Lightning Lane Multi-Pass Rankings & Strategy for Disney’s Hollywood Studios

This ranks the objective best Lightning Lane Multi Passes at Hollywood Studios from both tiers, along with subjective strategy since there’s more to Walt Disney World’s new pre-arrival ride reservation service than simply making the top picks for each park. This guide ranks all attractions in DHS that offer MultiPass in terms of time-saved, demand, etc.

As before, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is a tough park for Lightning Lanes and requires savvy strategy. Due to the “top heavy” nature of the ride roster (meaning a handful of headliners and not many secondary rides), there are some Lightning Lanes that’ll save you a ton of time waiting in line and others that are practically pointless. Lightning Lanes for those few thrill rides are in high-demand and low-supply, whereas the pointless ones…aren’t.

The good news is that, so long as you book Lightning Lanes early and choose in the correct order, it’s possible on most days to score Lightning Lane selections for just about every high-priority attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. With that update out of the way, let’s turn to what you need to know about Lightning Lane Multi-Pass (LLMP) at DHS, and cover the best order to make your ride reservations…

Let’s start with the good news, which is that Disney’s Hollywood Studios is now the #1 park for purchasing Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Walt Disney World. As discussed in our new Top 10 Tips & Tricks for Lightning Lanes at Walt Disney World, there are a few reasons for this. More than anything else, it’s because DHS has gotten better as Magic Kingdom has gotten worse, falling from the top spot.

Beyond that, Disney’s Hollywood Studios offers the most upside with LLMP. It’s the park with the highest average standby wait times, the #1 overall Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, and easier same-day availability for tier two attractions and ride reservation refills if you leverage the rolling 3 rule and put a little elbow grease into your refresh game.

The bottom line is that you stand more to gain by buying Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at Disney’s Hollywood Studios than any other park. And most of the time, the system works better for the most popular attractions here.

With that said, crowd levels during your visit are relevant to the usefulness of LLMP at DHS. On peak season days (10/10 crowds), it’s going to be difficult to book a fourth “good” Lightning Lane Multi-Pass. However, on moderately busy days (5/10 to 7/10 on the Walt Disney World Crowd Calendar), it should be much easier. We’ve found that even on 8/10 days, Lightning Lane Multi-Pass holds up surprisingly well, and we’ve been able to score good 4th, 5th, and even 6th Lightning Lanes.

Crowd levels can heavily impact how an actual day at DHS plays out, but that isn’t the only thing. Weather, ride closures, stage showtimes, and more can also impact how things play out. It’s impossible to replicate your day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios with precise Lightning Lane time slots, etc. This equips you to put together your own dynamic plan of attack for using LLMPs in DHS.

With that said, and is probably obvious by now, these ride rankings presume basic knowledge about the Lightning Lane Multi Pass system, including advance booking windows and the Tiers or Groupings at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. If you are not familiar with this service or are already feeling lost, start by seeing our Guide to Lightning Lane Multi Pass & Single Pass at Walt Disney World for all of the foundational need-to-know info about paid FastPass.

Alternatively, if you’re thinking about skipping Lightning Lanes at DHS, that’s possible, too. Our 1-Day Disney’s Hollywood Studios Itinerary covers how you can accomplish everything even if you’re staying off-site and don’t want to spend anything extra on Lightning Lanes. Likewise, we highly recommend is Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Both of those can be good alternatives to Lightning Lanes–or even supplementary, if you want to get a lot done!

With all of that out of the way, let’s start by talking Lightning Lane MultiPass tips & tricks for Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s important to be aware that the objective ride rankings don’t tell the whole story. Subjective strategy is as important–perhaps more so depending upon which attractions have availability throughout your day at DHS…

Lightning Lane Multi Pass Strategy

One of the biggest misconceptions we’re seeing about Lightning Lane Multi Pass is that it’s exclusively pre-arrival ride reservations. That is flatly wrong. To the contrary, there will almost certainly be more same-day drops of Lightning Lanes (what we refer to as ride reservation refills) throughout the day than before. Those were a feature of FastPass+ and again with Genie, so it’s safe to assume this will happen again–but we’re betting on the volume of drops increasing for a number of reasons beyond the scope of this post.

