Top 10 Best & Most Difficult Lightning Lanes at Disney World
This list ranks the toughest Lightning Lane Multi Passes at Walt Disney World to book–the #1 LLMPs in Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom. Plus, subjective strategy for the pre-arrival ride reservation service beyond booking the “best” ride reservations in order to maximize your time saved and minimize encountering ‘sold out’ ride reservations.
We recently looked at What’s Up with Lightning Lane Multi Pass Availability at Walt Disney World? Or rather, why there’s a lack of ride reservations, with attraction time slots filling up faster than ever. The obvious explanation is that instead of everyone booking same-day, and thus it taking longer for attractions to book up, Lightning Lane selections can now be made as many as 21 days in advance.
Depending upon whether staying off-site or on-site, guests can now book in advance, with 3-day or 7-day (plus up to 14 days–hence as many as 21 days) windows for making ride reservations. With that said, Lightning Lane Multi Pass has also changed significantly as a result of differences in the attraction roster, removal of stacking rules, and introduction of tiers. The result of this is that many time slots are filling up faster–including for attractions you wouldn’t necessarily expect.
As before, Magic Kingdom is far and away the best park for buying Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Walt Disney World. It isn’t really even close. Disney’s Hollywood Studios is the second-best option, but it has fewer LLMP attractions. On the plus side, we’ve been pleased with availability at DHS and on-site guests should be able to do well in scoring several Lightning Lanes that’ll save a ton of time.
Lightning Lane Multi Pass at EPCOT and Animal Kingdom are more mixed bags. The former because it can be challenging to score multiple worthwhile ride reservations, especially in moderate crowds or above. The latter for almost the opposite reason–because Lightning Lanes aren’t all that necessary unless crowds are above-average. (The silver lining, at least, is that even the “toughest” LLMPs are Animal Kingdom are comparatively easy.)
As before, crowds are the biggest factor in both Lightning Lane Multi Pass difficulty and usefulness. On average, October through December will be busier than August and September. Same goes for most of January through March 2025. (See our 2024-2025 Walt Disney World Crowd Calendars.) Higher standby wait times means Lightning Lanes offer a greater advantage, but also, that more people are purchasing Lightning Lane Multi Pass, meaning more “competition” for the most difficult and best ones.
To that point, booking Lightning Lane Multi Pass ride reservations is not just a matter of availability. If you’re staying on-site and making selections 4 or more days in advance, you’re likely to have options at every ride on this list but one or two. It’s also a matter of return times. As I’ve been doing on-the-ground field testing of LLMP at Walt Disney World over the course of the last week, I’ve noticed that return times are often more important than ride priority.
While you can make attraction selections in advance with Lightning Lane Multi Pass, you can also make subsequent selections on the day of your park visit. Once you redeem a selection, you can use the My Disney Experience app to check availability for another Lightning Lane Multi Pass experience—and add to your plans.
Consider this the “rolling 3 rule,” which is to say that you can always have 3 Lightning Lane selections (subject to availability). With the rolling 3 rule of Lightning Lane Multi-Pass, you can make your next ride reservation as soon as you’ve used one. As is probably obvious, this means that it behooves you to make LLMP selections as early in the day as possible to give you more runway for subsequent selections.
The best practice is making as early of arrival times as possible (for at least one attraction) in order to “unlock” that 4th ride faster. In fact, if you’re only getting late morning or afternoon return times, you should consider changing your Group B selections in order to prioritize for a mixture of return time and ride priority. Don’t book Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, if both have return times in the afternoon. Opt for the next highest priority with an early return to unlock that 4th pick.
Hence some of the non-headliners or secondary attractions that have made this list of the most difficult Lightning Lane Multi Passes at Walt Disney World. Here’s what we recommend reserving to get the most mileage out of Lightning Lane Multi Pass service…
10. Na’vi River Journey – This is the objective #1 Lightning Lane Multi Pass selection at Animal Kingdom. On average, this will save you the most time, especially on moderate or high crowd days when it means skipping a triple-digit wait time for Na’vi River Journey.
