive for the overwhelming majority of guests, on-site or off-site.
It’s the sellout dates that made me nervous there is a larger market for it. But since those are limited to few days, I think you are right. By its nature, it should be considered a niche product or it would also undermine its own value. There’s just always the temptation to broaden something that’s generating extra money. Paranoia perhaps..
I may have missed this in your article, but do the off site people get the 7 day advantage when purchasing the premier pass, do you know? Thanks
Nope!
Might’ve been worth mentioning in the article that guests of Disney Resort hotels and other select hotels can purchase LLPP up to 7 days in advance of their stay—and other guests can purchase LLPP up to 3 days in advance of their park visit.
This means that those more remote Magic Kingdom sell outs are all due to on-site guests. Also suggests that the other parks (or at least DHS) will follow suit once the off-site window opens.
For sure! Skiing has become extremely expensive. We love it but the cost to ski has risen even faster than the cost of going to Disney!
Something to consider when deciding if your daughter “needs” to learn. If she does, beware it’s addictive like Disney!
I love the idea of skiing as a family in California, but I’ve never gone skiing anywhere but Michigan. And it’s a totally different ballgame out here, it seems.
Back when I was in ski club as a kid, it was anything but elitist. But our local ski slope was also very small and a season pass was around $100. Only the “rich” kids (or so was my perception at the time) went out to Vail for spring break and would leave those lift tickets on their jackets all year as a status symbol.
Indeed it has! We used to be avid skiers, but haven’t gone in a couple years and might just be done with it. Older knees and higher prices have taken their toll. Much like Disney, our last ski trip was actually to France! Airline tickets were a bit more expensive than going to the Rockies, but lift tickets, equipment rental, and lodging were all 1/3-1/2 price.
Yes! We are a ski family – WDW food is cheap compared to ski lodge food, and Epic lift tickets in CO are more expensive than Disney tickets. My son was about 10, and we were at Killington in VT. He thought the cafeteria style was a buffet. That was a shock when he got to the cashier
That being said I was going to buy LLPP HS for my husband and I on our couples trip in a few weeks. I could handle $269, but I won’t buy it at $350.
I agree Meghan! My dad supplied product to Rossingnol and Vokl and others so we were fortunate to get clothes and equipment for free. But my mom still said she taught school in California to pay for all our vacations! I recently told my husband the cost of premium park passes and he said for the first time, “wow, Disney is really getting greedy”. I just hope this remains a very niche and limited offering as Tom describes.
In my experience, families whose kids get ski week off also tend to be paying $40k and up for the private schools that get ski week! Those people are ok with paying for premier pass. And it’s for all day and night not just the much shorter private tour hours. What a deal!
Plenty of public schools around us have ski week off. Same goes for portions of the Midwest and Northeast (although they mostly call it mid-winter break).
I do take your point in general, though. And on a somewhat-related note, I read a recent article about the costs of skiing and it sounded eerily similar to what’s been happening with Walt Disney World and Disneyland prices!
I was gonna say, my state has never had February break (though my Massachusetts family called it February Vacation Week, and looks like NYC calls is “midwinter recess”) but I’ve never heard of it called “ski week” until reading this blog. I know Tom didn’t invent it, but that term strikes me as so privileged/elitist. My family couldn’t afford to ski growing up and from what I’ve seen recently I’m not sure how many families can afford it today (per Tom’s note above). The school systems don’t officially call it that, do they?
I realize a great many readers of this blog know slot into the demographic who would find skiing approachable financially (if they can spring for a pricey WDW vacation). But still, the term strikes me as either classist, tone-deaf, or pushed by the shadowy “Big Ski” conglomerate.
Ha,ha, re the “shadowy Big Sky conglomerate” and that’s exactly the problem because there are now two conglomerates that own most of the US and Canadian ski areas. But to answer your question, I have never heard it called “ski week” unless the school was private. Even in SoCal where the public school families used to ski the long president’s weekends. But maybe that has changed or Tom lives in a super elitist part of SoCal!
Pete – you might find the introduction to our standalone article about Ski Week interesting: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/ski-week-winter-break-crowds-disney-world-disneyland/
TL;DR – People have raised the same concerns as you about the term Ski Week, and most school districts now refer to it as something else. There are a few spots that still do refer to it as such, as do many parents. I think that’s mostly affluent areas of NorCal, though–not where we live!
Thank you, Tom — wow that article’s intro really did address my thoughts/feelings, in an almost eerily pertinent way. It’s almost like it was written today and then back-dated to last year. Score one for The Simulation!
I generally read most of your DTB posts but I think I vaguely remember that headline, and guessing I probably stopped reading after the first paragraph out of annoyance/disdain for the term “Ski Week”. I remain disdainful, but at least I’m now better informed!