Also notable is that tiers or groupings only apply to advance Lightning Lane Multi-Day selections. Once you’ve arrived and used your first selection–or if you make reservations in the first place on the day-of as opposed to in advance–you aren’t bound to the groupings. You can make any selections day-of without regard for the tiers–those only apply to your advance bookings.

In theory, this means that you could redeem a Lightning Lane at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for Star Tours (Grouping/Tier B) and then select Slinky Dog Dash from Grouping/Tier A. In practice, that particular scenario will be easier said than done, as Slinky Dog Dash is the #1 Lightning Lane in all of Walt Disney World. (But guess what? It will be possible if you’re “good” at the game. Back in the FastPass+ days, this exclusively my strategy–it’s how I took photos for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge construction updates!)

This can be confusing, so it’s worth discussing what this means in practice. When making your Lightning Lane selections, let’s say you have the following options:

• Slinky Dog Dash (Tier A) – 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
• Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (Tier B) – 1 pm to 2 pm
• Toy Story Mania (Tier B) – 6 pm to 7 pm

OR

• Slinky Dog Dash (Tier A) – 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
• Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (Tier B) – 1 pm to 2 pm
• Alien Swirling Saucers (Tier B) – 9:30 am to 10:30 am

Even though Toy Story Mania ranks one spot higher than Alien Swirling Saucers on the list below, you should–without a doubt–choose it in the above scenario. That’s because it has a return time first thing in the morning, offering the option to make another selection before 10:30 am at the latest. By contrast, if you chose the first set of selections, you wouldn’t be able to make subsequent selections until 1 pm at the absolute earliest (after redeeming the Tower of Terror LLMP).

I’m highly confident that there would be a worthwhile 4th pick Lightning Lane at or before 10:30 am. I am far less confident, in fact, downright skeptical, that would be true at 1 pm. (Maybe if you were willing to play the refresh game, but still–the odds are not in your favor.) I’d go a step further and say there’s a pretty good chance you could get another Tier A Lightning Lane before 10:30 am, and near certainty that you could still scoop up Toy Story Mania.

This is where strategy takes on another layer with Lightning Lane Multi Pass. While you definitely should not pass up Slinky Dog Dash no matter what the return time is (even after 7 pm!), you should give further thought to late afternoon second and especially third selections. There’s no hard and fast rule here, and it’ll depend upon anticipated crowd levels when you’re visiting.

Now, on with the Lightning Lane attractions rankings at Disney’s Hollywood Studios…

DHS Lightning Lane Multi Pass Rankings – Group A

1. Slinky Dog Dash – The obvious choice for your #1 Lightning Lane Multi Pass. Not just in DHS, but all of Walt Disney World. Slinky Dog Dash is in a league of its own, and is arguably the LLMP most “deserving” of being a Lightning Lane Single Pass.

There’s a very good chance that pre-arrival availability for Slinky Dog Dash will be gone at or even before the 7-day mark. If you’re staying off-site, you’ll likely be reliant upon ride reservation refills or cancellations.

This has been exacerbated by the closure of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith to be reimagined into Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring the Muppets. After that opens in Summer 2026, we still expect Slinky Dog Dash to be #1, but not by as wide of a margin.

2. Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway – The drop-off in demand from #1 to #2 is substantial. On the one hand, the “new ride smell” is wearing off Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway. On the other hand, DHS is imbalanced and doesn’t have a lot of family-friendly attractions.

This dearth of popular family-friendly attractions means that Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is the default top tier pick for families with small children who can’t do the above because they’re too intense or due to height requirements. This alone means that MMRR often is unavailable as a subsequent selection since demand is concentrated for this attraction, whereas older demographics and thrill seekers have multiple options aside from Slinky Dog Dash.

Still, it almost always has availability a day or two in advance, and usually has some same-day pop-up availability.

3. Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run – This is the secondary attraction in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, but it still averages a top 5 wait time in Disney’s Hollywood Studios and is usually a fairly popular Lightning Lane Multi Pass.

Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run is a reliable ride that doesn’t typically suffer downtime. You can also hedge your bets with the Single Rider line should you get denied a same-day Lightning Lane for MFSR.

We expect this to become more popular once the Mandalorian and Baby Yoda new mission debuts in Summer 2026. At the point when that debuts and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster reopens, it’s likely Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway will drop to #4 on this list.