Strategically, we’re also fans of getting the earliest possible return time for Na’vi River Journey and doing Avatar Flight of Passage via the standby line during Early Entry. By the time you’re done, you should be able to hit Na’vi River Journey via the Lightning Lane and then continue on to other attractions–most of which will still have short waits.
Personally, I might be inclined to make this my only Lightning Lane selection in Animal Kingdom (plus maybe the next entry depending upon crowds). After tapping into Na’vi River Journey, you can book all subsequent selections in a different park and then use those during the middle of the day when standby lines are longer (assuming you want to Park Hop).
9. Kilimanjaro Safaris – If this were a purely data-driven list, Kilimanjaro Safaris wouldn’t be on it. However, I wanted two selections from each park. Additionally, we haven’t yet seen the crowd levels that will stress-test the Lightning Lane Multi Pass system, and once that happens, I’m confident Kilimanjaro Safaris will make the cut.
Finally, Kilimanjaro Safaris deserves recognition from a subjective perspective. It’s important to get an ideal time slot for Kilimanjaro Safaris because wildlife on the safari is most active first thing in the morning, making an earlier return time subjectively preferrable. Because of that, we like Kilimanjaro Safaris and N’avi River Journey in the earliest time slots.
It’s also true that the standby line for Kilimanjaro Safaris is usually short early in the morning, so using the Lightning Lane then is often pointless. That isn’t true on 8/10 or above crowd level days, though, there’s that. There’s also something to be said for knocking out a few Lightning Lanes at Animal Kingdom before 10:30 am and starting to make subsequent selections at a different park.
8. Peter Pan’s Flight – Not a huge shock for those who booked FastPass+ or Genie+ reservations in the past! What might be more of a surprise is that Peter Pan’s Flight barely makes this list. In fact, the data shows only a slight advantage for it over Pirates of the Caribbean, which really speaks to the ‘tier 2 troubles’ at Magic Kingdom (more on this in the Haunted Mansion entry, which is next up).
However, we’re giving Peter Pan’s Flight the edge here because it’s a really close call and this is the obviously better Lightning Lane from a time-saving perspective. Peter Pan’s Flight is far and away the most popular of Magic Kingdom’s iconic Fantasyland dark rides, with wait times regularly exceeding 90 minutes.
Peter Pan’s Flight also makes the list because it’s going to be the default Group A selection in Magic Kingdom for pretty much anyone staying off-site and even some on-site guests. The good news is that there’s ample advance and same-day availability for Peter Pan’s Flight, so even though it’s a good #1 pick at Magic Kingdom, you aren’t in poor shape if you book it #2.
7. Haunted Mansion – Since Hatbox Ghost debuted, Haunted Mansion now has one of the top 5 average wait times in Magic Kingdom. Nevertheless, you might not be expecting to see Haunted Mansion on this list. After all, it previously had perpetual Lightning Lane availability–until park closing on most days–under the old Genie+ system.
While headliners are the focus of this list for obvious reasons, there’s also limited availability for many Group B/Tier 2 attractions. This has been occurring at both Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom, and is especially noticeable with Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. The thinking is that, since everyone can select in advance and these are the obvious tier 2 priorities, they’re simply filling up way faster.
There’s probably more to it than that, with throttling or reduced Lightning Lane inventory being another explanation. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin also have issues–in fact, I’ve had more problems with Pooh when field testing LLMP, but the data doesn’t corroborate my anecdotal on-the-ground experiences.
Regardless, Haunted Mansion makes the list–along with the big caveat that you need at least one Group B attraction in Magic Kingdom with a return time before 10 am to take full advantage of the ‘rolling 3’ rule. So consider not booking Haunted Mansion if you can’t get a decently early slot.