DHS Lightning Lane Multi Pass Rankings – Group B

T1. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – The easy #1 pick from Tier/Group B. This is an attraction that can continue to operate even when there’s downtime/protein spills in part of the attraction, rather than closing completely. That’s good for guests, but it also causes wait times to skyrocket and Lightning Lane availability to be reduced (or cut off completely).

Suffice to say, when Tower of Terror has one elevator shaft down, it’s a top 3 wait time in all of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. (This also makes same-day Lightning Lane availability/refills far less likely.)

When operating at full-capacity, its wait times drop a bit. But Tower of Terror is still a top 5 pick and the #1 selection of the Group B Lightning Lane Multi-Passes.

T1. Toy Story Mania – With the return to pre-booking ride reservations, we’ve seen far less same-day ride reservation availability for Toy Story Mania. It still allocates a significant portion of its capacity to Lightning Lane line-skipping, and has higher average standby wait times as a result. All of that makes Toy Story Mania a great use of the Lightning Lane.

In the end, Tower of Terror and Toy Story Mania are tied for #1 of Tier 2 because both have high average wait times–far above anything else in this category (and sometimes, even the lower end of Tier 1). We give Tower of Terror the slight edge due to downtime woes, but that’s mostly academic–these should both be your selections from the second tier. Nothing else on this list really matters.

Both of these Tier 2 picks typically have more limited availability than Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway and Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run.

3. Alien Swirling Saucers – Based on average standby wait times alone, this is a smart selection in this spot. Subjectively, most people are probably good to skip the Toy Story Land flat ride.

4. The Little Mermaid ~ A Musical Adventure – This reimagined stage show debuted last year, and has been popular since. The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure frequently fills up, and has a ~30 minute wait for subsequent shows as a result.

Still, it is only a stage show and is only recommended as a subsequent selection as opposed to something you’d pre-book. It’s still far below Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, and Alien Swirling Saucers in terms of wait times and Lightning Lane demand.

5. Star Tours — The Adventures Continue – This excellent Star Wars simulator can have decently long waits on the busiest days of the year, but most normal days, we’ve found the Lightning Lane to offer almost no advantage here. Get it if you can, but don’t sweat standby.

The Rest

N/A. Every Other Stage Show – Everything else at Disney’s Hollywood Studios–Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage,  Frozen Sing-Along Celebration, Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular–is a show of some sort, or at least not a ride.

While the Lightning Lane offers priority seating, it’s typically not all that advantageous for shows your specific seat in the theater really matters (for most people, it shouldn’t). If you’re not going to Park Hop, you might consider using it for these shows, but there’s not a good way to put Lightning Lane reservations for these into your itinerary during the middle of the day.

The opportunity cost of not booking one of the other Group B attractions is too high. Heck, if there’s no early morning availability for one of those rides, I’d be more inclined to leave my third Lightning Lane slot open and roll the dice on better day-of options. The vast majority of guests should simply do shows via the standby lines. There’s no point.

Ultimately, you should be able to knock out most attractions via Lightning Lane Multi Pass on a good day in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The biggest obstacle will be your Tier A pick, as Slinky Dog Dash goes fast. If you’re staying off-site or even if you’re on-site but have a shorter trip during a busier time, there’s a very good chance you won’t be able to reserve it before your trip.

Other than Slinky Dog Dash, you shouldn’t have much of a problem scoring slots for the remaining best Lightning Lanes at Disney’s Hollywood Studios from both Tier/Group A and B. Plan accordingly based on the crowds when you’ll be visiting, and also give yourself as many other advantages as possible–like Early Entry, rope drop, or staying late when crowds tend to die down at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. (All of which are great ways to do Slinky Dog Dash or Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which is the park’s lone Lightning Lane Single Pass attraction.)

Lightning Lane Multi Pass will probably save you the second-most time at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, behind only Magic Kingdom, which earns that distinction because of its higher eligible attraction count. This is why we recommend Lightning Lane Multi-Pass for most guests and on most days of the year at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s worth the money given the amount of time you’ll save standing in line.

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YOUR THOUGHTS

How would you rank your ride priorities using Lightning Lanes in Disney’s Hollywood Studios? Surprised by any of the rankings in either Group/Tier, or that Slinky Dog Dash takes the #1 spot? Are you planning on buying Lightning Lane Multi-Pass or skipping it? Do you agree or disagree with our rankings? 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!