6. Toy Story Mania – Both of the next two picks make this list for the same reason as Haunted Mansion–they are the “obvious” Group B/Tier 2 selections at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. What’s curious about Toy Story Mania is that it had an abundance of availability for Lightning Lanes throughout the day under the Genie+ service.
Under Lightning Lane Multi Pass, Toy Story Mania is limited between 3-days and 7-days with regularity. To be sure, there’s still availability most of the time, but it’s often with time slots after 11 am. This is a problem for the same reason as explained with Haunted Mansion–because you want an earlier time to take advantage of the ‘rolling 3’ rule.
However, it’s an even bigger issue at Disney’s Hollywood Studios because Slinky Dog Dash routinely has return times in the second half of the day. On top of that, Toy Story Mania isn’t even the most difficult Tier 2 LLMP. Meaning that you might have trouble getting any ride reservations at DHS with a return time before 10 am, which can really limit your availability to leverage the ‘rolling 3’ rule.
5. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – The easy #1 pick from Tier/Group B. Like Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, 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.
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 ranking drops–but it’s still top 5 and firmly the #1 selection of the Group B Lightning Lane Multi-Passes.
For all of these reasons, we recommend booking Tower of Terror with your pre-arrival Lightning Lane Multi Pass selections. Even if the return time isn’t ideal, it’s just too risky for our tastes to rely on a same-day ride reservation refill. You’ll have much better luck with that at Toy Story Mania.
4. Frozen Ever After – The clear #2 Lightning Lane at EPCOT. When it comes to average wait times, there actually isn’t that much difference between Frozen Ever After and Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The gap is much larger when it comes to Lightning Lane availability.
Due to the gap between #1-2 and Soarin’ Around the World at #3, there’s also a reasonable chance that Lightning Lane Multi-Passes for Frozen Ever After will also be fully booked at or even before the 7-day mark. It really depends on crowd levels and pricing. (Technically, Frozen Ever After is actually “easier” to book than Spaceship Earth or Mission Space from Tier 2, but since we’re mixing data with subjective sensibility, we’re not including those on this list. Getting those with early morning returns will cost you more time than it saves!)
Honestly, I wouldn’t buy LLMP at EPCOT if I couldn’t Frozen Ever After or Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. Just one of many circumstances that would make me inclined to pass on the paid FastPass service. EPCOT’s headliners are also very spread out across the park, so wasting time backtracking is another concern.
3. Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure – With Test Track closed until 2025, this is now not just the #1 Lightning Lane Multi-Pass at EPCOT–it’s also the #3 selection in all of Walt Disney World. This is the newest ride in EPCOT via LLMP, it has the highest average wait time, and the most demand for line-skipping.
Given all of that, there’s a very good chance that pre-arrival availability for Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure will be gone at or even before the 3-day mark. It’ll definitely be limited in terms of return times. This will only get worse during peak season, especially until the Test Track refurbishment is finished, as that headliner helps ‘split’ demand.
If you’re staying off-site, you’ll likely be reliant upon ride reservation refills or cancellations. With that said, if you’re staying at a Crescent Lake or Skyliner Resort, you might instead opt for doing this during Early Entry. Comparatively speaking, it’s easier.
2. Slinky Dog Dash – For the last several years, Slinky Dog Dash was the #1 Lightning Lane under the Genie system. Not just in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but all of Walt Disney World. Under the same day system, it would be gone within seconds or minutes of 7 am. If you didn’t have fast fingers, you might end up with a return time late in the day even when booking at 7:00:00 am. Now with Lightning Lane Multi Pass, it’s one of the very few rides that sometimes has no availability outside of the 3-day window.
This makes sense. In terms of average wait times, Slinky Dog Dash is arguably the LLMP most “deserving” of being a Lightning Lane Single Pass. It’s newer and more popular than Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, and is the Multi Pass attraction that outperforms the rest. In fact, it comes pretty close to Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance many days/weeks/months in terms of average wait time.
Unlike some of the other attractions on this list, take whatever return time you can get with Slinky Dog Dash–even if it’s later in the day. You can use your Group B selections at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the ‘rolling 3’ rule. It’s too difficult and risky to score ride reservation refills for Slinky Dog Dash, so we’d advise against gambling on that.
1. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure – This is the reimagined ride that replaces Splash Mountain, which was usually a top 3 Lightning Lane in Magic Kingdom, but never the #1 priority. The differences are two-fold. The first being that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is the newest ride at Walt Disney World, and anything new or redone is popular. The new ride smell will eventually wear off, but probably not until sometime in 2025 (or on a temporary basis when it gets cold).
Second, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is suffering major reliability woes and extensive daily downtime as a result. This is without a doubt the bigger issue, and exacerbates the aforementioned increased popularity with decreased daily capacity. As a result of these two factors, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is far and away the #1 most difficult Lightning Lane Multi Pass, easily surpassing Slinky Dog Dash.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is regularly running out of Lightning Lane Multi Pass reservations before the 7-day mark. In fact, I recently had trouble booking it 11 days out, with limited return times that didn’t work for my schedule. It is the only attraction in all of Walt Disney World that routinely has zero LL inventory beyond 7-days. It ranking #1 isn’t even a remotely close call.
With that said, same-day ride reservation refills for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure can be a different story. Due to its unpredictability and problems, Disney is clearly setting aside most Lightning Lanes for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and releasing them day-of based on uptime and downtime. Meaning that there are Lightning Lane “drops” for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure that are occurring with almost-immediate return times.
Because of this, I’ve actually opted against booking Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in advance, instead picking an early morning window for Peter Pan’s Flight and rolling the dice on TBA. It’s a gamble, but a risk that could pay off big time. So far, that has not been the case with my in-park field testing. I have had terrible results with Tiana’s, to the point that it’s almost derailed my day on two different occasions. But that’s another story for another post.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
How would you rank your ride priorities with Lightning Lane Multi Pass at Walt Disney World? Surprised to see Tiana’s Bayou Adventure at #1? Expect Slinky Dog Dash to reclaim the throne in the coming months? Do you agree with our assessment that getting earlier return times matters a lot for the ‘rolling 3’ rule? Are you planning on buying LLMP 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!
Why not just leave one spot open until day of at park and book a second Tier A right away when it’s available, instead of getting a Tier B “throwaway” and checking in, then adding a Tier A?
Is that not possible?
Lori, great question. I am AP ticket holder because we have to make park reservations we are definitely at a disadvantage with the new system. Even using Tom’s strategy it is a gamble for getting a modified ride at future park hopped to as it’s now day of. They have your money already. Sure you don’t have to modify current selection to next park, but using Tom’s strategy may give you better results. I enjoy a challenge however I am truly not a gambler. I enjoy using strategy for best results but clearly this system was set up for the house winning the gamble, or better put The house wins meaning The Mouse!
We are off property APs so can only book 3 days out – we chose smugglers run, Indiana jones and Toy Story mania as slinky dog and Mickey and Minnie’s railway already had no availability- problem was we were able to stack smugglers run and Indiana Jones early bit return time for Toy Story mania was 7:30 pm?? Despite Genies issues it leveled the playing field this system is back to prioritizing onsite guests which Disney views as more profitable than those us off property- unfortunately it is making a reassess keeping our APs as we will never get on any of the “heavy hitters” with this system that is being throttled
What a literal shit show it had become. We went in July, first time using Genie+ etc. While getting up each day was a pain, we had great success (and debt) using it at all parks. Now it sounds like it is broken. Perhaps going back to how fast pass plus was set up except paying for it would be best. We never had issues with it.
Also, Tiana’s was great and not broken at all.
We were just at the parks for a week and one thing I found disappointing that I must have misunderstood, was that once you ride your first LL ride the tiers are non existent and you can book a ride from either tier at this point. That did not happen for us at Epcot or HS. I couldn’t book another tier A ride, until we rode our pre booked tier A ride, which was unfortunately our last booked ride of the 3. And also, we had Tiana’s booked for 3 different days and the ride was shut down every single day. Our last day there we randomly jumped in the virtual queue and even though the ride was down all day it came back up around 5pm and we got a notification that we had one hour to use our virtual queue. Thankfully we were staying at the contemporary and we were able to walk over quickly and make it in time. But the amount of times that ride was down was ridiculous! It never broke down that often as splash mountain. Also we were exiting magic kingdom when the alleged active shooter rumor started and got swept up in the panic/locked into the main street stores and escorted back stage, the whole time thinking someone had a gun in the park. Traumatic and very eventful trip lol!
honestly not sure why anyone is buying LLMP this time of year. the low crowds, high temperatures and almost daily rain mean that there are usually a few times a day where waiting in line is advantageous.
Husband and I booked 7 day out LLs for 3 of the 4 parks this morning. We managed to get all the heavy hitters in the AM and look forward to sorting the rest via rolling 3.
‘We don’t like having to wake up early and book same day. Give us the ability to book in advance.’
We don’t like this new book in advance system. Lightening lanes are filling up days in advance and don’t seem to be as many opportunities. Booking same day is more fair.’
‘They’re throttling the lightening lane availability, there’s differences in the attraction roster, removal of stacking rules, and introduction of tiers. There’s too much ride downtime.’
You need a on the ground experienced Disney blogger to test and explain all the ins and outs of this nonsense.
Honestly, this is all too much. How is this even fun anymore.
Seriously. Even if you are savvy enought to understand the strategies, you spend so much time on your phone that you end up missing out on what makes the parks enjoyable to begin with. At this point I would rather go back to pre fastpass days.
‘We don’t like having to wake up early and book same day. Give us the ability to book in advance.’
We don’t like this new book in advance system. Lightening lanes are filling up days in advance and don’t seem to be as many opportunities. Booking same day is more fair.’
‘They’re throttling the lightening lane availability, there’s differences in the attraction roster, removal of stacking rules, and introduction of tiers. There’s too much ride downtime.’
You need a on the ground experienced Disney blogger to test and explain all the ins and outs of this nonsense.
Honestly, this is all too much. How is this even fun anymore.
Sorry about the duplicate entry
I don’t care for this new system. I thought genie+ worked pretty well. Yes, you had to set your alarm and wake up at 7am to purchase genie and make your first reservation, but it worked great for us. We almost always got exactly what we wanted. This new system with booking days in advance, makes it miserable IMO.
The old fast pass system where you booked months in advance was just as bad. It makes sense that booking on the same day is a better system, because the people booking are definitely committed to being in the parks on that day, booking 3-7 days out means people are taking up reservations for rides when their plans may change and they may not even end up going to the parks,
General lightning lane question: What is the earliest available lightning lane time in general? Meaning, do lightning lane times start at the opening time (e.g., park opens at time and possible to have a lightning lane window start at 9), 30 minutes after park opens or some other time?
Pertinent question for those trying to leverage the system but might also want to book a breakfast reservation.
Can you peruse LL availability before you purchase?
Yes. In fact, you may be required to choose at least one before purchase.
might be a silly question but can you book LLMP selections for a park you are hopping to and not starting your day at? AP holder so I have to make a reservation at a park I will be starting at but also will be a resort guest so I get 7 day window AND early entry. Ideally I would like to get to AK for early entry to knock out some headliners for the first 2 hours then head to Hollywood studios. I would love to walk into HS mid-morning with some LL already booked. Plus, seems like LLMP at AK in the morning is kind of a waste.
I have the same question!!! I’d like to do early entry at Epcot (need a reservation), but purchase Multi Pass for Magic Kingdom. I called Disney and was told I could do it. I had also emailed and was told you need to buy Multi Pass for the park you have a reservation at. So… which is it? Not sure I want to risk park hopping to HS or MK if I can’t book my LLs there ahead of time if I don’t have a park reservation at those parks.